poor is ii greater ; but to rob and oppress the poor, because he is poor, and wants money to buy justice, is the top of all inhumanity and impiety. To oppress any one is a sin ; but to oppress the oppressed is the height of t-in. Poverty and want and mist-ry should be motives to pity ; but oppressors make them the whetstones of their cruelty and severity, and therefore the Lord will plead tlie cause of his poor oppressed people against their oppressors without fee or fear ; yea, he will plead tlieir cause with pestilence, blood, and fire. Gog was a great opi)ressor of the poor, Ezek. xxxviii, 8-14, and God pleads against him with pestilence, blood, and fire : ver. 22, ' And I will plead against him Avith pestilence and with blood ; and 1 will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many jieople that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brim- stone.' Such as oppress a man and liis house, even a man and his heritage, they take the surest and the readiest Avay to bring ruin upon their own houses, Micah ii. 1, 2. Isa. v. 8, ' Woe unto them that join house to house, and field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth !' But mark what follows : ver. 9, ' In mine ears said the Lord of hosts. Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitants ; of a truth many houses shall be desolate.' This is an emphatical form of swear- ing ; it is as if the Lord had said, ' Let me not live, or let me never be owned or accounted a God, or let me never be looked upon as a God of truth, a God of my word ; let me never be believed nor trusted more for a God, if I do not lay desolate the houses of op[)ressors, the great houses of oppressors, the fair houses of oppressors ; yea, the multitude and variety of the houses of oppressors.' So Amos iii. 9-11, ' Publish in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble j-ourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the great tumults in the midst thereof, and the oppressed,' or oppres- sions, ' in the midst thereof For they know not to do right, saith the Lord, Avho store up violence and robbery in their palaces. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, An adversary there shall be even round about the land ; and he shall bring down thy strength from thee, and thy palaces shall be spoiled.' Now mark the loth verse, 'And I will smite the winter-house with the summer-house ; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end, saith the Lord.' In their palaces, and in their winter and summer houses, they stored up all the riches, preys, and spoils that they had got by oppression. But God tells them that their palaces should be spoiled, and that he would smite the winter-house upon the summer-house — so the Hebi-ew runs. God was resolved that he woukl dash one house against the other, and lay them all on heaps. Though their palaces and houses were never so rich, and strong, and stately, and pompous, and glorious, and decked, and adorned, and enamelled, and checkered, yet they should all down together. So Zech. vii. 10, 11, 14, ' Oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor ; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and sto])pcd their cars, that they should not hear.' Well now, mark what follows : ver. 14. ' But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom
ISA. XLII. 24, 25.] THE LATE FIERY DISPENSATION. 79
they knew not. Thus the land was desoLite after them, that no man passed through nor returned : for they hxid the pleasant land ' (or as the Hebrew has it, the second land of desire) ' desolate.' Palestine was a very pleasant land — a land which flowed with milk and honey, a land which was the glory of all lands ; God had made it as his paradise, and enriched it with all plenty and pleasure, and, above all, with his presence and residence in his city and temple ; l)ut they by oppressing the poor, the widow, and the fatherless, laid all desolate : Jer. xii. 12, ' 0 house of David, thus saith the Lord, Execute judg- ment in the morning, and deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go out like fire, and burn that none can quench it.' Oppression lays a people open to God's fury, it provokes the Lord to turn their all into unquenchable flames : Ps. xii. 5, ' For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord ; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.' Upon these words Chrysostom saith, Timete quicunque pauperem injuria afficitis ; liabetis vos potentiam et opes, et judicum benevolentiam ; sed habent illi arma omriiuin validissima, lucius et ejidatus, quce d ccelis auxilium attrahunt Hcec arma domus effbdivMi, fund.amenta evertunt, hcec integras natio7ies suhmergunt : Fear ye, whosoever ye be, that do wrong the poor, you have power and wealth, and the favour of the judges ; but they have the strongest weapons of all, sighings and groanings, wliich fetch help from heaven for them. These weapons dig down houses, throw up foundations, overthrow whole nations. i Thus you see by all these clear scriptures that oppression is a sin that brings wasting and destroying judgments upon a people.
Ah, London ! London ! was there no oppression and cruelty to be found within and without thy walls ? Eccles. iv. 1, ' So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun : and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power ; but they had no comforter.' And behold the tears of such as were oppressed. The original word signifies lachri/mam, non lachrymas, a tear, not tears ; as if the oppressed had wept so long, and wept so much, that they could weep no longer, nor weep no more, having but only one tear left them. Were there not, 0 London ! many of thy poor oppressed inhabitants that wept so long, that they could weep no longer ; and that wept so much, that they had but one tear left ? Oh, the cries and tears of the oppressed within and without thy Avails did so pierce God's ears, and so work upon his heart, that at last he comes down in flames of fire to revenge the oppressed. Were there no rich citizens that did rack their tenants, and grind the faces of the poor, that took an advantage from their necessities to beat down the price of their commodities, that so they might raise themselves on the poor's ruin ? Were there no false weights, false wares, false lights, false measures to be found within and without thy walls by which the poor has been cheated, cozened, and oppressed? 2 Oh how did the rich work upon
' Chrj's. in Psalm xii.