Doctr.

plain and have audience and redreffe. For this is much more anger, then holy zeal.

They had need be very innocent that complain of others. Turpe eft authoricum culpa redarguit ipfum.

2. This teacheth us by all means to feek the Reformation. one of another, for if by our good councell, or by our good example, or by brotherly reproofes,or by the mediation of friends, or by the sharp coercion of the Laws, we cannot destroy finne in them; yet we muft not give them over, we must complain to God of them, and leave them to his justice.

1

2. Let us now review the particulars of the Prophets.complaint.

1. Of the corruption of the state of the common-wealth of the Jews, and therein,

I. Of their corrupt converfation, generally expreft in these words

Greivance, Spoiling Violence, Strife, and Contention; all of them against the Law of the fecond Table, Thou shalt love shy neighbour as thy felf.

The fin of uncharitableneffe corrupteth a common-wealth, and maketh all the faithfull fervants of God complain; it is a crying fin; obferve the Prophets words;

1. Greivance: If you do any thing, or fay any thing whereby you do greive our brother and alienate his affection from us..

2. Spoyling: If we by any means hurt him in his maintenance, either by taking from him that which he doth poffeffe, or by preventing him in that which he fhould poffeffe, by withholding. from him the wages of his labour, or by denying the labourer work whereby he fhould live, or by undervaluing his labour to make it unfufficient to fupport him: or by bringing up an evil report of him, or by any alienation of his friends.from

him.

3. Violence: Ufing ftrong hand to any of thefe purposes, which is called finning with an high hand and a fife neck, abu fing power and place to oppreffion and wrong

4. Strife: Difquieting our brethrens peace.

5. Jurgium: Provoking them with proud and imperious fpeeches

Thefe

These fins corrupt a common wealth, and overthrow charity, and greive all fuch as fear God.

1. Because they impeach the authority and power of God, who hath referved to himself the difpenfation of his own gifts here; for the earth is the Lords, and all that therein is, and he hath given it to the fonnes of men; whatfoever either honour or wealth any man poffeffeth,which is not of his gift, that is atchei ved by unlawfull means, it hath not his bleffing, and it is held by intrusion and ufurpation.

He hath not put man into the world as he did the people of Ifrael into Canaan to be his own carver, and to take what he can get by strength or policy; they had warrant for what they did there, we have a law of reftraint to confine us to lawfull wayes and means of living; therefore all such violence as invadeth the goods of our brethren is a wrong to him who openeth his hand and filleth with plenty, and doth not bid us arise kill and eat, and get what we can, no matter how.

2. This uncharitable practice doth deftroy fociety, for seeing God for peace fake, hath made a difference between men on earth, fome fuperiour, others inferiour: fome rich, fome poor, that there might be a need of one another, to maintaine the ftate of a common-wealth; all they that ingroffe to their own heap, and do only study themfelves and their own houses; they corrupt and destroy that common fociety which ought to be in the members of the body.

I read that Pope Adrian the fixth, a monkish man, demanded once of John of Sarisbury his country-man what opinion the world had of the Church of Rome.

He answered that

The Church of Rome which should be a mother, was now become a ftepmother, and gathered and got all from her own

children.

The Pope replyed with a tale.

All the parts of the body did confpire against the ftomack, and thought much to labour for that, whereupon they refolved to feed it no longer: but within few dayes, there grew fuch a generall decay in the ftate of all the parts of the body,that ar faft finding their errour, they laboured as befor: for

the ftomack, and found then that that maintained them all. The Popes application was, that the Pope is the ftomack in the body of the Church; and that though all the members of the body do feed him, yet he gathereth not for himself but for the whole body.

It is true,that the father of a Common wealth is the ftomack, from whence all the body as from the root deriveth fap, and nutriment, and therefore all must labour for him

But one body must have but one ftomack; and therefore when every man fhall rob and spoile and fwallow up what he can, the body muft needs perish.

Again, where that one ftomack is good,the body thrives, for that hath not only an appetitive faculty to defire food, and receptive to entertain it, and a retentive to keep it, but a digeftive alfo to diftribute it into all the parts of the body.

But if the ftomack be appetitive, and rapine, and devour all, as in fome difeafe, Caninus appetitus, which is a greedy devourer;, or if it be retentive and will part with nothing, but is the hell and grave of all that it receiveth, as in covetousneffe; or if it be defective in the retentive faculty, and caft up all, as in prodigality and waste:

Or if it be ill affected in the digeftive faculty, that it feedeth nothing but ill humours, to overthrow the contemperament of the complexions; That is

If it feed the fanguine only, and fo maintain all kind of wantonneffe, pride and vanity.

If it feed only tholer, and fo fupport tyranny and violence. Cr if it fupport only Melancholy, it feedeth fullen and bufie projecting wit.

Or if it feed fleame, it fuftaineth idleneffe; if it do not nourish the temperament of thefe humours in the body,it feedeth diseafes and destroyeth the body.

Thus was the Common-wealth of the Jewes at this time difcafed, and only the choler was fed, which brought forth greivance, fpoyling, violence, ftrife: So riches became the facul ties of evil doing, and power was the mother and nurse of violence.

Our leffon therefore is, if we love the state of the Commonwealth

wealth in which we live, and would have the body thrive, of which we are members, we must obferve the lawes of Christian charity, and common-jultice.

Juftitia tua fuum cuique tribuit: charitastua tuum, we must do all men right and know our own from another mans, and we must distribute to the neceffities of our brethren, that there be no complaining in our streets; the elder must labour by good councell and good examples to fupport the younger: the younger by their ftrength and labour to give fubvention and help to the elder;each to know their own, and to think nothing theirs which is not lawfully gotten.

Let us remember the fevere prohibition of the Law, which not only bindeth our hearts and affections, faying; Thou shalt not steal, nec actu, nec affectu, neither in act nor in defire; but it reftraineth our very first thoughts and motions of the minde: Thou shalt not covet any that is thy neighbours.

Let us remember how much,violence and fpoyling, and grei. vance and ftrife displeaseth God, and let our brother dwell in peace by us; let us not fo much as look upon our brethren with an evil eye to envy their thriving,or with a covetous defire toenrich our felves with their spoiles

We fee the danger of this Common-wealth of the Jewes because of their oppreffion, and we fee the remedy here used to complain thereof to God; therefore if we with Solomon, Turne and confider all the oppreffions that are wrought under the Sun, and behold the tears of the oppressed, and none comforteth them, and the Strength is of the hand that oppreffeth them, and none comforteth them:

I know no remedy that we have but our prayer to God; for he only is the refuge of the afflicted.

If the Minister complain that he cannot be entertained to execute the Priefts office without Simoniacall contracts, or being in the execution of the fame cannot keep the tythes and profits of his place from spoile and depredation.

If the Souldier complain that in time of peace, he is despised;

If the Merchant be hindred in his commerce; the husband man over-racked in his rent, the labourer either not found

work,

Ecclef. 4.

Reason.

Ifa. 1. 19.

Verf. 20.

work, or not payed their wages.

Deut. 5.2.

Verf. 32.

Verf. 33.

If the common man be exhausted by impofitions, and exactions, and the rich man milked by borrowings.

Whileft the moft idle and uprofitable mothes of the commonwealth, and the ruft of peace doth devour all, and build their nefts on high full of the fpoiles of their brethren;

These things tells us, that they that are deal in the Lord are happie, as Solomon faith; they bear not the voice of the oppref four, and they shall not fee the evil which this crying fin shall bring upon the living: For you shall fee that God heareth the com plaints of his holy ones and vifiteth the land that tranfgrefleth in these things.

The corruption of Religion, even the contempt thereof, is complained of: The Law of God flacked, weakened, defpiled.

Doctr. It is a difeafed and a defperate state where Religion is contemned, and where the Law of God is not cared for.

1. The caule is because we hold nothing temporall in this life, by any other right then upon condition of our obedience to the Law and Will of God.

If thou confent and obey, hou shalt eat the good things oftheland. But if jee refuse and rebell, ye shall be devoured with the fword. Mofes repeating the Law of the ten Commandments to the people,calleth it the Covenant which the Lord made with them in Horeb and the conditions of the Covenant were thefe,

Te fball obferve to do therefore as the Lord your God hath com manded you,you fall not turne afide to the right hand,nor to the left, You shall walk in all the wayes which the Lord your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your dayes in the land which fe shall possesse.

The very introduction into the Law: I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; theweth why God delivereth us from the hands of our enemies, that we may ferve him, and that we may thrive and profper in his fervice.

Therefore, where the Law is flacked, and Religion fet at nought, the defpifers thereof have no lawfull intereft in any thing that they poffeffe: but are intruders and ufurpers and fuch as encroach upon Gods rights without any plea of right; they

are