his sin, and declared the folly
thereof, we need, I suppose, to say no more for dissuading it;
especially to persons of a generous and honest mind, who cannot but
scorn to debase and defile themselves by so mean and vile a
practice; or to those who seriously do profess Christianity, that
is, the religion which peculiarly above all others prescribeth
constant truth, strictest justice, and highest charity.

I shall only add, that since our faculty of speech (wherein we do
excel all other creatures) was given us, as in the first place to
praise and glorify our Maker, so in the next to benefit and help our
neighbour; as an instrument of mutual succour and delectation, of
friendly commerce and pleasant converse together; for instructing
and advising, comforting and cheering one another: it is an
unnatural perverting, and an irrational abuse thereof, to employ it
to the damage, disgrace, vexation, or wrong in any kind of our
brother. Better indeed had we been as brutes without its use, than
we are, if so worse than brutishly we abuse it.

Finally, all these things being considered, we may, I think,
reasonably conclude it most evidently true that "He which uttereth
slander is a fool."

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SERMONS ON EVIL-SPEAKING***

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