My God, my God, I have been told, and told by relation, by her own
brother that did it, by thy servant Nazianzen, that his sister in the
vehemency of her prayer, did use to threaten thee with a holy
importunity, with a pious impudency. I dare not do so, O God; but as thy
servant Augustine wished that Adam had not sinned, therefore that Christ
might not have died, may I not to this one purpose wish that if the
serpent, before the temptation of Eve, did go upright and speak,[135]
that he did so still, because I should the sooner hear him if he spoke,
the sooner see him if he went upright? In his curse I am cursed too; his
creeping undoes me; for howsoever he begin at the heel, and do but
bruise that, yet he, and _death_ in him, _is come into our
windows_;[136] into our eyes and ears, the entrances and inlets of our
soul. He works upon us in secret and we do not discern him; and one
great work of his upon us is to make us so like himself as to sin in
secret, that others may not see us; but his masterpiece is to make us
sin in secret, so as that we may not see ourselves sin. For the first,
the hiding of our sins from other men, he hath induced that which was
his offspring from the beginning, a lie;[137] for man is, in nature, yet
in possession of some such sparks of ingenuity and nobleness, as that,
but to disguise evil, he would not lie. The body, the sin, is the
serpent's; and the garment that covers it, the lie, is his too. These
are his, but the hiding of sin from ourselves is he himself: when we
have the sting of the serpent in us, and do not sting ourselves, the
venom of sin, and no remorse for sin, then, as thy blessed Son said of
Judas, _He is a devil_;[138] not that he had one, but was one; so we are
become devils to ourselves, and we have not only a serpent in our bosom,
but we ourselves are to ourselves that serpent. How far did thy servant
David press upon thy pardon in that petition, _Cleanse thou me from
secret sins_?[139] Can any sin be secret? for a great part of our sins,
though, says thy prophet, we conceive them in the dark, upon our bed,
yet, says he, we do them in the light; there are many sins which we
glory in doing, and would not do if nobody should know them. Thy blessed
servant Augustine confesses that he was ashamed of his shamefacedness
and tenderness of conscience, and that he often belied himself with sins
which he never did, lest he should be unacceptable to his sinful
companions. But if we would conceal them (thy prophet found such a
desire, and such a practice in some, when he said, _Thou hast trusted in
thy wickedness, and thou hast said, None shall see me_[140]), yet can we
conceal them? Thou, O God, canst hear of them by others: the voice of
Abel's blood will tell thee of Cain's murder;[141] the heavens
themselves will tell thee. Heaven shall reveal his iniquity; a small
creature alone shall do it, _A bird of the air shall carry the voice,
and tell the matter_;[142] thou wilt trouble no informer, thou thyself
revealedst Adam's sin to thyself;[143] and the manifestation of sin is
so full to thee, as that thou shalt reveal all to all; _Thou shalt
bring every work to judgment, with every secret thing;[144] and there
is nothing covered that shall not be revealed_.[145] But, O my God,
there is another way of knowing my sins, which thou lovest better than
any of these; to know them by my confession. As physic works, so it
draws the peccant humour to itself, that, when it is gathered together,
the weight of itself may carry that humour away; so thy Spirit returns
to my memory my former sins, that, being so recollected, they may pour
out themselves by confession. _When I kept silence_, says thy servant
David, _day and night thy hand was heavy upon me_; but when I said, _I
will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, thou forgavest the
iniquity of my sin_.[146] Thou interpretest the very purpose of
confession so well, as that thou scarce leavest any new mercy for the
action itself. This mercy thou leavest, that thou armest us thereupon
against relapses into the sins which we have confessed. And that mercy
which thy servant Augustine apprehends when he says to thee, "Thou hast
forgiven me those sins which I have done, and those sins which only by
thy grace I have not done": they were done in our inclination to them,
and even that inclination needs thy mercy, and that mercy he calls a
pardon. And these are most truly secret sins, because they were never
done, and because no other man, nor I myself, but only thou knowest, how
many and how great sins I have escaped by thy grace, which, without
that, I should have multiplied against thee.