callings for the conservation of order in general, not for the justification of disorders in any particular. For he that justifies his faults by his calling hath not yet received that calling from above, whereby he must be justified and sanctified in the way, and glorified in the end. There is no lawful calling in which a man may not be an honest man.

It is not peccatum magistratus, thou canst not excuse thyself upon the unjust command of thy superior; that is the blind and implicit obedience practised in the Church of Rome; nor peccatum pastoris, the ill example of thy pastor, whose life counterpreaches his doctrine, for that shall aggravate his, but not excuse thy sin; nor peccata cæli, the influence of stars, concluding a fatality, amongst the Gentiles, or such a working of a necessary and inevitable and unconditioned decree of God, as may shut up the ways of a religious walking in this life, or a happy meeting in the life to come. It is none of these; not the sin of thy father, not the sin of the present times, not the sin of thy years and age, nor of thy calling, nor of the magistrates, nor of thy pastor, nor of destiny, nor of decrees, but it is peccatum tuum, thy sin, thy own sin. And not only thy sin, so as Adam's sin is communicated to thee by propagation of original sin, for so thou mightest have some color to discharge thyself upon him, as he did upon Eve, and Eve upon the serpent, though in truth it make no difference, in this spiritual debt of that sin, who is first in the bond. Adam may stand first, but yet thou art no surety, but a principal, and for thyself, and he and thou are equally subject to the penalty. For though St. Augustine confess that there are many things concerning original sin of which he is utterly ignorant, yet of this he would have no man ignorant, that to the guiltiness of original sin our own wills concur, as well as to any actual sin. An involuntary act cannot be a sinful act; and though our will work not now in the admitting of original sin, which enters with our soul in our conception, or in our inanimation and quickening, yet, at first, Sicut omnium natura, ita omnium voluntates erant in Adam-As every man was in Adam, so every faculty of every man, and consequently the will of every man, concurred to that sin, which, therefore, lies upon every man now, so that that debt, original sin, is as much thine as his; and for the other debts, which grow out of this debt (as nothing is so generative, so multiplying, as

debts are, especially spiritual debts, sins), for actual sins, they are thine, out of thine own choice. Thou mightest have left them undone, and wouldest needs do them; for God never induces any man into a perplexity—that is, into a necessity of doing any particular sin. Thou couldest have dissuaded a son, or a friend, or a servant, from that sin which thou hast embraced thyself; thou hast been so far from having been forced to those sins which thou hast done, as that thou hast been sorry thou couldest not do them in a greater measure. They are thine -thine own, so as that thou canst not discharge thyself upon the devil, but art, by the habit of sin, become spontaneus dæmon (Chrysostom), a devil to thyself, and wouldest minister temptations to thyself, though there were no other devil. And this is our propriety in sin; they are our own.

This is the propriety of thy sin; the next is the plurality, the multiplicity, iniquitates; not only the committing of one sin often; and yet he deceives himself in his account dangerously that reckons but upon one sin, because he is guilty but of one kind of sin. Would a man say he had but one wound if he were shot seven times in the same place? Could the Jews deny that they flayed Christ with their second, or third, or twentieth blow, because they had torn skin and flesh with their former scourges, and had left nothing but bones to wound? But it is not only that, the repeating of the same sin often, but it is the multiplicity of divers kinds of sins that is here lamented in all our behalfs. It is not when the conscience is tender, and afraid of every sin, and every appearance of sin. When Naaman desired pardon of God by the prophet, for sustaining the King upon his knees in the house of Rimmon the idol, and the prophet bade him "Go in peace" (2 Kings v. 19), it is not that he allows him any peace under the conscience and guiltiness of a sin; that was indispensable (i.e., not within the power of a dispensation). Neither is there any dispensation in Naaman's case, but only a rectifying of a tender and timorous conscience, that thought that to be a sin which was not if it went no further, but to the exhibiting of a civil duty to his master, in what place soever, religious or profane, that service of kneeling were to be done. Naaman's service was truly no sin; but it had been a sin in him to have done it when he thought it to be a sin. And therefore the prophet's phrase, "Go in

peace," may well be interpreted so-Set thy mind at rest; for all that, that thou requirest may be done without sin. Now that tenderness is not in our case in the text. He that proceeds so to examine all his actions may meet scruples all the way that may give him some anxiety and vexation, but he shall never come to that overflowing of sin intended in this plurality and multiplicity here. For this plurality, this multiplicity of sin, hath found first a sponginess in the soul, an aptness to receive any liquor, to embrace any sin, that is offered to it; and after a while, a hunger and thirst in the soul, to hunt, and pant, and draw after a temptation, and not to be able to endure any vacuum, any discontinuance, or intermission of sin: and he will come to think it a melancholic thing still to stand in fear of hell; a sordid, a yeomanly thing, still to be ploughing, and wheeling, and worming a conscience; a mechanical thing, still to be removing logs, or filing iron, still to be busied in removing occasions of temptation, or filing and clearing particular actions: and at last he will come to that case which St. Augustine, out of an abundant ingenuity, and tenderness, and compunction, confesses of himself—Ne vituperarer, vitiosior fiebam, I was fain to sin, lest I should lose my credit, and be undervalued; Et ubi non suberat, quo admisso, æquarer perditis, When I had no means to do some sins, whereby I might be equal to my fellow, Fingebam ne fecisse quod non feceram, ne viderer abjectior, quo innocentior, I would belie myself, and say I had done that which I never did, lest I should be undervalued for not having done it. Audiebam eos, exaltantes flagitia, says that tender, blessed father, I saw it was thought wit to make sonnets of their own sins, Et libebat facere, non libidine facti, sed libidine laudis, I sinned, not for the pleasure I had in the sin, but for the pride that I had to write feelingly of it. O what a leviathan is sin, how vast, how immense a body! And then what a spawner, how numerous! Between these two, the denying of sins which we have done, and the bragging of sins which we have not done, what a space, what a compass is there, for millions of millions of sins! And so have you the nature of sin, which was our first; the propriety of sin, which was our second; and the plurality, the multiplicity of sin, which was our third branch; and follows next the exaltation thereof; Supergressæ sunt "—" My sins are gone over my head.”

They are, that is, they are already got above us; for in that case we consider this plural, this manifold sinner, that he hath slipped his time of preventing, or resisting his sins; his habits of sins are got, already got above him. Elijah bids his man look towards the sea, and he saw nothing; he bids him look again, and again to a seventh time, and he saw nothing (1 Kings xviii., 43). After all, he sees but a little cloud, like a man's hand; and yet, upon that little appearance, the prophet warns the King, to get him into his chariot, and make good haste away, lest the rain stopped his passage, for instantly the heaven was black with clouds and rain. The sinner will see nothing, till he can see nothing; and, when he sees anything (as to the blindest conscience something will appear), he thinks it but a little cloud, but a melancholic fit, and, in an instant (for seven years make but an instant to that man, that thinks of himself but once in seven years), supergressæ sunt, his sins are got above him, and his way out is stopped. The sun is got over us now, though we saw none of his motions, and so are our sins, though we saw not their steps. You know how confident our adversaries are in that argument, "Why do ye oppugn our doctrine of prayer for the dead, or of invocation of saints, or of the fire of purgatory, since you cannot assign us a time when these doctrines came into the Church, or that they were opposed or contradicted when they entered?" When a conscience comes to that inquisition, to an iniquitates supergressæ, to consider that our sins are gone over our head in any of those ways which we have spoken of, if we offer to awaken that conscience further, it startles, and it answers us drowsily, or frowardly, like a new waked man, Can you remember when you sinned this sin first, or did you resist it then, or since?" Whence comes this troublesome singularity now? Pray let me sleep still, says this startled conscience. Beloved, if we fear not the wetting of our foot in sin, it will be too late, when we are over head and ears. God's deliverance of His children was sicco pede, He made the sea dry land, and "they wet not their foot" (Exod. xiv. 22). At first, in the creation, "Subjecit omnia sub pedibus"-" God put all things under their feet" (Psalm viii. 7); in man's ways, in this world, His angels bear us up in their hands; why? "Ne impingamus pedem "-" That we should not hurt our foot against stone, but have a care of every step

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we make." If thou have defiled thy feet (strayed into any unclean ways) wash them again, and stop there, and that will bring thee to the consideration of the spouse, "I have washed my feet, how shall I then defile them again?" (Cant. v. 3.) I have found mercy for my former sins, how shall I dare to provoke God with more? Still God appoints us a permanent means to tread sin under our feet here, in this life; the woman, that is, the Church, hath the moon, that is, all transitory things (and so, all temptations) under her feet (Rev. xii. 1); as Christ himself expressed His care of Peter to consist in that, that if his feet were washed all was clean; and as in His own person He admitted nails in His feet, as well as in His hands, so crucify thy hands, abstain from unjust actions, but crucify thy feet too, make not one step towards the way of idolaters, or other sinners. If we watch not the ingressus sum, we shall be insensible of the supergressæ sunt; if we look not to a sin when it comes towards us, we shall not be able to look towards it when it is got over us: for, if a man come to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, he will come to sit in the seat of the scornful; for that is the sinner's progress, in the first warning that David gives in the beginning of his first psalm. If he give himself leave to enter into sinful ways, he will sit and sin at ease, and make a jest of sin; and he that loveth danger shall perish therein. So have you then the nature of sin; it was sin that oppressed him; and the propriety of sin, it was his sin, actual sin; and the plurality of sin, habitual, customary sin; and the victory of sin, they had been long climbing, and were now got up to a height; and this height and exaltation of theirs is expressed thus," Super caput "—" Mine iniquities are got above my head."