Bishop Burnet, writing of
his own generation, said, "I am now in the seventieth year of my age,
and as I cannot speak long in the world, in any sort, I cannot hope for
a more solemn occasion than this of speaking with all due freedom, both
to the present and to the succeeding ages. Therefore I lay hold on it to
give a free vent to those sad thoughts that lie on my mind both day and
night, and are the subject of many secret mournings. I cannot look on
without the deepest concern, when I see the imminent ruin hanging over
this church, and, by consequence, over the whole Reformation. The
outward state of things is black enough, God knows, but that which
heightens my fears rises chiefly from the inward state into which we are
unhappily fallen.... Our ember-weeks are the burden and grief of my
life. The much greater part of those who come to be ordained are
ignorant to a degree not to be apprehended by those who are not obliged
to know it. The easiest part of knowledge is that to which they are the
greatest strangers. Those who have read some few books, yet never seem
to have read the Scriptures.
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