John Calvin sets forth his pastoral advice on one of the primary ways the gospel changes us: He says that the unpleasant fault of criticizing others issues forth from the root of bitterness and jealousy within ourselves that we have not allowed Christ to extract. He calls it "a vice under which hypocrites commonly labor, that is the impiety of the tongue in detraction...  They who have put off the grosser vices are especially subject to this disease.  He who is neither an adulterer nor a thief nor a drunkard, but, on the contrary, seems brilliant in some outward show of sanctity, will set himself off by defaming others, and this under a pretense of zeal, but really through the lust of slandering...  They seek praise from the defects of others." - Calvin's Commentary on James, pp.298-299.