Understand and remember what are the sins of the tongue to be avoided. And they are very many, and many of them very great: the most observable are these:
1. The first among all sins of commission is that of blasphemy, which is the reproaching of God: to speak contemptuously of God, or to vilify him, or dishonor him, by the denying of his perfections, and to debase him, by false titles, doctrines, images, resemblances, as likening him to man in any of our imperfections; anything that is a reproaching of God is blasphemy.
2. Another sin of the tongue is, false doctrine, or teaching things false and dangerous as from God. If any falsely say, he had such or such a point by divine inspiration, vision, or revelation, that makes him a false prophet. But if he only says falsely, that this or that doctrine is contained in the Scripture, or delivered by tradition to the church, this is but to be a false teacher.
3. Another of the sins of the tongue is, an opposing of godliness indirectly, by false application of true doctrine, and an opposing of godly persons for the sake of godliness, and objecting for no good reason against particular truths and duties of religion; or defending those points and practices which would subvert or undermine religion: a secret endeavor to make all serious godliness seem a needless thing. There are many that seem orthodox, that are impious and malicious opposers of that truth in the application, which themselves do notionally hold, and positively profess.
4. Another great sin of the tongue is, the profane deriding of serious godliness, and the mocking, and jesting, and scorning at godly persons as such; or scorning at some of their real or supposed imperfections, for their piety sake, to make them odious, that piety through them might be made odious. When men so speak, that the drift and tendency of their speech is to draw men to a dislike of truth or holiness. Keep Reading...
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