particular persons in them. The prophets are full of declamations
and invectives against the general corruption of their times, and
against the particular manners of some persons in them. "Ah, sinful
nation; people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, children
that are corrupters! They are all adulterers, an assembly of
treacherous men; and they bend their tongues like their bow for
lies. Thy princes are rebellious and companions of thieves; every
one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the
fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come before them.
The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their means.
As troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests
murder in the way by consent, and commit lewdness." Such is their
style commonly. St. John the Baptist calleth the Scribes and
Pharisees a "generation of vipers." Our Saviour speaketh of them in
the same terms; calleth them an "evil and adulterous generation,
serpents, and children of vipers. Hypocrites, painted sepulchres,
obscure graves ([Greek]), blind guides; fools and blind, children of
the devil." St. Paul likewise calleth the schismatical heretical
teachers "dogs, false apostles, evil and deceitful workers, men of
corrupt minds, reprobates and abominable." With the like colours do
St. Peter, St. Jude, and other apostles paint them. Which sort of
speeches are to be supposed to proceed, not from private passion or
design, but out of holy zeal for God's honour, and from earnest
charity towards men, for to work their amendment and common
edification. They were uttered also by special wisdom and peculiar
order; from God's authority, and in His name; so that, as God by
them is said to preach, to entreat, to warn, and to exhort, so by
them also He may be said to reprehend and reproach.

3. Even private persons in due season, with discretion and temper,