_Direct._ II. Consider with fear how oppression turneth the groans and cries of the poor to the God of revenge against the oppressors. And go to that man that hath the tears and prayers of oppressed innocents, sounding the alarm to the vindictive justice, to awake for their relief. "And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night to him, though he bear long with them? I tell you, that he will avenge them speedily," Luke xviii. 7, 8. "The Lord will be a refuge to the oppressed," Psal. ix. 9. "To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress," Psal. x. 18. "The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed," Psal. ciii. 6; cxlvi. 7. Yea, God is doubly engaged to be revenged upon oppressors, and hath threatened a special execution of his judgment against them above most other sinners: partly as it is an act of mercy and relief to the oppressed; so that the matter of threatening and vengeance to the oppressor, is the matter of God's promise and favour to the sufferers: and partly as it is an act of his vindictive justice against such as so heinously break his laws. The oppressor hath indeed his time of power, and in that time the oppressed seem to be forsaken and neglected of God; as if he did not hear their cries: but when his patience hath endured the tyranny of the proud, and his wisdom hath tried the patience of the sufferers, to the determined time; how speedily and terribly then doth vengeance overtake the oppressors, and make them warnings to those that follow them! In the hour of the wicked and of the power of darkness Christ himself was oppressed and afflicted, Isa. liii. 7, and "in his humiliation his judgment was taken away," Acts viii. But how quickly did the destroying revenge overtake those bloody zealots, and how grievous is the ruin which they lie under to this day, which they thought by that same murder to have escaped! Solomon saith, Eccl. iv. 1, he "considered all the oppressions that are under the sun, and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of the oppressors there was power, but they had no comforter." Which made him praise the dead and the unborn. But yet he that goeth with David into the sanctuary, and seeth the end of the oppressors, shall perceive them set in slippery places, and tumbling down to destruction in a moment, Psal. xxxvii.; lxxiii. The Israelites in Egypt seemed long to groan and cry in vain; but when the determinate time of their deliverance came, God saith, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people, and have heard their cry by reason of their task-masters; for I know their sorrows: and I am come down to deliver them.--Behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come up unto me, and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them," Exod. iii. 7-9. Deut. xxvi. 5, 6, "The Egyptians evil entreated us, and laid upon us hard bondage, and when we cried to the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression." See Psal. cvii. 39-42. So Psal. xii. 5, 6, "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 (or would insnare him). Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever." "Trust not therefore in oppression," Psal. lxii. 10. For God is the avenger, and his plagues shall revenge the injuries of the oppressed.
_Direct._ III. Remember what an odious name oppressors commonly leave behind them upon earth. No sort of men are mentioned by posterity with greater hatred and contempt. For the interest of mankind directeth them hereunto, and may prognosticate it, as well as the justice of God. However the power of proud oppressors may make men afraid of speaking to their faces what they think, yet those that are out of their reach, will pour out the bitterness of their souls against them. And when once death hath tied their cruel hands, or any judgment of God hath cast them down, and knocked out their teeth, how freely will the distressed vent their grief! and fame will not be afraid to deliver their ugly picture to posterity, according to their desert. Methinks therefore that even pride itself should be a great help to banish oppression from the world. What an honourable name hath a Trajan, a Titus, an Antonine, an Alexander Severus! And what an odious name hath a Nero, a Caligula, a Commodus, a D'Alva, &c.! Most proud men affect to be extolled, and to have a glorious name survive them when they are dead; and yet they take the course to make their memory abominable; so much doth sin contradict and disappoint the sinner's hopes!