it is written, "Whosoever hath,
unto him shall be given; and he shall have abundance." (Matt. xiii.) What
means this saying?--When we hear the word of God, and have tasted somewhat
thereof, and are afterwards desirous to go forward more and more, then
shall we have further knowledge; for God will give us his grace to come to
further understanding. And so the saying of our Saviour shall be fulfilled
in us.

Now when our Saviour heard the request of his disciples, he performs their
desire, and begins to expound unto them the parable, saying, "I am he that
soweth good seed: the adversary, the devil, is he who soweth evil seed."
Here our Saviour, good people, makes known that he goeth about to do us
good; but the devil doth quite the contrary, and he seeks to spoil and
destroy us with his filthy and naughty seeds of false doctrine. The field
here is the whole world. The harvest is the end of the world. The reapers
are the angels of God, who are his servants: for as every lord or master
has his servants to wait upon him, and to do his commandments, so the
angels of God wait upon Him to do his commandments. The angels at the time
of the harvest shall gather first all such as have been evil and have
given occasion of wickedness, and go forward in the same without
repentance or amendment of their lives. All such, I say, shall be gathered
together and cast into the furnace of fire, "where shall be weeping and
gnashing of teeth." For in the end of this wicked world, all such as have
lived in the delights and pleasures of the same, and have not fought with
the lusts and pleasures of their flesh, but are proud and stubborn, or
bear hatred and malice unto their neighbours, or are covetous persons;
also all naughty servants that do not their duties, and all those that use
falsehood in buying and selling, and care not for their neighbours, but
sell unto them false wares, or otherwise deceive them; all these are
called "the offenders of this world," and all such shall be cast into the
furnace where shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

In like manner, all idle persons that will not work for their living, but
go about loitering and are chargeable unto others; and also drunken
persons that abuse the benefits of God in dishonouring themselves, so that
they lose the use of reason, and their natural wits wherewith God has
endued them, and make themselves like swine and beasts; also those who
break wedlock, and despise matr