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GILDAS
On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain
page 87
380 THE WORKS OF GILD AS. [BKC. 110.
Lord in this life, will fall down into the miserable prison of hell?
§ 110. Neither yet let any priest flatter himself upon the knowledge of the particular cleanness of his own body, since their souls (over whom he hath government) shall in the day of judgment be required at his hands as the murderer of them, if any through his ignorance, sloth, or fawning adulation, have perished, because the stroke of death is not less terrible, that is given by a good man, than that which is inflicted by an evil person ; otherwise would the apostle never have said that which he left unto his successors, as a fatherly legacy, " I am clear and clean from the blood of all : for I have not forborne to declare unto you all the counsel of God." Being therefore mightily drunken with the use and custom of sins, and extremely overwhelmed with the waves (as it were) of increasing offences, seek ye now forthwith the uttermost endeavours of your minds (after this your shipwreck), that one plank of repentance which is left, whereby ye may escape and swim to the land of the living, that from you may be turned away the wrath of our Lord, who saith, " I will not the death of a sinner : but that he may be con verted and live." And may the same Almighty God, of all consolation and mercy, preserve his few good pastors from all evil, and (the common enemy being overcome) make them free inhabitants of the heavenly city of Jerusalem, which is the congregation of all saints ; grant this, Ο Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to whom be honour and glory, world without end. Amen*
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