Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.
Conversation
Well might the holy Bishop of Mona add to these words, “Preserve me, O God, from a vain conversation.” For this is no isolated passage (see Psa_141:3; Eph_5:4; Pro_10:19; Mat_12:36-37; Jam_3:8). How is it, then, that in that which is of all most dangerous we are least guarded? No doubt one cause of this carelessness is the difficulty of the work; but another is disbelief in its necessity. We cannot bring ourselves to believe that words are acts. To witness a good confession saves.
I. Words are acts in two ways.
1. They are results: the completion and effect of certain passions and states of feeling. When a passionate man has spoken out he is relieved; he has fulfilled his anger; and in this way words manifest a man. Being outward, they come forth, and show what was inward.
2. Words are acts, as being causes of something beyond. Effects of passion, they produce passion. They quiver on through the air; endlessly waking up harmony or discord, in regions and in generations yet unknown.
II. Rules for the improvement of conversation.
1. To learn silence, the best security. By this means persons would constantly be saved form unintentionally joining in what they really disapprove. By this also they would learn to govern their tongue. By this too they would find time for thought, and would escape vanity and unreality.
2. That they may not be gloomy and unsocial, yea, and may have the privilege of doing something more for society than merely abstaining from its faults, persons can frequently turn a conversation to objects of real interest; to higher and more improving topics.
3. But when we have once launched into conversation, we must double the guard at the gate of our mouth. We must watch that nothing be said for our own glory, nothing to the disrepute of our neighbour, nothing light or unbecoming a strict profession of religion; and, should religious conversation commence, let us not join in it, unless prudently to correct some great misstatements, and unless it be “seasonable,” i.e., when men are like to be the better for it. Not in promiscuous company; not mixed with sports, hurry, business, or with drink. And take we heed that we join a good life to our religious conversation; and never contradict our tongue by our deeds. (W. E. Heygate, M. A.)
Bad results of corrupt communications
Can we not all remember some wrong and foolish saying of our elders, which has done us harm for life? some idle tale, or joke, some passionate or irreverent word? And if we can remember some, how many have we not forgotten? Were we uninfluenced by all those foolish praises, with which men and women poison the young? Were we unhurt by all that was said of a fine spirit, or of its being manly to give blow for blow? Did we never drink in, to our injury, the worldly conversation which was not meant for our ears; conversation implying that success is the great object of life; that this world is everything; or the admiration bestowed upon the covetous and hard and irreligious, because they were noble in rank, or successful, or clever, or agreeable? Alas! sinned against, and sinning, one generation of men defiles another by its words. And words are not only acts going forward, marring God’s glory, and injuring souls; but acts affecting ourselves, turning back upon the speaker. It is wonderful how we persuade ourselves by our own words; work ourselves up; talk ourselves into anger and vanity. How often have we not thought it necessary to support one extreme statement by another until we have gone beyond the limits of moderation and of truth! How often have we not begun with mild reproof, and gone on into indignation and anger! This, indeed, is one secret of the warmth and power of great speakers. What they say carries them on farther and farther, step by step, until they get beyond themselves in zeal, fire of spirit, and high principles, so that we admire them as beings above ourselves, when all the while they are equally above themselves also, unnatural and unreal. Thus we elate ourselves, or depress ourselves: we exasperate ourselves; flatter ourselves into vanity; deceive ourselves, by our words. If a man wishes to check his evil tendencies, let him not discourse of them, except in confession, or confidential intercourse; nor be led into discourse by them. (W. E. Heygate, M. A.)
Gentlemen here
An American general was standing with his back to the fire, when a young subaltern came in, and having looked round the room, said, “Oh! there are no ladies here. I’ve such a capital story to tell you, I’m glad to see there are no ladies.”--“No,” said the general, in a moment, “no, sir, there are Gentlemen.” (Colonel Everitt.)
Bury your own corruption
Corruption should always be covered and buried. If you speak it out, let it be in groans of self-loathing to God, that it may wither and die under the breath of His holiness. The root that is allowed to put forth leaf and branch, strengthens itself thereby. If you desire a root to die, suffer it not to put forth its life. Suppress, and persist in suppressing the manifestation of its life, and in due time, it will have no life to manifest. It will be a dead root. You cannot, therefore, over-estimate the wisdom of the apostle’s counsel, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.” To talk of corruption is to diffuse it from soul to soul. Let your tongue be sacred to that which is innocent, beautiful, and good. Why should you not rather have a multitude of friends, in the judgment, who shall honour and bless you for the good which you did them by your tongue? For the grace which you minister to them by your tongue now, they will minister to you their love in eternity. And in eternal life, he will be richest and happiest who is loved most. (John Pulsford.)
The advantages of good discourse
I. A prohibition. Under the forbidden head we are to rank all profane, irreligious, or immodest discourses. Another sort of discourses I would here mention as forbidden by the apostle, are such as are injurious to our neighbour.
II. A positive direction. The subjects that should employ our conversation, we are told, are such as are good to the use of edifying, and which may minister grace to the hearers.
III. An exhortation.
1. I know nothing can be more justly charged with that visible decay of true zeal and piety we observe and lament in the world, than the disuse of serious and instructive discourse in conversation. It is a very great, and, in its consequences, a very fatal point gained by the libertine, when he could not prevail on men of virtue and sobriety wholly to give up their religion, yet to persuade them to confine it to the temple or the closet; to limit it to set times, to certain and those narrow bounds out of which it should be improper and ridiculous, for when once men had banished religion from so large a share of their time as is taken up in conversation, the more solemn returns of it not only grew burdensome and disaffecting from the intermission; but the vicious and profane liberties, which assumed its place in discourse, left such a stain on the minds of men, as indisposed them for the good effects of our public assemblies; and by degrees introduced in some a total disregard of all religion, and in many debased the remains of it with such a mixture of vicious habits and principles, as rendered it no better than a superficial pretence, unacceptable to God, and ineffectual to the great ends proposed in the gospel.
2. To which let me here add, that if religion were restored to its proper share in our conversations, that secret confidence of the sinner that others are as wicked as himself, though better concealed, and which perhaps is the greatest support to infidelity, would be entirely taken off.
3. Let us remember, that God is present in all our assemblies, that He remarks and treasures up against the day of our account every word and expression, and every circumstance of our behaviour in them.
4. And lastly, let it not be thought that religion is too barren or too melancholy a subject for the entertainment of a Christian. (J. Rogers, D. D.)
A rule for conversation
The abuses of speech and the faults committed in conversation are numerous.
1. Our discourse ought at all times to be free from profaneness, from speaking contemptuously of God and religion, from ridiculing things serious and sacred, from excusing, praising, and encouraging vice and immorality.
2. Another fault from which our conversation ought to be free, is immodest language.
3. In conversation, swearing is to be avoided, under which may be included curses and imprecations on ourselves and others.
4. In our conversation, lying is to be avoided, that is, an endeavour to deceive others, by making them to believe that to be true which we know or think to be false.
5. Our speech ought also to be free from railing and abusive language.
6. Our conversation should be free from slander and defamation.
7. Another defect in conversation consists in a compliance with the faults of others.
8. Another defect in conversation is to confine it to discourses which are vain, trifling, and altogether unprofitable.
9. Another fault from which our speech ought to be free, is ill-nature and pride, and that arrogance, positiveness, vain boasting, and rude contradiction which flow from these bad dispositions.
10. Another fault in conversation is garrulity, or that talkative humour which engrosses all the discourse to itself.
11. Another fault to be shunned is flattery, a fault by which we abase ourselves, and do hurt to those whose conceit and self-love we soothe and increase.
12. Another fault, in some respects like that before mentioned, is a perfidious insincerity, making great professions of esteem and friendship to persons whom we value not, and never intend to serve.
13. Lastly, there is a thing called banter and ridicule, which enters much into some conversations, and which whosoever shall condemn, runs the risk of provoking a malicious sort of people.
Let us consider, then, what are the proper subjects of our discourse.
1. There are many subjects which relate not directly to virtue and piety, and yet deserve not to be called trifles, subjects taken from our own affairs, from the common occurrences of life, from the various studies and employments which make the honest and innocent occupations of men.
2. There is moral and religious discourse which certainly agrees with the spirit of Christianity, but which the world generally dislikes and avoids as dull and unfashionable. (J. Jortin, D. D.)
Unprofitable speech
Madame Antoinette Sterling, when asked to go on the operatic stage, replied, “I cannot. I stand by every word I utter when I sing, and I feel I must to the death. It is not alone song with me--melodious sounds; it is the lesson inculcated: hope in the future, bright joys to come, the mercy of an all-wise God. I would not sing a wicked or a frivolous word before an audience for anything on earth.” (Francis Hay.)
