SERMON XVII.
The Folly of Slander (Prov 10:18)
QUOTE: "Slander thence hath always been a principal engine, whereby covetous, ambitious, envious, ill-natured, and vain persons have strove to supplant their competitors, and advance themselves; meaning thereby to procure, what they chiefly prize and like, wealth, or dignity, or reputation, favor and power in the court, respect and interest with the people."
SERMON XIV:
Against Foolish Talking and Jesting (Eph 5:4)
QUOTE: "They scorn to be formally advised or taught; but they may perhaps be slyly laughed and lured into a better mind. If by such complaisance we can inveigle those dotterels to hearken to us, we may induce them to consider farther, and give reason some competent scope, some fair play with them. Good reason may be apparelled in the garb of wit, and therein will securely pass, whither in its native homeliness it could never arrive: and being come thither, it with especial advantage may impress good advice; making an offender more clearly to see, and more deeply to feel his miscarriage; being represented to his fancy in a strain somewhat rare and remarkable, yet not so fierce and frightful."
SERMON XIII:
Not to Offend in Word, an Evidence of a High Pitch of Virtue (Jam 3:2)
QUOTE: "We ... were chiefly designed and framed to serve and glorify our Maker ... our tongue and speaking faculty were given us to declare our admiration and reverence of him, to express our love and gratitude toward him, to celebrate his praises, to acknowledge his benefits, to promote his honour and service ... as that whereby we far excel all creatures here below ... Wherefore applying it to any impious discourse, (tending anywise to the dishonour of God, or disparagement of religion,) is a most unnatural abuse ... and a vile ingratitude toward him that gave it to us."
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"Sermons, on Various Subjects"
by Isaac Barrow
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Sermon XVIII
The Folly of Slander
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"The slanderer is an enemy, as the most fierce and outrageous, so the most base and unworthy that can be: he fights with the most perilous and most unlawful weapon, in the most furious and foul way that can be. His weapon is an envenomed arrow, full of deadly poison, which he shooteth suddenly, and feareth not; a weapon which by no force can be resisted, by no art declined, whose impression is altogether inevitable and unsustainable."
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I HAVE formerly in this place, discoursing upon this text, explained the nature of the sin here condemned, with its several kinds and ways of practicing.
II. I shall now proceed to declare the folly of it; and to make good by divers reasons the assertion of the Wise Man, that He who uttereth slander is a fool.
Slandering is foolish, as sinful and wicked.
All sin is foolish upon many accounts; as proceeding from ignorance, error, inconsiderateness, vanity; as implying weak judgment and irrational choice; as thwarting the dictates of reason and best rules of wisdom; as producing very mischievous effects to ourselves, bereaving us of the chief goods, and exposing us to the worst evils. What can be more egregiously absurd, than to dissent in our opinion and discord in our choice from infinite wisdom; to provoke by our actions sovereign justice and immutable severity; to oppose almighty power, and offend immense goodness; to render ourselves unlike, and contrary in our doings, our disposition, our state, to absolute perfection and felicity? What can be more desperately wild, than to disoblige our best friend, to forfeit his love and favor, to render him our enemy, who is our Lord and our Judge, upon whose mere will and disposal all our subsistence, all our welfare does absolutely depend? What greater madness can be conceived, than to deprive our minds of all true content here, and to separate our souls from eternal bliss hereafter; to gall our consciences now with sore remorse, and to engage ourselves for ever in remediless miseries? Such folly doth all sin include: whence in Scripture style worthily goodness and wisdom are terms equivalent: sin and folly do signify the same thing.
If thence this practice be proved extremely sinful, it will thence sufficiently be demonstrated no less foolish. And that it is extremely sinful, may easily be shown. It is the character of the superlatively wicked man; Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit: thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother's son. It is indeed plainly the blackest and most hellish sin that can be; that which gives the grand fiend his names, and most express his nature. He is ho Diabolos, the slanderer, satan, the spiteful adversary; the old snake, or dragon, hissing out lies, and spitting forth venom of calumnious accusation; the accuser of the brethren, a murderous, envious, malicious calumniator; the father of lies; the grand defamer of God to man, of man to God, of one man to another. And highly wicked surely must that practice be, whereby we grow namesakes to him, conspire in proceeding with him, resemble his disposition and nature. It is a complication, a comprisal, a collection and sum of all wickedness; opposite to all the principal virtues, (to veracity and sincerity, to charity and justice,) transgressing all the great commandments, violating immediately and directly all the duties concerning our neighbor.
To lie simply is a great fault, being a deviation from that good rule which prescribes truth in all our words; rendering us unlike and disagreeable to God, who is the God of truth; (who loveth truth, and practices it in all his doings, who abominates all falsehood;) including a treacherous breach of faith toward mankind; (we being all in order to the maintenance of society, by an implicit compact, obliged by speech to declare our mind, to inform truly, and not to impose upon our neighbor;) arguing pusillanimous timorousness and impotency of mind, a distrust in God's help, and diffidence in all good means to compass our designs; begetting deception and error, a foul and ill-favored brood: lying, I say, is upon such accounts a sinful and blamable thing: and of all lies those certainly are the worst, which proceed from malice, or from vanity, or from both, and which work mischief such as slanders are.
Again, to bear any hatred or ill-will, to exercise enmity toward any man, to design or procure any mischief to our neighbor, whom even Jews were commanded to love as themselves, whose good, by many laws, and upon divers scores, we are obliged to tender as our own, is a heinous fault: and of this apparently the slanderer is most guilty in the highest degree. For evidently true it is which the Wise Man affirms, A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted with it; there is no surer argument of extreme hatred; nothing but the height of ill-will can suggest this practice. The slanderer is an enemy, as the most fierce and outrageous, so the most base and unworthy that can be: he fights with the most perilous and most unlawful weapon, in the most furious and foul way that can be. His weapon is an envenomed arrow, full of deadly poison, which he shooteth suddenly, and feareth not; a weapon which by no force can be resisted, by no art declined, whose impression is altogether inevitable and unsustainable. It is a most insidious, most treacherous and cowardly way of fighting; wherein manifestly the weakest and basest spirits have extreme advantage, and may easily prevail against the bravest and worthiest: for no man of honor or honesty can, in way of resistance or requital, deign to use it, but must infallibly without repugnance be borne down thereby. By it the vile practicer achieves the greatest mischief that can be. His words are, as the Psalmist saith of Doeg, devouring words., (Thou lovest all devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue:) and, A man, saith the Wise Man, that beareth false witness against his neighbor is a maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow; that is, he is a complicated instrument of all mischiefs: he smiteth and bruiseth like a maul, he cutteth and pierceth like a sword, he thus doth hurt near at hand; and at distance he woundeth like a sharp arrow, it is hard anywhere to evade him, or to get out of his reach. Many, saith another wise man, the imitator of Solomon, have fallen by the edge of the sword: but not so many as have fallen by the tongue. Well is he that is defended from it, and hath not passed through the venom thereof; who hath not drawn the yoke thereof, nor hath been bound in its bands. For the yoke thereof is a yoke of iron, and the bands thereof are bands of brass. The death thereof is an evil death, the grave were better than it. Incurable are the wounds which the slanderer inflicts, irreparable the damages which he causeth, indelible the marks which he leaves. No balsam can heal the biting of a sycophant; no thread can stitch up a good name torn by calumnious defamation; no soap is able to cleanse from the stains aspersed by a foul mouth. Aliquid adhoerebit; somewhat always of suspicion and ill opinion will stick in the minds of those who have given ear to slander. So extremely opposite is this practice unto the queen of virtues, charity. Its property indeed is, to believe all things, that is, all things for the best, and to the advantage of our neighbor; not so much as to suspect any evil of him, without unavoidably manifest cause: how much more not to devise any falsehood against him? It covereth all things, studiously conniving at real defects, and concealing assured miscarriages: how much more not divulging imaginary or false scandals? It disposes to seek and further any the least good concerning him: how much more will it hinder committing grievous outrage upon his dearest good name?
Again, all injustice is abominable: to do any sort of wrong is a heinous crime; that crime, which of all most immediately tends to the dissolution of society and disturbance of human life; which God therefore doth most loathe, and men have reason especially to detest. And of this the slanderer is most deeply guilty. A witness of Belial scorneth judgment, and the mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity, saith the Wise Man. He is indeed, according to just estimation, guilty of all kinds whatever of injury, breaking all the second table of commands respecting our neighbor. Most formally and directly he beareth false witness against his neighbor: he doth covet his neighbor's goods; for 'tis constantly out of such an irregular desire, for his own presumed advantage, to dispossess his neighbor of some good, and transfer it on himself, that the slanderer uttereth his tale: he is ever a thief and robber of his good name, a deflowerer and defiler of his reputation, an [1] assassin and murderer of his honor. So doth he violate all the rules of justice, and perpetrate all sorts of wrong against his neighbor.
He may indeed perhaps conceive it no great matter that he committeth; because he doth not act in so boisterous and bloody a way, but only by words, which are subtle, slim, and transient things; upon his neighbor's credit only, which is no substantial or visible matter. He draws, thinks he, no blood, nor breaks any bones, nor impresses any remarkable scar: 'tis only the soft air he breaks with his tongue, 'tis only a slight character that he stamps on the fancy, 'tis only an imaginary stain that he daubs his neighbor with: therefore he supposes no great wrong done, and seems to himself innocent, or very excusable. But these conceits arise from great inconsiderateness, or mistake; nor can they excuse the slanderer from grievous injustice. For in dealing with our neighbor and meddling with his property, we are not to value things according to our fancy, but according to the price set on them by the owner: we must not reckon that a trifle, which he prizes as a jewel. Since then all men (especially men of honor and honesty) do, from a necessary instinct of nature, estimate their good name beyond any of their goods, yea do commonly hold it more dear and precious than their very lives; we, by violently or fraudulently bereaving them of it, do them no less wrong, than if we should rob or cozen them of their substance, yea than if we should maim their body, or spill their blood, or even stop their breath. If they as grievously feel it, and resent it as deeply, as they do any other outrage, the injury is really as great to them. Even the slanderer's own judgment and conscience might tell him so much: for they who most slight another's fame, are usually very tender of their own, and can with no patience endure that others should touch it: which demonstrates the inconsiderateness of their judgment, and the iniquity of their practice. It is an injustice not to be corrected or cured. Thefts may be restored, wounds may be cured: but there is no restitution or cure of a lost good name: it is therefore an irreparable injury.
Nor is the thing itself, in true judgment, contemptible; but in itself really very considerable. A good name, saith Solomon himself, (no fool,) is rather to be chosen than great riches; and loving favor rather than silver and gold. In its consequences it is much more so; the chief interests of a man, the success of his affairs, his ability to do good, (for himself, his friends, his neighbor,) his safety, the best comforts and conveniences of his life, sometimes his life itself, depending thereon: so that whoever doth snatch or filch it from him, doth not only according to his opinion, and in moral value, but in real effect, commonly rob, sometimes murder, ever exceedingly wrong his neighbor. It is often the sole reward of a man's virtue and all the fruit of his industry; so that by depriving him of that, he is robbed of all his estate, and left stark naked of all, except ing a good conscience, which is beyond the reach of the world, and which no malice or misfortune can divest him of. Full then of iniquity, full of uncharitableness, full of all wickedness is this practice; and consequently full it is of folly. No man, one would think, of any tolerable sense, should dare, or deign to incur the guilt of a practice so vile and base, so indeed diabolical and detestable. But farther more particularly,
2. The slanderer is plainly a fool; because he makes wrong judgments and valuations of things, and accordingly drives on silly bargains for himself, in result whereof he proves a great loser. He means by his calumnious stories either to vent some passion boiling in him, or to compass some design which he affects, or to please some humor that he is possessed with: but is any of these things worth purchasing at so dear a rate? Can there be any valuable exchange for our honesty? Is it not more advisable to suppress our passion, or to let it evaporate otherwise than to discharge it in so foul a way? Is it not better to let go a petty interest, than to further it by committing so notorious and heinous a sin; to let an ambitious project sink, than to buoy it up by such base means? Is it not wisdom rather to smother, or curb our humor, than by satisfying it thus to forfeit our innocence? Can anything in the world be so considerable, that for its sake we should defile bur souls by so foul a practice, making shipwreck of a good conscience, abandoning honor and honesty, incurring all the guilt and all the punishment due to so enormous a crime? Is it not far more wisdom, contentedly to see our neighbor to enjoy credit and success, to flourish and thrive in the world, than by such base courses to sully his reputation, to rifle him of his goods, to supplant or cross him in his affairs? We do really, when we think thus to depress him, and to climb up to wealth or credit by the ruins of his honor, but debase ourselves. Whatever comes of it, (whether he succeeds, or is disappointed therein,) assuredly he that uses such courses will himself be the greatest loser and deepest sufferer. 'Tis true which the Wise Man saith, The getting of treasures by a lying tongue, is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death. And, Woe unto them, saith the Prophet, that draw iniquity with cords of vanity; that is, who by falsehood endeavor to compass unjust designs.
But it is not, perhaps he will pretend, for to assuage a private passion, or to promote his particular concernment, that he makes so bold with his neighbor, or deals so harshly with him: but for the sake of orthodox doctrine, for advantage of the true church, for the advancement of public good, he judges it expedient to asperse him. This indeed is the covert of innumerable slanders: zeal for some opinion, or some party, bears out men of sectarian and factious spirits in such practices; they may do, they may-say anything for those fine ends. What is a little truth, what is any man's reputation, in comparison to the carrying on such brave designs? But (to omit that men do usually prevaricate in these cases; that it is not commonly for love of truth, but of themselves, not so much for the benefit of their sect, but for their own interest, that they calumniate) this plea will nowise justify such practice. For truth and sincerity, equity and candor, meekness and charity, are inviolably to be observed, not only toward dissenters in opinion, but even toward declared enemies of truth itself; we are to bless them, (that is, to speak well of them, and to wish well to them,) not to curse them, (that is, not to reproach them, or to wish them ill, much less to belie them.) Truth also, as it cannot ever need, so doth it always loathe and scorn the patronage and the succor of lies; it is able to support and protect itself by fair means; it will not be killed upon a pretence of saving it, or thrive by its own ruin. Nor indeed can any party be so much strengthened: and propped up, as it will be weakened and undermined, by such courses: no cause can stand firm upon a bottom so loose and slippery, as falsehood is: all the good a slanderer can do is to disparage what he would maintain. In truth, no heresy can be worse than that would be, which should allow to play the devil in any case. He that can dispense with himself to slander a Jew or a Turk, does, in so-doing, render himself worse than either of them by profession are: for even they, and even Pagans themselves, disallow the practice of inhumanity and iniquity. All men, by light of nature, avow truth to be honorable, and faith to be indispensably observed. He does not understand what it is to be a Christian, or cares not to practice according thereto, who can find in his heart, in any case, upon any, pretence, to calumniate. In fine, to prostitute our conscience, or sacrifice our honesty, for any cause, to any interest whatever, can never be warrantable or wise. Farther,
3. The slanderer is a fool, because he uses improper means and preposterous methods of effecting his purposes. As there is no design worth the carrying on by ways of falsehood and iniquity; so is there scarce any (no good or lawful one at least) which may not more surely, more safely, more cleverly, be achieved by means of truth and justice. Is not always the straight way more short than the oblique and crooked? Is not the plain way easier than the rough and cragged? Is not the fair way more pleasant and passable than the foul? Is it not better to walk in paths that are open and allowed, than in those that are shut up and prohibited? Than to clamber over walls, to break through fences, to trespass upon enclosures? Surely yes: He that walketh uprightly walketh surely. Using strict veracity and integrity, candor and equity, is the best method of accomplishing good designs. Our own industry, good use of the parts and faculties God hath given us, embracing fair opportunities, God's blessing and providence, are sufficient means to rely upon for procuring, in an honest way, whatever is convenient for us. These are ways approved, and amiable to all men; they procure the best friends, and fewest enemies; they afford to the practicer a cheerful courage, and good hope; they meet with less disappointment, and have no regret or shame attending them. He that has recourse to the other base means, and maketh lies his refuge, as he renounces all just and honest means, as he disclaims all hope in God's assistance, and forfeits all pretence to his blessing; so he cannot reasonably expect good success, or be satisfied in any undertaking. The supplanting way indeed seems the most curt and compendious way of bringing about dishonest or dishonorable designs: but as a good design is certainly dishonored thereby, so is it apt thence to be defeated; it raising up enemies and obstacles, yielding advantages to whoever is disposed to cross us. As in trade it is notorious, that the best course thrive is by dealing squarely and truly; any fraud or cozenage appearing there does overthrow a man's credit, and drive away custom from him; so in all other transactions, as he that deals justly and fairly will have his affairs proceed roundly, and shall find men ready to comply with him; so he that is observed to practice falsehood, will be declined by some, opposed by others, disliked by all: no man scarce willingly will have to do with him; he is commonly forced to stand out in business, as one that plays foul play.
4. Lastly, The slanderer is very fool, as bringing many great inconveniences, troubles, and mischiefs on himself.
First, A fools mouth, saith the Wise Man, is his destruction, his lips are the snare of his soul: and if any kind of speech is destructive and dangerous, then is this certainly most of all; for by no means can a man inflame so fierce anger, impress so stiff hatred, raise so deadly enmity against himself, and consequently so endanger his safety, ease, and welfare, as by this practice. Men can more easily endure, and sooner will forgive, any sort of abuse than this; they will rather pardon a robber of their goods, than a defamer of their good name.
Secondly, Such an one indeed is not only odious to the person immediately concerned, but generally to all men that observe his practice, every man presently will be sensible how easily it may be his own case, how liable he may be to be thus abused, in a way against which there is no guard or defense. The slanderer therefore is apprehended a common enemy, dangerous to all men; and thence renders all men averse from him, and ready to cross him [2]. Love and peace, tranquility and security, can only be maintained by innocent and true dealing: so the Psalmist hath well taught us; What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?
Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.
Thirdly, All wise, all noble, all ingenuous and honest, persons have an aversion to this practice, and cannot entertain it with any acceptance or complacence. A righteous man hateth lying, saith the Wise Man. It is only ill-natured and ill-nurtured, unworthy and naughty people, that are willing auditors or encouragers thereof. A wicked doer, saith the Wise Man again, giveth heed to false lips; and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue. All love of truth, and regard to justice, and sense of humanity, all generosity and ingenuity, all charity and good-will to men, must be extinct in those who can with delight, or indeed with patience, lend an ear, or give any countenance to a slanderer: and is not he a very fool, who chooses to displease the best, only soothing the worst of men?
Fourthly, The slanderer indeed does banish himself from all conversation and company, or, intruding into it, becomes very disgustful thereto; for he worthily is not only looked upon as an enemy to those whom he slanders, but to those also upon whom he obtrudes his calumnious discourse. He not only wrongs the former by the injury, but he mocks the latter by the falsehood of his stories; implicitly charging his hearers with weakness and credulity, or with injustice and depravity,
Fifthly, He also derogates wholly from his own credit, in all matters of discourse. For he that dares thus to injure his neighbor, who can trust him in anything he speaks? What will not he say to please his vile humor, or further his base interest? What (thinks any man) will he scruple or boggle at, who hath the heart in thus doing wrong and mischief to imitate the Devil? Farther,
Sixthly, This practice is perpetually haunted with most troublesome companions, inward regret and self-condemnation, fear and disquiet: the conscience of dealing so unworthily does smite and rack him; he is ever in danger, and thence in fear to be discovered, and requited for it. Of these passions the manner of his behavior is a manifest indication: for men do seldom vent their slanderous reports openly and loudly, to the face, or in the ear of those who are concerned in them; but do utter them in a low voice, in dark corners, out of sight and hearing, where they conceit themselves at present safe from being called to an account. Swords, saith the Psalmist of such persons, are in their lips; Who, say they, doth hear? And, Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off, saith David again, intimating the common manner of this practice. Calumny is like the plague, that walketh in darkness. Hence appositely are the practicers thereof termed whisperers and backbiters: their heart suffers them not openly to avow, their conscience tells them they cannot fairly defend their practice. Again,
Seventhly, The consequent of this practice is commonly shameful disgrace, with an obligation to retract, and render satisfaction: for seldom does calumny pass long without being detected and confuted [3]. He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known: and, The lip of truth shall be established for ever; but a lying lip is but for a moment, saith the great observer of things [4]. And when the slander is disclosed, the slanderer is obliged to excuse, (that is, to palliate one lie with another, if he can do it,) or forced to recant, with much disgrace and extreme displeasure to himself: he is also many times constrained with his loss and pain, to repair the mischief he has done.
Eighthly, To this in likelihood the concernments of men, and the powers which guard justice, will forcibly bring him: and certainly his conscience will bind him thereto; God will indispensably exact it from him. He can never have any sound quiet in his mind, he can never exact pardon from Heaven, without acknowledging his fault, repairing the wrong he hath done, restoring that good name of which he dispossessed his neighbor: for in this no less than in other cases, conscience cannot be satisfied, remission will not be granted, except due restitution be performed; and of all restitutions this surely is the most difficult, most laborious, and most troublesome. It is nowise so hard to restore goods stolen or extorted, as to recover a good opinion lost, to wipe off aspersions cast on a man's name, to cure a wounded reputation: the most earnest and, diligent endeavor can hardly ever affect this, or spread the plaster, so far as the sore hath reached. The slanderer therefore does engage himself into great straits, incurring an obligation to repair an almost irreparable mischief.
Ninthly, This practice does also certainly revenge itself, imposing on its actor a perfect retaliation; a tooth for a tooth; an irrevocable infamy to himself, for the infamy he causeth to others. Who will regard his fame, who will be concerned to excuse his faults, who so outrageously abuses the reputation of others? He suffers justly, he is paid in his own coin, will any man think, who doth hear him reproached [5].
Tenthly, In fine, the slanderer (if he does not by serious and sore repentance retract his practice,) does banish himself from heaven and happiness, does expose himself to endless miseries and sorrows. For if none that maketh a lie shall enter into the heavenly city; if without those mansions of joy and bliss every one must eternally abide that loveth or maketh a lie; if pasi tois pseudesi, to all liars their portion is assigned in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone [6]; then assuredly the capital liar, the slanderer, (who lies most injuriously and mischievously,) shall be far excluded from felicity, and thrust down into the depth of that miserable place. If, as St. Paul saith, no railer, or evil-speaker, shall inherit the kingdom of God; how far thence shall they be removed, who without any truth or justice do speak ill of and reproach their neighbor? If for every agyon gema, idle, or vain, word we must render a strict account; how much more shall we be severely reckoned with for this sort of words, so empty of truth and void of equity; words that are not only negatively vain, or useless, but positively vain, as false, and spoken to bad purpose? If slander perhaps here may evade detection, or escape deserved punishment; yet infallibly hereafter, at the dreadful day, it shall be disclosed, irreversibly condemned, inevitably persecuted with condign reward of utter shame and sorrow.
Is not he then, he who, out of malignity, or vanity, to serve any design, or sooth any humor in himself or others, does, by committing this sin, involve himself into all these great evils, both here and hereafter, a most desperate and deplorable fool?
Having thus described the nature of this sin, and declared the folly thereof, we need, I suppose, to say no more for dissuading it; especially to persons of a generous and honest mind, who cannot but scorn to debase and defile themselves by so mean and vile a practice; or to those who seriously do profess Christianity, that is, the religion which peculiarly above all others prescribes constant truth, strictest justice, and highest charity.
I shall only add, that since our faculty of speech (wherein we do excel all other creatures,) was given us, as in the first place to praise and glorify our Maker, so in the next to benefit and help our neighbor; as an instrument of mutual succor and delectation, of friendly commerce and pleasant converse together; for instructing and advising, comforting and cheering one another; it is an unnatural perverting, and an irrational abuse thereof, to employ it to the damage, disgrace, vexation, or wrong in any kind of our brother. Better indeed had we been as brutes without its use, than we are, if so worse than brutishly we abuse it.
Finally, All these things being considered, we may, I think, reasonably conclude it most evidently true, that he which uttereth slander is a fool.
FOOTNOTES:
1.Dei Episcopos linguae gladio jugulastis, fundentes sanguinem non corporis, sed honoris. Op. lib. ii. Woe be to them who justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him. Isa. 5:23.
2._____ ecquid
Ad te post paulo ventura pericula sentis?
Hor. Lib. i. Ep. 18.
_____ sibi quisque timet, quanquam est iutactus et odit. Idem.
3.Psal. 63:11. The mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.
4.Prov. 12:19. (Prov. 26:26.) - Refrain your tongue from backbiting; for there is no word so secret that shall go for nought: and the mouth that slandereth, slayeth the soul. Wisd. 1:11.
Et delator habet quod dedit exitium. Vide Tac. i. p. 45.
5.He that diligently seeketh good, procureth favor: but he that seeketh mischief, it shall come unto him. Prov. 11:27; 26:27.
It was the punishment of slanderers in the Law. - Then shall ye do unto him as he had thought to have done unto his brother. Deut. 19:19.
A false witness shall not he unpunished; and he that telleth lies shall not escape. Prov. 19:5.
God shall destroy thee for ever, thou false tongue. Psal. 52: 4-5.
Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord; but they that deal truly are his deight. Prov. 12:28.
6.Rev. 21:8. It is one of those things which God especially doth abominate. Prov. 6:19; 12:12. A false witness shall perish. Prov, 21:28.
Sermon XVIII from "Sermons, on Various Subjects" by Isaac Barrow (Hail & Fire Library)
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