XXVIII. SEASONABLE PREVENTION.

WHEN the famine in Egypt had lasted so long, the estates of the people were so exhausted by buying corn of the king, that, their money failing, they were forced to sell their cattle unto Joseph, Gen. xlvii. 17; and this maintained them with bread for one year more.

But the famine lasting longer, and their stock of cattle being wholly spent, they then sold all their lands, and after that their persons, to Joseph, as agent for Pharaoh, so that the king of Egypt became proprietary of the bodies of all the people in his land, Gen. xlvii. 23: Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day, and your land, for Pharaoh.

If our taxes had continued longer, they could not have continued longer. I mean, the nation was so impoverished, that the money (so much was hoarded up, or transported by military grandees) could not have been paid in specie.

Indeed, we began the war with brazen trumpets and silver money, and then came unto silver trumpets and brazen money, especially in our Parliament half-crowns.

We must afterwards have sold our stocks of cattle, and then our lands, to have been able to perform payments. This done, it is too, too suspicious; they would have seized on our persons too, and have envassalled us forever unto them.

But, blessed be God, they are stricken upon the cheek-bone, Psalm iii. 7, whereby their teeth are knocked out. Our fathers were not more indebted to God’s goodness for delivering them from the Spanish Armada, than we are from our own English army.