The works of the reverend and faithful servant of Jesus Christ M. Richard Greenham,…The workes of the reuerend and faithfull seruant af Iesus Christ M. Richard Greenham,…

Others unwilling to come within the reach and danger of the law, that they may escape imprisonment of body, or confiscation of goods, will be painful in penal Statutes, skilful in every branch of the civill law, and especially will labour to keep themselves from treasons, murders, felonies, and such like offences deserving the punishment of death: yet when the Lord God threateneth the seizure both of soul and body, the attaching of our spirits, the confiscating of our consciences, the banishing of us from heaven, the hanging of us in hell, the suspending of our salvation, the adjudging of us to condemnation for the breach of his commandments, no man searcheth his eternal law, no man careth for the Gospel, neither the sentence of everlasting divorcement from the Lord, neither the covenant of reconciliation is esteemed of us.

Others vnwilling to come within the reach and danger of the law, that they may escape imprisonment of body, or confiscation of goods, will be painefull in penall Satutes, skilfull in euery branch of the ciuill law, and especially will labour to keepe themselues from treasons, murthers, felonies, and such like offences deseruing the punishment of death: yet when the Lord God threatneth the seizure both of soule and body, the attaching of our spirits, the confiscating of our cōsciences, the banishing of vs from heauen, the hanging of vs in hell, the suspending of our saluation, the adiudging of vs to condemnation for the breach of his commandements, no man searcheth his eternall law, no man careth for the Gospell, neither the sentence of euerlasting diuorcement from the Lord, neither the couenant of reconciliation is esteemed of vs.

And to reach our complaint one degree further. Behold, the more we seek outward pleasures and to avoid the inward trouble of mind, the more we haste and run into it, and suddenly plunge our selves in a wounded spirit ere we be aware. Who posteth more¹ to become rich, who hopeth less to become poor, than the merchant man? who adventureth great treasures, who hazardeth his goods, who putteth in jeopardy his life; and yet suddenly he either rusheth upon the rock of hardness of heart, or else is swallowed up of the gulf of a despairing mind: from which afterwards he cannot be delivered with a ship full of gold. Woeful proof hath confirmed, how some men (wholly set on pleasures, such as could not away to be sad, and to be hedged up always of godly sorrow) have had their tables made snares, and even their excess of pleasures hath brought excess of sorrows, and whilst they laboured to put the evil day far from them, they have used such follies, as have bred them most bitter and terrible torments of their fearful and trembling consciences.