ving, a
charitable man! [4619]_Probus quis nobiscum vivit_? Show me a Caleb or a
Joshua! _Dic mihi Musa virum_--show a virtuous woman, a constant wife, a
good neighbour, a trusty servant, an obedient child, a true friend, &c.
Crows in Africa are not so scant. He that shall examine this [4620]iron age
wherein we live, where love is cold, _et jam terras Astrea reliquit_,
justice fled with her assistants, virtue expelled,

[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;