Gildas Salvianus: The Reformed Pastor

4. And for the matter of Visitations and Civilities, if they be for greater ends, or use, then our Ministerial employments are, you may break a Sabbath for them; you may forbear preaching for them, and so may forbear this private work; But if it be otherwise, how dare you make them a pretence to neglect so great a duty? Must God wait on your friends? What if they be Lords, or Knights, or Gentlemen? Must they be served before God? Or is their displeasure or censure a greater hurt to you, then Gods displeasure? Or dare you think, when God shall question you for your neglects, to put him off with this excuse, Lord I would have spent more of my time in seeking mens salvation, but that such a Gentleman and such a friend would have taken it ill if I had not waited on them. If you yet seek to please men, you are no longer the servants of Christ. He that dares spend his life in flesh-pleasing and man-pleasing, is bolder then I am. And he that dares wast his time in complements, doth little consider what he hath to do with it. O that I could but improve my time according to my convictions of the necessity of improving it! He that ⟨p. 396⟩hath looked death in the face as oft as I have done, I will not thank him to value his time. I profess I admire at those Ministers that have time to spare, that that can hunt, or shoot, or bowl, or use the like recreations two or three hours, yea whole days almost together, That can sit an hour together in vain discourses; and spend whole days in complemental visitations, and journeys to such ends. Good Lord, what do these men think on! when so many souls about them cry for their help, and death gives no respite; and they know not how short a time their people and they may be together? When the smallest Parish hath so much work that may employ all their diligence night and day! Brethren, I hope you are content to be plainly dealt with. If you have no sense of the worth of souls, and of the preciousness of that blood that was shed for them, and of the glory that they are going to, and of the misery that they are in danger of; then are you no Christians, and therefore very unfit to be Ministers: And if you have, how can you find time for needless recreations, visitations or discourses? Dare you like idle Gossips, chat and trifle away your time, when you have such works as these to do, and so many of them? O precious time!

4. And for the matter of Visitations and Civilities, if they be for greater ends, or use, then our Ministerial imployments are, you may break a Sabbath for them; you may forbear preaching for them, and so may forbear this private work; But if it be otherwise, how dare you make them a pretence to neglect so great a duty? Must God wait on your friends? What if they be Lords, or Knights, or Gentlemen? Must they be served before God? Or is their displeasure or censure a greater hurt to you, then Gods displeasure? Or dare you think, when God shall question you for your neglects, to put him off with this excuse, Lord I would have spent more of my time in seeking mens salvation, but that such a Gentleman and such a friend would have taken it ill if I had not waited on them. If you yet seek to please men, you are no longer the servants of Christ. He that dares spend his life in flesh-pleasing and man-pleasing, is bolder then I am. And he that dares wast his time in complements, doth little consider what he hath to do with it. O that I could but improve my time according to my convictions of the necessity of improving it! He that