Sermons on Evil Speaking - Isaac Barrow
SERMONS ON EVIL SPEAKING
BY ISAAC BARROW, D.D.
CONTENTS.
Introduction by Professor Henry Morley.
Against Foolish Talking and Jesting.
Against Rash and Vain Swearing.
Of Evil-speaking in General.
The Folly of Slander. Part 1.
The Folly of Slander. Part 2.
INTRODUCTION.
Isaac Barrow was born in London in 1630. His father was draper to
the king. His mother died when he was four years old. He was named
Isaac after an uncle, who died in 1680, Bishop of St. Asaph. Young
Isaac Barrow was educated at the Charterhouse School, and at
Felstead, before he went, in 1643, to Cambridge. He entered first
at Peterhouse, where his uncle Isaac was a Fellow, but at that time
his uncle was ejected from his Fellowship for loyalty to the King's
cause, and removed to Oxford; the nephew, who entered at Cambridge,
therefore avoided Peterhouse, and went to Trinity College. Young
Barrow's father also was at Oxford, where he gave up all his worldly
means in service of the King.
The young student at Cambridge did not conceal his royalist feeling,
but obtained, nevertheless, a scholarship at Trinity, with some
exemptions from the Puritan requirements of subscription. He took
his B.A. degree in 1648, and in 1649 was elected to a fellowship of
Trinity, on the same day with his most intimate college friend John
Ray, the botanist. Ray held in the next year several college
offices; was made in 1651 lecturer in Greek, and in 1653 lecturer in
Mathematics. Barrow proceeded to his M.A. in 1652, and was admitted
to the same degree at Oxford in 1653. In 1654, Dr. Dupont, who had
been tutor to Barrow and Ray, and held the University Professorship
of Greek, resigned, and used his interest, without success, to get
Barrow appointed in his place. Isaac Barrow was then a young man of
four-and-twenty, with the courage of his opinions in politics and in
church questions, which were not the opinions of those in power.
In 1655 Barrow left Cambridge, having sold his books to raise money
for travel. He went to Paris, where his father was with other
royalists, and gave some help to his father. Then he went on to
Italy, made stay at Florence, and on a voyage from Leghorn to Smyrna
stood to a gun in fight with a pirate ship from Algiers that was
beaten off. At college and upon his travels Barrow was helped by
the liberality of public spirited men who thought him worth their
aid. He went on to Constantinople, where he studied the Greek
Fathers of the Church; and he spent more than a year in Turkey. He
returned through Germany and Holland, reached England in the year
before the Restoration, and then, at the age of twenty-nine, he
entered holy orders, for which in all his studies he had been
preparing.
The Cambridge Greek Professorship, which had before been denied him,
was obtained by Barrow immediately after the Restoration. Soon
afterwards he was chosen to be Professor of Geometry at Gresham
College. In 1663 he preached the sermon in Westminster Abbey at the
consecration of his uncle, Isaac, as Bishop of St. Asaph. In that
year also he became, at Cambridge, the first Lucasian Professor of
Mathematics, for which office he resigned his post at Gresham
College.
As Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, Isaac Barrow had among his
pupils Isaac Newton. Newton succeeded to the chair in 1669. Barrow
resigned because he feared that the duties of the mathematical chair
drew his thoughts too much from the duties of the pulpit, towards
the full performance of which he had desired all studies to be aids.
He was then intent upon the writing of an "Exposition of the Creed,
Decalogue, and Sacraments." He held a prebend in Salisbury
Cathedral, and a living in Wales, that yielded little for his
support after the Professorship had been resigned. But he was one
of the King's chaplains, was made D.D. by the King in 1670, and in
1672 he was appointed Master of Trinity by Charles II., who said,
when he appointed Isaac Barrow, "that he gave the post to the best
scholar in England." Barrow was Vice-Chancellor of the University
when he died in 1677, during a visit to London on the business of
his college.
The sermons here given were first published in 1678, in a volume
entitled "Several Sermons against Evil-speaking." That volume
contained ten sermons, of which the publisher said that "the two
last, against pragmaticalness and meddling in the affairs of others,
do not so properly belong to this subject." The sermons here given
follow continuously, beginning with the second in the series. The
text of the first sermon was "If any man offend not in word, he is a
perfect man." The texts to the last three were: "Speak not evil
one of another, brethren;" "Judge not;" and "That ye study to be
quiet, and to do your own business."
There were also published in 1678, the year after Barrow's death, a
sermon preached by him on the Good Friday before he died, a volume
of "Twelve Sermons preached upon several Occasions," and the second
edition of a sermon on the "Duty and Reward of Bounty to the Poor."
Barrow's works were collected by Archbishop Tillotson, and
published, in four folio volumes, in the years 1683-1687. There
were other editions in three folios in 1716, in 1722, and in 1741.
Dr. Dibdin said of Barrow that he "had the clearest head with which
mathematics ever endowed an individual, and one of the purest and
most unsophisticated hearts that ever beat in the human breast." In
these sermons against Evil Speaking he distinguishes as clearly as
Shakespeare does between the playfulness of kindly mirth that draws
men nearer to each other and the words that make division. No man
was more free than Isaac Barrow from the spirit of unkindness. The
man speaks in these sermons. Yet he could hold his own in wit with
the light triflers of the court of Charles the Second. It is of him
that the familiar story is told of a playful match at mock courtesy
with the Earl of Rochester, who meeting Dr. Barrow near the king's
chamber bowed low, saying, "I am yours, doctor, to the knee
strings." Barrow (bowing lower), "I am yours, my lord, to the shoe-
tie." Rochester: "Yours, doctor, down to the ground." Barrow:
"Yours, my lord, to the centre of the earth." Rochester (not to be
out-done): "Yours, doctor, to the lowest pit of hell." Barrow:
"There, my lord, I must leave you."
Barrow's mathematical power gave clearness to his sermons, which
were full of sense and piety. They were very carefully written,
copied and recopied, and now rank with the most valued pieces of the
literature of the pulpit. He was deeply religious, although he had,
besides learning, a lively wit, and never lost the pluck that taught
him how to man a gun against a pirate. He was "low of stature,
lean, and of a pale complexion," so untidy that on one occasion his
appearance in the pulpit is said to have caused half the
congregation to go out of church. He gave his whole mind and his
whole soul to his work for God. Mythical tales are told of the
length of some of his sermons, at a time when an hour's sermon was
not considered long. Of one charity-sermon the story is that it
lasted three hours and a half, and that Barrow was requested to
print it--"with the other half which he had not had time to
deliver." But we may take this tale as one of the quips at which
Barrow himself would have laughed very good-humouredly.
H. M.
SERMONS ON EVIL-SPEAKING.
AGAINST FOOLISH TALKING AND JESTING.
"Nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient."--
Ephes. v.4.
Moral and political aphorisms are seldom couched in such terms that
they should be taken as they sound precisely, or according to the
widest extent of signification; but do commonly need exposition, and
admit exception: otherwise frequently they would not only clash
with reason and experience, but interfere, thwart, and supplant one
another. The best masters of such wisdom are wont to interdict
things, apt by unseasonable or excessive use to be perverted, in
general forms of speech, leaving the restrictions, which the case
may require or bear, to be made by the hearer's or interpreter's
discretion; whence many seemingly formal prohibitions are to be
received only as sober cautions. This observation may be
particularly supposed applicable to this precept of St. Paul, which
seemeth universally to forbid a practice commended (in some cases
and degrees) by philosophers as virtuous, not disallowed by reason,
commonly affected by men, often used by wise and good persons; from
which consequently, if our religion did wholly debar us, it would
seem chargeable with somewhat too uncouth austerity and sourness:
from imputations of which kind as in its temper and frame it is
really most free (it never quenching natural light or cancelling the
dictates of sound reason, but confirming and improving them); so it
carefully declineth them, enjoining us that "if there be any things"
[Greek] ("lovely," or grateful to men), "any things" [Greek] ("of
good report" and repute), "if there be any virtue and any praise"
(anything in the common apprehensions of men held worthy and
laudable), we should "mind those things," that is, should yield them
a regard answerable to the esteem they carry among rational and
sober persons.
Whence it may seem requisite so to interpret and determine St.
Paul's meaning here concerning eutrapelia (that is, facetious
speech, or raillery, by our translators rendered "jesting"), that he
may consist with himself, and be reconciled to Aristotle, who
placeth this practice in the rank of virtues; or that religion and
reason may well accord in the case: supposing that, if there be any
kind of facetiousness innocent and reasonable, conformable to good
manners (regulated by common sense, and consistent with the tenor of
Christian duty, that is, not transgressing the bounds of piety,
charity, and sobriety), St. Paul did not intend to discountenance or
prohibit that kind.
For thus expounding and limiting his intent we have some warrant
from himself, some fair intimations in the words here. For first,
what sort of facetious speech he aimeth at, he doth imply by the
fellow he coupleth therewith; [Greek], saith he, [Greek] (foolish
talking, or facetiousness): such facetiousness therefore he
toucheth as doth include folly, in the matter or manner thereof.
Then he further determineth it, by adjoining a peculiar quality
thereof, unprofitableness, or impertinency; [Greek] (which are not
pertinent), or conducible to any good purpose: whence may be
collected that it is a frivolous and idle sort of facetiousness
which he condemneth.
But, however, manifest it is that some kind thereof he doth
earnestly forbid: whence, in order to the guidance of our practice,
it is needful to distinguish the kinds, severing that which is
allowable from that which is unlawful; that so we may be satisfied
in the case, and not on the one hand ignorantly transgress our duty,
nor on the other trouble ourselves with scruples, others with
censures, upon the use of warrantable liberty therein.
And such a resolution seemeth indeed especially needful in this our
age (this pleasant and jocular age) which is so infinitely addicted
to this sort of speaking, that it scarce doth affect or prize
anything near so much; all reputation appearing now to veil and
stoop to that of being a wit: to be learned, to be wise, to be
good, are nothing in comparison thereto; even to be noble and rich
are inferior things, and afford no such glory. Many at least (to
purchase this glory, to be deemed considerable in this faculty, and
enrolled among the wits) do not only make shipwreck of conscience,
abandon virtue, and forfeit all pretences to wisdom; but neglect
their estates, and prostitute their honour: so to the private
damage of many particular persons, and with no small prejudice to
the public, are our times possessed and transported with this
humour. To repress the excess and extravagance whereof, nothing in
way of discourse can serve better than a plain declaration when and
how such a practice is allowable or tolerable; when it is wicked and
vain, unworthy of a man endued with reason, and pretending to
honesty or honour.
This I shall in some measure endeavour to perform.
But first it may be demanded what the thing we speak of is, or what
this facetiousness doth import? To which question I might reply as
Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man, "'Tis that
which we all see and know": any one better apprehends what it is by
acquaintance than I can inform him by description. It is indeed a
thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so
many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several
eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear
and certain notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or
to define the figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat
allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial
saying, or in forging an apposite tale: sometimes it playeth in
words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their
sense, or the affinity of their sound: sometimes it is wrapped in a
dress of humorous expression; sometimes it lurketh under an odd
similitude; sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart
answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly
diverting, or cleverly retorting an objection: sometimes it is
couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty
hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of
contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical
representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical
look or gesture passeth for it: sometimes an affected simplicity,
sometimes a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being; sometimes it
riseth from a lucky hitting upon what is strange, sometimes from a
crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose: often it consisteth
in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how.
Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answerable to the
numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language. It is in
short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way (such as
reason teacheth and proveth things by), which by a pretty surprising
uncouthness in conceit or expression doth affect and amuse the
fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breeding some delight
thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying a nimble sagacity of
apprehension, a special felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit,
and reach of wit more than vulgar: it seeming to argue a rare
quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote conceits
applicable; a notable skill, that he can dexterously accommodate
them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of
humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination.
(Whence in Aristotle such persons are termed [Greek], dexterous men;
and [Greek], men of facile or versatile manners, who can easily turn
themselves to all things, or turn all things to themselves.) It also
procureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness or
semblance of difficulty (as monsters, not for their beauty, but
their rarety; as juggling tricks, not for their use, but their
abstruseness, are beheld with pleasure) by diverting the mind from
its road of serious thoughts; by instilling gaiety and airiness of
spirit; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of
emulation or complaisance; and by seasoning matters, otherwise
distasteful or insipid, with an unusual, and thence grateful tang.
But saying no more concerning what it is, and leaving it to your
imagination and experience to supply the defect of such explication,
I shall address myself to show, first, when and how such a manner of
speaking may be allowed; then, in what matters and ways it should be
condemned.
1. Such facetiousness is not absolutely unreasonable or unlawful,
which ministereth harmless divertisement, and delight to
conversation (harmless, I say, that is, not entrenching upon piety,
not infringing charity or justice, not disturbing peace). For
Christianity is not so tetrical, so harsh, so envious, as to bar us
continually from innocent, much less from wholesome and useful
pleasure, such as human life doth need or require. And if jocular
discourse may serve to good purposes of this kind; if it may be apt
to raise our drooping spirits, to allay our irksome cares, to whet
our blunted industry, to recreate our minds being tired and cloyed
with graver occupations; if it may breed alacrity, or maintain good
humour among us; if it may conduce to sweeten conversation and
endear society; then is it not inconvenient, or unprofitable. If
for those ends we may use other recreations, employing on them our
ears and eyes, our hands and feet, our other instruments of sense
and motion, why may we not as well to them accommodate our organs of
speech and interior sense? Why should those games which excite our
wits and fancies be less reasonable than those whereby our grosser
parts and faculties are exercised? Yea, why are not those more
reasonable, since they are performed in a manly way, and have in
them a smack of reason; feeling also they may be so managed, as not
only to divert and please, but to improve and profit the mind,
rousing and quickening it, yea sometimes enlightening and
instructing it, by good sense conveyed in jocular expression?
It would surely be hard that we should be tied ever to knit the
brow, and squeeze the brain (to be always sadly dumpish, or
seriously pensive), that all divertisement of mirth and pleasantness
should be shut out of conversation; and how can we better relieve
our minds, or relax our thoughts, how can we be more ingenuously
cheerful, in what more kindly way can we exhilarate ourselves and
others, than by thus sacrificing to the Graces, as the ancients
called it? Are not some persons always, and all persons sometimes,
incapable otherwise to divert themselves, than by such discourse?
Shall we, I say, have no recreation? or must our recreations be ever
clownish, or childish, consisting merely in rustical efforts, or in
petty sleights of bodily strength and activity? Were we, in fine,
obliged ever to talk like philosophers, assigning dry reasons for
everything, and dropping grave sentences upon all occasions, would
it not much deaden human life, and make ordinary conversation
exceedingly to languish? Facetiousness therefore in such cases, and
to such purposes, may be allowable.
2. Facetiousness is allowable when it is the most proper instrument
of exposing things apparently base and vile to due contempt. It is
many times expedient, that things really ridiculous should appear
such, that they may be sufficiently loathed and shunned; and to
render them such is the part of a facetious wit, and usually can
only be compassed thereby. When to impugn them with down-right
reason, or to check them by serious discourse, would signify
nothing, then representing them in a shape strangely ugly to the
fancy, and thereby raising derision at them, may effectually
discountenance them. Thus did the prophet Elias expose the wicked
superstition of those who worshipped Baal: "Elias (saith the text)
mocked them, and said, 'Cry aloud; for he is a god, either he is
talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure
he sleeps, and must be awaked.'" By which one pregnant instance it
appeareth that reasoning pleasantly-abusive in some cases may be
useful. The Holy Scripture doth not indeed use it frequently (it
not suiting the Divine simplicity and stately gravity thereof to do
so); yet its condescension thereto at any time sufficiently doth
authorise a cautious use thereof. When sarcastic twitches are
needful to pierce the thick skins of men, to correct their lethargic
stupidity, to rouse them out of their drowsy negligence, then may
they well be applied when plain declarations will not enlighten
people to discern the truth and weight of things, and blunt
arguments will not penetrate to convince or persuade them to their
duty, then doth reason freely resign its place to wit, allowing it
to undertake its work of instruction and reproof.
3. Facetious discourse particularly may be commodious for reproving
some vices, and reclaiming some persons (as salt for cleansing and
curing some sores). It commonly procureth a more easy access to the
ears of men, and worketh a stronger impression on their hearts, than
other discourse could do. Many who will not stand a direct reproof,
and cannot abide to be plainly admonished of their fault, will yet
endure to be pleasantly rubbed, and will patiently bear a jocund
wipe; though they abominate all language purely bitter or sour, yet
they can relish discourse having in it a pleasant tartness. You
must not chide them as their master, but you may gibe with them as
their companion. If you do that, they will take you for pragmatical
and haughty; this they may interpret friendship and freedom. Most
men are of that temper; and particularly the genius of divers
persons, whose opinions and practices we should strive to correct,
doth require not a grave and severe, but a free and merry way of
treating them. For what can be more unsuitable and unpromising,
than to seem serious with those who are not so themselves, or demure
with the scornful? If we design either to please or vex them into
better manners, we must be as sportful in a manner, or as
contemptuous as themselves. If we mean to be heard by them, we must
talk in their own fashion, with humour and jollity; if we will
instruct them, we must withal somewhat divert them: we must seem to
play with them if we think to convey any sober thoughts into them.
They scorn to be formally advised or taught; but they may perhaps be
slily laughed and lured into a better mind. If by such complaisance
we can inveigle those dottrels to hearken to us, we may induce them
to consider farther, and give reason some competent scope, some fair
play with them. Good reason may be apparelled in the garb of wit,
and therein will securely pass whither in its native homeliness it
could never arrive: and being come thither, it with especial
advantage may impress good advice, making an offender more clearly
to see, and more deeply to feel his miscarriage; being represented
to his fancy in a strain somewhat rare and remarkable, yet not so
fierce and frightful. The severity of reproof is tempered, and the
reprover's anger disguised thereby. The guilty person cannot but
observe that he who thus reprehends him is not disturbed or out of
humour, and that he rather pitieth than hateth him; which breedeth a
veneration to him, and imparteth no small efficacy to his wholesome
suggestions. Such a reprehension, while it forceth a smile without,
doth work remorse within; while it seemeth to tickle the ear, doth
sting the heart. In fine, many whose foreheads are brazed and
hearts steeled against all blame, are yet not of proof against
derision; divers, who never will be reasoned, may be rallied in
better order: in which cases raillery, as an instrument of so
important good, as a servant of the best charity, may be allowed.
4. Some errors likewise in this way may be most properly and most
successfully confuted; such as deserve not, and hardly can bear a
serious and solid confutation. He that will contest things
apparently decided by sense and experience, or who disavows clear
principles of reason, approved by general consent and the common
sense of men, what other hopeful way is there of proceeding with
him, than pleasantly to explode his conceits? To dispute seriously
with him were trifling; to trifle with him is the proper course.
Since he rejecteth the grounds of reasoning, 'tis vain to be in
earnest; what then remains but to jest with him? To deal seriously
were to yield too much respect to such a baffler, and too much
weight to his fancies; to raise the man too high in his courage and
conceit; to make his pretences seem worthy the considering and
canvassing. Briefly, perverse obstinacy is more easily quelled,
petulant impudence is sooner dashed, sophistical captiousness is
more safely eluded, sceptical wantonness is more surely confounded
in this than in the simple way of discourse.
5. This way is also commonly the best way of defence against unjust
reproach and obloquy. To yield to a slanderous reviler a serious
reply, or to make a formal plea against his charge, doth seem to
imply that we much consider or deeply resent it; whereas by pleasant
reflection on it we signify the matter only deserves contempt, and
that we take ourselves unconcerned therein. So easily without care
or trouble may the brunts of malice be declined or repelled.