“Resolved, never to speak evil of anyone, so that it shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good” (Resolution 16).
The Scripture tells us to watch our lips and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are expressly told that every careless word will be brought into judgment (Mt 12:36). We are told that every thing that we do for the least of them we are doing for Christ and what we don’t do for the least of them we don’t do for Christ (Mat 25). We are told that to call people certain name are violations of the sixth commandment and are at least linked with murder in the heart. “When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, But he who restrains his lips is wise” (Prov 10:19). Without doubt our words are very important.
When Isaiah saw the Lord in Isaiah 6 his view was turned to himself and what he saw was that his lips where unclean and that he lived among a people of unclean lips. I think that what this shows is that Isaiah knew at that moment that his heart was vile and that what came from his inner man made him unclean. This was what Jesus spoke of in Mark 7: “20 And He was saying, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. 21 “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, 22 deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. 23 “All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.” It is what comes from within the man that defiles the man.
As we take these verses and apply them to Edwards’ resolution, we can see why he did not want to speak evil of anyone in order to dishonor them. Certainly that is against the Golden Rule and the commandments. But he also did not want to sin against God either. In David’s confession of his sin with Bathsheba and his part in her husband’s murder he confessed that he had only sinned against God (Psalm 51:4). If we speak evil of others we are guilty of murder as Jesus set out and so our sin is really against God. When we speak evil of others we are speaking against the image of God since all men are made in His image. We would do well to watch our mouths and what we say as well.
But another reason that we should want to emulate Edwards in this is because we should desire pure hearts. We should want to have hearts that love others and even our worst enemies. We are commanded to love the sheep of Christ and we are commanded to love our enemies. Can we love others and speak evil of them at the same time? This is not to say that we have to speak with syrup on our lips all of the time, but we need to be wary of speaking evil against others because each time we do we violate the Greatest Commandment and the Second Greatest Commandment as well. A desire for a pure heart and to love God and all people should make us keep a close watch on our lips. The tongue “is a restless evil and full of deadly poison” (James 3:8). When we speak evil of men we are striking at them with a deadly poison that is perhaps worse than vipers.
We must also be careful not to speak evil of people because of the influence our sin will have on the people that are listening. Our words sink to the depths of their being and certainly have some influence on the purity of heart in other people. We certainly do not love anyone when we speak evil of others and dishonor them with our lips. One, we sin against God because we are verbally attacking His image. Two, we wrong the person that we are speaking against when we dishonor them before others. Three, we dishonor the person we are speaking to in that we are not loving them and being a bad example to them. We also are possibly putting wrong ideas in them by our words that they will use to sin against others with. Four, we certainly dishonor ourselves. So we can see why Edwards resolved never to speak evil of anyone unless it would bring about some real good. If this same resolution was practices in churches across our land, it would certainly result in greater peace and harmony.
God Loves... Himself 
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