[The flour of godly prayers] [most worthy to be used in these our days…[The flour of godly praiers] [most worthy to be vsed in these our daies…

We most humbly beseech y•, mercifully to behold thy poor and scattered flock, whom thou hast purchased with thy most precious blood▪ ¹and to send them such shepherds as may diligently seek up the lost sheep,² lovingly lay them on their shoulders, & faithfully bring them home again unto the sheepfold. Ah Lord, thou seest how great the harvest is,³ & how few the workmen be. Thou art lord of y• harvest, vouchsafe therefore we most humbly pray the to send labourers into thy harvest.⁴ Take a way these idle lubbers, which do nothing but devour thy sheep, cloth them selves with the finest of the well and eat of the fattest of the flock Thieves and robbers are they,⁵ & not pastors & preachers. For the weak they hold not up, the sick they heal not,⁶ the broken they bind not together, the out casts ⟨p. xxi⟩they bring not again, the lost they seek not, but churlishly, and cruelly do they rule thy flock. A good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep, but the hireling,⁷ yea he that is not the shepherd, nor owner of the sheep, seeth the wolf coming, and forsaketh the sheep, yea flieth, and the wolf catcheth and scattereth the sheep. Such hirelings, O good Lord,⁸ take away from us, which seek nothing but idly to live of the sweet of our brows, & of the labour of our hands, and notwithstanding suffer us to be miserably torn of antichrist and of his Ministers,⁹