Gildas Salvianus: The Reformed Pastor

Brethren I desire to deal closely with my own heart and yours. I beseech you consider. Whether it will save us to speak well of the grace that we are without? or to speak against the sin that we live in? Have not many of us cause to enquire once & again, Whether sincerity will consist with such a measure of Pride? When we are telling the drunkard that he cannot be saved unless he become temperate, and the fornicator, that he cannot be saved unless he become chaste (an undoubted truth); have we not as great reason if we are proud, to say of our selves, that we cannot be saved unless we become humble? Certainly, Pride is a greater sin then whoredom or drunkenness: and Humility is as necessary as Chastity and Sobriety. Truly Brethren, a man may as certainly, and more slyly and dangerously, make haste to hell in a way of Profession and earnest preaching of the Gospel, and seeming zeal for a Holy life, as in a way of drunkenness and filthiness. For what is true Holiness but a devotedness to God and a living to him? and what is a wicked and damnable state, but a devotedness to our carnal selves, and a living to our ⟨p. 180⟩selves? And doth any man live more to himself then the proud? or less to God? And may not Pride make a Preacher study for himself, and pray, and preach, and live to himself, even when he seemeth to out-go others in the work, if he therefore out-go them that he may have the glory of it from men? It is not the work without the principle and end that will prove us upright. The work may be Gods, and yet we do it, not for God but for our selves. I confess I feel such continual danger in this point, that if I do not watch against it, least I should study for my self, and preach for my self, and write for my self, rather then for Christ, I should soon miscarry; and after all, I justify not my self, when I must condemn the sin. Consider I beseech you Brethren, what baits there are in the work of the Ministry, to entice a man to be selfish, that is, to be carnal and impious, even in the highest works of piety! The fame of a godly man is as great a snare as the fame of a learned man: And woe to him that takes up with the fame of godliness instead of godliness. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. When the times were all for learning and empty formalities, then the Temptation of the proud did lie that way;

Brethren I desire to deal closely with my own heart and yours. I beseech you consider. Whether it will save us to speak well of the grace that we are without? or to speak against the sin that we live in? Have not many of us cause to enquire once & again, Whether sincerity will consist with such a measure of Pride? When we are telling the drunkard that he cannot be saved unless he become temperate, and the fornicator, that he cannot be saved unless he become chaste (an undoubted truth); have we not as great reason if we are proud, to say of our selves, that we cannot be saved unless we become humble? Certainly, Pride is a greater sin then whoredom or drunkenness: and Humility is as necessary as Chastity and Sobriety. Truly Brethren, a man may as certainly, and more slily and dangerously, make haste to hell in a way of Profession and earnest preaching of the Gospel, and seeming zeal for a Holy life, as in a way of drunkenness and filthyness. For what is true Holiness but a devotedness to God and a living to him? and what is a wicked and damnable state, but a devotedness to our carnal selves, and a living to our