"
I told you in my first sermon, honourable audience, that I purposed to
declare unto you two things. The one, what seed should be sown in God's
field, in God's plough land; and the other, who should be the sowers:
that is to say, what doctrine is to be taught in Christ's church and
congregation, and what men should be the teachers and preachers of it.
The first part I have told you in the three sermons past, in which I have
assayed to set forth my plough, to prove what I could do. And now I
shall tell you who be the ploughers: for God's word is a seed to be sown
in God's field, that is, the faithful congregation, and the preacher is
the sower. And it is in the gospel: _Exivit qui seminat seminare semen
suum_; "He that soweth, the husbandman, the ploughman, went forth to sow
his seed." So that a preacher is resembled to a ploughman, as it is in
another place: _Nemo admota aratro manu, et a tergo respiciens, aptus est
regno Dei_. "No man that putteth his hand to the plough, and looketh
back, is apt for the kingdom of God." That is to say, let no preacher be
negligent in doing his office. Albeit this is one of the places that
hath been racked, as I told you of racking scriptures. And I have been
one of them myself that hath racked it, I cry God mercy for it; and have
been one of them that have believed and expounded it against religious
persons that would forsake their order which they had professed, and
would go out of their cloister: whereas indeed it toucheth not monkery,
nor maketh any thing at all for any such matter; but it is directly
spoken of diligent preaching of the word of God.
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