My God and My Country

Afternoon/Evening Reflection

Meekness will curb the tongue, and "keep the mouth as with a bridle" when the heart is hot. Even when there may be occasion for a keenness of expression, and we are called to rebuke sharply cuttingly, Titus 1:13—yet meekness forbids all fury and indecency of language, and every thing that sounds like clamor and evil-speaking. The meekness of Moses was not at hand when he spoke that unadvised word "rebels," for which he was shut out of Canaan, though rebels they were, and at that time very provoking. Men in a passion are apt to give reviling language, to call names, and those most senseless and ridiculous—to take the blessed name of God in vain, and so profane it. It is a wretched way by which the children of hell vent their passion at their beasts, their servants, any person, or any thing that provokes them, to swear at them. Men in a passion are apt to reveal secrets, to make rash vows and resolutions, which afterwards prove a snare, and sometimes to slander and belie their brethren, and bring railing accusations, and so do the devil's work; and to speak that "in their haste" concerning others, Psalm 116:11, of which they afterwards see cause to repent. How brutishly did Saul in his passion call his own son, the heir apparent to the crown, the "son of the perverse rebellious woman." "Racca" and "thou fool" are specified by our Saviour as breaches of the law of the sixth commandment; and the passion in the heart is so far from excusing such opprobrious speeches—for which purpose it is commonly alleged—that really it is that which gives them their malignity: they are the smoke from that fire, the gall and wormwood springing from that root of bitterness; and if for "every idle word that men speak," much more for such wicked words as these, must they give an account at the day of judgment. And as it is a reflection upon God to kill, so it is to curse men that are made after the image of God, though ever so much our inferiors; that is, to speak ill of them, or to wish ill to them.  This is the disease which meekness prevents, and is in the tongue a "law of kindness." It is to the tongue as the helm is to the ship, James 3:4, not to silence it, but to guide it, to steer it  wisely, especially when the wind is high. If at any time we have conceived passion and thought evil, meekness will lay the hand upon the mouth—as the wise man's advice is, Proverbs 30:3 —to keep that evil thought from venting itself in any evil word reflecting upon God or our brother. It will reason a disputed point without noise, give a reproof without a reproach, convince a man of his folly without calling him a fool, will teach superiors either to forbear threatening, Ephesians 6:9, or, as the margin reads it, to moderate it; and will look diligently lest any root of bitterness, springing up, trouble us, and thereby we and many others be defiled.