of needful discipline for
God's service, and common benefit of men. It is not, indeed, so
much the minister of justice, as God Himself, our absolute Lord; as
the Sovereign, God's representative, acting in the public behalf; as
the commonwealth itself, who by His mouth do rebuke the obnoxious
person.

2. God's ministers in religious affairs, to whom the care of men's
instruction and edification is committed, are enabled to inveigh
against sin and vice, whoever consequentially may be touched
thereby: yea, sometimes it is their duty with severity and
sharpness to reprove particular persons, not only privately, but
publicly, for their correction, and for the edification of others.

Thus St. Paul directeth Timothy: "Them that sin" (notoriously and
scandalously, he meaneth), "rebuke before all, that others may
fear:" that is, in a manner apt to make impression on the minds of
the hearers, so as to scare them from like offences. And to Titus
he writes, "Rebuke them sharply, that they may be found in the
faith." And, "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a
trumpet, and show my people their transgressions, and the house of
Jacob their sins," saith the Lord to the prophet. Such are the
charges and commissions laid on and granted to His messengers.

Thus we may observe that God's prophets of old, St. John the
Baptist, our Lord Himself, the holy apostles did in terms most
vehement and biting reprove the age in which they lived, and some
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 "