Sermon
_Exodus 20:16._You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
The tongue, which at first was made to be an organ of God's praise, is now become an instrument of unrighteousness. This commandment binds the tongue to its good behavior. God has set two fences to keep in the tongue, the teeth and lips. And this commandment is a third fence set about it, that it should not break forth into evil: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. This commandment has a prohibitory and a mandatory part. The first is set down in plain words, the other is clearly implied.
1. The prohibitory part of the commandment, or what it forbids in general. It forbids anything which may tend to the disparagement or prejudice of our neighbor. More particularly, two things are forbidden in this commandment. (1.) Slandering. (2.) False witness.
(1.) Slandering our neighbor. This is a sin against the ninth commandment. The scorpion carries his poison in his tail, the slanderer carries his poison in his tongue. Slandering is to report things of others unjustly. They laid things to my charge which I knew not (Psalm 35:11). It is usual to bring in a Christian beheaded of his good name. They raised a slander of Paul, that he should preach men might do evil that good might come of it. We are slanderously reported, and some affirm that we say, Let us do evil that good may come (Romans 3:8). Eminency is commonly blasted by slander. Holiness itself is no shield for slander. The lamb's innocency will not preserve it from the wolf. Christ was the most innocent upon earth, yet was reported to be a friend of sinners. John Baptist, a man of a holy austere life, yet they said of him, He had a devil (Matthew 11:18). The Scripture calls slandering, smiting with the tongue. Come and let us smite him with the tongue (Jeremiah 18:18). You may smite another and never touch him. Majora sunt linguae vulnera quam gladii. Augustine. The wounds of the tongue no physician can heal: and to pretend friendship to a man, yet slander him, is most odious. Saint Jerome speaks thus, The Arian faction made a show of kindness; they kissed my hands, but slandered me, and sought my life. And as it is a sin against this commandment to raise a false report of another, so it is a sin to receive a false report before we have examined it. Lord, who shall dwell in your holy hill? Quis ad Coelum? (Psalm 15:1). He that backbites not, nor takes up a reproach against his neighbor (Psalm 15:3). We must not only not raise a false report, but not take it up. He that raises a slander, carries the devil in his tongue; and he that receives it, carries the devil in his ear.
(2.) The second thing forbidden in this commandment is false witness. Here three sins are condemned. 1. Speaking. 2. Witnessing. 3. Swearing that which is false, contra proximum.
1. Speaking that which is false. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 12:22). To lie is to speak that which one knows to be an untruth. There is nothing more contrary to God than a lie. The Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of Truth (1 John 4:5-6). Lying is a sin that does not go alone, it ushers in other sins. Absalom told his father a lie, that he was going to pay his vow at Hebron (2 Samuel 15:7), and this lie was a preface to his treason. Where there is a lie in the tongue, it shows the devil is in the heart. Why has Satan filled your heart to lie? (Acts 5:3). Lying is such a sin as unfits men for civil society. How can you converse or bargain with him, that you cannot trust a word he says? This is a sin which highly provokes God. Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead for telling a lie (Acts 5:5). The furnace of hell is heated for liars. Without are sorcerers, and whoever loves and makes a lie (Revelation 22:15). Oh abhor this sin! Quicquid dixeris juratum putes. Jerome. When you speak, let your words be as authentic as your oath. Imitate God, who is the pattern of truth. Pythagoras being asked, What made men like God? Answered, Cum vera loquuntur, When they speak truth. It is made the character of a man that shall go to heaven, He speaks the truth from his heart (Psalm 15:2).
2. That which is condemned in the commandment, is [illegible], witnessing that which is false, You shall not bear false witness. There is a twofold bearing of false witness. (1.) There is a bearing false witness for another. (2.) A bearing false witness against another.
(1.) A bearing false witness for another. When we give our testimony for a person that is criminal and guilty, we justify him as if he were innocent. Which justify the wicked for reward (Isaiah 5:23). He that goes to make a wicked man just, makes himself unjust.
(2.) There is a bearing false witness against another: that is, when we accuse another in open court falsely. This is to imitate the devil, who is the accuser of the brethren. Though the devil is no adulterer, yet he is a false witness. Solomon says, A man that bears false witness against his neighbor, is a hammer and a sword (Proverbs 25:18). In his face he is hardened like a hammer, he cannot blush, he cares not what lie he witnesses to. And he is a sword: his tongue is a sword to wound him he witnesses against in his goods or life. Thus there came in two men, children of Belial, and witnessed against Naboth, saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king: and their witness took away his life (1 Kings 21:13). The queen of Persia being sick, the magicians accused two godly virgins, that they had by charms procured the queen's sickness; whereupon she caused these virgins to be sawn asunder. A false witness does pervert the place of judicature: he corrupts the jury; his bearing false witness makes them give in a false verdict: and he corrupts the judge, by making him pronounce a wrong sentence, and cause the innocent to suffer. Vengeance will find out the false witness. A false witness shall not be unpunished (Proverbs 19:5). If the witness be a false witness, and has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he had thought to have done to his brother: that is, if he had thought to have taken away his life, his own life shall go for it (Deuteronomy 19:18-19).
3. That which is condemned in the Commandment is swearing that which is false. When men take a false oath, and by that take away the life of another. Zechariah 8:17: Love no false oath. Chapter 5:2: What do you see? I said, A flying roll. Verses 3 and 4: This is the curse that goes forth, and it shall enter, inquit Dominus, into the house of him that swears falsely by my name, and it shall consume his house, with the timber and stones of it. The Scythians made a law that when a man did bind two sins together, a lie with an oath, he was to lose his head; because this sin did take away all truth and faith among men. The Devil has taken great possession of such who dare swear to a lie. This is a manifest breach of this Commandment.
Use 1. First Branch. It reproves the Church of Rome, who will dispense with a lie, or a false oath, if it be to promote the Catholic cause. They approve of an officious lie: they hold some lies to be lawful; they may as well hold some sins to be lawful. God has no need of our lie. It is not lawful to tell a lie, propter Dei gloriam, if we were sure to bring glory to God by it, as Augustine speaks.
Second Branch. 2. It reproves those who make no conscience of slandering others; they come under the breach of this Commandment. Psalm 50:20: You sit and slander your own mother's son. Jeremiah 20:10: Report, say they, and we will report. Ezra 4:15: This city (that is, Jerusalem) is a rebellious city, and hurtful to kings and provinces. Paul was slandered as a mover of sedition, and the head of a faction (Acts 24:5). The same word signifies both a slanderer and a devil (1 Timothy 3:11): Not slanderers. In the Greek, [in non-Latin alphabet], Not devils. Some think it is no great matter to misreport and slander others; know that this is [reconstructed: to] act the part of a devil. Clipping a man's credit to make it weigh lighter is worse than clipping of coin. The slanderer wounds three at once: he wounds him that he slanders, and he wounds him to whom he reports the slander, by causing uncharitable thoughts to arise in his mind against the party slandered; and he wounds his own soul, by reporting that of another which is false. This is a great sin, and I would I could not say it is common. You may kill a man as well in his name as in his person. Some are loath to take away their neighbors' goods, conscience would fly in their face: but better take away their corn out of their field, their wares out of their shop, than take away their good name. This is a sin you can never make them reparation for; a blot in a man's name being like a blot in a white paper, which will never be got out. Surely God will visit for this sin. If idle words shall be accounted for, shall not unjust slanders? The Lord will make inquisition one day as well for names as for blood. Oh therefore take heed of this sin! It is a breach of the Ninth Commandment. Was it a sin under the law to defame a virgin (Deuteronomy 22:19), and is it not a greater sin to defame a saint, who is a member of Christ? The Heathens, by the light of nature, abhorred this sin of slandering. Diogenes used to say, Of all wild beasts, a slanderer is the worst. Antoninus made a law that if a person could not prove the crime he reported another to be guilty of, he should be put to death.
Third Branch. 3. It reproves them who are so wicked as to bear false witness against others. These are monsters in nature, unfit to live in a civil society. Eusebius relates of one Narcissus, a man famous for piety, who was accused by two false witnesses of unchastity, and to prove their accusation, they bound it with oaths and curses after this manner: one said, If I speak not true, I pray God I may perish by fire; the other said, If I do not speak true, I wish I may be deprived of my sight. It pleased God that the first witness who forswore himself, his house being set on fire, he was burnt in the flame. The other witness being troubled in conscience, confessed his perjury, and continued so long weeping that he wept himself blind. Jezebel, who suborned two false witnesses against Naboth, she was thrown down out of a window, and the dogs licked her blood (2 Kings 9:33). O tremble at this sin! A perjured person is the devil's excrement. He is cursed in his name, and seared in his conscience. Hell gapes for such a windfall.
Use 2. First Branch. Exhortation. To all, to take heed of the breach of this Commandment, of lying, slandering, and bearing false witness, and to avoid these sins,
1. Get the fear of God. Why does David say, The fear of the Lord is clean (Psalm 19:8)? Because it cleanses the heart of malice, it cleanses the tongue of slander. The fear of the Lord is clean. It is to the soul as lightning to the air, which cleanses it.
2. Get love to your neighbor (Leviticus 19:18). Then there would not be [in non-Latin alphabet]. If we love a friend, we will not speak or attest anything to his prejudice. Men's minds are cankered with envy and hatred: hence comes slandering and false witness. Love is a lovely grace. Love thinks no evil (1 Corinthians 13:5). It makes the best interpretation of another's words. Love is a well-wisher, and it is rare to speak ill of him we wish well to. Love is that which cements Christians together; it is the healer of division, and the hinderer of slander.
2nd Branch: To such whose lot it is to meet with slanderers and false accusers — (1.) Labor to make a sanctified use of it. When Shimei railed on David, David made a sanctified use of it (2 Samuel 16:10). The Lord has said to him, Curse David. So if you are slandered, or falsely accused, make a good use of it. See if you have no sin unrepented of, for which God may suffer you to be calumniated and reproached. See if you have not at any time wronged others in their name, and said that of them which you cannot prove, then lay your hand on your mouth, and confess the Lord is righteous to let you fall under the scourge of the tongue. (2.) If you are slandered, or falsely accused, but know your own innocency, be not too much troubled: let this be your rejoicing, the witness of your conscience. Murus aheneus esto nil conscire sibi — A good conscience is a wall of brass, that will be able to stand against all false witness. As no flattery can heal a bad conscience, so no slander can hurt a good. God will clear up the names of his people (Psalm 37:6). He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light. God, as he will wipe away tears from the eyes, so he will wipe off reproach from the name. Believers shall come forth out of all their slanders and reproaches as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.
3rd Branch: It should exhort such to be very thankful to God, whom God has preserved from slander and false witness. Job calls it the scourge of the tongue (Job 5:21). As a rod does scourge the back, so the slanderer's tongue does scourge the name. It is a great mercy to be kept from the scourge of the tongue; a mercy that God stops malignant mouths from bearing false witness. What mischief may not a lying report, or a false oath do? One destroys the name, the other the life. It is the Lord that muzzles the mouths of the wicked, and keeps these dogs that snarl at us from flying upon us (Psalm 31:20). You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. It is, I suppose, an allusion to kings, who being resolved to protect their favorites against the accusations of men, take them into their bed-chamber, or bosom, where none may touch them. So God has a pavilion, or secret hiding-place for his favorites, where he preserves their credit and reputation untouched; he keeps them from the strife of tongues. This is a mercy we ought to acknowledge to God.
2. The mandatory part of this commandment implied, that is, that we should stand up for others, and vindicate them when they are injured by lying lips. This is the sense of the commandment, not only that we should not slander, or falsely accuse others, but that we should witness for them, and stand up in their defense when we know them to be traduced. A man may wrong another as well by silence as slander; when he knows him to be wrongfully accused, yet does not speak in his behalf. If others cast false aspersions on any, we should wipe them off. The Apostles (who were filled with the wine of Spirit) being charged with drunkenness, Peter was their compurgator, and openly cleared their innocency (Acts 2:15). These are not drunken as you suppose. Jonathan knowing David to be a worthy man, and all those things Saul said of him to be slanders, vindicated David (1 Samuel 19:4-5). David has not sinned against you, but his works toward you have been very good. Why then will you sin against innocent blood, and slay David without a cause. When the primitive Christians were falsely accused for incest, and killing their children, Tertullian made a famous apology in their vindication. This is to act the part both of a friend and a Christian: to be an advocate for another, when he is wronged in his good name.
