I sin not with my Tongue

Tis storied of Bembo, a primitive Christian, that coming to a friend to teach him a Psalm, he began to him the thirty-ninth, “I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my Tongue;” upon hearing of which first verse, he stopped his Tutor, saying, “This is enough for me, if I learn it as I ought”; and being after six months rebuked for not coming again, he replied, that he had not yet learned his first lesson: nay, after nineteen years he professed, that in that time he had scarce learned to fulfill that one line. I give not this instance to discourage, but rather to quicken men to the study; for a lesson that requires so much time to learn, had need be early begun with.

Preface to The Government of the Tongue by Richard Allestree