My gifts and benefits towards you shall be to your greater
damnation. Because you have contemned the lenity and clemency of the
master of the house, ye have right well deserved to abide the rigour and
severity of the judge. Come forth then, let us see an account of your
stewardship. An horrible and fearful sentence: Ye may have no longer my
goods in your hands. A voice to weep at, and to make men tremble!"
You see, brethren, you see, what evil the evil stewards must come to.
Your labour is paid for, if ye can so take heed, that no such sentence be
spoken to you; nay, we must all take heed lest these threatenings one day
take place in us. But lest the length of my sermon offend you too sore,
I will leave the rest of the parable and take me to the handling of the
end of it; that is, I will declare unto you how the children of this
world be more witty, crafty, and subtle, than are the children of the
light in their generation. Which sentence would God it lay in my poor
tongue to explicate with such light of words, that I might seem rather to
have painted it before your eyes, than to have spoken it; and that you
might rather seem to see the thing, than to hear it! But I confess
plainly this thing to be far above my power.
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