It is not improbable that we are fallen into the last age of the world, foretold by our blessed Savior, wherein the love of many shall wax cold and iniquity shall abound. And among the abounding iniquities of this age the iniquity of the tongue, that little member set on fire by hell, is not the least; and among the evils of the tongue, is there any more pernicious and deadly, and yet more common and epidemical than back-biting and slander? … It is true that in former times we find actions on the case for slanderous words very rarely brought, which speaks thus much, that such words were then very rarely spoken. But in these days they are become almost as natural to men as their language and discourse. And therefore the disease, so deeply rooted and over-spreading calls for the application of the remedy which our law doth abundantly furnish us withal.

For who knows not how frequent and foul the deceits of men in their trades by weights, measures and the like … are amongst us here today; and how much we suffer by it? And who knows not that these frauds are not only against the law of the nation, but against the law of God.