A Golden Chain

Thus have I in part set down how the tongue is to be governed: and I heartily desire, that all Christians would put these rules in practise. Reasons. I. If any man seem to be religious, and restrain not his tongue, he deceiveth himself, and his religion is in vain. ¹II. The man of an evil tongue, is a beast in the form of a man; for his tongue is the tongue of a serpent, under which lieth nothing but venom and poison:² nay he is worse then a serpent: for it cannot hurt, unless it be present to see a man, or to bite him or to strike him with his tail: but he which hath not the rule of his tongue, hurteth men as well absent as present, neither sea nor land, nor any thing can hinder him. And again, his throat is like a grave that hath a vent in some part, and therefore sendeth forth nothing but stink and corruption. III. As the holy men of God when they preached,³ had their tongues, as it were, touched with a coal from the altar of God: and as godly men when they speak graciously, have their tongues inflamed with the fire of Gods spirit: so contrariwise, when thou speakest evil, thy tongue is kindled by the fire of hell: ⁴and Satan comes from ⟨p. 733⟩thence with a coal to touch thy lips, and to set them on fire to all manner of mischief. Chrysostom saith,⁵ that when men speak good things, their tongue is the tongue of Christ: but all manner of ungodly and cursed speaking is the devils language. IV. The moderating of the tongue is a matter of great difficulty. S. James saith,⁶ The whole nature of beasts & of birds, and of creeping things, &c. but the tongue can no man tame: it is an unruly evil. Pambus, one without learning came to a certain man to be taught a Psalm: who when he had hard the first verse of the 38. psalm, I said, that I will keep my ways that I offend not in my tongue, would not suffer the next verse to be read, saying, this verse is enough, if I could practise it. And when his teacher blamed him, because he saw him not in six months after, he answered that he had not yet done the verse. And one that knew him many years after, asked him whether he had yet learned the verse. I am forty years old (saith he) & have not yet learned to fulfil it. Now then, the harder it is to rule the tongue, the more care is to be had therein. V.