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,…

5 Contempt and hatred overthroweth all estates, if either the Law be contemned, or the¹ Law-giver hated. And as in Kingdoms, so it fareth for this point in the Church, if the law of God be not esteemed, then the jealousy of the Lord of Hosts will surely either take away his Law, or punish the abusers of it. The cause of contempt commonly, as they say, is² familiarity. Familiarity breedeth contempt. Indeed the wise men of the world noted, that there were three excellent mothers, which brought forth three very evil daughters. The ⟨p. 820⟩mothers are these: first Familiarity, which is the high pitch of friendship, brings up contempt,³ so the more we enjoy the thing loved, the viler it grows in our eyes. Secondly, truth breeds hatred. The third is peace, and that is the mother of idleness and security▪ So that whatsoever is free in v•e once, that grows vile, as Manna (though it were a very precious thing) did in the eyes of the Israelites. Yet we must know, that albeit sometime these issue from these mothers, yet they be not their natural daughters. The natural child of familiarity is not contempt, but it cometh of our corrupt nature, which is clean opposite to the nature of God. For as the nature of God is so perfectly good, that he doth turn even very evil things to very good things, as the malice of the Jews in putting his Son to death, to be a mean of our salvation; so our nature is so absolutely evil, that it turns very good things into evil. Wherefore retaining this foolish axiom of vanity, that⁴ nothing is precious but rare & strange things, it cometh not of the nature of the thing,⁵ which is still good, but of our nature, which no more esteems it. In the first of Samuel it is said, the word was precious in those days, which was, because it was rare, for they accounted highly of Samuel, because they had no Prophet long before, but we must not do so, neither in other things do we so. Do we in natural things contemn the sun, the water, and the fire, because they be usual? we do not. Then surely, naturally we contemn not a thing for familiarity: but the cause of contempt is the ignorance of the use of the thing; and therefore no doubt, as we do not contemn the sun, the water, the fire, because we know and are persuaded of the true use of them: