even when we cannot dress ourselves; and to be forbidden to do or have a thing, is the best art in the world to make us greedy of it. The flesh and the spirit perpetually are at strife"; the spirit pretending that his ought to be the dominion, and the flesh alleging that this is her state, and her day. We hate our present condition, and know not how to better ourselves, our changes being but like the tumblings and tossings in a fever, from trouble to trouble, that is all the variety. We are extremely inconstant, and always hate our own choice: we despair sometimes of God's mercies, and are confident in our own follies; as we order things, we cannot avoid little sins, and do not avoid great ones. We love the present world, though it be good for nothing, and undervalue infinite treasures, if they be not to be had till the day of recompenses. We are peevish, if a servant does but break a glass, and patient when we have thrown an ill cast for eternity; throwing away the hopes of a glorious crown, for wine, and dirty silver. We know that our prayers, if well done, are great advantages to our state, and yet we are hardly brought to them, and love not to stay at them, and wander while we are saying them, and say them without minding, and are glad when they are done, or when we have a reasonable excuse to omit them. A passion does quite overturn all our purposes, and all our principles, and there are certain times of weakness in which any temptation may prevail, if it comes in that unlucky minute.

84. This is a little representment of the state of man; whereof a great part is a natural impotency, and the other is brought in by our own folly. Concerning the first when we discourse, it is as if one describes the condition of a mole, or a bat, an oyster, or a mushroom, concerning whose imperfections, no other cause cause is to be inquired of, but the will of God, who gives his gifts as he please, and is unjust to no man, by giving or not giving any certain proportion of good things and supposing this loss was brought first upon Adam, and so descended upon us, yet we have no cause to complain, for we lost nothing that was ours. "Præposterum est," said Paulus the lawyer, "antè nos locupletes dici quàm acquisiverimus." We cannot be said to lose what we never

* Πάντη ἡ ἐναντιότης ἐν τοῖς φανεροῖς καὶ ἐν τοῖς κρυπτοῖς, ἀπὸ τῆς παραβάσεως τοῦ πρώτου ἀνθρώπου, εἰς ἡμᾶς κατήντησεν. Macar. hom. 21.

had; and our fathers' goods were not to descend upon us, unless they were his at his death. If therefore they be confiscated before his death, ours indeed is the inconvenience too, but his alone is the punishment, and to neither of us is the wrong.

But concerning the second, I mean that which is superinduced, it is not his fault alone, nor ours alone, and neither of us is innocent; we all put in our accursed symbol for the debauching of our spirits, for the besotting our souls, for the spoiling our bodies. "Ille initium induxit debiti, nos fœnus auximus posterioribus peccatis," &c. "He began the principal, and we have increased the interest"."This we also find well expressed by Justin Martyr; for the fathers of the first ages spake prudently and temperately in this article, as in other things. "Christ was not born or crucified because him→ self had need of these things, but for the sake of mankind;" Ο ἀπὸ τοῦ ̓Αδὰμ ὑπὸ θάνατον καὶ πλάνην τὴν τοῦ ὄφεως ἐπεπτώκει, παρὰ τὴν ἰδίαν αἰτίαν ἑκάστου αὐτῶν πονηρευσαμένου : "which from Adam fell into death and the deception of the serpent, besides the evil which every one adds upon his own account."-And it appears in the greatest instance of all, even in that of natural death; which though it was natural, yet from Adam it began to be a curse, just as the motion of a serpent upon his belly, which was concreated with him, yet upon this story was changed into a malediction and an evil adjunct. But though Adam was the gate, and brought in the head of death, yet our sins brought him in further, we brought in the body of death.' Our life was left by Adam a thousand years long almost; but the iniquity of man brought it quickly to five hundred years, from thence to two hundred and fifty, from thence to one hundred and twenty, and at last to seventy, and then God would no more strike all mankind in the same manner, but individuals and single sinners smart for it, and are cut off in their youth, and do not live out half their days. And so it is in the matters of the soul and the spirit. Every sin leaves an evil upon the soul; and every age grows worse, and adds some ini quity of its own to the former examples. And therefore Tertullian calls Adam mali traducem;' he transmitted the original and exemplar,' and we write after his copy.-' InfirSt. Chrys. in cap. 6. Ephes. a Dial. cum Tryph.

mitatis ingenitæ vitium ;' so Arnobius calls our natural baseness; we are naturally weak:' and this weakness is a vice or defect of nature, and our evil usages make our natures worse; like butchers being used to kill beasts, their natures grow more savage and unmerciful; so it is with us all. If our parents be good, yet we often prove bad, as the wild olive comes from the branch of a natural olive, or as corn with the chaff come from clean grain, and the uncircumcised from the circumcised. But if our parents be bad, it is the less wonder if their children are so; a blackamoor begets a blackamoor, as an epileptic son does often come from an epileptic father, and hereditary diseases are transmitted by generation; so it is in that viciousness that is radicated in the body, for a lustful father oftentimes begets a lustful son; and so it is in all those instances where the soul follows the temperature of the body. And thus not only Adam, but every father, may transmit an original sin, or rather an original viciousness of his own. For a vicious nature, or a natural improbity, when it is not consented to, is not a sin, but an ill disposition: philosophy and the grace of God must cure it; but it often causes us to sin, before our reason and our higher principles are well attended to. But when we consent to, and actuate our evil inclinations, we spoil our natures, and make them worse, making evil still more natural. For it is as much in our nature to be pleased with our artificial delights as with our natural. And this is the doctrine of St. Austin, speaking of concupiscence. "Modo quodam loquendi vocatur peccatum, quòd peccato facta est; et peccati, si vicerit, facit reum :" "Concupiscence, or the viciousness of our nature, is, after a certain manner of speaking, called sin; because it is made worse by sin, and makes us guilty of sin when it is consented to "."—" It hath the nature of sin;"-so the article of the church of England expresses it; that is, it is 'in eâdem materia;' it comes from a weak principle, à naturæ vitio,' 'from the imperfect and defective nature of man, and inclines to sin.' But (that I may again use St. Austin's words), "Quantum ad nos attinet, sine peccato semper essemus, donec sanaretur hoc malum, si ei nunquam consentiremus ad malum:" "Although we all have concupiscence, yet none of us all should have any sin, if we did not consent to this concupis

b Lib. 1. de Nupt. et Concup. c. 23.

cence unto evil."-Concupiscence is 'naturæ vitium,' but not 'peccatum,'' a defect' or ' fault of nature,' but not formally 'a sin:' which distinction we learn from St. Austin; "Non enim talia sunt vitia, quæ jam peccata dicenda sunt." Concupiscence is an evil as a weak eye is, but not a sin, if we speak properly, till it be consented to; and then indeed it is the parent of sin. TíкTε Tηv åμapríav: so St. James; "it brings forth sin."

85. This is the vile state of our natural viciousness, and improbity, and misery, in which Adam had some, but truly not the biggest share; and let this consideration sink as deep as it will in us, to make us humble and careful, but let us not use it as an excuse to lessen our diligence, by greatening our evil necessity. For death and sin were both born from Adam, but we have nursed them up to an ugly bulk and deformity. But I must now proceed to other practical rules.

86. II. It is necessary that we understand that our natural state is not a state in which we can hope for heaven. Natural agents can effect but natural ends, by natural instruments: and now supposing the former doctrine, that we lost not the divine favour by our guilt of what we never did consent to, yet we were born in pure naturals, and they some of them worsted by our forefathers, yet we were at the best born but in pure naturals, and we must be born again :' that as by our first birth we are heirs of death, so by our new birth we may be adopted into the inheritance of life and salvation.

87. III. It is our duty to be humbled in the consideration of ourselves, and of our natural condition. That by distrusting our own strengths we may take sanctuary in God through Jesus Christ, praying for his grace, entertaining and caressing of his Holy Spirit, with purities and devotions, with charity and humility, infinitely fearing to grieve him, lest he leaving us, we be left as Adam left us, in pure naturals, but in some degrees worsted by the nature of sin in some instances, and the anger of God in all, that is, in the state of flesh and blood,' which shall never inherit the kingdom of heaven.'

6

88. IV. Whatsoever good work we do, let us not impute it to ourselves, or our own choice. For God is the best es

timator of that: he knows best what portion of the work we did, and what influence our will had into the action, and leave it to him to judge and recompense. But let us attribute all the glory to God, and to God's grace, for without him we can do nothing. But by him that strengthens us, that works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure, by him alone we are saved. Giving all glory to God, will take nothing of the reward from us.

89. V. Let no man so undervalue his sin, or overvalue himself, as to lessen that, and to put the fault any where but where it ought to be. If a man accuses himself with too great a rigour, it is no more than if he holds his horse too hard when he is running down a hill. It may be, a less force would stop his running; but the greater does so too, and manifests his fear; which in this case of his sin and danger is of itself rewardable.

e

90. VI. Let no man when he is tempted, say that he is tempted of God. Not only because, as St. James affirms most wisely," every man is tempted, when he is led away by his own concupiscence ";" but because he is a very evil speaker that speaks evil things of God. Think it not therefore in thy thought, that God hath made any necessities of sinning. He that hath forbidden sin so earnestly, threatened it so deeply, hates it so essentially, prevents it so cautiously, dissuades us from it so passionately, punishes it so severely, arms us against it so strongly, and sent his Son so piously and charitably to root out sin, so far as may be, from the face of the earth; certainly it cannot be thought that he hath made necessities of sinning. For whatsoever he hath made necessary, is as innocent as what he hath commanded; it is his own work, and he hateth nothing that he hath made, and therefore he hath not made sin. And no man shall dare to say at doomsday unto God, that he hath made him to sin, or made it unavoidable. There are no two cases of conscience, no two duties in any case, so seemingly contradictory, that whichsoever a man choose he must sin: and therefore much less is any one state a state of necessary unavoidable enmity against God.

91. VII. Use thyself to holy company and pious employment in thy early days: follow no evil example, live by rule,

e Jam. i. 13.