The plea of the poor. Or A treatise of beneficence and alms-deeds teaching how…The plea of the poore. Or A treatise of benificence and almes-deeds teaching how…

Sect. 1. That we must give that only which is our own.

Sect. 1. That we must giue that onely which is our owne.

And so I come from the causes moving us to give our alms, to speak of the work it self, where we will consider the subject matter about which it is exercised, the persons to whom it belongeth, the right manner how they are to be bestowed, the time when we are bound to do them, the properties of Christian alms, wherein they differ from the alms of hypocrites and worldlings, and lastly, the divers sorts and kinds of them. In respect of the first, we must give only that which is our own, by just and lawful means derived unto us: as by inheritance, free gift or honest getting, by our own painful labours and endeavours. For alms-deeds are liberal gifts, whereby we alienate the property of the thing given from our selves, and not from other men, to the relief of those who stand in need. And to be liberal of that which is not our own, but of right belongeth unto others, is to take goods from the right owners, to whom God hath given them, and to bestow them on others at our own pleasure, wch is (as we say in the proverb) to cut a large shive out of another mans loaf, to rob Peter, that we may pay Paul, and in ⟨p. 64⟩truth no better then plain theft in the sight of God. Now in our Christian sacrifice of alms-deeds, we must take heed we offer not unto God strange fire nor stolen oblations; for if the hire of an harlot, or price of a dog, might not ¹be consecrated unto God, because they were an abomination unto him, then neither may we offer that which we have gotten by stealth and robbery, fraud and deceit, oppression and cruelty, which are no less abominable and odious. Isaiah ²61. 8. And therefore justice and mercy must be matched together, according to that