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soever shall say to his brother ' Raca ' shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever shall say 'Thou fool' shall be in danger of hell-fire." To observe the fifth commandment, therefore, it is not enough to keep our hands from our brother's throat. No, we must also avoid abusing him with our tongue, or desiring in our hearts to avenge on him real or imagined wrongs. True, there is nothing bad in an honest indignation at wrong-doing or a virtuous frown or a severe but timely reprimand, but if vengeance be our motive and the destruction, not of the offence but of the offender our object, we simply commit a mortal sin against the fifth commandment. And the more we allow anger to develop into hatred — and hatred into Raca, i.e., open contempt — and open contempt into such abuse as " thou fool " — and abuse into actual murder, the greater shall be our torture in hell for all eternity. For just as among the Jews there were three grades of capital punishment, (i) sentence of death with right of appeal in the lower court or judgment, (2) sentence of death without appeal in the higher court or council, (3) stoning at the stake without trial, by the mob, so also are there different degrees of torment in hell. But note the difference. In the Old Law the punishment was temporal, in the New it is eternal death; in the Old a skilful defence or renewed appeals could do much, in the New there is no defence, no appeal; in the Old, only downright murder was punishable by the judgment in this world, in the New the vengeful incur the judgment, sneerers the council, revilers