injuries and cruelties of the ungodly against men that will not be as indifferent in the matters of God and salvation as themselves; and that will not be of their opinions in religion, and be as bold with sin, and as careless of their souls as they. These are hated, reproached, slandered, abused, and some way or other persecuted commonly wherever they live throughout the world. But of this sort of oppression I have spoken before.

2. A second sort is the oppression of the subjects by their rulers; either by unrighteous laws, or cruel executions, or unjust impositions or exactions, laying on the people greater taxes, tributes or servitude, than the common good requireth, and than they are able well to bear. Thus did. Pharaoh oppress the Israelites, till their groans brought down God's vengeance on him. But I purposely forbear to meddle with the sins of magistrates.

3. Soldiers also are too commonly guilty of the most inhuman, barbarous oppressions; plundering the poor countrymen, and domineering over them, and robbing them of the fruit of their hard labours, and of the bread which they should maintain their families with, and taking all that they can lay hold on as their own. But (unless it be a few that are a wonder in the world) this sort of men are so barbarous and inhuman, that they will neither read nor regard any counsel that I shall give them. (No man describeth them better than Erasmus.)

4. The oppression of servants by their masters I have said enough to before: and among us, where servants are free to change for better masters, it is not the most common sort of oppression; but rather servants are usually negligent and unfaithful, because they know that they are free: (except in the case of apprentices).

5. It is too common a sort of oppression for the rich in all places to domineer too insolently over the poor, and force them to follow their wills, and to serve their interest be it right or wrong: so that it is rare to meet with a poor man that dare displease the rich, though it be in a cause where God and conscience do require it. If a rich man wrong them, they dare not seek their remedy at law, because he will tire them out by the advantage of his friends and wealth; and either carry it against them, be his cause never

so unjust, or lengthen the suit till he hath undone them, and forced them to submit to his oppressing will.

6. Especially unmerciful landlords are the common and sore oppressors of the countrymen: if a few men can but get money enough to purchase all the land in a country, they think that they may do with their own as they list, and set such hard bargains of it to their tenants, that they are all but as their servants, yea, and live a more troublesome life than servants do; when they have laboured hard all the year, they can scarce scrape up enough to pay their landlord's rent; their necessities are so urgent, that they have not so much as leisure, to pray morning or evening in their families, or to read the Scriptures, or any good book; nor scarce any room in their thoughts for any holy things: their minds are so distracted with necessities and cares, that even on the Lord's day, or at a time of prayer, they can hardly keep their minds intent upon the sacred work which they have in hand: if the freest minds have much ado to keep their thoughts in seriousness and order, in meditation, or in the worshipping of God; how hard must it needs be to a poor oppressed man, whose body is tired with wearisome labours, and his mind distracted with continual cares, how to pay his rent, and how to have food and raiment for his family? How unfit is such a troubled, discontented person, to live in thankfulness to God, and in his joyful praises? Abundance of the voluptuous great ones of the world, do use their tenants and servants, but as their beasts, as if they had been made only to labour and toil for them, and it were their chief felicity to fulfil their will, and live upon their favour.

Direct. 1. The principal means to overcome this sin, is to understand the greatness of it.' For the flesh persuadeth carnal men, to judge of it according to their selfish interest, and not according to the interest of others, nor according to the true principles of charity and equity; and so they justify themselves in their oppression.

Consid. 1. That oppression is a sin not only contrary to Christian charity and self-denial, but even to humanity itself. We are all made of one earth, and have souls of the same kind: there is as near a kindred betwixt all mankind, as a specifical identity: as between one sheep, one dove, one

angel and another: as between several drops of the same water, and several sparks of the same fire; which have a natural tendency to union with each other. And as it is an inhuman thing for one brother to oppress another, or one member of the same body to set up a proper interest of its own, and make all the rest, how painfully soever, to serve that private interest: so is it for those men who are children of the same Creator. Much more for them who account themselves members of the same Redeemer, and brethren in Christ by grace and regeneration, with those whom they oppress. Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers b?" If we must not lie to one another, because we are members one of another c." "And if all the members must have the same care of one another;" surely then they must not oppress one another.

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2. An oppressor is an antichrist and an antigod; he is contrary to God, who delighteth to do good, and whose bounty maintaineth all the world; who is kind to his enemies, and causeth his sun to shine, and his rain to fall on the just and on the unjust and even when he afflicteth doth it as unwillingly, delighting not to grieve the sons of men *. He is contrary to Jesus Christ, who gave himself a ransom for his enemies, and made himself a curse to redeem them from the curse, and condescended in his incarnation to the nature of man, and in his passion to the cross and suffering which they deserved; and being rich and Lord of all, yet made himself poor, that we by his poverty might be made rich. He endured the cross and despised the shame, and made himself as of no reputation, accounting it his honour and joy to be the Saviour of men's souls, even of the poor and despised of the world. And these oppressors live as if they were made to afflict the just, and to rob them of God's mercies, and to make crosses for other men to bear, and to tread on their brethren as stepping stones of their own advancement. The Holy Ghost is the Comforter of the just and faithful. And these men live as if it were their calling to deprive men of their comfort.

b Mal. ii. 10.

e Psal. cxlv. Matt. v.

c Ephes. iv. 25. Lam, iii.

d 1 Cor. xii. 25.

3. Yea, an oppressor is not only the agent of the devil but his image: it is the devil that is the destroyer, and the devourer, who maketh it his business to undo men, and bring them into misery and distress. He is the grand oppressor of the world: yet in this he is far short of the malignity of men-devils, 1. That he doth it not by force and violence, but by deceit, and hurteth no man till he hath procured his own consent to sin; whereas our oppressors do it by their brutish force and power. 2. And the devil destroyeth men, who are not his brethren, nor of the same kind; but these oppressors never stick at the violating of such relations.

4. Oppression is a sin that greatly serveth the devil, to the damning of men's souls, as well as to the afflicting of their bodies. And it is not a few, but millions that are undone by it. For as I shewed before, it taketh up men's minds and time so wholly, to get them a poor living in the world, that they have neither mind nor time for better things. They are so troubled about many things, that the one thing needful is laid aside. All the labours of many a worthy, able pastor, are frustrated by oppressors: to say nothing of the far greatest part of the world, where the tyranny and oppression of heathen infidels and Mahometan princes, keepeth out the Gospel, and the means of life; nor yet of any other persecutors: if we exhort a servant to read the Scriptures, and call upon God, and think of his everlasting state, he telleth us that he hath no time to do it, but when his weary body must have rest: if we desire the masters of families to instruct and catechise their children and servants, and pray with them, and read the Scriptures and other good books to them, they tell us the same, that they have no time, but when they should sleep, and that on the Lord's day their tired bodies, and careful minds, are unfit to attend and ply such work so that necessity quieteth their consciences in their ignorance and neglect of heavenly things, and maketh them think it the work only of gentlemen and rich men, who have leisure (but are farther alienated from it by prosperity, than these are by their poverty): and thus oppression destroyeth religion, and the people's souls as well as their

estates.

:

5. Oppression further endangereth both the souls of

men, and the public peace, and the safety of princes, by tempting the poor multitude into discontents, sedition and insurrections: every man is naturally a lover of himsel above others: and the poor, as well as the rich and rulers, have an interest of their own which ruleth them; and they will hardly honour, or love, or think well of them by whom they suffer it is as natural almost for a man under oppression, to be discontented and complain, as for a man in a fever to complain of sickness, heat and thirst. No kingdom on earth is so holy and happy as to have all or most of the subjects such confirmed, eminent saints, as will be contented to be undone, and will love and honour those that undo them. Therefore men must be taken as they are: if" oppression maketh wise men made," much more the multitude, who are far from wisdom. Misery maketh men desperate, when they think that they cannot be much worse than they are. How many kingdoms have been thus fired, (as wooden wheels will be when one part rubbeth too hard and long upon the other). Yea, if the prince be never so good and blameless, the cruelty of the nobles and the rich men of the land, may have the same effects. And in these combustions, the peace of the kingdom, the lives and souls of the seditious are made a sacrifice to the lusts of the oppressors.

Direct. 11. Consider with fear how oppression turneth the groans and cries of the poor, to the God of revenge against the oppressors." And go to that man that hath the tears and prayers of oppressed innocents, sounding the alarm to vindictive justice, to awake for their relief. "And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night to him, though he bear long with them? I tell you, that he will avenge them speedily f." "The Lord will be a refuge to the oppressed s. To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more op"The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed." Yea, God is doubly engaged to be revenged upon oppressors, and hath threatened a special execution of his judgment against them above most other sinners: partly as it is an act of mercy and re

press b❞

e Eccles. vii. 7. h Psal. x. 18.

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