opinion from them, or a dislike in us of their proceedings, we may
do this in different ways and terms; some of them gentle and
moderate, signifying no ill mind or disaffection towards them;
others harsh and sharp, arguing height of disdain, disgust, or
despite, whereby we bid them defiance, and show that we mean to
exasperate them. Thus, telling a man that we differ in judgment
from him, or conceive him not to be in the right, and calling him a
liar, a deceiver, a fool, saying that he doeth amiss, taketh a wrong
course, transgresseth the rule, and calling him dishonest, unjust,
wicked, to omit more odious and provoking names, unbecoming this
place, and not deserving our notice, are several ways of expressing
the same things whereof the latter, in relating passages concerning
our neighbour, or in debating cases with him, is prohibited: for
thus the words reproaching, reviling, railing, cursing, and the like
do signify, and thus our Lord Himself doth explain them in His
divine sermon, wherein he doth enact this law: "Whosoever," saith
He, "shall say to his brother, Raca" (that is, vain man, or liar),
"shall be in danger of the council; but whosoever shall say, Thou
fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire;" that is, he rendereth
himself liable to a strict account, and to severe condemnation
before God, who useth contemptuous and contumelious expressions
towards his neighbour, in proportion to the malignity of such
expressions.

The reason of things also doth help to explain those words, and to
show why they are prohibited because those harsh terms are needless,
mild words serving as well to express the same things: because they
are commonly unjust, loading men with greater defect or blame than
they can be proved to deserve, or their actions do import; for every
man that speaketh falsehood is not therefore a liar, every man that