Here the apostle cometh to dissuade them from another sin,
of which he had impleaded them guilty before, and that is detraction and
speaking evil of one another.
Speak not evil of one another, brethren,
mè katalaleite allèloon, speak not one against another. The word
implieth any speaking which is to the prejudice of another, be it true or
false; the scripture requiring that our words should suit with love as well as
truth. Note hence: -
Obs. That speaking evil of one another doth not become
brethren and Christians. A citizen of Sion is thus described: Ps. xv. 3, 'he
backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a
reproach against his neighbour.' So there is an express law: Lev. xix. 16,
'Thou shalt not go up and down as a tale-bearer among the people.' Rokel, saith
Amsworth, signifieth a merchant or trafficker up and down with spices; thence
the word rakil, there used for one that wandereth from place to place uttering
slanders as wares. These pedlars will be always opening their packs, Thus I
have heard of such and such a one, &c.; these were not to be suffered in
Israel. There are several kinds of evil-speaking: they may be all ranked under
two heads - whispering and backbiting. Whispering is a privy defamation of our
brother among those that think well of him; backbiting is more public, before
every one promiscuously. Now both may be done many ways, not only by false
accusations, but by a divulging of their secret evils, by extenuating their
graces, by increasing or aggravating their faults, and defrauding them of their
necessary excuse and mitigation, by depraving their good actions through the
supposition of sinister aims; by mentioning what is culpable, and enviously
suppressing their worth. It were easy to run out upon this argument, but I
contain myself. Well, then, if all this misbecometh brethren, do not give way
to it in yourselves, nor give ear to it in others. (1.) Do not give way to it
in yourselves; nature is marvellously prone to offend in this kind, therefore
you must lay on the greater restraints, especially when the persons whom you
would blemish profess religion: Num. xii. 8, 'Were you not afraid to speak
against my servant, against Moses?' Mark the pathos, or emphasis of that
expression: What! against my servant? against Moses? You should be afraid to
speak against any one, much more against those whom God hath a mind to honour.
This is the devil's proper sin; he is 'the accuser of the brethren,' Rev. xii.
10. He doth not commit adultery, break the Sabbath; these are not laws to him;
but he can bear false witness, dishonour parents, accuse the brethren; and yet
what more common amongst us? John Baptist's head in a charger is a usual dish
at our meals. When men's hearts are warm with wine and good cheer, then God's
children are brought in, like Samson among the Philistines, to make them sport
Oh! consider, God will surely recompense this into your bosoms; either in this
life - 'They that judge are judged,' Mat. vii. 1; men are bold with their
names, because they were not tender in meddling with others; or in the life to
come, without repentance. It is said of the wicked, Ps. lxiv. 8, 'Their own
tongue shall fall upon them.' How unsupportable is the weight of the sins of
this one member! (2.) Do not give way to it in others: your ears may be as
guilty as their tongues; therefore such whisperings should never be heard
without some expression of dislike. Solomon commendeth a frown and the severity
of the countenance: Prov. xxv. 23, 'As the north wind driveth away rain, so
doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue.' They are discouraged when they
do not meet with compliance. David would not have such to dwell in his house,
Ps. ci. 5. Certainly our countenancing them draweth us into a fellowship of the
guilt. Now if we must not receive those whispers against an ordinary brother,
much less against a minister; there is express provision for the safety of
their repute and credit: 'Against an elder receive not,' &c., 1 Tim. v. 19;
partly because men are apt to hate him that reproveth in the gate, and so they
are liable to be traduced; partly because men in office are most observed and
watched, see Jer. xx. 12, and Ezek. xxxiii. 30; and partly because their credit
is of most concernment for the honour of the gospel: therefore we should not
easily hear those that are 'talking of them by the walls and doors of the
houses,' as it is in the prophet.
For he that speaketh evil of his
brother, and judgeth his brother. -In that word judgeth the apostle showeth
what their censuring amounted to, a usurping of God's office, and a passing
sentence upon their brethren; and also what kind of evil-speaking he
principally intendeth; that is, for things merely indifferent, as observation
of days, meats, and the like, see Rom. xiv. 3, 4. Observe hence: -
Obs.
That censuring is a judging: you arrogate an act of power which doth not belong
to you. When you are advanced into the chair of arrogance and censure, check
yourselves by this thought, Who gave me this superiority? The question put to
Moses may well be urged, in the behalf of our wronged brethren, to our souls:
'Who made thee a judge over us?' Exod. ii. 14. Paul useth the same disuassion,
Rom. xiv. 4, 'Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?'
&c.;
Speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law. - How can this
be? Several ways may this sentence be made good. I shall name the principal.
First, Every sin is a kind of an affront to the law that forbiddeth it;
for, by doing quite contrary, we do in effect judge the law not fit or worthy
to be obeyed. As, for instance, in the present case, the law forbiddeth rash
judgment, and speaking evil one of another; but the detractor approveth that
which the law condemneth, and so in effect judgeth the law to be not good or
equal. From hence observe: -
Obs. That sin is a judging of the law. It is
said to David, 2 Sam xii. 9, 'Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of
the Lord, to do evil in his sight?' In the rage of his lust David looked upon
it as a slight law. Observe it when you will, you will find that in sinning
there are some implicit evil thoughts by which the law of God is disvalued and
disapproved; we think it unworthy, hard, or envious, or unequal. Those wretches
speak out that which is the silent language of every sinful action: Ezek.
xviii. 25, 'The ways of the Lord are not equal, the ways of the Lord are not
equal.' The heart of man is by nature obstinately and vehemently set upon lust,
revenge, censuring; therefore, in all these cases, we are most apt to think the
law of God hard and injurious to the liberty of man, and that God hath dealt
enviously with our natures to deny them the pleasures which we so strongly
pursue. This was the devil's first insinuation against God, he seeketh to work
Adam into hard thoughts of God's restraint: Gen. iii. 5, 'God knoweth, that in
the day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened.' And still it is Satan's
great policy to represent God as a hard taskmaster, and to make us think evil
of the law; therefore Paul seeketh to prevent such thoughts, when the law
checked his lusts and brought him into a sense of inevitable misery: Rom. vii.
12, 'The law is holy, and the commandment just and good;' but was that good
which caused death to him? Yes, saith he, I look upon it still as a rule of
right; it is I am carnal, my heart is wicked, &c. Well, then, you see how
to make sin odious; it is a despising of the law, a speaking evil of the law;
it slighteth that rule which it violateth.
Secondly, They were wont, in
that age to condemn one another for things indifferent, merely upon their own
will and sense, without any warrant and sentence from the word, as you may see,
Rom. xiv. Now this was a kind of condemning of the law, as if it were not full
and exact enough, but needed to be pieced up by man's institutions.
Obs.
Observe, that to make more sins than God hath made, is to judge the law. You
imply it to be an imperfect rule: men will be wise beyond God, and bind others
in chains of their own making. It is true there is an 'obedience of faith.' by
which the understanding must be captivated to God, but not to men; to the word,
not to every fancy. There is a double superstition, positive and negative; the
one when men count that holy which God never made holy, the other when men
condemn that which God never condemned. They are both alike faulty; we are not
in the place of God; it is not in our power to make sins or duties: 'Touch not,
taste not, handle not,' were the ordinances and precepts of false teachers,
Col. ii. 21. There are three things exempted from man's judicatory - God's
counsels, the holy scriptures, and the hearts of men. We should not dogmatise
and subject men to ordinances of our own making, press our own austerities and
rigorous observances as duties. Justice and wisdom is good, but to be 'just
overmuch,' or 'wise overmuch,' is stark naught, Eccles. vii. 15,16; that is, to
be just or wise beyond the rule. Man is a proud creature, and would fain make
his morosity a law to others, and obtrude his own private sense for doctrine.
It is usual to condemn everything that doth not please us, as if our
magisterial dictates were articles of faith. We must not come in our own name,
but judge as the word judgeth, or else we judge the word. The Lord grant we may
consider it in this dogmatising age, wherein every one crieth up his private
conceit for law, and men make sins rather than find them!
Thirdly, You may
conceive it thus: They might discommend and censure others for that which the
word approved and allowed, and so did not so much condemn private persons as
the law itself. If you take in this consideration, the note will be:-
Obs.
That to plead for sins, or to asperse graces, is to judge the word itself. Thus
you set the pride of corrupted wit against the wisdom of God in the scriptures:
'Woe be to them that call good evil, and evil good; that put light for
darkness, and darkness for light; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for
bitter,' Isa. v. 20. Usually thus it is in the world; grace meeteth with
calumny and sin with flattery. Open and gross sins are the more gently stroked,
because they have the hap to go away under a good name: drunkenness is good
fellowship, censure is conference and good discourse, error is new light,
rebellion is zeal of public welfare; but grace hath the hap to suffer under
some ill resemblance. As they were wont to deal with Christians in the
primitive times, to put them in bearskins, and then to bait them, so graces are
miscalled and misrepresented, and then hooted at. The law saith, Be zealous, be
peaceable, &c., but in the world's reckoning zeal is fury, peaceableness
and holy moderation is time-serving and base compliance; pressing humbling
doctrine is legalism, &c. Thus do many deceive themselves with names; but
do not you judge the law in all this? The law saith, Sitting at the wine all
day is drunkenness, and you call this good fellowship, &c.;
But if
thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge; that is, when
thou exercisest such a rash superiority over the law, thou dost clearly exempt
thyself from obedience and subjection to it. Observe hence: -
Obs. Those
that judge the word, no wonder if they be given over to the disobedience of it.
It is done grossly by those that either deny the divine authority of the
scriptures, or accuse it, as the Papists do, as an uncertain rule, or examine
all the doctrines of it by their private reason, or the writings and precepts
of men, &c. And it is done more closely by those that come to judge the
word, rather than to be judged by it. It is true, we have a liberty to examine,
but we should not come with a mind to cavil and censure. The pulpit, which in a
sense is God's tribunal, should not be our bar. The matter delivered must be
examined by scripture modestly and humbly, but we must not despise and slight
God's ordinance, and come hither merely to sit judges of men's parts or
weaknesses. This is the ready way to beget an irreverent and fearless spirit.
And then when men lose their awe and reverence, their restraint is gone, and
they grow loose, or desperately erroneous. God will punish their pride with
some sudden fall. Look to your ends, Christians; you will find a great deal of
difference between coming to hear and coming to censure. If you come with such
a vain aim, see if you get anything by a sermon but matter of carping, and see
if that do not bring you to looseness, and that to atheism. Usually this is the
sad progress of proud spirits. First preaching is censured, not examined, then
the manners are tainted; then the word itself is questioned, and then men lose
all fear of God and man.
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