The works of the reverend and faithful servant of Jesus Christ M. Richard Greenham,…The workes of the reuerend and faithfull seruant af Iesus Christ M. Richard Greenham,…

12 It is our great corruption, being admonished or charged of sin, we either deny it to be a sin, or we deny our selves to have sinned in that sin, or we quarrel and wrangle¹ about the nature of sin, or else we countenance our selves by Scriptures, as the Familists do² cover many iniquities, by making plain places allegories; or if we confess, it is in great³ hypocrisy; or if we confess in some truth, yet we go not out of the sin. Howsoever^{4 5}Popish confession hath made a cloak for sin, so as now a thief on the gallows⁶ ⟨p. 33⟩⁷ready to fall into the grave, & into hell both at once, will say, it is sufficient to confess my sins unto God, though I do not so unto men: yet I say, there is no greater token of grace, than when for the glory of God or good of the brethren, we can be content to discover and lay open our selves. If none of these excuses serve, then we can say, why, this is a common⁸ thing, I am not alone, better then I have done so; or else, such a one provoked me to⁹ do thus, or else I had not done it; or else we are very frail, and may not you sin? or was¹⁰ there ever any that sinned not? Thus we are even as dainty as Gentlewomen, who having a sore, which they are loth to have espied, will cover it till it be incurable▪ so we, having some sins, are loth to open them, until they grow almost unrecoverable.