If gentlemen would regard the virtues of their ancestors, the
founders of their quality--that gallant courage and solid wisdom,
that noble courtesy, which advanced their families and severed them
from the vulgar--this degenerate wantonness and forbidness of
language would return to the dunghill, or rather, which God grant,
be quite banished from the world, the vulgar following their
example.


XII. Further, the words of our Lord, when He forbade this practice,
do suggest another consideration against it, deducible from the
causes and sources of it; from whence it cometh, that men are so
inclined or addicted thereto. "Let," saith He, "your communication
be Yea, yea, Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of
evil." The roots of it, He assureth us, are evil, and therefore the
fruit cannot be good: it is no grape which groweth from thorns, or
fig from thistles. Consult experience, and observe whence it doth
proceed.

Sometimes it ariseth from exorbitant heats of spirit, or transports
of unbridled passion. When a man is keenly peevish, or fiercely
angry, or eagerly contentious, then he blustereth, and dischargeth
his choler in most tragical strains; then he would fright the
objects of his displeasure by the most violent expressions thereof.
This is sometime alleged in excuse of rash swearing: I was
provoked, the swearer will say, I was in passion; but it is strange
that a bad cause should justify a bad effect, that one crime should
warrant another, that what would spoil a good action should excuse a
bad one.