increase wherewith God hath blessed their industry, allot the poor a just and free proportion? And when they have provided for them in a convenient manner (such as they themselves shall judge sufficient and convenient in others), that then they should give over making purchase after purchase; but with the surplusage of their revenue beyond their expense, procure, as much as lies in them, that no Christian remain miserably poor; few rich men, I fear, are or will be thus persuaded, and their daily actions shew as much: yet undoubtedly, either our Saviour's general command, of loving our neighbours as ourselves, which can hardly consist with our keeping vainly, or spending vainly, what he wants for his ordinary subsistence, lays upon us a necessity of this high liberality: or his special command concerning this matter; Quod superest date pauperibus, "That which remains give to the poor:" or that which St. John saith, 1 Epist. iii. 17. reacheth home unto it: "Whosoever hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" Which is, in effect, as if he had said, He that keepeth from any brother in Christ, that which his brother wants, and he wants not, doth but vainly think, that he loves God; and therefore vainly hopes, that God loves him.

Where almost are the men that are or will be persuaded, the gospel of Christ requires of men humility, like to that of little children, and that under the highest pain of damnation? That is, that we should no more overvalue ourselves, or desire to be highly esteemed by others; no more undervalue, scorn, or despise others; no more af

fect pre-eminence, over others, than little children do, before we have put that pride into them, which afterwards we charge wholly upon their natural corruption: and yet our blessed Saviour requires nothing more rigidly, nor more plainly, than this high degree of humility: "Verily (saith he), I say unto you, (he speaks to his disciples affecting high places, and demanding which of them should be greatest) except you be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Would it not be strange news to a great many, that not only adultery and fornication, but even uncleanness and lasciviousness; not only idolatry and witchcraft, but hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, and contentions; not only murders, but envyings; not drunkenness only, but revelling, are things prohibited to Christians, and such as, if we forsake them not, we cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven? And yet these things, as strange as they may seem, are plainly written; some of them by St. Peter; (1 Epist. ch. iv.) but all of them by St. Paul: (Gal. v. 19.) "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, &c. of the which I tell you before, as I have told you in times past, that they who do such things, shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

If I should tell you, that all bitterness and evilspeaking, (nay, such is the modesty and gravity which Christianity requires of us) foolish talk and jesting, are things not allowed to Christians, would not many cry out, These are hard and strange sayings, who can hear them? And yet, as strange as they may seem, they have been written

well-nigh one thousand six hundred years, and are yet extant in very legible characters, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, the end of the fourth, and the beginning of the fifth chapter.

To come a little nearer to the business of our times, the chief actors in this bloody tragedy, which is now upon the stage, who have robbed our Sovereign Lord the King of his forts, towns, treasure, ammunition, houses, of the persons of many of his subjects, and (as much as lies in them) of the hearts, of all of them; is it credible they know, and remember, and consider the example of David, recorded for their instruction? Whose heart smote him, when he had but cut off the hem of Saul's garment.

They that made no scruple at all of fighting with his sacred Majesty, and shooting muskets and `ordnance at him, (which sure have not the skill to choose a subject from a king) to the extreme hazard of his sacred person, whom by all possible obligations they are bound to defend; do they know, think you, the general rule, without exception or limitation, left by the Holy Ghost, for our direction in all such cases: "Who can lift up his hand against the Lord's anointed, and be innocent?" Or do they consider his command in the Proverbs of Solomon: † "My son, fear God, and the king, and meddle not with them that desire change?" Or, his counsel in the book of Ecclesiastes: "I counsel thee to keep the king's commandment, and that in regard of the oath of God?" Or, because they possibly may pretend, that they are

* 1 Sam. xxvi. 9.

+ Prov. xxiv. 21.

§ Eccles. viii. 2.

exempted from, or unconcerned in, the commands of obedience delivered in the Old Testament, do they know and remember the precept given to all Christians by St. Peter; "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king, as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him?" Or, that terrible sanction of the same command, "They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation," left us by St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, whỏ then were the miserable subjects of the worst king, the worst man, nay, I think I may add truly, the worst beast in the world; that so all rebels' -mouths might be stopped for ever, and left without all colour of pretence whatsoever, to justify resistance of sovereign power? Undoubtedly, if they did know, and consider, and lay close to their hearts, these places of Scripture, or the fearful judgment which befel Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, for this very sin which they commit, and with a high hand still proceed in, it would be impossible but their hearts would smite them, as David's did upon an infinitely less occasion, and affright them out of those ways of present confusion, and eternal damnation. And then, on the other side, they that maintain the King's righteous cause with the hazard of their lives and fortunes, but by their oaths and curses, by their drunkenness and debauchery, by their irreligion and profaneness, fight more powerfully against their party, than by all other means they do or can fight for it, are not, I fear, very well acquainted with any part of the Bible but that strict caution, which properly concerns themselves, in the book of Leviticus, I much doubt they have scarce ever heard of it:

"When thou goest to war with thine enemies, then take heed there be no wicked thing in thee:" not only no wickedness in the cause thou maintainest, nor no wickedness in the means by which thou maintainest it, but no personal impieties in the persons that maintain it. Beloved, for the former two, we have reason to be full of comfort and confidence for what is our cause? What is that which you fight, and we pray for? But to deliver the King and all his good subjects out of the power of their enemies, who will have no peace but with their slaves and vassals; and for the means by which it is maintained, it is not by lying; it is not by calumnies; it is not by running first ourselves, and then forcing the people, to universal perjury; but by a just war, because necessary; and by as fair and merciful a war, as if they were not rebels and traitors you fight against, but competitors in a doubtful title. But now for the third part of the caution, that to deal ingenuously with you, and to deliver my own soul, if I cannot other men's, that I cannot think of with half so much comfort as the former; but seeing so many Jonah's embarked in the same ship, the same cause with us, and so many Achans entering into battle with us against the Canaanites; seeing publicans and sinners on the one side, against scribes and pharisees on the other; on the one side hypocrisy, on the other profaneness; no honesty nor justice on the one side, and very little piety on the other; on the one side, horrible oaths, curses, and blasphemies; on the other, pestilent lies, calumnies, and perjury: when I see among them the pretence of reformation, if not the desire, pursued by antichristian, Mahometan, devilish means; and