10. Are you not sensible what pride and impudency is in it, when you think yourselves worthiest to speak? As if you should say, You are all children to me; hold your tongues, and hear me speak! If you had christian humility, and modesty, you would in honour prefer others before yourselves, Rom. xii.
10. You would think yourselves unworthiest to speak, (unless the contrary be very evident,) and desire rather to hear and learn. As Heraclitus being asked, Why he alone was silent in the company, answered, That you may talk; so when you talk above your parts, it is as if you told the company, I talk that all you may be silent.
11. It is a voluntary sin and not repented of. For you may easily forbear it if you will; and you wilfully continue in it; and therefore impenitency is your danger.
12. Lastly, consider how unprofitable a sin it is; and how little you have to hire you to commit it. What get you by it? Will you daily sin against God for nothing?
Direct. IV. If you would not be idle talkers, see that your hearts be taken up with something that is good; and that your tongues be acquainted with and accustomed to their proper work and duty.[537] An empty head and heart are the causes of empty, frothy, vain discourse. Conscience may tell you when your tongues run upon vanity, that at that time there is no sense of sin or duty, or the presence of God upon your hearts; no holy love; no zeal for God: but you are asleep to God and all that is good; and in this sleep you moither and talk idly of any thing that cometh into your mind. Also you make not conscience of speaking of that which is good, or else it would keep out vanity and evil. Remember what abundance of greater matters you have to talk of! You have the evil of sin, the multitude and subtilty of temptations, and the way of resisting them, to talk of; you have your faults to lament, your evidences to inquire after, your mercies thankfully to open, the greatness and goodness, and all the attributes of God to praise; you have all the works of God to admire, even all the creatures in the world to contemplate, and all God's admirable providences and government to observe; you have the mystery of redemption, the person, and office, and life, and miracles, and sufferings, and glory, and intercession, and reign of Christ to talk of; and all the secret sanctifying operations of the Holy Ghost; and all the ordinances of God, and all the means of grace, and all our duties to God and man, and all the holy Scripture; besides death and judgment, and heaven and hell, and the concernments of the church of God, and the case of the persons you speak to, who may need your instruction, exhortation, admonition, reproof, or comfort: and is not here work enough to employ your tongues, and keep them from idle talk?[538] Make conscience of those duties commanded, Eph. iv. 29, "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, and may minister grace to the hearers: and grieve not the holy Spirit of God." Eph. v. 18, 19, "Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Pet. iv. 11, "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God."[539] Sinful omission of good discourse, is the cause of sinful commission of vanity. Specially when the heart itself is vain; for as a man is, so is he apt to speak. 1 John iv. 5, "They are of the world, therefore speak they of the world." Isa. xxxii. 6, "For the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the Lord."
Direct. V. Walk always with God, as in his presence, and in the awe of his laws and judgment, that conscience may be kept awake and tender.[540] You will be restrained from vain talk, if you perceive that God is hearing you, and if you remember that your tongue is under a law, and that "for every idle word men shall give account, in the day of judgment," Matt. xii. 36, 37, and that by your "words you shall be justified, or condemned." If the law of God were in your hearts, Psal. xl. 8, and hidden there, Psal. cxix. 11, your heart would be fixed, Psal. lvii. 7. His word then would be the rejoicing of your heart, Psal. cxix. 111; and your tongues would then be talking of judgment, Psal. xxxvii. 30. A tender conscience will smart more with an idle word, than a seared, senseless conscience with an oath, or lie, or slander. For the fear of God is clean, Psal. xix. 9, and by it men depart from evil, Prov. xvi. 6. "Be thou therefore in the fear of the Lord all the day long," Prov. xxiii. 17.
Direct. VI. Avoid idleness, if you would avoid idle talk.[541] The drones of the commonwealth that have nothing else to do, but visit, and compliment, and prate of other men's matters, and that can have while to sit whole hours together, upon no business, are they that are most guilty of idle chat. Idle gentlemen, and beggars, and idle gossiping women, and old men that are void of the fear of God, and children that have no business to do, are they that can sit talking away their time to as little purpose, as if they had been all the time asleep. All idle persons swarm with the vermin of idle thoughts and words.
Direct. VII. If you would avoid idle talk, avoid idle, talkative companions: or if you cannot avoid them, answer them not, but let them talk alone, unless it be to reprehend them, or turn them to more profitable talk.[542] For when you hear vanity, it will incline you to speak vanity: and these ungodly persons "speak every one vanity to his neighbour," as if their tongues were so their own, that no lord might control them, Psal. xii. 1-6. The philosopher could say, That which you would not hear, do not speak; and that which you would not speak, do not hear. Most are like parrots, that will oftest speak the words which they oftest hear. How hard is it to avoid idle talk amongst idle talkers! One vain word draws on another, and there is no end.
Direct. VIII. Avoid vain works, if you would avoid vain words. For a man that engageth himself in vain employment, doth lose all the words as vain, which he useth about that employment. What a life then do they live, that have an unlawful calling! When their very business and trade is sin, the adjuncts, the words about it, must be sin, and so all their lives are a continued sin. I had rather therefore be the basest drudge, than one of these men. Especially stage-players should think of this: and those that spend whole hours, yea, half-days, if not nights, in gaming, or vain and sinful sports: what abundance of idle words do they use about them! every cast of the dice, and every card they play, hath an idle word; so that a sober man would be weary and ashamed to hear them.
Direct. IX. Plunge not yourselves into excess of worldly business, as some do, that undertake more without necessity, than they can discharge: for such necessitate a variety of thoughts and words. And all that are spent in serving them in those their vain employments, are vain; though the work for the matter of it be not vain.