If you have the measuring line in your hands, then remember §1this Doctrine, the first Proposition, Stones of Reformation are to be laid with most exactness. Herein if you be exact, you shall be like unto Jesus Christ, who (as Salmeron observeth) when he came to purge the Temple, did not only admonish, chide, reprove the money-changers, or whip them away, but did overthrow their very Tables, Ne impium opus facile repeterent, Lest they should recover their trade1 again. In other things you are very exact, men are exact in their trades, exact in their accounts, exact in their reckonings, exact in their diet, exact in their sleep, exact in their hair both of head and face; In small things you are exact, and will you not be exact in this greatest? You know what other Reformed Churches have done, the Reformation of all other Churches are round about you, you have their writings before you, their books, their practices, their examples, and this for many years; can you think that God hath set us now for an hundred years upon their shoulders, to see no farther into Reformation then they have done? If two ⟨p. 25⟩men be to do the same work, the one first and the other after; he that doth it first though he doth it never so well, yet will excuse himself and say, I never saw he work done before me, I was fain to invent my very tools and instruments; and you will excuse him though there be some failing in him: But when the second man cometh to the same work that hath a former example, and all his tools to help him, you expect more exactness from him. You know my meaning, I need not apply this; Oh that our God would make England the praise of the whole earth! Nothing will do it but our exactness in reformation. Certainly this reformation that is now on foot, hath (as I may speak with reverence) cost our God very dear, the liberties, the estates, the lives and bloods of many of his dear children, of whom the world was not worthy. Do you think God will lay out all this for an imperfect, unexact, poor and low reformation?
If you have the measuring line in your hands, then remember §1this Doctrine, the first Proposition, Stones of Reformation are to be laid with most exactnesse. Herein if you be exact, you shall be like unto Jesus Christ, who (as Salmeron observeth) when he came to purge the Temple, did not onely admonish, chide, reprove the money-changers, or whip them away, but did overthrow their very Tables, Ne impium opus facile repeterent, Lest they should recover their trade1 againe. In other things you are very exact, men are exact in their trades, exact in their accounts, exact in their reckonings, exact in their diet, exact in their sleep, exact in their haire both of head and face; In small things you are exact, and will you not be exact in this greatest? You know what other Reformed Churches have done, the Reformation of all other Churches are round about you, you have their writings before you, their books, their practices, their examples, and this for many yeeres; can you think that God hath set us now for an hundred yeeres upon their shoulders, to see no farther into Reformation then they have done? If two ⟨p. 25⟩men be to do the same work, the one first and the other after; he that doth it first though he doth it never so well, yet will excuse himself and say, I never saw he work done before me, I was faine to invent my very tooles and instruments; and you will excuse him though there be some fayling in him: But when the second man commeth to the same work that hath a former example, and all his tooles to help him, you expect more exactnes from him. You know my meaning, I need not apply this; Oh that our God would make England the praise of the whole earth! Nothing will do it but our exactnes in reformation. Certainly this reformation that is now on foot, hath (as I may speake with reverence) cost our God very dear, the liberties, the estates, the lives and bloods of many of his deare children, of whom the world was not worthy. Do you think God will lay out all this for an imperfect, unexact, poor and low reformation?
- 1Sac••dot•• in Temple […] dents su•• •• gellorum d•g[…]. Sullener▪ in Joan. 3.Sac••dot•• in Templ• 〈…〉 dentes su•• •• gellorum d•g〈…〉. S•l•ner▪ in Joan. 3.
