Friday, June 02, 2006
From 'A Christian Directory' by Richard Baxter
If the men that we speak to be regardable, words are regardable. For words are powerful instruments of their good or hurt. God useth them by his ministers for men's conversion and salvation; and Satan useth them by his ministers for men's subversion and damnation. How many thousand souls are hurt every day by the words of others! some deceived, some puffed up, some hardened, and some provoked to sinful passions! And how many thousand are every day edified by words! either instructed, admonished, quickened, or conforted. Paul saith, 2 Cor 10:4 "The weapons of our warfare are mighty through God." And Pythagoras could say, "tongues cut deeper than swords, because they reach even to the soul." Tongue sins and duties therefore must needs be great.
Our tongues are the insturments of our Creator's praise, purposely given us to "speak good of his name," and to "declare his works with rejoicing." It is no small part of that service which God expects from man, which is performed by the tongue; nor a small part of the end of our creation: the use of all our highest faculties, parts, and graces, are expressively by the tongue: our wisdom and knowledge, our love and holiness, are much lost as to the honor of God, and the good of others, if not expresse. The tongue is the latern or casement of the soul, by which it looketh out, and shineth unto others. Therefor the sin and duty of so noble an instrument is not to be made light of, by any that regard the honour of our Maker.
p. 342
Baxter was right. The words that we speak say a lot of what we are inside. In the heat of the moment words can show what we think.
Our tongues are the insturments of our Creator's praise, purposely given us to "speak good of his name," and to "declare his works with rejoicing." It is no small part of that service which God expects from man, which is performed by the tongue; nor a small part of the end of our creation: the use of all our highest faculties, parts, and graces, are expressively by the tongue: our wisdom and knowledge, our love and holiness, are much lost as to the honor of God, and the good of others, if not expresse. The tongue is the latern or casement of the soul, by which it looketh out, and shineth unto others. Therefor the sin and duty of so noble an instrument is not to be made light of, by any that regard the honour of our Maker.
p. 342
Baxter was right. The words that we speak say a lot of what we are inside. In the heat of the moment words can show what we think.
