doings drinking iniquity like water and sinning as it were with Cart-ropes Yea they have sold themselves to worke wickednesse in the sight of the Lord and in the sight of men There is no feare of God nor shame of men before their eies They have made falshood their refuge and under ungodlinesse are they hid Therefore shall the Lord raine upon them snares fire and brimstone this shall be their portion to drinke yea the Lord shall bring upon them destruction yea the Lord our God shall destroy them 2. Againe there are a sort of People whose waies may seem right even to a good Man but their waies are the waies of death Our Saviour calls them painted Sepulchers Sepulchra quasi semi-sepulchra exterius nitida interius foetida faire without and foule within They are like unto Apothecaries Galli-pots quorum tituli remedium habent pixides venenum without they have the title of some excellent preservative but within they are full of deadly aconite Without they are Catoes within Neroes heart them no men better search and trie them no men worse they will have Jacob's voice but Esau's hand Outwardly they will be John but inwardly they will be Herod They professe like Saints but practise like Sathans they have their long Prayers but their short preyings Counterfeit holinesse is their cloake for all manner of Villanies and the Mid-wife to bring forth their subtilties The Eagle soareth on high not to flie to heaven but to gaine her prey upon earth So many doe carry a great deale of seeming devotion and lift up their eyes towards heaven but they doe it onely to accomplish with the more ease safety and applause their wicked and damnable designes here on earth But let such know that simulata sanctitas duplex iniquitas counterfeit holinesse is double iniquity and our Saviour denounceth Eight woes against Hypocrites in Matth. 23. Neither to my present remembrance could I ever find that he converted any such Are thy hands full of blood make thy many prayers then and see if God will heare thee in the day of thy calamity Isa 1.15 He that regardeth iniquity in his heart God will not heare his very prayers and all his outward acts of devotion in the service of God shall be turned into sinne unto him Thou dost fast perhaps but is it to strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickednesse Thou dost give Almes to the poore peradventure sometimes Thou commest to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper but is thy heart all this while swolne with ambition covetousness envy hatred malice assure thy self thy sacrifice is not accepted for God will have mercy and not sacrifice to doe this is but as the chopping off a Dogges necke Thou pretendest a reformation but thou wilt have it purchased by bloody and unlawfull meanes Mark therefore what the Prophet Micah speakes Mic. 3.10 11 12. They build up Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity The Heads thereof judge for rewards and the Priests thereof teach for hire and the Prophets thereof prophesy for money yet will they leane upon the Lord and say Is not the Lord amongst us no evill can come upon us Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field and Jerusalem shall be an heap and the mountaine of the house as the high places of the forrest To build up Zion and Jerusalem was doubtlesse an acceptable work unto the Lord but to doe it with blood injustice and lies was so detestable unto him that he threatens an utter desolation to both Zion and Jerusalem for their sakes Well then if we finde these Wolves in Sheep-skins let us if we can hang them up for they are and will be Wolves still Sinne they will and that with a witnesse Yea let us pray that these many black and white Devils who offend in all things may be cut off that we all who offend in many things may not offend in any thing For In many things we offend all But doe we all continually offend in many things And shall we doe so till death What may we then thinke of those fanatick spirits who doe ascribe judgement without errour and holinesse without sinne unto the most sinfull Sonnes and Daughters of men Surely from what we have already heard we may truly confute and justly condemne the Church of Rome that Whore of Babylon for assuming to her selfe such a garment of purity and infallibility as to merit and superarrogate Heaven notwithstanding she hath not left her Whorish tricks but still brings forth uncleane Children of an uncleane seed her infallibility failing and her purity being impure that man of sinne viz the Pope say some of their owne Writers cannot sinne erre or offend But this being openly and apparently false for some of their Popes have beene Conjurers Sorcerers and Inchanters Adulterers Murtherers Hereticks and Atheists yea in a word their Innocents Nocents their Benedicts Maledicts their Bonifaces Malifaces c. Therefore I say their Jesuites of late have found out a subtile distinction viz that the Pope may sinne erre and offend in his owne person as a man sed non quatenus Papa but not so farre forth as he is Pope è Cathedrâ to define and teach errours Although we may grant it to be a subtile distinction yet not a solid one for if the Pope cannot guide his owne faith how can it be expected that he should guide the faith of the Church The rule must not onely make strait that which is crooked but it must be strait it selfe Moreover these Romanists deserve to be blamed for affirming that the blessed Virgin was pure from all sinne both Originall and Actuall Their words are these Our Lady never sinned our Lady never sinned so much as venially in all her life she exactly fulfilled every tittle of the whole Law that is she was without sinne That she was not so great a Sinner as the rest of Gods Children I doe with humble acknowledgment believe but that she was without sinne her owne expression declares the contrary in that she said my spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour If Christ was her Saviour she must of necessity be a Sinner Well may likewise the Manichees Catherists or Puritanes be condemned who as Saint Jerome writeth avouched That they neither had sinned nor could sinne because they were trees of righteousnesse and a good tree said they cannot bring forth evill fruit Therefore we cannot see how we should sinne even in thought Likewise the Donatists who dreamed themselves to be so perfect as by their perfection to justifie other men as Saint Cyprian telleth us Also the Pelagians and Family of Love for they were of opinion that they were so free from sinne as that they needed not neither would they vouchsafe to say that Petition in the Lords Prayer Forgive us our trespasses as Saint Austine testifyeth lib. 2. cont Petil. c. 14. Moreover the Adamites who deemed themselves as pure as Adam and Evah were before their
as a Garden full of sweet flowers intermixt with many and diverse stinking weeds It is as a flourishing Vine laden with sowre grapes which by God's assistance I shall presse that with the juyce of them your appetites may be more and more sharpened to eate and digest the true bread of life Begin we therefore with the first generall part of my Text which is the Delictum or Offence The vulgar Latine translates the originall word Offendimus we offend or stumble Sinne indeed is offendiculum a stumbling stone or block of offence and it lieth in our way which way soever we turne our selves so that if we stumble not upon it but misse it it was the grace of God that upheld us and gave us warning of it that we might have the more free progresse in our journey to the heavenly Canaan Sin offendeth God our selves and our Neighbours First it offendeth God who is Holinesse it selfe and therefore cannot but abominate it in his Creatures It caused him to repent that he had made Man and to be sory at his very heart Gen. 6.6 Yea sinne is so offensive to him that nothing but the merits and intercession of his beloved Sonne and our alone Saviour Jesus Christ can appease his wrath and turne away his displeasure towards us Secondly it offendeth our selves and that First in respect of the new man or regenerate part If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out Mat. 5.29 where by the eye hand and foot our Saviour meaneth the lusts of the flesh and the concupiscences of the old man which doe often molest and offend the new man in its running in the path of God's commandements Secondly in respect of the Conscience every sinne is a sicknesse and a soare It is flagellum animae yea mors animae as Saint Bernard calls it the scourge of the soule and death of the soule When the conscience is throughly awakened for sinne it casteth the soule into many pangs and throws and leaves it void of all comfort till Christ Jesus brings it into his wine-cellar of consolation and spreads over it the banner of his love If he doth not it proves not onely an Accuser and a Judge but an Executioner also Thirdly it offendeth our Neighbours it made the holy Prophet David complain bitterly in his abode with incorrigible implacable and prophane Persons Psal 120. Woe is me that I am constrained to dwell with Meseck and to have my habitation among the tents of Kedar My soule hath long dwelt with those that are Enemies unto peace The Sodomits unlawfull deeds vexed Lot's righteous soule from day to day 1 Pet. 2.7 8. And these five severall waies especially doe we offend our Neighbours 1. By evill example 2. By evill counsell 3. By base detraction 4. By false doctrine 5. By the abuse of Christian liberty Let therefore our light so shine before men that they seeing our good works may glorifie our Father which is in Heaven Mat. 5.16 Let us with Saint Paul therein exercise our selves to have alwaies a conscience void of offence toward God and toward Men Act. 24.16 Let us give no offence neither to the Jewes nor to the Grecians nor to the Church of God 1 Cor. 10.32 In a word Let us not doe any thimg without Faith and Charity Whosoever walketh according to this rule Peace shall be upon him and upon the Israel of God But we doe not onely give and take offence our selves stumble our selves and make others stumble but we also fall and so our best Translation renders it In multis labimur omnes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we fall many waies This Fall is not corporall but morall yet by a Corporall we may understand a Morall fall for as he that falleth in regard of the sight of his body commeth lower and withall ordinarily taketh a bruise even so is it in a morall fall Our nature by it becomes not onely more base and vile but more feeble also But this phrase importeth a difference of Sinners some draw iniquity with the cords of vanity others account it vanity and doe feele vexation of spirit to be drawne into iniquity with cords Some doe take pleasure in sinning others doe esteem it a sinne to take pleasure therein some doe sinne through malice some through frailty some comit sinne some fall They sinne through malice in whom the principles of conscience are corrupt who wittingly and willingly commit sinne with greedinesse neither before the fact feeling any reluctancy nor after the fact conceiving any sorrow These account darknesse light and light darknesse evill good and good evill as the Prophet speaketh Isai 5.20 It is improper to say that these doe fall into sinne for will any one of set purpose fall to hurt himselfe To be overtaken in a fault which phrase Saint Paul useth to the Galatians Gal. 6.1 is nothing else but this falling in my Text. The phrase reacheth onely those who sinne dum aut latet veritas aut compellit infirmitas as venerable Bede speaketh either when they are sophistically circumvented or unawares transported and so take a fall Let him therefore that thinks he stands to himselfe take heed lest he fall 1 Cor. 10.12 For it is not said we have fallen or shall fall though true enough but we doe noting unto us the assiduity or daily continuance of our falling which is the first Particular of the first Generall and comes now in order to be handled We doe continually sinne even from the morning of our youth to the evening of our old age yea from our very cradles even unto our graves Our life is a dying and our dying is our life Our breathing under Heaven is a breathing against Heaven and we live not a day without sinne A just man saith Salomon Prov. 26.16 falleth seven times yea in a day every day This is the common addition frequent in the antient Fathers though not found in the Originall But God himself saith that the imagination of mans heart is evill from his youth Gen. 8.21 And in Gen. 6.5 he saith The imaginations of the thoughts of his heart are onely evill continually The Hebrew renders it every day Should not this teach us all to be ready to forgive the frequent continuall and daily fallings and offences of our Brethren Peter said unto our Saviour How often shall my Brother sinne against me and I shall forgive him unto seven times Jesus said unto him I say not to thee Vnto seven times but unto seventy times seven times Saint Austine makes this question upon these words Why saith he doth our Saviour say Seventy times seven times and not an hundreth times eight times The answer saith he is ready From Adam to Christ were seventy Generations therefore as Christ forgave all the transgressions of whole mankind parted and diffused into so many Generations so also we should remit as many offences as in the terme and compasse of our life are committed against us Againe what doth this teach us
to act towards our selves Surely every day to examine our owne hearts in our chambers and to be still To keep by us an Ephemerides of our thoughts words and deeds To practice Pythagoras his golden verse and advise Before saith he thou sufferest sleep to possesse thy tender eyes aske thy soule thrice over 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whither have I gone What have I done What opportunity have I lost Or to imitate Sentius who when the day was past and the night come wherein he should take his rest would aske his mind What evill hast thou healed this day What vice hast thou stood against In what part art thou bettered And then finding our fallings and offences let us be instant in Prayer and Repentance We doe continually offend our gracious God making his displeasure to arise let us therefore continually use the meanes which conduce to a Pacification and that is Prayer He that prayeth most frequently is the best Christian and hath the most interest in Heaven He lives most comfortably and dies most cheerfully And being our whole life is a time of sinning let us make our whole life a time of repenting Redeat homo c. 7. saith S. Austine Let a man returne by daily lamentations to that from whence he is fallen by vaine delectations Let not the Sunne set in Gods anger to night us Let us not live a day longer before we begin to live indeed Let us not climbe up into our beds before we have climbed up into God's favour Let not the eyes of our bodies be shut with sleep before the eyes of our soules be opened by repentance It would be doubtlesse a great deale of ease to our troubled spirits if this our continuall offending were confined to some one pettie sinne whereunto we are unwillingly carried by our owne naturall concupiscence provoking by the Devils subtilty perswading and by the world's vanity alluring But behold our wretched condition by reason of sinnes multiplicity which brings me to the second Particular of the first Generall viz We offend in multis in many things Mille modis offendimus we doe offend a thousand waies we run through more sinnes every day than there be signes in the Zodiacke Our graces are in a Shekel but our sins in an Ephah Our graces are diminutives but our sinnes are augmentatives Sinne like heresie is of an encroaching nature as one heresie proveth another so doth our sinne usher in another the lesser alwaies making roome for the greater Let us not therefore onely weigh our sinnes but also number them If they seem small we cannot count them for as the Prophet David speaketh Psal 19.12 Who can understand his Errors or Who can tell how often he offendeth A negative interrogation is as much as an affirmative proposition and an affirmative interrogation as much as a negative proposition Who can tell how oft he offendeth that is to say not any one can tell viz if we consider the acts of sinne but we may and must number the kinds of sinne and ferret them out as so many Achans by the poll Consider my Brethren that we are guilty of sinnes of Omission and Commission of Ignorance and Knowledge of Weaknesse and Wilfulnesse c. We sinne within us and without us Within us by the Faculties of our soules by the words of our mouth and by the works of our hands 1. We sinne in our Understanding Will Affections and Passions 2. In our Silence and in our Speeches whether Ordinary or Extraordinary whether Civill or Sacred 3. In our Actions whether Passive or Active and in Active whether Naturall or Morall and in Naturall whether they be such as tend to our Being or Wel-being and in Morall whether Politicall or Ecclesiasticall We sinne againe by the outward Members of our bodies as Feet Hands Eyes and Eares when we use them as members of unrighteousnesse What shall I say Doe we not in many things offend all Surely in our very best Actions we doe scatter many imperfections and we faile either in the end matter manner or measure of our obedience Should the Lord call us unto a strict triall how ignorant would our knowledge be found How fraile our faith How wavering our hope How proud our humility How froward our patience How cruell our mercies How lukewarme our prayers How superficiall our repentance Alas alas Many are the infirmities of our soules many the deformities of our lives they are more in number than the haires of our heads or the sands on the sea-shore so that we may well say with David Psal 130.3 If thou ô Lord be extreame to marke what is done amisse who can be able to stand Surely that who saith Saint Chrysostome is no body at all Let us therefore with Martha though in another case be much troubled for these many things wherein we offend all and with Mary chuse the better part that shall never be taken from us Luke 10.41 42. Yea let us who offend in many things beware that we give not our selves the reins to offend in every thing For the Saints of God though they doe offend in multis yet not in omnibus though in many things yet not in all things Wherefore all things worke together for the best to them but non ex ipsorum meritis sed ex merâ ipsius misericordiâ not as flowing from the stinking puddle of their owne base merit but as issuing out of the cleer fountaine of God's free and meer mercy For In many things we offend all Which brings me to the second Generall part wherein I observed the Delinquents or Offenders described two waies First by a plurall personallity and gracious affinity both in respect of God and Themselves Nos We. Secondly by their generallity not partially but universally expressed Omnes All. 1. Begin we with the first Nos offendimus we offend Are the KING-Deposing KING-Killing ambitious Jesuited Independents the rigid usurping Presbyterians the love-sick Familists the milk-white Brownists the lawlesse Antinomians the Saint-reigning Millenaries free-willed Arminians new-fangled and schismatically intangled Reformers I should have said Deformers meritorious and supererrogatory Romanists with many more the like Offenders comprehended Are they I say comprehended in this We in the Text Surely we find them not in the sacred Pages of holy Writ much lesse in this word We But find them we shall in their own fanatick Pamphlets blurd with self-justifying yet most damnable errours making the holy Scripture a Nose of Wax or a Ship-man's hose any thing or nothing to serve their owne turnes like Saint Austine's Heretiques of whom he thus speaketh Scripturas ad suum sensum non suum sensum ad Scripturas adducunt They do not reduce their senses unto the Scripture when they read but doe wickedly captivate the Scriptures unto their owne senses and meanings Let us therefore looke upon the plurall personallity it containing not a gracelesse but a gratious company such as are magnum genus as Chrysologus terms them of a right
noble stock Yea they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the blood-Royall in a spirituall sense For God is their Father Christ their elder Brother the Holy Ghost their Comforter the Church their Mother Heaven their inheritance and Regeneration their Evidence yet are they Offenders in many things and this they doe in humility and sincerity of heart acknowledge In many things saith Saint James We doe offend I an Apostle and you Professors even we who are called justified sanctified and redeemed by the pretious blood of Jesus Christ That the deare Children of God both Ministers and People have been are and shall be Offenders in many things even to the world's end not onely my Text but other places of holy Scripture doe sufficiently declare Was not Noah a man beloved of the Lord and a Preacher of righteousnesse yet was he not inebriated with his owne wine Vino captus qui diluvium fugerat saith Saint Ambrose He was freed from a deluge of water and drowned in a deluge of wine Gen. 9.21 Had not Lot his Epithete of Just Just Lot 1 Pet. 2.7 8. And was not he vexed at the uncleanly conversation of the wicked And did not he see the Sodomites burnt with fire for their lusts yet did not he doe wickedly and being delivered burne with incest Joseph sinned in swearing By the life of Phardoh Gen 42.15 Aaron sinned in making the golden Calfe for the Israelites to worship Exod. 32.21 And he and Miriam sinned in murmuring against Moses Numb 12.7 8. The Prophet Jonah transgressed in flying from Joppe to Tharsus and in justifying his unjust anger for the Gourd Moses though the Servant of the Lord and the meekest Man upon the earth offended in unbelief and anger Numb 20.12 16.15 The Prophet David was a man according to God's owne heart 1 Sam. 13.14 and in the state of regeneration yet his heart was uncleane Psal 51.10 and he fell into the sinne of adultery hypocrisie murther and ambition 2 Sam. 11. 24. Salomon the wisest Man upon the earth committed folly Job the patientest yet not altogether to be excused of impatience nor Elias of passion nor the Sonnes of Zebedee of ambition nor Peter and Barnabas of dissimulation Gal. 2. No nor the blessed Virgin her self of vain-glory Saint Peter was couragious yet pusilanimous Confident yet Diffident so faithfull that Christ built his Church upon his Faith yet denied and that with execration his Lord and gracious Redeemer nay all Christ's Disciples though at one time they forsook all to follow him yet at another time they all forsooke him and fled But why should I thus discover my Father's nakednesse rather indeed would I goe backward and cover the same with the mantle of my pity Yet let us not be too lavish in pitying them For God hath caused their infirmities to be recorded First to let us understand that both they and we have one and the same God who was alwaies offended with sinne were the Persons that wrought it never so great or glorious Secondly to let us know that both they and we have one and the same Physician to cure us of all our maladies viz the immaculate Lamb Christ Jesus who saveth his People from their sinnes Mat. 1.21 Thirdly and lastly to teach us circumspection and cautelousnesse to flie from sinne as from a Scrpent and to say to it as Pharach said to Moses See that thou see my face no more or as Abraham to Lot If thou go on the right hand I will goe on the left or if thou go on the left hand I will go on the right For if the deare Children of God who have gone before us both in time and in the graces of the Spirit beare such reproach by reason their corruptions are registred what shall we sustaine who live in a brighter Age and upon whom the ends of the world are come But alas so base is our nature that sinne will be a Jebusite it will be a constant guest to our house though it sitteth not in the chiefest room it is bred in the bone and it will not out of the flesh untill Joseph's bones be carried out of Aegypt i. e. untill we be out of this world As Israel could not passe to Canaan but through the Desart of Zin so we must not look to passe to our spirituall Canaan but through the wildernesse of sinne Sinnes are like Rebels that not onely revolt but also keep castle against their Soveraigne from whence they are not easily removed Aristotle tells us of three things that doe acquire wisdome viz Nature Learning and Exercise Sure I am not these but God's free grace can make us avoid sinne Philosophers are of opinion that if the inferiour spheres were not governed and stayed by the highest the swiftnesse of their motion would quickly fire the world So I may very well hold that if the affections of God's dearest Children were not moderated by the guidance of his holy Spirit they would run so farre into sinne as to precipitate their soules into the black gulfe of eternall destruction for our reason is no better than treason and our affections are no better than infections We cannot truely say of our selves as Isidore too boldly of himselfe For fourty yeares space saith he I found not in my selfe any sinne no not so much as in thought anger or any inordinate desire or as Alexander de Hales of Bonaventure His life was so upright saith he that Adam seemed not to have sinned in him No no my Brethren look upon a Christian at the best whilst he liveth in this world and you may well compare him unto the Arke of the Covanant which was but a cubit and half high an imperfect measure by this you may know his stature adde what you will it will be but a cubit and an half Perfectly imperfect was he when he began imperfectly perfect when he ends in all his actions Therefore as we doe offend in many things let us in humility and sincerity of heart acknowledge and confesse the same as Saint James in my Text In many things we doe offend This hath been the constant practise of God's beloved ones What is man saith Eliphaz that he should be cleane and he that is borne of woman that he should be just Behold God found no stedfastnesse in his Saints yea the heavens are not cleane in his sight Job 15.14 15. Therefore Job acknowledgeth his failings Job 7.20 and when he came to plead with God for his uprightnesse did abhorre himselfe and repented in dust and ashes Job 42.6 Nehemiah maketh a large confession of his own and the Peoples sinnes Nehem. 9.5 6 7. So Ezra and Daniel in the behalf of the People confesse that justice belongeth to God but shame and confusion to themselves Ezra 9.5 6 7. Dan. 9.6 7. Salomon hath his Booke of Acknowledgment viz Ecclesiastes David confesseth his folly in numbering the People saying I have sinned exceedingly in that I have done therefore now
Lord I beseech thee take away the trespasse of thy Servant for I have done very foolishly 2 Sam. 24.10 He confesseth likewise his Adultery with Vriah's Wife and his Murder in causing her innocent Husband to be slaine And for these he is content if I may so speake to doe penance every Lords-day in our Congregations where his Psalms are preached read or sung For in how many Psalmes hath he recorded his offences with his owne hand Those that came to John the Baptist to be Baptized of him came confessing their sinnes Matth. 3.6 Saint Peter said to Christ Goe from me for I am a sinfull man and Saint Paul saith I doe not the good thing which I would but the evill which I would not that doe I Rom. 7.19 Nay further Saint John saith that we sinne in saying we have no sinne 1 Joh. 1.8 If we say that we have no sinne we deceive our selves and there is no truth in us But peradventure some will object and say doth not the same Apostle averre 1 Joh. 3. part of 8 9. v. that he who committeth sinne is of the Devill And whosoever is borne of God sinneth not for his seed remaineth in him neither can he sinne because he is borne of God I shall answer briefly To commit sinne signifieth not simply to sinne It importeth not a mixt action wherein the Sinner is partly willing partly unwilling but an absolute resigning of that faculty for the performance of wicked designes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he which doth settle and set himself to worke wickednesse is of the Devil But he that is borne of God sinneth not nor can sinne that is doth not nor can indulge or cocker his sinne the one is transported by his owne rebellious will the other inforced by urgent necessity the one is carried forward by a prompt and peremptory inclination the other by violent coactive temptation the former sinneth of a premeditate mind the latter by constraint doe what we can whilst we carry about this masse of corruption sinne will have its residence in us even in the best of us but we will not suffer it to reigne in our mortall bodies that we should obey it in the lusts thereof If it violently overrule us we will not willingly let it rule over us If therefore a poore Sinner can say with the Apostle Rom. 7.23 I would not willingly doe that evill which I doe It is the law of my members that rebelleth against the law of my mind and leadeth me captive to the law of sinne he may look with comfort towards the Mercy-seat For Peccata non nocent saith S. Jerome si non placent Our sinnes shall not hurt us if they doe displease us for in many things we doe offend But why doth not the Apostle say we offend in a few things but in many things and why in many things and not in all things or every thing It is resolved in a word We offend not in a few but many things because we have not a few but many subtile malitious vigilant strong enemies and not the least is our owne inbred corruption We offend not in all things or every thing because the grace of God supporteth us and his grace is sufficient for us for by grace are we saved 2 Cor. 12.9 Ephes 2.5 In the best of God's Children there is Nature Creation and the first Adam which makes them to offend in many things Againe there is in them Grace Regeneration and the second Adam which makes them not to offend in all things If we thinke that we are too weake by nature to resist and vanquish sinne let us comfortably assure our selves that by grace we shall be Victors yea more than Conquerours through Jesus Christ who hath so freely and dearly loved us The flesh or the nature of man saith Saint Paul Rom. 7. lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh so that we cannot doe as we would If we would serve God so holily cheerfully and constantly as the Angels in heaven we cannot because the flesh lusteth against the spirit If againe we would sinne with full consent of will so brutishly as the wicked doe we cannot because the spirit lusteth against the flesh Let us therefore implore this spirit of Sanctification and let us beseech the Almighty to drive the Zanzummims our sinnes out of the land of our hearts by the Israel of his grace It is said that Hercules led Cerberus in a lease Oh! let us pray to God to give us power and victory over our monstrous deformed sinnes that they may not command us but we them And if at any time we be overtaken in a fault let our hearts smite us immediately let us crie to God earnestly for his pardoning preventing and persevering grace Alas what is our life is it not as it were a Booke our birth is the Title-page our baptisme the Epistle Dedicatory our groanes and cryings the Epistle to the Reader our childhood is the Argument and Contents of the whole ensuing Treatise our life and actions are the Subject our sinnes and errours are the Faults escaped therefore let our repentance be the Correction let not us think our selves too good for the office for even we are Offenders Again let us not turne ego into ille or nos into vos let us not look upon the offences of others and forget our owne The Cock clapt his wings first to his own sides and awoke himself before he crowed to awaken Peter so let us say to our selves we have offended before we say to others ye have offended It had been good for Narcissus ut non viderat ipse that he had not seen himselfe but our greatest happinesse would be in seeing our selves Let us not be Mole-eyed towards our selves and Eagle-eyed towards our Brethren and so turne Christ's Sed vos pro vobis into Virgils Sic vos non vobis Let us not be like Crates Thebanus who is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Dore-opener because he used to rush into every mans house as our English-Hâ—drivers did alate and there to find fault with whatsoever was amisse let us not say as Peter did of John Hic autem quid What shall this man doe as one carefull of other mens Estates But let us say Domine quis ego sum Lord what am I Domine miserere mei peccatoris Lord be mercifull to me a Sinner Lastly let us who offend in many things beware that we want not one thing namely a thankfull heart to him who will not suffer us to offend in all things but notwithstanding our many offences will acknowledge us for his owne guide and governe us with his grace in this world and receive us into glory in the world to come In many things we doe offend nay more In many things we offend all which brings me to the last Particular viz the Delinquents described by their Generallity All. It is not said Ye all but We all Here is One and