dness, my benignity, my gentleness?
Have you thus deceived me? No, no, ye have not deceived me, but
yourselves. 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. Therefore this being only
left to me, I wish for that I have not, and am sorry that that is not in
me which I would so gladly have, that is, power so to handle the thing
that I have in hand, that all that I say may turn to the glory of God,
your souls' health, and the edifying of Christ's body. Wherefore I pray
you all to pray with me unto God, and that in your petition you desire,
that these two things he vouchsafe to grant us, first, a mouth for me to
speak rightly; next, ears for you, that in hearing me ye may take profit
at my hand: and that this may come to effect, you shall desire him, unto
whom our master Christ bad we should pray, saying even the same prayer
that he himself did institute. Wherein ye shall pray for our most
gracious sovereign lord the king, chief and supreme head of the church of
England under Christ, and for the most excellent, gracious, and virtuous
lady queen Jane, his most lawful wife, and for all his, whether they be
of the clergy or laity, whether they be of the nobility, or else other
his grace's subjects, not forgetting those that being departed out of