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,…

but if we esteem our upright dealing better, let us keep it, we must not require them both. Example in Christ, he was crossed in all his doings: he went with a full mind to convert his countrymen, and they would have thrown him down an hill: he would have preached to the Gargazites, and they prayed him to depart: he spake greatly to discredit the Pharisees, ⟨p. 763⟩and they prevailed with the people against him: he bent all his preaching against Traditions, but in the Apostles times they increased ten for one, they preferred Barra••• before him, & to fill up the measure, the just man perisheth in his righteousness: but •hat reason is there of this? that it may appear Gods servants are no mercenaries, they be not godly with such and such conditions, they say not, let justice rather be lost, than I die as the Heathen. A second reason is in respect of the thing it self. Augustine marvelleth why they call not life a disease: for men speaking of a disease will say, he is in an Apoplexy, surely he will die of it, when indeed he may escape: but of life he may surely say, he hath the sickness of life, therefore he shall die, we die of the corruption of humours, and as there are two bodies public and private: so two humours, and two corruptions of them, and is it not all one for one to die by the corruption of the public humours, laws & customs, as of our own? Nay better, we being whole in body and soul. In taking upon us to be Christians, we bind our selves to die: since the fall of Adam no man passeth to Paradise but by the burning Seraphims; no man to the land of Canaan, but by the burden of him, and the waters of Marah; no man to Jerusalem, but by the valley of weeping; no man to the happy city, but by the waters of Babel: the tenure whereby we hold heaven, is the cross, that was the indenture betwixt Christ and his Father, that he should not enter into heaven, but that he must first suffer, 2. Tim. 2. all that will live godly must suffer▪ And Ambrose turneth the proposition: he that suffereth no persecution doth not live godly: and there is a reason▪ it is so that sometime the just man perisheth in his justice, and this is well that he dieth in his justice: for divers (as Gideon) have bin first spoiled of their justice, and then perished. That is the case of many now adays, perish they may, but in their righteousness they cannot.