is to make a noise therewith.
Faith. Say you so? Then am I in this man greatly deceived.
Chr. Deceived! you may be sure of it. Remember the proverb, “They say and do not;” but “the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.” He talketh of prayer, of repentance, of faith, and of the new birth; but he knows but only to talk of them. I have been in his family, and have observed him both at home and abroad; and I know what I say of him is the truth. His house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of savor. There is there neither prayer, nor sign of repentance for sin; yea, the brute in his kind serves God far better than he. He is the very stain, reproach, and shame of religion to all that know him; it can hardly have a good word in all that end of the town, where he dwells, through him. Thus say the common people that know him, “A saint abroad, and a devil at home.” His poor family finds it so; he is so unreasonable with his servants, that they neither know how to do for or speak to him. Men that have any dealings with him say, “It is better to deal with a Turk than with him, for fairer dealings they shall have at their hands.” This Talkative (if it be possible) will go beyond them, defraud, beguile, and overreach them. Besides, he brings up his sons to follow his steps; and if he finds in any of them a foolish timorousness (for so he calls the first appearance of a tender conscience), he calls them fools and blockheads, and by no means will employ them in much, or speak to their commendation before others. For my part, I am of opinion that he has, by his wicked life, caused many to stumble and fall; and will be, if God prevents not, the ruin of many more.
Faith. Well, my brother, I am bound to believe you, not only because you say you know him, but also because, like a Christian, you make your reports of men. For I cannot think that you speak these things of ill-will, but because it is even so as you say.
Chr. Had I known him no more than you, I might, perhaps, have thought of him as at the first you did; yea, had I received this report at their hands only that are enemies to religion, I should have thought it had been a slander—a lot that often falls from bad men’s mouths upon good men’s names and professions. But all these things, yea, and a great many more as bad, of my own knowledge, I can prove him guilty of! Besides, good men are ashamed of him; they can neither call him brother or friend; the very naming of him among them makes them blush, if they know him.
Faith. Well, I see that saying and doing are two things, and hereafter I shall better observe this distinction.
Chr. They are two things, indeed, and are as different as are the soul and the body; for as the body without the soul is but a dead carcass, so saying, if it be alone, is but a dead carcass also. The soul of religion is the practical part. “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” This Talkative is not aware of; he thinks that hearing and saying will make a good Christian; and thus he deceiveth his own soul. Hearing is but as the sowing of the seed; talk is not sufficient to prove that fruit is indeed in the heart and life. And let us assure ourselves, that at the day of doom men shall be judged according to their fruits. It will not be said then, Did you believe? but, Were you doers, or talkers only? and accordingly shall they be judged. The end of the world is compared to our harvest, and you know men at harvest regard nothing but fruit. Not that anything can be accepted that is not of faith; but I speak this to show you how insignificant the profession of Talkative will be at that day.
Faith. Well, I was not so fond of his company at first, but I am as sick of it now. What shall we do to be rid of him?
Chr. Take my advice, and do as I bid you, and you shall find that he will soon be sick of your company, too, except God shall touch his heart, and turn it.
Faith. What would you have me do?
Chr. Why, go to him, and enter into some serious discourse about the power of religion; and ask him plainly (when he has approved of it, for that he will), whether this thing be set up in his heart, house, or conversation.
Then Faithful stepped forward again, and said to Talkative, Come, what cheer? How is it now?
Talk. Thank you, well: I thought we should have had a great deal of talk by this time.
Faith. Well, if you will, we will fall to it now; and since you left it with me to state the question, let it be this.
Talk. I perceive, then, that our talk must be about the power of things. Well, it is a very good question, and I shall be willing to answer you. And take my answer in brief, thus: First, where the grace of God is in the heart, it causeth there a great outcry against sin. Secondly—
Faith. Nay, hold; let us consider of one at once. I think you should rather say, It shows itself by inclining the soul to abhor its sin.
Talk. Why, what difference is there between crying out against sin, and the abhorring of sin?
Faith. Oh! a great deal. A man may cry out against sin, of policy; but he can not abhor it but by virtue of a godly antipathy against it. I have heard many cry out against sin in the pulpit, who can yet abide it well enough in the heart, house, and conversation. Some cry out against sin, even as the mother cries out against her child in her lap, when she calleth it naughty girl, and then falls to hugging and kissing it.
Standeth your religion in word or tongue, and not in deed and truth? Pray, if you incline to answer me this, say no more than you know the God above will say Amen to, and also nothing but what your conscience can justify you in; for not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth. Besides, to say I am thus and thus, when my conversation, and all my neighbors, tell me I lie, is great wickedness.
Then Talkative at first began to blush; but recovering himself, he thus replied: You come now to experience, to conscience, and to God; and to appeal to Him for justification of what is spoken. This kind of discourse I did not expect; nor am I disposed to give an answer to such questions, because I count not myself bound thereto, unless you take upon you to be a catechiser; and though you should so do, yet I may refuse to make you my judge. But I pray, will you tell me why you ask me such questions?
Faith. Because I saw you forward to talk, and because I knew not that you were really in earnest. Besides, to tell you the truth, I have heard of you that you are a man whose religion lies in talk, and that your conversation gives this your mouth-profession the lie. They say you are a spot among Christians, and that religion fareth the worse for your ungodly conversation; that some have already stumbled at your wicked ways, and that more are in danger of being destroyed thereby: your religion, and an ale-house, and covetousness and uncleanness, and swearing, and lying, and vain company-keeping will stand together.
Talk. Since you are so ready to take up reports, and to judge as rashly as you do, I cannot but conclude you are some peevish or melancholy man, not fit to talk to; and so farewell.
Then up came Christian, and said to his brother, I told you how it would happen; your words and his lusts could not agree. He had rather leave your company than reform his life. But he is gone, as I said: let him go; the loss is no man’s but his own. He has saved us the trouble of going from him; for he continuing (as I suppose he will do) as he is, would have been but a blot in our company: besides, the Apostle says, “From such withdraw thyself.”
Faith. But I am glad we had this little discourse with him; it may happen that he will think of it again: however, I have dealt plainly with him, and so am clear of his blood if he perisheth.
Chr. You did well to talk so plainly to him as you did. There is but little of this faithful dealing with men now-a-days, and that makes religion a stench in the nostrils of so many as it doth; for they are these talkative fools, whose religion is only in word, and who are debauched and vain in their conversation,
