e us withe his rodde.

[Sidenote: Nota optime.]

O mightifulle God, if it be soo as holy scripture seiethe, the whiche is
not to mystrust, have not we deserved cause this to be punished, seeyng so
many wrecchid synnes as among us dailie uncorrectid hathe reigned, for
whiche we ought know we be righte worthy of moche more chastising and
grettir punishement of God, he being just and not chaungeable; for it is
wretyn in the booke of Paralipomenon that for the gret synnes used be theym
of Israelle, God of his rightwisnesse suffred the Phillistyns that were
they never so eville ne in so eville a quarelle to be persecutours and
destroiers of the lande of Judee and of Goddis peple, and the rathir that
the saide Israelites had a law gyven hem by Moises and kept it not.

[Sidenote: De republica augmentanda.]

How every officer spirituelle and temporelle shulde put hym in his devoire
to the avaunsing of the comon profite.

[Sidenote: Tullius in nova rethorica.]

And it is for to remembre among alle other thingis that is made mencion in
this Epistille that every man after his power and degre shuld principallie
put hym in devoire and laboure for the {57} avaunsment of the comon profit
of a region, contre, cite, towne, or householde; for, as alle the famous
clerkis writen, and inespecialle that wise cenatoure of Rome Tullius in his
booke De Officiis [de Republica, that Novius Marcellus makyth mencion of yn
dyvers chapiters,[152]] and in other bookis of his De Amicicia, Paradoxis,
and Tusculanis questionibus, that Res publica welle attendid and observed,
it is the grounde of welfare and prosperite of alle maner peple. And first
to wete the verray declaracion of these .ij. termys Res publica, as seint
Austyn seiethe in the .v. booke and .xxviij. chapitre of the Cite of God,
and the saide Tullius the famous rethoricien accordithe withe the same,
saieng in Latyn termes: "Res publica est res populi, res patriae, res
communis; sic patet quod omnis qui intendit bonum commune et utilitatem
populi vel patriae vel civitatis augere, conservare, protegere, salva
justicia intendit et rempublicam augere et conservare." And it is forto
lerne and considre to what vertues Respublica strecchithe, as I rede in a
tretie that Wallensis, a noble clerk, wrote in his book clepid Commune
loquium, C^o. 3^o. p^e partis, seithe quod, "Respublica ordinatur hiis
virtutibus, scilicet, legum rectitudine, justiciae soliditate, equitatis
concordia, unanimitatis