it is Pœna peccati, says that father, quia reddita est meritis inobedientis; Because it is laid upon us for that disobedience, it hath also the nature of a punishment of sin, as well as of sin itself; and then it is causa peccati too, defectione consentientis, because man is so enfeebled by this inherence, and invisceration of original sin, as that thereby he is exposed to every emergent temptation, to any actual sin. So, original sin, is called by many of the ancients, the cause of sin, and the effect of sin, but not so, exclusively, as that it is not sin, really sin in itself too. Now, as original sin causes actual, in that consideration (as we sell ourselves over again in our acts of recognition, in ratifying our first sale, by our manifold sins here) so is sin gone over our heads, by this dominion, as a tyrant, as an usurper. Hoc lex posuit, non concupisces; This is the law, thou shalt not covet: Non quod sic valeamus, sed ad quod perficiendo tendamus; Not that we can perform that law, but that that law might be a rule to direct our endeavours: Multum boni facit, qui facit quod scriptum est, post concupiscentias tuas non eas; He does well, and well in a fair measure, that fulfils that commandment, Thou shalt not walk in the concupiscences of thine own heart; sed non perficit, quia non implet quod scriptum est, non concupisces, but yet, says he, he does not all that is commanded, because he is commanded not to covet at all: Ut sciat, quo debeat in hac mortalitate conari, That that commandment might teach him, what he should labour for in this life, Et quo possit in illa immortalitate pervenire, To what perfection we shall come in the life to come, but not till then. Though therefore we did our best, yet we were sold under sin, that is, sold by Adam; but because we do not, but consent to that first sale, in our sinful acts, and habits, we have sold ourselves too, and so sin is gone over our heads, in a dominion, and in a tyrannical exercise of that dominion. If we would go about to express, by what customs of sin this dominion is established, we should be put to a necessity of entering into every profession, and every conscience. And the moral man says usefully, Si tantum irasci vis sapientem, quantum exigit indignitas scelerum”, (we will translate it in the church tongue, and make his morality divinity) if we would have a zealous preacher, cry out as fast, or

as loud, as sins are committed, Non irascendum, sed insaniendum, says he, you would not call that man an angry man, but a madman, you would not call that preacher, a zealous preacher, but a Puritan. Touch we but upon one of his reprehensions, because that may have the best use now; he considers the iniquities, and injustices, admitted, and committed in courts of justice; and he says, Turpes lites, turpiores advocati; Ill suits are set on foot, and worse advocates defend them. Delator est criminis qui manifestior reus, even in criminal matters, he informs against another, that should be but defendant in that crime; and (as he carries it higher) Judex damnaturus quæ fecit, eligitur, The judge himself condemns a man for that, which himself is far more guilty of, than the prisoner. Nullus nisi ex alieno damno quæstus, And one man grows rich, by the impoverishing of many. But then it is so in all other professions too. And this tyranny, and dominion is justly permitted by God upon us, Ut qui noluit superiori obedire, nec ei obediat inferior caro, We have been rebellious to our sovereign, to God, and therefore our subject, the flesh, is first rebellious against us, and then tyrannical over us. But he that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity; yea, Christ hath led captivity itself captive, and given gifts to men"; that is, he hath established his church, where by a good use of those means which God hath ordained for it, the most oppressed soul, may raise itself above those exaltations, and supergressions of sin; and so we have done with our first part, and with all that will enter into this time, where David in his humble spirit feels in himself, but much more in his prophetical spirit, foresees, and foretells in others, the infectious nature of sin; it is a mortal wound, and in a strange consideration; for, it is a wound upon God, and mortal upon man; and then the propriety of sin, that sin is not at all from God, nor it is not all from the devil, but our sin is our own; our sins in a plurality; our sins of one kind, determine not in one sin, we sin the same sin often, and then we determine not in one kind, but slide into many. And after this multiplication of sin, the continuation thereof, to an irrecoverableness, supergressæ sunt, we think not of them, till it be too late to think of them, till they produce no thought but despair; for 59 Ephes. iv. 8.

59 Rev. xiii. 10.

supergressæ caput, they are got above our heads, above our strongest faculties; above us, in the nature of an arched roof, they keep God's grace in a separation from us, and our prayers from him, so they have the nature of a roof, and then, they feel no weight, they bend not under any judgment, which he lays upon us, so they have the nature of an arch. Above us, as a voice, as a cry; their voice is in possession of God, and so prevents our prayers; above us as waters, they disable our eyes, and our ears, from right conceiving all apprehensions; and above us, as lords, and tyrants, that came in by conquest, and so put what laws they list upon us. And these instructions have arisen from this first, the multiplicity, Mine iniquities are gone over my head, and more will from the other, the weight and burden, They are as a heavy burden, too heavy for me.

SERMON CIII.

PREACHED AT LINCOLN'S INN.

The second Sermon on PSALM XXXviii. 4.

For mine iniquities are gone over my head, as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

But as the eye

As the philosopher says, if a man could see virtue, he would love it, so if a man could see sin, he would hate it. sees everything but itself, so does sin too. It sees beauty, and honour, and riches, but it sees not itself, not the sinful coveting, and compassing of all these. To make, though not sin, yet the sinner to see himself, for the explication, and application of these words, we brought you these two lights; first, the multiplicity of sin, in that elegancy of the Holy Ghost, supergressæ sunt, Mine iniquities are gone over my head, and the weight and oppression of sin, in that, Gravata nimis, As a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me; in the first, how numerous, how manifold they are, in the other, how grievous, how insupportable; first,

how many hands, then how fast hold sin lays upon me. The first of these two was our exercise the last day, when we proposed and proceeded in these words, in which we presented to you, the dangerous multiplicity of sin, in those pieces, which constituted that part. But because, as men, how many soever, make but a multitude, or a throng, and not an army, if they be unarmed, so sin, how manifold, and multiform soever, might seem a passable thing, if it might be easily shaked off, we come now to imprint in you a sense of the weight and impression thereof, As a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me; the particular degrees whereof, we laid down the last day, in our general division of the whole text, and shall now pursue them, according to our order proposed then.

First then, sin is heavy. Does not the sinner find it so? No marvel, nothing is heavy in his proper place, in his own sphere, in his own centre, when it is where it would be, nothing is heavy. He that lies under water finds no burden of all that water that lies upon him; but if he were out of it, how heavy would a small quantity of that water seem to him, if he were to carry it in a vessel! An habitual sinner is the natural place, the centre of sin, and he feels no weight in it, but if the grace of God raise him out of it, that he come to walk, and walk in the ways of godliness, not only his watery tympanies, and his dropsies, those waters which by actual and habitual sins he hath contracted, but that water, of which he is properly made, the water that is in him naturally, infused from his parents, original sin, will be sensible to him, and oppress him. Scarce any man considers the weight of original sin; and yet, as the strongest temptations fall upon us when we are weakest, in our death-bed, so the heaviest sins seizes us, when we are weakest; as soon as we are anything, we are sinners, and there; where there can be no more temptations ministered to us, than was to the angels that fell in heaven, that is, in our mother's womb, when no world, nor flesh, nor devil could present a provocation to sin to us, when no faculty of ours is able to embrace, or second a provocation to sin, yet there, in that weakness, we are under the weight of original sin. And truly, if at this time, God would vouchsafe me my choice, whether he should pardon me all those actual and habitual sins, which I

have committed in my life, or extinguish original sin in me, I should choose to be delivered from original sin, because, though I be delivered from the imputation thereof, by baptism, so that I shall not fall under a condemnation for original sin only, yet it still remains in me, and practices upon me, and occasions all the other sins, that I commit; now, for all my actual and habitual sins, I know God hath instituted means in his church, the Word, and the Sacraments, for my reparation; but with what a holy alacrity, with what a heavenly joy, with what a cheerful peace, should I come to the participation of these means and seals of my reconciliation, and pardon of all my sins, if I knew myself to be delivered from original sin, from that snake in my bosom, from that poison in my blood, from that leaven and tartar in all my actions, that casts me into relapses of those sins which I have repented! And what a cloud upon the best serenity of my conscience, what an interruption, what a discontinuance from the sincerity and integrity of that joy, which belongs to a man truly reconciled to God, in the pardon of his former sins, must it needs be still to know, and to know by lamentable experiences, that though I wash myself with soap, and nitre, and snow-water, mine own clothes will defile me again, though I have washed myself in the tears of repentance, and in the blood of my Saviour, though I have no guiltiness of any former sin upon me at that present, yet I have a sense of a root of sin, that is not grubbed up, of original sin, that will cast me back again. Scarce any man considers the weight, the oppression of original sin. No man can say, that an acorn weighs as much as an oak; yet in truth, there is an oak in that acorn : no man considers that original sin weighs as much as actual, or habitual, yet in truth, all our actual and habitual sins are in original. Therefore St. Paul's vehement, and frequent prayer to God, to that purpose, could not deliver him from original sin, and that stimulus carnis, that provocation of the flesh, that messenger of Satan, which rises out of that, God would give him sufficient grace, it should not work to his destruction, but yet he should have it: nay, the infinite merit of Christ Jesus himself, that works so upon all actual and habitual sins, as that after that merit is applied to them, those sins are no sins, works not so upon original sin, but that, though I be eased in the