Proverbs 26:4,5 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Answer not a fool, &c.— They who choose to review antiquity, in its antique garb, will observe, that had the folly of these fools been only of one condition or denomination, then the advice to answer, and not to answer, had been repugnant to itself: but as their folly was of various kinds, in some of which to answer might offend the dignity, and in others not to answer might hurt the interests of truth; to answer, and not to answer is a consistent, and may, for aught critics know, be a very wise direction. Had the advice been given simply, and without circumstance, to answer the fool, and not to answer him, a critic, who had reverence for the text, would satisfy himself in supposing that the different directions referred to the doing a thing in and out of season. But when to the general advice about answering, this circumstance is added, according to his folly, that interpretation is excluded; and a difficulty indeed arises a difficulty which has made those who have no reverence for the text, accuse it of absurdity and contradiction. But now to each direction reasons are subjoined, why a fool should, and why he should not be answered; reasons which, when set together and compared, are at first sight sufficient to make a critic suspect that all the contradiction lies in his own incumbered ideas. 1. The reason given, why a fool should not be answered according to his folly, is lest he [the answerer] should be like unto him. 2. The reason given, why he should be answered according to his folly, is, lest he [the fool] be wise in his own conceit. The cause assigned for forbidding to answer, therefore, plainly insinuates, that the defender of religion should not imitate the insulter of it in his modes of disputation, which may be comprized in sophistry, buffoonery and scurrility. The cause assigned of directing to answer, as plainly intimates, that the sage should address himself to confute the fool upon his own false principles, by shewing that they lead to conclusions very wide from, very opposite to, those impieties which he would deduce from them. What can better produce the effect here intimated, the cure of the fool's vain conceit of his superior wisdom? If any thing can allay the fool's vanity, and prevent his being wise in his own conceit, it must be the dishonour of having his own principles turned against himself, and shewn to be destructive of his own conclusions. What can be more mortifying?