gering and thirsting after righteousness, hold his peace? Would God ever have encouraged him with a blessing to hunger and thirst, but that the extremity of hunger and thirst might drive him to the extremity of importunity and prayer? "I cried unto the Lord," saith David," and he heard me:" he did not coldly, bashfully, or formally only cry to the Lord, as not caring whether he were heard or no, but he cried unto him with his whole heart: even to the Lord he cried, and he heard him. Ezekias cried unto the Lord, and he heard him. The blood of the saints under the altar (as all blood) is said to cry unto the Lord for vengeance. Thy brother Abel's blood hath cried unto me1," said God to Cain. The The prayer of the fatherless and widow, which God heareth above all things, is called a cry.

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Usurers, you are none of these criers unto God, but those that hourly unto God are most cried out against. God hath cried out unto you by his preachers, God hath cried out unto you by the poor; prisoners on their death-beds have cried out of you, and when they have had but one hour to intercessionate for their souls, and sue out the pardon of their numberless sins, the whole part of their hour (saving one minute when in two words they cried for mercy,) have they spent in crying for vengeance against you. After they were dead, their coffins have been brought to your doors in the open face of Cheapside, and ignominious ballads made of you, which every boy would chaunt under your nose: yet will not you repent, nor with all this crying be awaked out of your dream of the devil and Dives. Therefore look that when on your deathbeds you shall lie, and cry out of the stone, the strangullion, and the gout, you shall not be heard, your pain shall be so wrestling, tearing, and intolerable, that you shall have no leisure to repent or pray: no nor so much as lift up your hands, or think one good

Gen. 4.

thought. Even as others have cursed you, so shall you be ready to curse God, and desired to be swallowed quick, to excorse the agony you are in.

As the devil in the second of Job being asked from whence he came, answered, "From compassing the earth," so you being asked at the day of judgment from whence you come, shall answer, "From compassing the earth." For heaven you have not compassed or purchased, therefore shall hell-fire be your portion. Every man shall receive of God according to that in his body he hath wrought." If in your bodies you have done no good works, of God you shall receive no good words. The words of God are deeds, he spake but the word and heaven and earth were made. He shall speak but the word and to hell shall you be had. Good deeds derived from faith are rampiers or bulwarks raised up against the devil: he that hath no such bulwark of good deeds to resist the devil's battery, cannot choose but have his soul's city soon razed.

Good deeds are a tribute which we pay unto God for defending us from all our ghostly enemies, and planting his peace in our consciences. Instead of the ceremonial law, burnt offerings and sacrifices (which are ceased), God hath given us a new law, " To love one another:" that is, to shew the fruits of love, which are good deeds to one another. The widow's oil was increased in her cruse, and her meal in her tub, only for doing good deeds to the prophet of the Lord. Few be there now-a-days that will do good deeds, but for good deeds, that is for rewards. If seats of justice were to be sold for money, we have them among us that would buy them up by the wholesale, and make them away again by retail. He that buys must sell; shrewd alchymists there are risen up, that will pick a merchandise out of every thing, and not spare to set up their shops of buying and selling even in the temple: I would to God they had not sold and plucked down church and temple to

build them houses of stone.

God shall cut them off that enrich

themselves with the fat of the altar.

"Oves pastorem non judicent," saith an ancient writer, quia non est discipulus supra magistrum, multo minus deglubent." Let not the sheep judge their shepherd, because the scholar is not above his master, much less are they to pluck from their master the shepherd: to shave or to pelt him to the bare bones, to whom (for feeding them) they should offer up their fleeces. "Diis parentibus et magistris,” saith Aristotle, " non potest reddi equivalens:”—To the gods, our fathers, and our schoolmasters can never be given as they deserve. He was an Ethnick that spoke thus, we Christians (only because he hath spoken it) will do any thing against it: from God, our parents, and our schoolmasters (which are our preachers,) say we, can never be plucked sufficient. To make ourselves rich, we care not if we make our church like hell, where, as Job saith, "umbra mortis, et nullus ordo est," there is the shadow of death, and confusion without order.

O Avarice, that breaketh both the law of Moses and the law of Nature, in taking usury or incomes for advowsons, and not letting the land of the priests be free from tribute: those to whom thou leavest that ill-gotten usury or tribute, shall be a prey to the irreligious. "Fire shall consume the house of bribes '."

No cart that is overladen or crammed too full, but hath a tail that will scatter. Beware lest hogs come to glean after your cart's tail: that your heirs come not to be wards unto usurers; for they will put out their lands to the best use of seven score in the hundred, and make them serve out their wardship in one prison or other. The only way for a rich man to prevent robbing, is to be bountiful and liberal. None is so much the thieves' mark as the miser and the carle. Give while you live, rich men, that those you leave behind you, may be free from cormorants and caterpillars.

I Job 15.

If there be in your bags but one shilling that should have been the poor's, that shilling will be the consumption of all his fellows: one rotten apple marreth all the rest, one scabbed sheep infects the whole flock.

Even as a prince out of his subjects' goods hath loans, dismes, subsidies, and fifteenths, so God out of our goods demandeth a loan, a tenth, and a subsidy to the poor. "Lo, the one half of my goods," saith Zaccheus, "I give to the poor." Is not he an ill servant that when his master shall into his hands deliver a large sum of money to be distributed among the needy and impotent, shall purse it up into his own coffers, and either give them none at all, or but the hundredth part of it? Such ill servants are we. The treasure and possessions we have are not our own, but the Lord hath given them us to give to the poor, and spend in his service: we (very obsequiously) give to the poor only the mould of our treasure, and will rather detract from God's service than detract from our dross. Nowhere is pity, nowhere is pity, our house must needs" be left desolate unto us."

The idolatrous Gentiles shall rise up against us, that bestowed all their wealth on fanes and shrines to their gods, and presents and offerings to their images: to the true image of God (which are the poor,) we will scarce offer our bread-parings. The Temple of Diana, at Ephesus, was two hundred years in building by all Asia. There was none that obtained any victory, but built a temple at his return to that god, as he thought, which assisted him. Not so much as the fever quartan, but the Romans built a temple to, thinking it some great god, because it shook them so: and another to ill fortune, in Exquilliis, a mountain in Rome, because it should not plague them at cards and dice. No fever quartans, ill fortune, or good fortune, may wring out of us any good works. Our devotion can away with any thing but this Pharisaical almsgiving.

He that hath nothing to do with his money but build churches,

we count him one of God Almighty's fools, or else, if he bear the name of a wise man, we term him a notable braggart. Tut, tut, alms-houses will make good stables, and, let out in tenements, yield a round sum by the year. A good strong-bar'd hutch is a building worth twenty of those hospitals and alms-houses. Our rich chuffes will rather put their helping hands to the building of a prison, than a house of prayer. Our courtiers lay that on their backs, which should serve to build their churches and schools. Those preachers please best, which can fit us with a cheap religion, that preach faith, and all faith, and no good works, but to the household of faith.

Ministers and pastors (to some of you I speak, not to all) 'tis you that have brought down the price of religion; being covetous yourselves, you preach nothing but covetous doctrine; your followers seeing you give no alms, take example by you, to hold in their hands too, and will give no alms. That text is too often in your mouths: "He is worse than an infidel that provides not for his wife and family." You do not cry out of the altar, cry out for money to maintain poor scholars; cry out for more living for colleges; cry out for relief for them that are sick and visited: you rather cry out against the altar, cry out against the living the church hath already.

It were to be wished, that order were taken up amongst you, which was observed in St. Augustine's time; for then it was the custom, that the poor should beg of none but the preacher or minister, and if he had not to give them, they should exclaim and cry out of him, for not more effectually moving and crying out to the people for them. Had every one of you, all the poor of your parishes hanging about your doors, and ready to rend your garments off your backs, and tear out your throats for bread, every time you stirred abroad, you would bestir you in exhortation to charity and good works, and make yourselves hoarse in crying out against covetise and hardness of heart.