Kaina kai palaia Things new and old, or, A store-house of similies, sentences, allegories, apophthegms, adagies, apologues, divine, morall, politicall, &c. : with their severall applications / collected and observed from the writings and sayings of the learned in all ages to this present by John Spencer ...

[ 293] Sacriledge condemned by the example of Cyrus.

Cyrus having relieved the Jews from their captivity in Babylon, doth not dismiss them with an empty grace, but with a Royal bounty; What a mountain of Plate was then removed from Babylon to Jerusalem? No fewer then five thousand and four hundred vessels of gold and silver; Certainly this great Monarch wanted not wit to think: It is a rich booty that I find in the Temples of Babylon, having van∣quished their Gods, I may well challenge their spoil; How seasonably doth it now fall into my hands to reward my Souldiers? How pat doth it come to settle my new Empire? What if this treasure came from Jerusalem? the property is alter∣ed; the very place (according to the conceit of the Jews) hath prophaned it; The true God, I have heard, is curious; neither will abide those vessels which have

been polluted with idolatrous uses:* 1.1 It shall be enough, if I loose the bonds of this miserable people;* 1.2 if I give liberty, let the next give wealth; they will think themselves happy with bare walls in their native Country. To what purpose should I pamper their penury with a suddain store? But the princely heart of Cyrus (though an heathen) would admit of no such base sacrilegious thoughts; those vessells that he found stamp'd with God's mark, he will return to the owner; neither his own occasions, nor their abuse, shall be any colour of their detention. O Cyrus, Cyrus, how many close-handed, griple-minded Christians, shall once be choked in judgment, with the example of thy just munificence? Thou restoredst that, which is now ordinarily purlo••ned;* 1.3 the lands, the treasures, the utensills of the Chruch, are now rifled and devoured; but there is a woe to those houses, that are stored with the spoiles of Gods Temple, and a woe to those fingers, that are tainted with holy treasures.

Notes

• * 1.1

  B Hall's Con∣templ.
• * 1.2

  Zerub. Ezra.
• * 1.3

  Quis enim laesos impunè putaret Esse Deos? Lu∣can.