remedy could be applied to the world by the true Physician of all
men. And not only the laity did so, but our Lord's own flock and
its shepherds, who ought to have been an example to the people,
slumbered away their time in drunkenness, as if they had been
dipped in wine; whilst the swellings of pride, the jar of strife,
the griping talons of envy, and the confused estimate of right
and wrong, got such entire possession of the, that there seemed
to be poured out (and the same still continueth) contempt upon
princes, and to be made by their vanities to wander astray and
not in the way.

* Isa. I. 4,5. In most of these quotations there is great verbal
variation from the authorised version: the author probably quoted
from memory, if not from the Latin version.

22. Meanwhile, God being willing to purify his family who were
infected by so deep a stain of woe, and at the hearing only of
their calamities to amend them; a vague rumour suddenly as if on
wings reaches the ears of all, that their inveterate foes were
rapidly approaching to destroy the whole country, and to take
possession of it, as of old, from one end to the other. But yet
they derived no advantage from this intelligence; for, like frantic
beasts, taking the bit of reason between their teeth, they
abandoned the safe and narrow road, and rushed forward upon the
broad downward path of vice, which leads to death. Whilst,
therefore, as Solomon says, the stubborn servant is not cured
by words, the fool is scourged and feels it not: a pestilential
disease morally affected the foolish people, which, without the
sword, cut off so large a number of persons, that the living
were not able to bury them. But even this was no warning to them,