Thou hast made my arms as a bow of brasse_. Furthermore in the 4. of _Micah, I will make thy horne iron, and will make thy hoofs brasse_. As touching iron, for a hard and rigorous oppression, according as it is hard and inflexible of its nature, and which doth suppeditate almost all; I will rule them with a rod of iron in the 2. _Psalm._ and in the 4. of _Deut._ _I have brought thee out of the iron fornace of Ægypt_; there where iron denotes servitude, wherein they were, for the oppression of their persons, and the fornace of fire, was that of their souls and consciences constituted amidst so many Idolatries and impieties, which must be unto them a servitude, more intolerable then all travails and afflictions; and the most cruell and pitilesse usages of their bodies, for as much as the soul excels it, for the zeal which they carry to their God, with the same locution the Ecclesiasticke served himself in his 28. speaking of a wicked tongue; happy is he that can save himself from a wicked tongue, for the yoke thereof is as iron, and his band as the band of brasse. But for affliction and anguish, all openly in the 105. _Psal. v. 18. Iron pierced his soul_, speaking of _Joseph_ a prisoner in _Ægypt_, until his word came. To be short, there is not a point of locution figurative, more frequent in the Prophets, then those that are drawn from metals and from fire, which for the reason of its proprieties and effects, as it is one of the most commodious and necessary things of all others, according as it is said before, for it bakes our viands, it warms us, and doth revigour us against the colds; it clears and lightens in the darkness, in lieu of the suns brightnesse, and other infinite usages, and chiefly for the execution of arts and trades: Otherwise we may say that without iron, fire it selfe would as it were be almost unprofitable for this respect. And _Plato_ doth not exempt one onely art from fire, but the pottery of clay, in the 3. of his Lawes, where he treats very excellently of the life of the first men; and although iron and copper had brought them commodities to civilize themselves and to polish them to a more humane life. So that not without cause, these poor beastly Savages of the _West Indies_, did wonder in their grosse understanding, how people in these parts, so well advised and industrious, for a little piece of gold or silver, unprofitable to all uses, should offer them so liberally hatchets, sithes, reaphooks, and other iron work, commodious for all usages, and which they could so shorten that which they had with so great pain perfected but to the halfe with fire, which was to them for all instruments and tools, with some base pointed flints. But we may here likewise alledge to the contrary the hurts and incommodities that iron bringeth, for of it, are forged all offensive arms, wherewith men shorten their dayes by their reciprocall Massacres: for that, it is _Mars_ his true Minister, and exterminator and ruine of