injury: that to hate another is to malign himself; that
the truest way to love another is to despise ourselves.
I were unjust unto mine own conscience if I should say
I am at variance with anything like myself. I find
there are many pieces in this one fabrick of man; this
frame is raised upon a mass of antipathies: I am one
methinks but as the world, wherein notwithstanding
there are a swarm of distinct essences, and in them
another world of contrarieties; we carry private and
domestick enemies within, public and more hostile ad-
versaries without. The devil, that did but buffet St
Paul, plays methinks at sharp<91> with me. Let me be
nothing, if within the compass of myself, I do not find
the battle of Lepanto,<92> passion against reason, reason
against faith, faith against the devil, and my conscience
against all. There is another man within me that's
angry with me, rebukes, commands, and dastards me.
I have no conscience of marble, to resist the hammer of
more heavy offences: nor yet so soft and waxen, as to
take the impression of each single peccadillo or scape of
infirmity. I am of a strange belief, that it is as easy to
be forgiven some sins as to commit some others. For
my original sin, I hold it to be washed away in my
baptism; for my actual transgressions, I compute and
reckon with God but from my last repentance, sacra-
ment, or general absolution; and therefore am not
terrified with the sins or madness of my youth. I thank
the goodness of God, I have no sins that want a name.
I am not singular in offences; my transgressions are
epidemical, and from the common breath of our corrup-