[4621]  ------“Justitiae soror,
Incorrupta fides, nudaque veritas,”------

all goodness gone, where vice abounds, the devil is loose, and see one man vilify and insult over his brother, as if he were an innocent, or a block, oppress, tyrannise, prey upon, torture him, vex, gall, torment and crucify him, starve him, where is charity?  He that shall see men [4622]swear and forswear, lie and bear false witness, to advantage themselves, prejudice others, hazard goods, lives, fortunes, credit, all, to be revenged on their enemies, men so unspeakable in their lusts, unnatural in malice, such bloody designments, Italian blaspheming, Spanish renouncing, &c., may well ask where is charity?  He that shall observe so many lawsuits, such endless contentions, such plotting, undermining, so much money spent with such eagerness and fury, every man for himself, his own ends, the devil for all:  so many distressed souls, such lamentable complaints, so many factions, conspiracies, seditions, oppressions, abuses, injuries, such grudging, repining, discontent, so much emulation, envy, so many brawls, quarrels, monomachies, &c., may well require what is become of charity? when we see and read of such cruel wars, tumults, uproars, bloody battles, so many [4623]men slain, so many cities ruinated, &c. (for what else is the subject of all our stones almost, but bills, bows, and guns!) so many murders and massacres, &c., where is charity?  Or see men wholly devote to God, churchmen, professed divines, holy men, [4624]"to make the trumpet of the gospel the trumpet of war,” a company of hell-born Jesuits, and fiery-spirited friars, facem praeferre to all seditions:  as so many firebrands set all the world by the ears (I say nothing of their contentious and railing books, whole ages spent in writing one against another, and that with such virulency and bitterness, Bionaeis sermonibus et sale nigro), and by their bloody inquisitions, that in thirty years, Bale saith, consumed 39 princes, 148 earls, 235 barons, 14,755 commons; worse than those ten persecutions, may justly doubt where is charity? Obsecro vos quales hi demum Christiani! Are these Christians?  I beseech you tell me:  he that shall observe and see these things, may say to them as Cato to Caesar, credo quae de inferis dicuntur falsa existimas, “sure I think thou art of opinion there is neither heaven nor hell.”  Let them pretend religion, zeal, make what shows they will, give alms, peace-makers, frequent sermons, if we may guess at the tree by the fruit, they are no better than hypocrites, epicures, atheists, with the [4625]"fool in their hearts they say there is no God.”  ’Tis no marvel then if being so uncharitable, hard-hearted as we are, we have so frequent and so many discontents, such melancholy fits, so many bitter pangs, mutual discords, all in a combustion, often complaints, so common grievances, general mischiefs, si tantae in terris tragoediae, quibus labefactatur et misere