The Best Refuge for the Most Oppressed -- Simeon Ashe

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The Best Refvge for the Most Oppressed: In a Sermon Preached to the Honourable House of Commons by Simeon Ashe is available online here.

Thomas Smith, Select Memoirs of the Lives, Labours, and Sufferings, of Those Pious and Learned English and Scottish Divines, Who Greatly Distinguished Themselves in Promoting the Reformation from Popery; in Translating the Bibles; and in Promulgating Its Salutary Doctrines:

In this celebrated sermon, speaking of the oppression which the church and people of God have to meet with in the world, mentions the English prelates as great oppressors, both in the church and commonwealth. “What country (says he), what city, what town, what village, yea, what family, I had almost said, what individual, has not, in one kind or other, in one degree or other, at one time or other, been the object of their oppression? They and their officers, by citations, censures, exactions, and other unjust proceedings, have been universal oppressors. How many wealthy men have they crushed by their cruelty! How many poor families have they ruined by their tyranny! and I beseech you to consider whether the most pious among preachers and people have not met with the hardest measures from their heavy hands. Alas! alas! how many faithful ministers have they silenced! how many gracious Christians have they excommunicated! and how many congregations have they starved or dissolved ,in this kingdom! For the proof of all this, and of more than all this, I appeal to the unparalleled number of petitions presented to this present parliament.”