Isa. xlvii. 8. Babylon's torment and sorrow must be suitable to her sin. Babylon excelled all others in pride, haughtiness, luxury, and blasphemy, &c., and her punishments must be answerable; so the great, the rich, the high, and the mighty men of the world, they usually exceed all others in pride, drunkenness, uncleanness, filthiness, oppression, vainglory, gluttony, and tyranny, &c., and answerable to their sins will be their torments and their punishments in hell: Isa. xxx. 33, For Tophet is ordained of old,' ay, it may be for the poor, mean, and beggarly of the world; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.'1 Alas! the brick-kilns of Egypt and the furnace of Babylon were but as a blaze of straw to this tormenting Tophet, that has been prepared of old for the great and mighty ones of the earth! Oh, how dreadful must that fire be that is prepared by God himself, and that is kindled by the breath of the Lord, and that shall never be quenched! and yet such is the fire that is prepared for the great and mighty ones of the world! Oh, the easeless, the endless, the remediless, the unsufferable, and yet the inevitable torments that are prepared for those that are great and graceless! In hell their wanton eyes shall be tormented with ugly and fearful sights of ghastly spirits; and their ears, that used to be delighted with all delightful music, shall now be filled with the hideous cries, howlings, and yellings of devils and damned spirits; and their tongues of blasphemy shall now be tormented with drought and thirst; and though with the glutton they cry out for a drop to cool their tongues, yet justice will deny them drops who have denied others crumbs; and their hands of bribery, cruelty, and tyranny shall now be bound with everlasting chains, and so shall their feet, which were once swift to shed innocent blood. In a word, their torments shall be universal, they shall extend to every member of the body, and to every faculty of the soul. Ah, sirs! fire, sword, famine, prisons, racks, and all other torments that men can invent, are but as flea-bitings to those scorpions, but as drops to those vials of wrath, and but as sparks to those eternal flames that all unsanctified persons shall lie under. Look, as the least joy in heaven infinitely surpasseth the greatest comforts on earth, so the least torments in hell do infinitely exceed the greatest that can be devised here on earth. For a close remember this, as there are degrees of glory in heaven, so there are degrees of torment in hell; and as those that are most eminent in grace and holiness shall have the greatest degrees of glory in heaven, so those that are most vile and wicked on earth shall have the greatest degrees of torments and punishments in hell.2 Now common experience tells us that the rich, the great, the high, the honourable, and the mighty ones of the world are usually the most excelling in all wickedness and ungodliness; and

1 Tophet is the name of a place in the valley lying on the south side of Jerusalem, Joshua xviii. 16. Now in this vale stood Tophet, wherein the idolatrous Jews used to burn their children in sacrifice to the idol Moloch, and it had that name from the drums or tabrets that their idolatrous priests used to beat upon at the time of their detestable services, to drown the hideous shrieks and lamentable cries of the poor sacrificed children.

2 Mat. x. 15, and xi. 22; Luke xii. 47, 48.

therefore their condemnation will be the greater, they shall have a hotter and a darker hell than others, except they labour after this holiness, which will be their only fence against hell, and their sure path to heaven. But, sixthly and lastly, of all men on earth the rich, the great, and the honourable will be found most inexcusable. The poor and the mean ones of the earth will plead their want of time, and want of means, and want of opportunities; they will be ready to say, Lord, we have risen early, and gone to bed late, Ps. cxxvii. 1, 2, we have laboured, and sweat, and droyled,' and all little enough to get bread to eat, and clothes to wear, and to keep the sergeant from the door, and to pay every man his own. Had we had but the time, the means, the advantages that such and such gentlemen have had, and that such and such nobles have had, and that such and such princes have had, &c.,2 oh, how we would have minded holiness, and studied holiness, and pressed after holiness! But seeing it has been otherwise with us, we hope, Lord, we may be excused. But what excuse will you be able to make, O ye great ones of the earth, who have had time, and opportunities, and all advantages imaginable, to make yourselves holy and happy for ever, and yet you have trifled away your golden seasons, and forgotten the one thing necessary, and given yourselves up to the lusts and vanities of this world, as if you were resolved to be damned? Let me a little allude to that John xv. 22: 'If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak or excuse for their sin.' So will God one day say to the great ones of the world: Had I not given you riches, and greatness, and honour, &c., to have encouraged you to look after holiness, and that you might have time, and leisure, and opportunity to seek holiness and pursue it, you might have had some cloak, some excuse for your neglecting so great, so glorious, so noble, and so necessary a work. Oh! but now you have no cloak, no excuse at all for your sin. Now you can shew no reason under heaven why an eternal doom should not be passed upon you; and ah how silent, how mute, how speechless, and how self-condemned, will all the great ones of the world be, when God shall thus expostulate with them!3 Oh that such would seriously lay to heart that Mat. xxii. 11, 12: And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: and he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.' By the wedding garment the learned understand holiness of heart and life. Now when the king questions him about the want of this wedding garment, he is speechless, or as the Greek word eppoon imports, he was muzzled or haltered up,' that is, he held his peace, as though he had a bridle or a halter in his mouth; he was not able to speak a word for himself, his own conscience had passed a secret sentence of condemnation upon him, and he sat silent under that sentence, as having nothing under heaven to say why he should not be cast into utter darkness. And ''Drudged.'-G.

2 As the poor people on the northern borders, when, to suppress their thieveries, some pressed upon them the eighth commandment, they, to excuse themselves, replied that that commandment was none of God's making, but thrust into the Decalogue by King Henry the Eighth.

3 Titus iii. 11. Avтокaтáкρiтos, self-condemned, or self-damned.

this will be the very case of all the rich, the great, and the mighty ones of the world, who shall be found without the garment of holiness, when the Lord shall enter into judgment with them. And thus you see by these six arguments, that there are no persons under heaven that are so eminently engaged to look after holiness, as the rich, the great, and the mighty ones of the earth. But,

Object. 7. Seventhly and lastly, Others may object and say, Should we pursue after holiness, we shall be sure to be reviled, slandered, and reproached on all hands; every one will hoot and hiss at us, we shall become a scorn and a byword to all that live in the family with us, and to all our neighbours round about us, every one will scorn us, and hate us, and we shall be their table-talk, and their song, and the butt at which they will shoot in all their meetings and discourses, &c.

Now that you may be sufficiently armed against this objection, I desire you seriously to consider of these five following answers:

[1] First, That those that revile and reproach holiness, are such that have never known the necessity nor the excellency of holiness; they have never experienced the power nor the sweetness of holiness; they speak evil of things they know not, of things they understand not, Jude 10; 1 Tim. i. 7. Not to know is man's misery, but to speak evil of that which a man understands not is the height of folly; and this these revilers do. Had they known,' saith the apostle, 'they would not have crucified the Lord of glory,' 1 Cor. ii. 8; so I say, had these revilers known the splendour, the beauty, and the glory of holiness, they would never have reviled it and scorned it.1 Had the Jews known the Godhead of Christ, the divinity of Christ, the glory of Christ, they would never have cried up Barabbas, and have railed on Jesus as they did: so, had these railers but known the worth and the weight of holiness, they would never have cried up wickedness, and decried holiness as they do. Now, oh what shame, what folly, what vanity is it for a man to turn his back upon holiness because such revile it and scorn it, who never knew feelingly, nor experimentally, what holiness was! Would not a man either sigh or laugh at him that should turn his back upon riches, honours, and preferments, &c., because the blind, poor, and beggarly sort of people, who never experienced what these things mean, casts dirt, dung, scorn, and reproach upon them? and is not this the present case? Surely yes. The fox in the fable, when he could not come at the grapes, cried out, that they were sour, they were sour; so men that cannot reach to the riches, the honours, and the great things of the world, oh, how do they cry out against these things! oh, what disgrace, scorn, and contempt do they cast upon these things and all because they cannot reach them, because they cannot grasp them. The application is easy. It is men's ignorance of holiness that makes them cry out so much of holiness. That heathen, Aristotle, hit the mark when he cried out, Ignorat sane improbus omnis, Ignorance is the source of all sin; the very well-spring from whence all wickedness flows; for ignorance enslaves the soul to Satan, it lets in sins by troops, and then locks them up in the heart, and it shuts out all the means of recovery, &c. And who then will wonder to see ignorant persons let fly at holiness? Suppose a geometrician 1 Scientia non habet inimicum præter ignorantem.

should be drawing of lines and figures, and there should come in some silly, ignorant fellow, who seeing him, should laugh at him, would the artist, think you, leave off his employment because of his derision? Surely no; for he knows that his laughter is but the fruit of his ignorance, as not knowing his art, and the grounds upon which he goes; and therefore he holds on drawing, though the silly fellow should hold on in his laughing. O sirs, though ignorant persons deride holiness, and laugh at holiness, yet be not you ashamed of holiness, but hold on, and hold out in your pursuit after holiness, for they understand not the rules and principles by which you are acted; and therefore it is that they throw dirt in the face of holiness; but it will be your wisdom to wipe that off, and so much the more to pursue after holiness, by how much the more the silly ones of the world slight holiness, and laugh at holiness. But,

[2.] Secondly, There is no fence against an evil tongue. A man may fence himself against an evil eye, and against an evil hand, and against an evil head, &c., but there is no fence against an evil tongue. An evil tongue is such an unruly, such a mischievous, such a dangerous, such a killing, and such a destroying member, that there is no fence against it. A man may fence off the stroke of a sword, the thrust of a rapier, and the shot of an arrow, but he can never fence off the reproach and the reviling of an evil tongue. If the heart be sanctified the tongue is the best member in the body; if the heart be unsanctified it is the worst. Æsop being by his master sent to buy up all the best meat he could get in the market, bought up all the tongues; and being sent again to buy up all the worst meat he could get in the market, he bought up all the tongues again; and when he was asked why he did so, he answered, that there was no flesh better than a good tongue, nor no flesh worser than a bad tongue; which the apostle confirms fully in that James iii. 2-12.1 An evil tongue is wilder than the wildest beast. The horse, the ass, the camel, the elephant, yea, the lion, the leopard, the bear, and all other beasts, have been tamed by man; but the tongue, no man, no monarch, on earth have ever been able to tame. An evil tongue, in some respect, is worse than the devil; for the devil may be shunned and avoided, but an evil tongue no man can shun; and if you resist the devil he will fly from you, but the more you resist an evil tongue the more it will fly upon you: Prov. xvi. 27, 'An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is a burning fire.' An ungodly man, or a man of Belial, as the original has it, 'digs up evil.' Such old evils that have been long since buried in the grave of oblivion and forgetfulness, he digs up to cast in the saints' dishes, and to reproach them with. The teeth of malice will be still a-digging to find out something against the people of God, and if they can pick up anything out of the dunghill of false reports to object against them, their lips presently are as so many burning beacons to discover it to all the world. Now their tongues will be set on fire of hell, and now they will labour to fire the hearts and tongues of others against the people of God. A wicked tongue, as

Bias, one of the seven wise men, told Amasis king of Egypt, that the tongue was the best or worst member of the body. Tota vita hominis linguæ delictis est referta; The whole life of man is made up of the sins of the tongue.-Basil.

Bernard observes, kills three at once: first, it kills his name and fame
by ill report who is slandered; secondly, it kills his belief with a lie to
whom the report is made; thirdly, it kills the slanderer himself with
the sin of detraction. David, who fell oftener under the sad lashes of
evil tongues, compares reviling tongues to three fatal weapons: a razor,
a sword, and an arrow. 1. To a razor in that Ps. lii, 2.
Now you
know a razor meets with every little hair, and many times instead
of shaving the hair it slashes the flesh; and sometimes by missing the
beard it endangers the throat. And so the reviling tongue will take
the least advantage imaginable to slash and cut the names and reputa-
tions of those that fear the Lord in a thousand pieces. 2. To a sword,
Ps. lvii. 4, that cuts and wounds deep; and so does the reviler's tongue
cut deeply into the names, fames, and credits of the people of God;
and, 3. To an arrow, Ps. Ixiv. 3. The sword only cuts when we are
near, but the arrow hits at a distance; the sword cannot cut except we
be at hand, but the arrow may hit us when we are afar off. The
reviler can easily shoot his arrows of reproach a great way off; he can
shoot them from one town to another, from one city to another, from
one kingdom to another, yea, from one end of the earth to the other,
Ps. lxxiii. 9. When the hands are manacled, and the feet fettered and
stocked, the tongue travels freely all the world over, and loads the
names of men with what reproaches it pleaseth. The tongue is
the great interpreter of the heart; the tongue is the key that unlocks
those treasures of wickedness that be in the heart; the corruptions of
men's hearts commonly breaks forth at their lips, Mat. xii. 34. Look,
as a pimpled face discovers a distempered liver, and as a stinking
breath discovers corrupted lungs, so a reviling tongue discovers a base
rotten heart.1 When the pump goes you may quickly know whether
the water that is in the fountain or well be clear or muddy, sweet
or stinking; and when the clapper strikes you may soon guess of what
metal the bell is made of; and so by men's tongues you may easily
guess what is in their hearts. If the tongue be vil'd,2 the heart is so;
if the tongue be bloody, the heart is so; if the tongue be adulterous,
the heart is so; if the tongue be malicious, the heart is so; if the
tongue be covetous, the heart is so; and if the tongue be cruel,
the heart is so, &c. Men's minds are known by their mouths. If the
mouth be bad, the mind is not good. He that is rotten in his talk, is
commonly rotten in the heart. Of all the members of the body there
is none so serviceable to Satan as an evil tongue; and therefore when
all the body is full of sores he will keep the tongue from blisters, that
so a man may the more freely and fully curse God and die.3 And
this was the reason why Satan spared Job's tongue, when he sadly
paid all other members of his body, that so his grand design, which
was to provoke Job both to curse God and to charge him foolishly, might
take place; but Job's tongue be-oiled with grace, proved his glory
in his trying hour; and instead of cursing, he blesses a taking God,
an angry God. O sirs, the world is as full of evil tongues as Nilus
of crocodiles, or as Sodom of sulphur, or as Egypt of lice; and there

1 That man has commonly most of the devil in his heart that has most of the devil in
his mouth. The strokes in music answer to the notes that are pricked in the rules.
2 Vile.-G.
4
* Chrysostom, Drexelius, and others.
Query,' pained?'-G.