Vers. 15. What haue you to doe that you beate my people to peeces, and grinde the faces of the poore, saith the Lord, euen the Lord of hosts?
HE reckons vp some particulars, by which it appeares that the poore were proudly dealt withall by them; yea cruelly, and with all oppression and wrong. It was not need∣full that the Prophet should recite by peece∣meale al things which were to be reprooued in the Princes: because by this little, it suffi∣ciently appeares how vniust and tyrannicall their gouernment was. But where shall the poore finde refuge, if not at the hands of the Magistrate, who ought to be the father of the countrie, and to be an helpe to miserable persons? Therefore hee vseth an interro∣gation with a kind of vehemencie, What? as if he should say, What boldnes is this? What barbarisme and crueltie is it thus to abuse the wretched estate of the poore, and to spare them nothing at all? So also by the two similitudes, he sets forth their pride, ioyned with crueltie.
Saith the Lord of hosts.] To the end this re∣prehension might haue such authoritie a∣mong them as was meete, he sets the person of God before them: for here is a close op∣position: as if hee should say. You must not take these things as from the mouth of man, but it is God himselfe, who is the author of this accusation: it is he that pursues these in∣iuries, who will also take vengeance of you for them in the end. And therefore because those who are set in any degree of honour do vsually so ouerflow with pride, that they de∣spise the words and admonitions of all men, he opposeth against the pride of such, the Maiestie of God, to the end they may not bee so conceited as to despise the sharpe threat∣nings which hee hath charged them with in good earnest. And yet let vs remember that wee take not this place as if the Prophet preached nothing but the mercie of God on∣lie. For hauing denounced vengeance in generall to all, he toucheth the heads espe∣cially, to the end that neither the one nor the other might thinke to escape the hand of