No man can, the Devil himself cannot, advisedly, deliberately, wish himself to be nothing. It is truly and safely said in the School, That whatsoever can be the subject of a wish, if I can desire it, wish it, it must necessarily be better (at least in my opinion) than that which I have; and whatsoever is better, is not nothing; without doubt it must necessarily produce more thankfulness in me, towards God, that I am a Christian; but certainly more wonder that I am a creature: it is vehemently spoken, but yet needs no excuse, which Justin Martyr says, Ne ipsi quidem Domino fidem haberem, &c. I should scarce believe God himself, if he should tell me, that any but himself created this world of nothing; so infallible, and so inseparable a work, and so distinctive a character is it of the Godhead, to produce anything from nothing; and that God did when he commanded light out of darkness…

Lincoln’s Inn, 1618 (I)

This captivity to sin, comes so swiftly, so impetuously upon us. Consider it first in our making; In the generation of our parents, we were conceived in sin; that is, they sinned in that action; so we were conceived in sin; in their sin. And in our selves, we were submitted to sin, in that very act of generation, because then we became in part the subject of original sin. Yet, there was no arrow shot into us then; there was no sin in that substance of which we were made; for if there had been sin in that substance, that substance might be damned, though God should never infuse a soul into it; and that cannot be said well then: God, whose goodness, and wisdom will have that substance to become a man, he creates a soul for it, or creates a soul in it, (I dispute not that) he sends a light, or he kindles a light, in that lanthorn; and here’s no arrow shot neither; here’s no sin in that soul, that God creates; for there God should create something that were evil; and that cannot be said: Here’s no arrow shot from the body, no sin in the body alone; None from the soul, no sin in the soul alone; And yet, the union of this soul and body is so accompanied with God’s malediction for our first transgression, that in the instant of that union of life, as certainly as that body must die, so certainly the whole man must be guilty of original sin. No man can tell me out of what quiver, yet here is an arrow comes so swiftly, as that in the very first minute of our life, in our quickening in our mother’s womb, we become guilty of Adam’s sin done 6000 years before, and subject to all those arrows, hunger, labour, grief, sickness, and death, which have been shot after it. This is the fearful swiftness of this arrow, that God himself cannot get before it. In the first minute that my soul is infused, the image of God is imprinted in my soul; so forward is God in my behalf, and so early does he visit me. But yet original sin is there, as soon as that image of God is there. My soul is capable of God as soon as it is capable of sin; and though sin do not get the start of God, God does not get the start of sin neither. Powers, that dwell so far asunder, as Heaven, and Hell, God and the Devil, meet in an instant in my soul, in the minute of my quickening, and the image of God and the Image of Adam, original sin, enter into me at once, in one, and the same act. So swift is this arrow, original sin, from which, all arrows of subsequent temptations, are shot, as that God, who comes to my first minute of life, cannot come before death.

Lincoln’s Inn, 1618 (II)

But except we do come to say, Our sins are our own, God will never cut up that root in us, God will never blot out the memory in himself, of those sins. Nothing can make them none of ours, but the avowing of them, the confessing of them to be ours. Only in this way, I am a holy liar, and in this the God of truth will reward my lie; for, if I say my sins are mine own, they are none of mine, but, by that confessing and appropriating of those sins to my self, they are made the sins of him, who hath suffered enough for all, my blessed Lord and Saviour, Christ Jesus. Therefore that servant of God, St Augustine confesses those sins, which he never did, to be his sins, and to have been forgiven him: Peccata mihi dimissa fateor, et quœ mea sponte feci, et quœ te duce non feci; Those sins which I have done, and those, which, but for thy grace, I should have done, are all, my sins. Alas, I may die here, and die under an everlasting condemnation of fornication with that woman, that lives, and dies a virgin, and be damned for a murderer of that man, that outlives me, and for a robbery, and oppression, where no man is damnified, nor any penny lost. The sin that I have done, the sin that I would have done, is my sin…

From Essays in Divinity

…Of all the ways in which God hath expressed himself towards us, we have made no word which doth less signify what we mean than ‘power’: for power, which is but an ability to do, ever relates to some future thing, and God is ever present, simple, and pure act. But we think we have done much and gone far when we have made up the word ‘omnipotence’ – which is both ways improper; for it is much too short, because omnipotence supposes and confesses a matter and subject to work upon, and yet God was the same when there was nothing. And then it over-reaches and goes downward beyond God: for God hath not, or is not, such an omnipotence as can do all things. For though squeamish and tenderer men think it more mannerly to say This thing cannot be done than God cannot do this thing, yet it is all one. And if that be an omnipotence which is limited with the nature of the worker, or with the congruity of the subject, other things may encroach upon the word omnipotent; that is, they can do all things which are not against their nature or the nature of the matter upon which they work. Beza therefore might well enough say that God could not make a body without place; and Prateolus might truly enough infer upon that, that the Bezanites (as he calls them) deny omnipotence in God. For both are true. And therefore I doubt not that it hath some mystery that the word ‘omnipotence’ is not found in all the Bible, nor ‘omnipotent’ in the New Testament. And where it is in the Old, it would rather be interpreted ‘all-sufficient’ than ‘almighty’ – between which there is much difference. God is so all-sufficient that he is sufficient for all, and sufficient to all. He is enough, and we are in him able enough to take and apply. We fetch part of our wealth, which is our faith, expressly from his treasury; and for our good works, we bring the metal to his mint (or that mint comes to us) and there the character of baptism and the impression of his grace makes them current and somewhat worth, even towards him. God is all-efficient: that is, hath created the beginning, ordained the way, foreseen the end of everything; and nothing else is any kind of cause thereof.