Direct. X. Presently lament before God and man the filthiness that thy tongue hath been guilty of, and wash heart and tongue in the blood of Christ; and fly from the company and converse of the obscene, as thou wouldst do from a pest-house, or any infectious, pestilential air. And if thou hear such rotten talk, reprove it, or be gone, and let them see that thou hatest it, and fearest God.
Object. But, saith the filthy mouth, I think no harm; may we not jest and be merry?
Answ. What! hast thou nothing to jest with but dung, and filth, and sin, and the defilement of souls, and the offending of God? Wouldst thou be unclean before the king, or cast dung in men's faces, and say, I think no harm, but am in jest?
Object. But, saith he, those that are so demure, are as bad in secret, and worse than we.
Answ. What! is a chaste tongue a sign of an unchaste life? Then thou mayst as equally take a meek and quiet tongue to be a sign of an angry man; or a lying tongue to be a sign of a true man. Would the king take that excuse from thee, if thou talk treason openly, and say, Those that do not, are yet in secret as bad as I? I trow he would not take that for an excuse.
Tit. 6. Directions against profane Deriding, Scorning, or Opposing Godliness.
The explication.
To prevent the replies or excuses of the scorner, I must here tell you, 1. That by godliness I mean nothing but an entire devotedness to God and living to him: the doctrine and practice which are agreeable to the holy Scripture. I mean no fancies of mistaken men, nor the private opinions of any sect; but the practice of Christianity itself.
2. And yet I must tell you, that it is the common practice of these scorners to fasten more upon the concrete, than the abstract, the person, than the bare doctrine, and to oppose godly persons as such, when yet they say that they oppose not godliness. The reasons of this are these: (1.) Because they dare be bolder with the person, than with the rule and doctrine of God himself. If they scorn at the Bible, or at godliness directly, as such, they should so openly scorn at God himself, that the world would cry shame on them, and conscience would worry them: but as godliness is in such a neighbour, or such a preacher, or such a man, so they think they may reverence it less, and that what they do is against the person and not the thing.
(2.) In men they have something else to pretend, to be the matter of their scorn. Godliness in men is latent, invisible, unprovable as to the sincerity of it, and obscure as to the exercise. If he that scorneth a godly man say, He is not godly, but a hypocrite; in this world there is no perfect justification to be had against such a calumny; but the probable evidence of profession and a godly life is all that can be brought. But godliness, as it is in the Scripture, lieth open to the view of all, and cannot be denied there, but by denying the Scriptures themselves.