Englands sickness, comparatively conferred with Israels Divided into two sermons, by ThoEnglands sicknes, comparatively conferred with Israels Diuided into two sermons, by Tho

others take advantage of their disobedience, to contemn their Ministry. Witched hearts are hardened. good ones grieved, weak offended. Is this no sickness? is it unworthy ⟨p. 39⟩our deploring, our imploring redresses. We are all brethren, both by fathers and mothers side. It is more then enough, that our fallings out have been a grief to both our parents. If we proceed, the brethren shall smart for all. Whither we be victor or vanquished, we may beshrew our selves. Let us think, we behold our Mother calling to us, to stay our quarrels, and to lay down the cause at her feet. Otherwise, as Jocasta told her two sons, Bella geri placuit, nullo; habitura triumphos. We undertake a war, whose victory shall have a sorry triumph. Let every Star in our Orb know his station and run his course without erring: the inferior subjecting themselves to the higher powers; whiles the courses of Superiors be wisely tempered with moderation and clemency. For ^bEt si omnibus verbis ministris commune idemque sit officium, sunt tansen honoris gradus. Though the office of all Gods ministers be common, and the same, yet they have different degrees and places. We have adversaries enow at home, to move our tongs and pens against. (Oh that arguments of steel and iron might supply the weakness of the other.) We have the Edomites with their no god, and the Babylonians with their new god; dissolute Atheists, resolute Papists: the former scoffing us for believing at all; the latter, for believing as we do, as we ought. These oppose (with us though under the pent-house of night) Mass against Service, Sacrament against Sacrament, Prayer against Prayer; confounding the language of England, as the Jews once of Israel. Whiles we are praying in one place, Oh Lord God of Abraham, &c. they are mumbling in another place, Oh Baal hear us. Whiles we pray for fire to consume the sacrifice, they for water to consume the fire: we for the propagation, they for the extirpation of the Gospel; hating us, and our Christian Princes more mortally, then if we were Saracens. For as no bond is so strong, as that of Religion: so ⟨p. 40⟩no hostility is so cruel and outrageous, as that which difference in Religion occasioneth. Hence they cross, they curse, they persecute, they excommunicate. Nothing but our blood can stay their stomachs. We know, they hate us: let us the more dearly love one another.