[3.] When the honour and good name of an innocent person cannot be maintained, unless by divulging the crimes of the guilty, he that, in this case, has forfeited his good name, ought to lose it, rather than he that has not. We shall close this head by considering what reason we have to endeavour to maintain the good name of others. To take away our neighbour’s good name, is to take away one of the most valuable privileges he is possessed of, the loss whereof may be inexpressibly detrimental to him. And sometimes it may affect his secular interest; so that hereby we may be said to take away his wealth and outward estate, and prevent his usefulness in that station of life in which providence has fixed him. Accordingly we are to express a due concern for the honour and reputation of others as well as ourselves. Thus concerning the duties required in this Commandment. II. We proceed to consider the sins forbidden therein; which are contained in that general expression bearing false witness: This may either respect ourselves or others. A person may be said to bear false witness against himself; and that either in thinking too highly or meanly of himself; in the former respect we value ourselves, or our supposed attainments, either in gifts or graces, too much, in which we are, for the most part, mistaken, and pass a wrong judgment on them, and are ready to say, with the church at Laodicea, _I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that we are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked_, Rev. iii. 17. These, on the one hand, mistake the common gifts of the Spirit, for grace, and conclude themselves to be something, when they are nothing: And, on the other hand, many conclude, that they have no grace, and rank themselves among hypocrites and unbelievers, when their hearts are right with God, and they have had large experience of the powerful influences of his Spirit, but are not sensible thereof. Thus Christ says to the church in Smyrna, _I know thy poverty; but thou art rich_, chap. ii. 9. In these respects persons may be said to bear false witness against themselves. But that which is principally forbidden in this Commandment, is, a person’s bearing false witness against his neighbour; and that when he either endeavours to deceive, or do him prejudice, as to his reputation in the world; the one is called lying, the other back-biting or slandering. As to the former of these, when we speak that which is contrary to what we know to be truth, with a design to deceive, this is what we call telling a lye; and when we act that which is contrary to truth, it may be deemed a practical lye; both of which are very great sins.