Endeavor to keep a due guard over your words, that you may habitually speak nothing but what is true on all occasions. Consider what a high offence it is against the God of truth to speak falsely, either through design or inadvertence.
In telling any story or relating past actions be careful to speak deliberately and calmly, ever remembering you are in the presence of the great and holy God. Every sin is a contradiction and offence to some divine attribute. Lying is opposite and offensive to the truth of God.
Whenever you find any extraordinary assistance from the Spirit of God, either by illuminating the mind, strengthening the soul or raising the affections, be sure for some time after to keep a stronger guard upon yourself. I have often observed that after the greatest enlargements in prayer and the greatest professions of devotedness to God, we are permitted to fall into great temptations.
I humbly conceive this to be commonly for one of these reasons: (1) to try the sincerity of the mind, to show us whether or not we are in our outward conversation the same we profess to be in our retirements; (2) to humble the mind, which upon such occasions is too apt to be elated.
