Thus it cometh to pass that works lucrative, will-works, men’s fancies reign; but christian works, necessary works, fruitful works, be trodden under the foot.  Thus the evil is much better set out by evil men, than the good by good men; because the evil be more wise than be the good in their generation.  These be the false stewards, whom all good and faithful men every day accuse unto the rich master of the household, not without great heaviness, that they waste his goods; whom he also one day will call to him, and say to them as he did to his steward, when he said, “What is this that I hear of thee?” Here God partly wondereth at our ingratitude and perfidy, partly chideth us for them; and being both full of wonder and ready to chide, asketh us, “What is this that I hear of you?” As though he should say unto us, “All good men in all places complain of you, accuse your avarice, your exactions, your tyranny.  They have required in you a long season, and yet require, diligence and sincerity.  I commanded you, that with all industry and labour ye should feed my sheep:  ye earnestly feed yourselves from day to day, wallowing in delights and idleness.  I commanded you to teach my commandments, and not your fancies; and that ye should seek my glory and my vantage:  you teach your own traditions, and seek your own glory and profit.  You preach very seldom; and when ye do preach, do nothing but cumber them that preach truly, as much as lieth in you:  that it were much better such were not to preach at all, than so perniciously to preach.  Oh, what hear I of you?  You, that ought to be my preachers, what other thing do you, than apply all your study hither, to bring all my preachers to envy, shame, contempt?  Yea, more than this, ye pull them into perils, into prisons, and, as much as in you lieth, to cruel deaths.  To be short, I would that christian people should hear my doctrine, and at their convenient leisure read it also, as many as would:  your care is not that all men may hear it, but all your care is, that no lay man do read it:  surely, being afraid lest they by the reading should understand it, and understanding, learn to rebuke our slothfulness.  This is your generation, this is your dispensation, this is your wisdom.  In this generation, in this dispensation, you be most politic, most witty.  These be the things that I hear of your demeanour.  I wished to hear better report of you.  Have ye thus deceived me? or have ye rather deceived yourselves?  Where I had but one house, that is to say, the church, and this so dearly beloved of me, that for the love of her I put myself forth to be slain, and to shed my blood; this church at my departure I committed unto your charge, to be fed, to be nourished, and to be made much of.  My pleasure was ye should occupy my place; my desire was ye should have borne like love to this church, like fatherly affection, as I did:  I made you my vicars, yea, in matters of most importance.