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EVIL-SPEAKING.

181

SERMON XXVI.

I

JAMES IV. 11.

Speak not evil one of another.

XXVI.

T is an invariable truth, and as SERM, fuch hath been univerfally acknowledged, that those things which have power to be moft ferviceable, have also the power of being most pernicious; a truth never perhaps more apparent, than in that illustrious privilege which fo eminently distinguisheth man from the inferior part of the creation, the privi lege of communicating our fentiments to each other, by that amazing faculty of speech which God hath graciously be ftowed

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SERM

stowed upon us. To make it ferve XXVI. meaner and for other purposes than those for which it was originally defigned, will doubtless fubject its ungrateful poffeffor to the divine displeasure. It were better, as an eminent writer obferves, to have been born deftitute of fpeech or reason, than to make use of those noble gifts of Providence to each others deftruction. The tongue, fays the Apoftle St. James, is a world of wickedness; it defileth the wholę body, and fetteth on fire the courfe of nature: therewith blefs we God the Father, and therewith curfe we men, which are made after the fimilitude of God. St. James, we may obferve, reproaches men for their folly and ingratitude, and deems them, what they moft certainly are, both impious and abfurd, to adore their Maker one moment, and in the next abufe and vilify his creatures; to pretend refpect and honour for the original, and at the fame

time

time fhew fo much hatred and contempt SERM. for the copy and refemblance of him. XXVI. These things, fays the apostle, ought not to be; they ought not, and yet they are, and perhaps ever will be fo: whilft there are men in the world, there will be calumniators; and whilft virtue and merit fubfift, there will be tongues to defame and leffen them.

Paffions for the moft part, like habits, modes, and cuftoms, fhift and vary with a variable world, but evil-fpeaking is a vice that will be always in fafhion. Some diseases affect fome bodies and ages only; fome plants and trees thrive but in that foil which is peculiar to their natures; but this disease affects every conftitution, this weed sprouts up in every clime, and flourishes in every foil. It is indeed a vice which all men readily and univerfally condemn, and yet which almost all men do as readily and as univerfally practife:

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