Chettle:
And why not, lad, why not? The greatest sinners always make the greatest saints. Reason: they’ve more stuff in ’em for good or evil and better wits to shape the mass to a purpose. Reason again. How can you help others to resist temptation unless you feel the strength of it in your own flesh?
Jonson:
You are the sum of all sins—a glutton, drunkard, letcher and shameless to boot: how can you talk of being a saint!
Chettle:
Sins of the flesh, my lad, find pardon easier than malice of the spirit; I’d be a saint to-morrow, but the living’s thin and ye’re all such unbelieving rascals that ye’d make me misdoubt my own virtue!
Jonson:
Virtue in you would be like a lump of butter in a raging fire, ’Twould feed the flames!
Chettle:
That’s the unbelief in ye, that still keeps me a sinner, a villainous sinner!