Gildas Salvianus: The Reformed Pastor

20. Lastly, of so great weight and excellency is the duty that we are upon, that The chiefest part of Church-Reformation that is behind, (as to means) consisteth in it; and it must be the chiefest means to answer the Judgements, the Mercies, the Prayers, the Promises, the cost, and the endeavours, and blood of the Nation; and without this it will not be done; the ends of all these will never be well attained; a Reformation to purpose will never be wrought; the Church will be still low, the interest of Christ will be much neglected; and God will still have a controversy with the Land, and above all, with the Ministry that have been deepest in the guilt.

20. LAstly, of so great weight and excellency is the duty that we are upon, that The chiefest part of Church-Reformation that is behind, (as to means) consisteth in it; and it must be the chiefest means to answer the Judgements, the Mercies, the Prayers, the Promises, the cost, and the endeavours, and blood of the Nation; and without this it will not be done; the ends of all these will never be well attained; a Reformation to purpose will never be wrought; the Church will be still low, the interest of Christ will be much neglected; and God will still have a controversie with the Land, and above all, with the Ministery that have been deepest in the guilt.

How long have we talked of Reformation, how much have we said and done for it in general, and ⟨p. 342⟩how deeply and devoutly have we vowed it for our own parts (of which more anon.) And after all this, how shamefully have we neglected it, and neglect it to this day! We carry our selves as if we had not known or considered what that Reformation was that we vowed. As carnal men will take on them to be Christians, and profess with confidence that they believe in Christ, and accept of his salvation and may contend for Christ, and fight for him, and vet for all this, would have none of him, but perish for refusing him, who little dreamt that ever they had been refusers of him; and all because they understood not what his salva ion is, and how it is carried on, but dream of a salvation without flesh-displeasing, and without self-denying, and renouncing the world, and parting with their sins, and without any holiness or any great pains and labour of their own in subserviency to Christ and the spirit: Even so did too many Ministers and private men talk and write, and pray, and fight, and long for Reformation, and would little have believed that man, that should have presumed to tell them, that for all this, their very hearts were against Reformation, and that they that were praying for it and fasting for it, and wading through blood for it, would never accept it, but would themselves be the rejecters and destroyers of it? And yet so it is, and so it hath too plainly proved: and whence is all this strange deceit of heart? That good men should no better know themselves? Why, the case is plain: They thought of a Reformation to be given by God, but not of a Reformation to be wrought on and by themselves. They considered the blessing, but never thought of the means