A commentary or, exposition upon the divine second epistle general, writtenA commentary or, exposition vpon the diuine second epistle generall, written

Subtraction is another point of the worlds practise.^u They covet houses and fields, and take them away by violence. Jezebel was cunning in this point against innocent Naboth; she took away his living and life too. How could so many flaunt it in their caroches, but that they live by subtraction? the tenth and right of the Church maintains it. O the pity of God and man! that maintenance should be taken from the poor Minister who wants bread, and be given to feed the unsatiate guts of pride and luxury. If a robber takes a purse, he dies for it: but let others subtract from the poor their commons, from labourers their wages, from the Church her endowments; and this Arithmetic passes. This made Socrates laugh, to see little thieves riding in carts to the gallows; and great thieves in coaches to condemn them. Minuta puniuntur, magna in triumphis feruntur. A poor sea-captain being brought before Alexander for piracy; thus confessed his fault. Indeed I am a pirate because I robbed some few fisher-men in a cockboat: but if I had scoured the seas as thou hast done, and spoiled all the world, with a Navy, with an army; I had been no pirate, I had been an Emperor. The malefactor could say, I die for a few trifles of petty thievery: but if I had robbed the poor by giving their bread to dogs; or the Church by Simony and detaining her tenths; or the commonwealth by ingrossings, inhauncings; I might have been a Justice of peace or an Alderman. Thus as in a throng, a dwarf comes to be lifted up above the shoulders of the tallest, and made a laughing stock, that kept least a doe: so in the crowd of this world, the least sins are exposed to the sharpest censures. Well, if any man will practise subtraction against the poor, God will use it against him, and take his name out of the book of life. Si in ignem mittitur qui rem non dedit propriam, ubi mittendus qui invasit alienam? Augu. If he be damned that gives not his own, what shall become of him that takes away another mans? If^u Judgement without mercy shall be to him that shows no mercy; where shall subtraction and rapine appear? Psal. 109.11. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let the strangers spoil his labour. There is one subtraction; his estate, Verse 13. let his posterity be cut off, and in the generation following let his name be blotted out. There's another subtraction;