A wholesome tongue [is] a tree of life
A tongue that delivers out salutary instructions, wholesome
advice and counsel; a "healing tongue" F23, as it
may be rendered, which pacifies contending parties, and heals the
divisions between them; to have the benefit of such a man's
company and conversation is like being in paradise. Such is the
tongue of a Gospel minister, which delivers out the wholesome
words of our Lord Jesus Christ; sound speech and doctrines, which
cannot be condemned; healing truths to wounded consciences, such
as peace, pardon, righteousness, and atonement by the blood of
Christ. These are the means of quickening dead sinners, reviving
and comforting distressed ones, and show the way of eternal life
unto them; but perverseness therein [is] a breach in the
spirit;
impure, unchaste, unsavoury, and corrupt language, does mischief
to the spirits of men; evil communications corrupt the heart and
manners, defile the soul and the conversation; these and unsound
doctrines eat as a canker; and as they make the heart of God's
people sad, whom he would not have made sad; so they bring
distress and despair into the spirits of others, and make sad
wounds and breaches there, which are never healed, and that both
in the spirits of speakers and hearers; for damnable heresies
bring swift destruction on the propagators of them, and them that
receive them.