before their time they are as properly called their foul Miscarriages And the greatest Charity that holds Wisdom company must think Evil of them and ever doth so For whatever their Figure is or their Stature it 's certain they are Lepers Because so it is and the Guilty know it is so that God hath no pleasure in Fools Fools that will go unto Tarsus when sent unto Nineve Will be about one thing when set about another And neglect the Time if not the Manner and very Matter of his Commands Who doubts but unseasonable Talk is the Apolluon and Destroyer of Family and closet-Closet-duty A more bloody Persecutor than any Nero making worse Havock of Christian Churches A wretched Herod that especially falls foul upon Children who are left uncatechiz'd and have their Souls starved by means of this Sin of their Parents Who as they incense God do not always please Men. Men that are wise and good draw the Sword of the Spirit the Word of God upon them Esteeming them as Enemies of Righteousness and as worthy to be so slain as the Hypocrites and Profane Unto Men of but unregenerate Morality they are an Offence very frequently and acceptable to none but the Froth and Skum of a Neighbourhood To the most vile or at best the most silly and vain Creatures Who are seldom ever pleased but they are poisoned also and corrupted in some kind or other by the unseasonable Talker Whose very Hellebore maketh mad those whom it finds not so Whose best Discourses raise good Mens Passions and are unlikely Means to lay ill Mens In short There is no Man be he Carnal Moral or Spiritual that can or ought to like the Gnats that sing about him when he needs Sleep Or the Pillories that hold his Ears when he should be at work The Turks that take away his Clothes in cold Weather wherein he most needs them Or the Vinegar that falls on his Nitre and makes it useless as the Royal Preacher expresses himself The Talkers we are mentioning are perfectly these things and as unworthy of our good Esteem and Affections Consequently none of Wisdom's Children being not accepted of God or approved of Men. Being also as many of them are so very near to the Good which they rise not up unto Having it so easy to them to please God and profit Men and doing neither of them For Valuable Gifts and Graces many of them do possess and the Church and World might be greatly serv'd with their discreet Use and seasonable The Diseases of neither are so incurable but that if Time and Judgment were discerned both might be reformed Yea and the Reformation whose Name is of so frightful Sound among us might be wrought with Ease and Pleasure Very Idiots are not ignorant how the Season of Things doth facilitate and sweeten them All know the Labour is not great to sail with the Tide though out of that time a Boat is a Gally and a Rower is a Slave None question but that in Hungry-hours every Meal is a Feast and without any Miracle Water is turned to Wine and every bitter Thing is sweet Although otherwhiles Wine is Wormwood Bread is Stone Fish Serpent and it is an unmerciful thing to make a Man eat and drink With sweet Ease and with exquisite Pleasure do their Lips feed and feast many whose Care and Conscience takes the fit Opportunity Whose Lips bring forth their Fruit in due Season And of them it may be said Their Leaf doth not wither and what they say doth prosper Blessed Jesus give thy Servants the Learned Tongue to speak our Words in season So shall they be like the best Wine for thee our Beloved going down sweetly and causing the Lips of them that are asleep to speak Cant. 7. 9. 6. Excessive Talk is Foolish That is viciously Excessive which exceeds the Limit set by Law It is the End that gives Law unto Means The End of Speech is God's Glory and Man's Good and the due Measure of it therefore is that which appears most serviceable and best conducive thereto Whatsoever is more cometh of Evil. A sinful Defect it is when we speak less than these require as though good Words cost more than we owed to God and our Neighbour Nor is it other than a sinful Excess when we speak more than makes for these and consequently must make against them as though our Tongues were Masters and not Servants or Servants left to themselves by God and Conscience to make as much unprofitable Noise as we list I will not determine which Spirit is the more unclean the Dumb Devil or the Talkative Both come from Hell and both serve the Kingdom thereof This latter is shamed and condemned by the memorable Divine Proverbs In the multitude of Words there wanteth not Sin but he that refraineth his Lips is wise He that hath Knowledg spareth his Words But he that openeth wide his Lips shall have Destruction Prov. 10. 19. 17. 27. 13. 3. Nature also as well as Scripture condemns this Excess of Speech This Excess against which it hath made very observable Provisions Giving us but one Instrument of Speech though two of Hearing and two of Sight Not giving us the use of our one Tongue neither till we arrive unto the use of Reason in some measure Also then setting Bounds to it when we come to the Use of it hedging it in with Rowes of Teeth So that we are plainly taught if we will learn it that we are to hear twice as much as we speak in Converses Are to speak no more than we understand good Reason for And when we do otherwise we do break Nature's Bounds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. Iliad Wherefore All the World agrees 't is no Musical Tongue that keeps not Time Nor are Men found to love any Loquacity beside their own or their own it self under the Name of Excess It 's a common Observation that the most Tedious Tongues have the least Patient Ears and the most Incontinent Talkers do not own their Love to hear themselves talk By which they betray their Self-condemnation and shew how much their Judgment is against their Practice And who thinks the Man wise who condemns himself in a thing that he allows Be it further asked who ever knew a Galloping Tongue but it often Stumbled One that running very much fell not into Sin very oft The Scripture foresaid is in every guilty Company verified The nimblest Wits are out-run by Tongues of Perpetual Motion Much less can the strongest Judgments keep pace with restless Ones If the Mountains will be always in travail Mice will be the inglorious Birth The most admired Oracles of Eloquence must speak Trash if they speak to excess It is easily divined how very ill this may be applied by corrupt Minds By the Impure to whom all things are impure Those who take not the Law against the Excess of any other Talk are still commencing vexatious Suits against that of Religious
FOOLISH TALKING AND JESTING Described and Condemned In A DISCOURSE ON Ephes 5. 4. Neither Foolish Talking nor Jesting which are not convenient By DANIEL BURGESS LONDON Printed for Andrew Bell and Jonas Luntley at the Pestle and Mortar over against the Horse-shoe-Tavern in Chancery-Lane 1694. TO ROBERT GROVE Esq Of Fernes in VViltshire AND TO Madam TRYPHENA His Consort My Honoured Friends I Do not set here your Names designing to Celebrate your rare Christian Vertues These have long shone brightly in your Country and their Fame hath rung very loudly in this City You have good report of all Men and of the Truth it self So that it would be no News if it should be here told what your Praise is in the Churches Wherefore I Meditate what is more Expedient what doth better Become me and will less Displease you Intending no more than to make you a small Present of these Pages as an Acknowledgment of your Favours Their Subject is unto Most a Hard-Saying with too Many an Obsolete one and whereof not a few will say Who can bear it Nor should I have thought it an Argument grateful to your own Palats but that I do very well know under what Shadow you Sit and whose Fruit it is that is sweet to your Taste Whereby I am certified that you will as much more Value this Discourse as you less Need it than others do for the Regulation of your own Speech I shall Congratulate my Self the good Nature of my Readers if it be he who really Needs it not that Casts the first Stone at it But I will reverence the Doctrine that I Preach and Talk no more to you in this Porch With a special Flame my Prayer ascends for your Selves and your blessed Branches The good Lord continue still to teach you the Way that you are to Chuse and to make your Souls dwell at Ease in Grace till they shall triumph in Glory May your Seed after you inherit the Earth and be such Blessings unto their Country as your Holy Ancestors have been and as you your selves are this Day Thus pray very many but none more sincerely than Your true Honourer Daniel Burgess Bridges-Street near Covent-Garden Jan. 22. 1693-94 FOOLISH Talking and Jesting Described and Condemned Ephes 5. 4. Neither Foolish Talking nor Jesting which are not convenient THE Foot of the foregoing Chapter is the Head of this The same Precepts which there conclude do here begin Being of extraordinary moment they are resumed and farther pressed Few Words may suffice for Mint and Anise but the weightier Things of Religion as they are more opposed must be more urged Weighty indeed are these Precepts great be the Duties required and great the Sins forbidden The Duties are Imitation of God in our Love unto Offending Men. And Conformity to our Redeemer in the Kindness of our Behaviour towards them The Heavenly Father multiplies to pardon and so must we if we will be his Children It is said of him Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth Iniquity And it should be said of us What People are like unto you that forgive one another as God forgiveth you Our blessed Redeemer laid down his Life for us and looks that at his Call we give our Lives for each other I John 3. 16. His Love passeth all Vnderstanding and ours is not right till it set the World marvelling at it This is the Gospel where-ever be the Christians The Sins forbidden are the mighty ones following Fornication and all Vncleanness the Hecticks than consume and carry apace from the deep Ditch into the bottomless Pit Covetousness the Wen and Wolf in the Heart more painful and mortal than any in the Flesh Filthiness or filthy Speaking the Ileos the Miserere mei the Disease which brings up the worst of Excrements through the Mouth which vomits the Ordure of Ribaldry Foolish Talking the Rupture of Speech from Reason Language like to that of Balaam's Ass without Reason and much worse because against it also Lastly Foolish Jesting the falling Sickness of Wit it 's Phrenzy and Sportiveness in Games of pernicious Folly These all are of the same base Blood all with the same rare Emphasis and self-same Arguments prohibited These we are commanded Not once to name that is to abhor unto extremity utterly to detest So the Royal Psalmist and so our Apostle elsewhere is known to have used this pungent Phrase of Not naming Psal 16. 4. 1 Cor. 5. 1. Of these we are told They become not Saints that is they are not only in themselves unrighteous Things but are in all Eyes as unseemly ones for Saints as Feeding on Carrion and Lodging in Kennels would be for Kings Children It is added They are Inconvenient that is Intolerable though the Men of Athens saw nothing very culpable in some of them and fancied there was a Spirit very commendable in others In short They are pestilent Vices and inconsistent with Christian Graces Indeed Pagan Moralists made some of them to be egregious Vertues and the rest to be but very small Faults But the Gospel of Christ makes them such Vices as not only strip us of every Ornament but of our very Raiment And leave us nothing but Shame and Nakedness of our unsanctified Natures Hugely do Men differ from Swine in their Natures and Dignities but no less do Saints differ from unsanctified Men in their Qualities and Relations A Saint hath passed a second Birth After Redemption by infinite Price he is regenerated by infinite Power Made Partaker of the Divine Nature and adopted into the Favour and Family of Heaven In a word He is one dearly cleansed and richly adorned More than Heaven and Earth is worth hath been laid out to Justify and Sanctify him Wherefore if he be sick to see what sensual Creatures are sick of Lust to enjoy if he be ashamed of their Glory if their Meat be his Poison it is no more matter of wonder than that Doves will die rather than fetch Meat from the Dung and Filth in which unclean Birds delight It is the Filth of the two last named Vices Foolish Talking and Jesting that I essay to discover The Snakes which lay in the Dunghils of the other are more in sight and are of less specious Colours Insomuch that until they do get them Cloven-feet Men attain not unto obscene Tongues Much less do they further violate the Seventh Commandment But sadly it must be said the Sins which I set me to detect and shame are gotten into universal Use and almost Catholick Credit also Their Dunghil is covered with the Snow which I shall labour to remove Their Serpents pass for Fish even in Religious Mens Markets To give the worst its due Our Age it self doth not by a general Vote abrogate all the Ten Commandments It runs not down every Divine Testimony with a Nemine Contradicente There are Laws made void by many loose Professors which are valiantly that is practically propugnated by their Betters But
Inferiours of whom we speak ill and if we wrong them we recompence them A Rare Restraint and most Unfrequent Restitution But what if made both of ' em It is he that is void of Understanding that despiseth any Neighbour He only who dares despise his Maker dares to mock the Poor Nor can any Hands heal some Wounds that are given by Tongues We speak ill of some Men as constrained to it by the Love of God How good is it to be sure that we are not in an Errour when we presume that we do well It is possible to speak wickedly for God And it 's sure though you do speak for him it is wickedly if you speak without his Call and speak not according to his Rule You dishonour and displease him your King if without his Warrant you inflict a deserved Punishment on your Fellow-Subjects Nor will he take such an Usurpation of undue Power for a token of your Love And supposing that you have indeed his Commision and thereby a just right to Sentence your Neighbour making him that has done ill to hear ill alike Criminal you will be found if you transgress his Laws of Equity Humanity and Pity If you say more than you Know if what you Know you speak maliciously without Compassion and to ill Purposes What a Malefactor was Achan and what a Storm raised he to the Publick What a Lover of his God was Joshua how True how Zealous But with what words doth Joshua fall upon Achan My Son What Balm more benign what Oil more gentle I pray thee How courteous is the Mouth of Love to the most Unlovely And that from the Seat of the highest Authority Give Glory to God and make Confession What Pity is here and Bounty Pity of a perishing Creature and Bounty in instructing and exhorting that he might not perish Why hast thou Troubled us No Railing Accusation a Blow no harder than might serve to awaken Conscience The Lord will Trouble thee No Insultation no Imprecation Not the Curse of God take thee c. O imitable Example and worthy of all Acceptation In short as much as our Age does abound in this Uncharitable Talk and the rather because it doth so it must be said He that utters it is a Fool. Slander is as truly Sin and Folly as either Murder or Adultery Nor is Bearing false Witness the only Kind of Slander though it be the most gross Affixing of reproachful Names upon innocent Persons is Slandering So is Aspersing their Actions with Scornfully-expressed-Censures So is Perverting their Words by affected Misconstructions So is Representing their Words or Deeds but partially suppressing some part to blemish the whole So is Instilling sly Suggestions apt to breed unworthy opinions of them So is Reflecting on them ever so covertly with design to fasten a reproach by it So is Aggravating their faults oat of measure and making Beams of their Motes So is Charging of them with the ill Consequences of their Judgment which they themselves aver they do not see and protest they do much abhor And so is the Aiding and Abetting and being foster-fathers unto any Slanderous Reports Nor are Slanderous Ears much less odious to God or Wise Men than Slanderous Tongues Those Receivers seem as bad as these Thieves And it 's more than probable that all the Guilty would strait-way find themselves to be Uncharitable could they but bring their Minds to reflect better upon their Principles and Ends. To consider what it really is that makes Evil-speaking the far greatest part of their Talk as Talk is out of question the much biggest Imployment of their Life They would find that either an in-rooted Ill-will or a rash Anger an old Spite or a newly raised Spleen brought their Neighbours Faults into their Mouths That either Contempt of Men as thought hugely below them or Envy at them as supposed someway above themselves was the common Parent of their disparaging Talk That ever and anon Coveting hath brought them to Slandering and they have for no other reason disgraced others but that they might enrich themselves That not unfrequently Wantonness hath given the rise to their Calumny nor have they for any thing but Sport murdred Men in their Credit Yea and that sometimes there has certainly been a much more abstruse cause pure Malignity and Love of Inhumanity without any formed Reason which has made them bite their Neighbours meerly to gratify their currish Humours just as other Mad-dogs do A Disposition that is more common than is well thought of or Prayed against One Planted in corrupt Nature watred by the Example of all the World and Encreased by Mens own assiduous Use But Of Vncharitable Talkers come not into the Secret O my Soul unto their Assembly mine Honour be not thou Vnited I proceed to enquire nextly §. 2. What is Foolish Jesting Foolish-Talking or Jesting saith the Text that is or Jesting which is Foolish And it may be the Sense designed is somewhat more q. d. Detest ye Foolish-talking of all Kinds even Jesting it self that Admired and Beloved one that Alamode and Sugared one Abhor Foolish Talk the Meat yea and Jests that are the Sawce It is surely predicated of both that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not Pertinent or conducible to any good Purpose but only serve very ill ones Are insufferable therefore in Jesus Christ's School as hath been aforesaid By Jesting all Men understand Speech framed and intended for Mirth Talk is the Business of the Lips Jests are their Play Speaking is their Trade Jesting is their Game In That they do but make a Noise in This they make Musick That is the Employment This the Recreation they give their Hearers And as of other Recreations it must be said of Jests No doubt but some are Lawful yea Needful and unto some Men they are a Duty say the gravest Casuists When it is that they are our Duty and Wisdom and when our Folly and our Sin is to be judged by the same Rules Lawful Recreation is some Action not forbidden apt to exhilarate the Fancy or exercise the Body so as to whet the Sithe of both for Sacred and Civil Work And Lawful Jesting is some innocent Expression apt to raise drooping Spirits and sharpen blunted Minds so as to mend their Plight for all good Service All is one whether it be by its Beauty or its Rarity whether by its Perspicuity or Abstrusity an Expression so instilleth Pleasure and reneweth Vigor Thus may an holy Isaac Sport with his Rebecca Laugh as the Hebrew Play as the Chaldee Jest as the Syriack and Arabick speak All that can be said for Melancholy-Christians of another Mind is that their Error erreth upon the Right hand He that is no otherwise a Jester is far from being a Fool and he that is contradictiously Morose therein is not Wise Broken Spirits dry our Bones and unfit us to fight the Lord's Battels Merry Hearts do good like generous Medicines and strengthen