A Golden Chain

Nevertheless we hold not all sins equal, but that they are greater or less according to the diversity of objects and other circumstances.

Neuertheles we holde not all sinnes equall, but that they are greater or lesse according to the diuersitie of obiects and other circumstances.

Thus much of sin in general: now we come to the parts of it. The first sin of all that ever was in man,¹ is the sin of Adam, which was his disobedience in eating the forbidden fruit. In handling whereof sundry points are to be opened, but let us begin with the causes thereof.

Thus much of sin in generall: nowe we come to the parts of it. The first sin of all that euer was in man,¹ is the sinne of Adam, which was his disobedience in eating the forbidden fruite. In handling whereof sundrie points are to bee opened, but let vs begin with the causes thereof.

1. 1Rom. 5.5.

The outward efficient cause was the devil. And though he be not named by Moses in the history of the fall, yet that is not to trouble us: for we must not conceive otherwise of the serpent, then of the instrument and mouth of the devil. For it is not likely that it being a brute creature should be able to reason and determine of good and evil, of trueth and falsehood. Now in this temptation the devil shows his malice and his fraud. His malice, in that, whereas he cannot overturn God himself, yet he labours to disturb the order which he hath set down in the creation, and especially the image of God in the most excellent creatures on earth, that they may be in the same miserable condition with himself. His fraud, first in that he begins his temptation with the woman being the weaker person, & not with the man, which course he still continues: as may appear by this, that