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,…

Secondly, the eye must stand rightly in his proper seat, for if it stand awry we cannot see well, how clear soever the eye be, This site and right place of the eye, the old writers call intentio vitae, and that is that which even their own consciences know, and other men often see, they level at in their whole life. The right situation of the eye is this, if we set before us this scope to please God, without any sinister respect: albeit some can look awry and that seldom, and that shortly, and wax not worse and worse, but more zealous. He looks not aright that hath a worldly end, as Balaam would now & then look to Gods commandment, but because his heart and mind was fixed on the wages of iniquity, his eye was ever over his shoulder, and in the end showed he was blind indeed. Thirdly, the outward hinderances are the beams that are in the eye, and they are those sins that are past shame and sorrow, and such as may be felt at midnight. They receive many divisions: they uphold wicked practises; they be such as the Disciples cannot cast out, they are directly opposite to the calling of a Christian. They that work this trade, are workers of iniquity, of whose eye and judgement mark Davids question, the answer whereof is soon made. Are they not all without understanding that work wickedness ▪ And this is the reason why the Fathers having less means of knowledge than we, yet¹ saw more concerning heavenly things then we. Albeit Christ saith of this eye, thou seest a mote, yet he speaketh but of his false imagination, for it is hard for him to see a mote, that hath a beam in his own eye▪ he may only think there is a mote where there is none, and therefore no man is to believe him. And yet this man challengeth to ⟨p. 635⟩himself authority not only to dispute, but also to reprove, yet little reason is there of the first, but none of the second. Besides, whereas the end of reprehension is amendment, he is like to make him worse: for seeing how little he accounteth of the beam that is in his own eye, he may gather, if that hurt not him, his mote will hurt him less: nay he is more² like to pluck out the eye, than the mote out of the eye. It is a general rule, that he that doth willingly reprehend, and feels not a mixed affection of sorrow and fear, is not fit for it. Our own love is the measure of our love to others: