An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, and thirty-seventh chapters of…

All men sin, but the sins of all men, at least all the sins of all good men, do not exceed; they are not all of a high stature, they are not all strong and mighty sins, as the Lord by his Prophet called those of Israel (Amos 5.12.) We usually distinguish of sins; some are sins in the excess, and some in the defect; Prodigality is a sin in the excess, and Parsimony is a sin in the defect; Superstition is a s•n in the excess, when men will worship God more than he requires, or in what he requires not; Profaneness, or neglect of Worship, as also negligence in Worship, are sins in defect. Thus some sins are in the excess, others in the defect, yet every transgression hath a kind of excess in it, and some a•e exceedingly excessive. And because when any exceedingly exceed in sinning their sins may be said to reign; therefore (I suppose) M•. Broughton translates this Text so, And that their trespasses reigned. For, though as to a course of sin, it is inconsistent ⟨p. 228⟩with the state of a righteous man, that sin should reign in him, yet as to this or that act it may reign; sin may reign over, and bring under a godly man by the violence of a present temptation, though it cannot reign over him (as it doth over the wicked) by a willing submission. As the best sin always, so sometimes they have sinned greatly, they have exceeded. Davids sin exceeded, his sin, as to that act, mastered and reigned over him. Solomons sin exceeded, when in his old age his wives turned away his heart to other gods, (1 Kings 11.4.) And Peters sin exceeded, when he denied his Master. The righteous are not exempt from a particular reign of sin, though through grace, they are delivered from the reign of any the least particular sin. As there is no kind, so no degree of sin, but a godly man may fall into it, except that against the holy Ghost, and total Apostasy from his profession.

All men sin, but the sins of all men, at least all the sins of all good men, do not exceed; they are not all of a high stature, they are not all strong and mighty sins, as the Lord by his Prophet called those of Israel (