First, sometimes because they want the saving means of knowledge. There is no faithful Minister, no compassionate Lot, to tell them of fire and brimstone from heaven, for their crying sins. There is no Noah to forwarn them of a flood: There is no messenger to bring them tidings of those armies of Gods devouring plagues and wrath, that are approaching near unto them, They have no pilots, poor forsaken creatures, to show them their rocks. They have either no Minister at all to reach them, either because the Parish is too poor, or the Church-living too great to maintain a faithful man (the strongest asses carrying the greatest burdens commonly (O ••ful Physicians! Sometimes they be profane, and cannot heal themselves, and sometimes they be ignorant. And know not what to preach, unless they should follow the steps of Master Latimers Fryer, or at the best, they shoot off a few pot guns against gross sins: or if they do show men their misery, they lick them whole again, with some comfortable ⟨p. 127⟩ill applied sentences: (but I hope better things of you, my brethren) the mans Patron may haply storm else. Or else they say commonly, thou hast sinned, but comfort thy self, despair not, Christ hath suffered: And thus skin over the wound, and let it fester within, for want of cutting it deeper. I say therefore because they want a faithful watch man to cry, Fire, fire, in that sleepy estate of sin and darkness wherein they lie; therefore whole Towns, Parishes, generations of men, are burnt up, and perish miserably, Lament. 2.14.
First, sometimes because they want the saving means of knowledge. There is no faithful Minister, no compassionate Lot, to tell them of fire and brimstone from heaven, for their crying sins. There is no Noah to forwarn them of a flood: There is no messenger to bring them tydings of those armies of Gods devouring plagues and wrath, that are appro•ching near unto them, They have no pilots, poor forsaken creatures, to show them their rocks. They have either no Minister at all to reach them, either because the Parish is too poor, or the Church-living too great to maintain a faithfull man (the strongest asses car•ying the greatest burthens commonly (O ••ful Physitians! Sometimes they be prophane, and cannot heal themselves, and sometimes they be ignorant. And know not what to preach, unless they should follow the steps of Master Latimers Fryer, or at the best, they shoot off a few pot guns against gross sins: or if they do show men their misery, they lick them whole again, with some comtable ⟨p. 127⟩ill applyed sentences: (but I hope better things of you, my brethren) the mans Patron may haply storm else. Or else they say commonly, thou hast sinned, but comfort thy self, despair not, Christ hath suffered: And thus skin over the wound, and let it fester within, for want of cutting it deeper. I say therefore because they want a faithful watch man to cry, Fire, fire, in that sleepy estate of sin and darkness wherein they ly; therefore whole Towns, Parishes, generations of men, are burnt up, and perish miserably, Lament. 2.14.
