g hucksters of counterfeit wares, or factors in
this vile trade. There is no false coiner who hath not some
accomplices and emissaries ready to take from his hand and put off
his money; and such slanderers at second hand are scarce less guilty
than the first authors. He that breweth lies may have more wit and
skill, but the broacher showeth the like malice and wickedness. In
this there is no great difference between the great devil, that
frameth scandalous reports, and the little imps that run about and
disperse them.

3. Another way is, when one without competent examination, due
weighing, and just reason, doth admit and spread tales prejudicial
to his neighbour's welfare; relying for his warrant, as to the truth
of them, upon any slight or slender authority. This is a very
common and current practice: men presume it lawful enough to say
over whatever they hear; to report anything, if they can quote an
author for it. "It is not," say they, "my invention; I tell it as I
heard it: sit fides penes authorem; let him that informed me
undergo the blame if it prove false." So do they conceive
themselves excusable for being the instruments of injurious disgrace
and damage to their neighbours. But they greatly mistake therein;
for as this practice commonly doth arise from the same wicked
principles, at least in some degree, and produceth altogether the
like mischievous effects, as the wilful devising and conveying
slander: so it no less thwarteth the rules of duty, the laws of
equity; God hath prohibited it, and reason doth condemn it. "Thou
shalt not," saith God in the Law, "go up and down as a tale-bearer
among thy people:" as a talebearer (as Rachil, that is), as a
merchant or trader in ill reports and stories concerning our
neighbour, to his prejudice. Not only the framing of them, but the
dealing in them beyond reason or necessity, is interdicted. And it
is part of a good man's character in Psalm xv., Non accipit
opprobrium, "He taketh not up a reproach against his neighbour;"
that is, he doth not easily entertain it, much less doth he
effectually propagate it: and in our text, "He," it is said, "that
uttereth slander" (not only he that conceiveth it) "is a fool."

And in reason, before exact trial and cognisance, to meddle with the
fame and interest of another, is evidently a practice full of
iniquity, such as no man can allow in his own case, or brook being
used towar