Certain sermons, first preached, and after published at several times, by M. Thomas Gataker…Certaine sermons, first preached, and after published at severall times, by M. Thomas Gataker…

For as a^a scoffing companion sometime told the Bishop that would give him his blessing when he would not give him an half-penny, that If his blessing had been worth an half-penny, he should not have had it. So if worldly men thought godliness, and the fear and favour of God worth but an half-penny, they would not venture to put either away for an half-penny matter: they would not so readily exchange either for trifles, did they not make but a trifling matter of either. Neither may the greater sort of such men avoid this imputation, and wash their hands with^b Pilate from the soil of this sin, because they are wont to make godliness away for greater matters. To omit^c that even the greatest of them will bear no weight at all, if they be laid in the balance against godliness, when the whole world it self is too light to weigh against it. Thou thy self, who ever thou art, wilt cry out shame on some poor silly wretch, that shall forswear himself, and so damn his soul, as thou thy self sayest, for a penny, when thou dost thy self, it may be, in effect as much for somewhat more. But do thou consider, as^d Aristippus sometime told Plato, that a penny may be as much to him as a pound is to thee, and a pound no more with thee than a penny with him: and therefore doest thou value Godliness at as low a rate in stretching and straining of thy conscience for the one, as he in tentering it for the other.

For as a^a scoffing companion sometime told the Bishop that would give him his blessing when he would not give him an halfe-penny, that If his blessing had beene worth an halfe-penny, he should not have had it. So if worldly men thought godlinesse, and the feare and favour of God worth but an halfe-penny, they would not venture to put either away for an halfe-penny matter: they would not so readily exchange either for trifles, did they not make but a trifling matter of either. Neither may the greater sort of such men avoid this imputation, and wash their hands with^b