the occasions of those sins which we have lamented if we gaze with some pleasure upon the bait which intices us to them if we love our old wicked company or be so bold as to venture into it if we draw as near a sin as we dare it is a sign we do not sufficiently abhor it nor have been sorrowful enough for it For that would have made us more shy more wary more timorous of relapsing into so dangerous an estate and afraid to approach near to those snares wherein we had been intangled and thereby suffered such affliction as can never be recompensed with any pleasures but those of pleasing God in all things Let us not deceive our selves then no not with sorrow and affliction of Spirit and the greatest Humiliations before God if they be not attended with a change in the whole course of our life Till sorrow hath wrought this effect we have no reason to think that we have sorrowed after a Godly sort We lay aside the afflicting our selves too soon and speak comfort to our Souls before they be sit for it If our grief hath not made an absolute divorce between us and our sins never to come together again For so the Apostle teaches us in that known place 2 Cor. vii 10. Godly sorrow worketh repentance to Salvation not to be repented of Sorrow is an unprofitable thing unless it work Repentance and Repentance is unprofitable if it be only a good fit and we return again to the sins which we renounced Let us not conclude therefore too hastily that we are Penitents Sorrow alone doth not make us so no nor a present change in the course of our life but that change must continue and hold out when we come to be tried and are placed again among our usual temptations Of which till we have had some experience let us be modest not confident in the opinion we have of our Godly sorrow And judge rather we have not sufficiently lamented our sins than speedily pronounce our selves absolved from them It was the custom in the Primitive Church for those who were upon the point of suffering Martyrdom for Christ to write Letters before they died in the behalf of lapsed Christians who were in the state of Penance desiring the Bishops that they might be reconciled and received to the peace of the Church But good Bishops would not easily consent to this unless they saw real signs of amendment in the Penitents And they likewise earnestly desired the Martyrs not to be too easie in granting these Letters or in promising to sue for them but to consider how solicitous their Predecessors were to have such Sinners truly humbled and how cautious to observe the kind and quality of the sins which they lamented in the state of Penance Nay there were some Martyrs so wise as to reprove this giving of the peace of the Church before they were so humbled as to be reformed Nè dum volumus ruinis importunè subvenire alias majores ruinas videamur parare as I find Moses and Maximus and other Confessors speak most judiciously in S. Cyprian who himself hath an admirable discourse to the same purpose lest while we desire unseasonably to raise up lapsed Christians out of their ruines we make way for their greater fall and utterly undo them They took care so to heal one breach as not to make another and more dangerous So to cure a wound as not to make a new one harder to be cured So to restore Penitents that they did not relapse into a more deplorable condition For they saw clearly that by speaking peace to them too soon before they were so soundly humbled and grievously afflicted as to be heartily established in new resolutions they became less fearful to offend and lookt not so carefully to their ways as they would have done if they had suffered more for their former offences Let us take the same care about our own Souls and not be too forward to conclude we have made our peace with God though we have been never so sorrowful when there are no credible signs that we are so afflicted for what we have done as never to venture to do the like again No Prince will pardon upon other terms and it is directly against all reason to think that the Sovereign of the World will be content to lose all the Obedience which is owing from his Creatures whom he hath made with a sense of Duty to him No cries though lamentable beyond all expression can perswade him to this and therefore it is foolish and presumptuous to expect it especially since he hath declared the contrary and told us as plainly as words can express it that the wrath of God is revealed against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men i. Rom. 18. and that except we be converted and become like little Children pliable to the Will of our Heavenly Father we cannot enter into his Kingdom xviii Matth. 3. Which our Saviour pronounces with such an earnest asseveration as is apt to awaken our attention to what he says there and in many other places which is utterly inconsistent with the imagination that it is sufficient to dispose us for his favour if we acknowledge our Errors and be sorry for them and bewail them without any further alteration CHAP. IX What Vse the Better sort ought to make of this AND as our Tears ought not to stop till they have wrought a thorough alteration in our hearts and in the course of our life So after that is wrought there will be still occasion for them and they must not be quite dried up My meaning is that they who by the grace of God have reformed their lives and done away their former sins by an unfeigned sorrowful Repentance or they who perhaps never highly offended God but have been only guilty of smaller faults ought not to think themselves wholly unconcerned in this Doctrine and to have no cause for being afflicted with such mourning weeping and Humiliations as I have mentioned They have great reason indeed to rejoyce in the Lord always and to praise him for his wonderful goodness towards them But this is so far from shutting out all sorrow that it is a part of that holy life unto which they are renewed by Repentance to be full of tender compassion towards others and to bewail their miserable condition And therefore beside some degree of sadness and sorrow which is due for lesser offences or for greater formerly committed though now amended there are two things which are really very lamentable and ought to be sadly laid to heart by the best of us First the publick Judgments which God at any time sends upon the Place or Kingdom where we live Secondly the obstinate wickedness of most offenders who notwithstanding these Judgments will not turn unto him that smiteth them nor seek the Lord as the Prophets words are ix Isa 13. I. When people will not judge themselves as I have said before
their Souls xvi Lev. 29 31. lviii Isa 5. which explains the first word in S. James and shows it to be the very same with that in Joel turn unto him with Fasting And if we search farther wherein this afflicting themselves consisted we shall find an Explication of the rest that follow For it did not consist barely in abstinence from food but in putting on also the habit of mourners sackcloth and ashes and in the action of renting the garments in bewailing and lamenting their conditition which are the next phrases in S. James mourn and weep And if we still proceed further in our enquiry we shall find that on such days of afflicting themselves they also abstained from all sorts of pleasure they would not so much as wash their faces much less annoint their heads no nor look up but hanged down their heads in confusion of face Musick and Songs were perfect strangers to them nor would they take any rest but they punished their bodies with watchings and lying on the bare ground To testifie their sorrow and grief for what evil they had done or for the evils they felt or feared And accordingly here it follows in the Apostle in perfect conformity to those customs let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into heaviness or into hanging down of the head with shame and grief And if we go on to search into the ground of all this it will further illustrate the thing in hand For it is visible that upon occasion of any sorrowful accidents they were wont in those Eastern Countries to express their sense of it by putting on sack-cloth lying on the ground strowing ashes on their heads and such like things Which is notorious more especially in case of the loss of their Friends and near Relations Thus Jacob bewailed the supposed death of his Son Joseph xxxvii Gen. 34 35. And thus Rispah the Concubine of Saul lamented her Children whom the Gibeonites hanged on a Gibbet 2 Sam. xxi 10. and thus Job when he heard of the calamity befaln his Family rent his mantle shaved his head fell down upon the ground and remained in silence without speaking a word for seven days i. Job 20. and thus his Friends also hearing of all this evil and beholding when they came to visit him in what a lamentable condition he lay himself lift up their voice and wept and rent every man his mantle and sprinkled dust upon their heads and sat down with him upon the ground in silence ii Job 12 13. Nor are there wanting numerous examples which I shall omit of the very same customs among other Nations as well as among the Jews and these Arabians No wonder then if pious men who were touched with a sense of their sin and of the Divine displeasure used the very same signs and testimony of their grief which were customary in other cases of far less consequence For what greater mischief can befall us than the loss of Gods favour or rather what calamity is equal or nearly approaching to it And therefore there is more reason to bewail our offences against him which put us out of his favour most heavily and with the most doleful tokens of our sorrow for them than there is to bewail the loss of the dearest Friend we have in this World or the greatest misfortune as we term it that can possibly befal us And accordingly we read that when holy Job humbled himself before God for his too peremptory vindication of his own innocence he doth it in the same manner that he had bewailed his Afflictions saying I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes xlii 6. And the Prophets often call upon the Israelites to put on sackcloth and to bewail themselves in ashes when they would have them mourn for their sins and as it is in 1 Sam. vii 2. lament after the Lord that is seek the recovery of his favour by an hearty Repentance For they did not think it fit for grievous offenders to look up to him whose authority they had affronted without Tears in their Eyes and a sad and sorrowful countenance in the most mournful posture and habit and the bitterest expressions of their grief and inward anguish As knowing that they deserved to be unprofitably bewailing their sins in a more dismal place where there is Nothing but weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth Why will some say doth God delight to hear our shrieks and groans or would you have us be our own Tormentors Is it reasonable a man should be cruel to his own flesh and make it his business to put himself to pain There is Nothing from which humane Nature more abhors than sorrow and grief and Nothing is more Friendly to it than Pleasure and Joy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every thing that saddens and afflicts us is a real Disease and Sickness To which we cannot but be averse and by all means study to avoid Unto which I answer as Solon did to one who told him when he wept for his Son that he troubled himself but profited Nothing by it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That 's the very reason said he why I cannot but weep So when men say that Nature is hurt by Sorrow the reply may justly be that 's one of the things which should make you sorrowful To see how you have spoiled the Beauty and Goodliness of Humane Nature how you have sullied it by your sins and darkned the brightness and chearfulness of it by Eclipsing the light of Gods countenance which we were made to enjoy and to rejoyce therein and causing this World to become Nothing but a Scene of Misery a place of mourning and lamentation either for our sins or for our sufferings It is a sad fight indeed to behold a Creature made for great Happiness to be now so altered that in all the Creation there is not one so full of complaints as Man But it will be a sadder if his first complaint be not of the cause of all this which is our Sins These if they be not sorrowfully bewailed are the most grievous and lamentable of all things else in the account of those who rightly weigh them But besides this we must consider that this is the way to make men leave their sins and so be restored to true Joy and Gladness If they can take pleasure in evil courses as well as in good they will never be at the trouble of an exchange Nor scarce think of it till they be mourning there where Tears will never cease to flow and drown them in Eternal Sorrows Nay more than this to think of our sins without due sorrow and grief for them is in truth to repeat them So far are they from leaving them who are not grieved for them that whensoever they call them to mind without such grief it is in effect again to commit them Their minds are pleased with them and there they do that over again which was done before in outward
actions Upon this score therefore we are to be afflicted for them and if we be Mourning and Tears and sad Lamentations will not be wanting proportionable to the Affliction which they give our Spirits According to that saying of Philemon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Grief like a Tree hath Tears for its Fruit. Which spring out of Sorrow as a natural expression thereof And are a means as I shall show more hereafter to remove the cause And what greater cause as I have said is there for our grief and heaviness and all their mournful attendants than this that we have offended him by our sins who is able to punish them in endless Sorrows When lesser things produce sometime a flood of Tears we cannot but conclude without any other reason for it that they are justly expected in a very great measure here CHAP. IV. Of the Christian Practice in this matter AND thus the constant practice of the Christian Church hath expounded these words of S. James By requiring such Humiliations Affliction and Doleful bemoaning of themselves from those who had so grievously offended God as to be thrown out of their Communion before they would receive them again into it Which is a thing so notorious that by the word Repentance among the ancient Writers of Religion nothing else is commonly meant but open Confession of their Sins with sad lamentations of them and of the woful condition into which they had brought them There are many remarkable things to this purpose in the Records of the Church more than enough to fill a much bigger Book than this if I would give my self liberty to relate with what humble prostrations with what tears and doleful lamentations conciliciati concinerati as Tertullians words are covered with Hair-cloth and buried as it were in Ashes with Fastings and Watchings with Sighs and Groans and mournful Voices looking dismally lean pale and meagre by long grief and neglect of their Bodies Penitents were wont to cast themselves down upon the Earth and not only supplicate Gods mercy but beg and beseech in the most miserable manner the pardon and the prayers of their Christian Brethren But my design is only to show that all this which was the unquestionable practice of the early Ages of the Church had its foundation in the very beginning of our Religion and was directed by the Apostles themselves Who when any sinner was so sensless that he was not at all afflicted for the Crimes he had committed so impudent that he was not ashamed of the foulest wickedness and therefore was to be excommunicated and cut off from the body of Christ required the whole Church to bewail his Sin and his Misery in the most sad and mournful manner And therefore we may be confident this was expected from the sinner himself when by this means he was awakned out of his Lethargy to see into what a woful condition he had brought himself by his offences For this is the thing which S. Paul blames in the Corinthian Church that when an eminent person among them had committed such Fornication as was not so much as named among the Gentiles they were so far from being concerned about it that they were puffed up with a vain opinion of their dearness to God because of their Spiritual Gifts wherein they abounded Whereas they should have rather mourned that he who had done this deed might be taken away from among them 1 Corinth v. 1 2. That is they should have met together in the Church to separate such a person from their society with wailings and lamentations over him In token of their own sorrow for and detestation of so foul a fact and that they looked upon him as a lost man till he recovered himself by Repentance and mourned as they had done for his Sins The Jews it is well known when any man was to be punished with death for Blasphemy and such like Crimes proclaimed a Fast as we read in the story of Naboth 1 Kings xxi that is they mourned and wept they put on Sackcloth and humbled themselves they did all other things of this nature which might testifie their Sorrow that God should be so dishonoured and the offender should bring himself to such a miserable end Which the Church thought it reasonable to imitate when they cut off any person from their Body as a number of Ecclesiastical Writers inform us and this passage in S. Paul instructed them they Fasted they Wept they put themselves into the habit of Mourners and stript themselves of their Ornaments to declare their abhorrence of the sins which were thus punished and to express their Grief for the scandal they had given which hereby they wiped off Nay the Apostles themselves which is still more did not refrain from these Lamentations but when they in person executed this Sentence against any Sinner humbled themselves and gave the most sensible tokens of their inward Grief and Sorrow This we may learn from the same S. Paul in his next Epistle to the Corinthians Chapter xii Ver. 20 21. Where after he had mentioned several sins which they had not reformed he concludes in these words I fear lest when I come again my God will humble me among you and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed To bewail these men was to punish them with Excommunication which was accompanied with wailings and lamentations over them as men in a sad and most dangerous condition and very much humbled that is Afflicted and Grieved the Apostles themselves when they considered it Who thought God himself expected it from them for whose sake and to preserve a due regard to his Sacred Majesty S. Paul foresaw he must in all likelihood be forced to appear in the habit of a Mourner when he came again among the Corinthians In short just as men mourn for their Friends who are dead corporally so did they bewail those who were dead Spiritually Which they ought sure much more to have done themselves if there had been any sense remaining in them and they had not been dead in Trespasses and Sins And did bewail no doubt as soon as by this severity they were awakened out of their sleep and arose from the dead as S. Paul speaks v. Ephes 14. that is had any motion of Spiritual life appeared again in them and were brought to a feeling of their lamentable condition Which lamentations of themselves sometimes continued so long even by the inclination of the Penitents themselves that they did not think fit when they had highly offended God to leave them off as long as they lived The Deacons wife in Asia is a famous instance of it Who having been seduced and corrupted in her body by Marcus whom she followed a long time but at last by the diligence of the Brethren converted spent all her days in Penance bewailing and lamenting the corruption she had suffered
Judge of thy own fact If the sinner as it follows a little after would not spare himself God would spare him If he would put himself to short pain here in this Life he might escape Eternal pain in the future A great wound must be searcht into carefully and have a long Cure A great sin must necessarily have a great satisfaction So he calls those acts of faithful Penitents Confession Weeping Mourning neglect of their Bodily culture Prayers Fastings Alms lying on the Ground wearing Sackcloth and such like things as were then in use by the name of Satisfaction Not because he thought they could properly make a compensation to God for their past crimes and merit his pardon but because they were pleasing and acceptable to him when they were true significations of the inward compunction of their Hearts as well as gave satisfaction to the Church which enjoyned these Penances to take off the scandal that had been cast upon Religion by their Sins For he satisfies another that doth what he requires of him Now God himself requires this of a Sinner that he be afflicted and mourn and weep and have his laughter turned into mourning and his joy into heaviness c. And if he had not required it yet Nature it self presses us to it when we are rightly affected towards him For it is scarce possible as Mr. Calvin well observes That a Soul struck with the dread of the divine Judgment should L. iii. Instit Cap. 3. Sect. 15. not exact this of it self and teach a man to prevent the vengeance of God by being himself the avenger of his own Sins And the severer saith he we are to our selves and the sharper censure we pass upon our Sins the more propitious and merciful we may hope God will be unto us Which he seems to have borrowed from Tertullian in his Book of Repentance Cap. ix x. where he hath these known words When Repentance throws a man on the ground it supports and relieves him When it makes him all squalid it renders him the more pure and clean It excuses when it accuses him It absolves when it condemns And the less thou sparest thy self believe me the more will God spare thee Which is agreeable to the Doctrine of S. Paul in the 1 Corinth xi 31. That if we would judge our selves we should not be judged of the Lord. It is certain that the judgment which he would have had the Corinthians prevent by judging themselves was the sharp Chastisements which God inflicted upon that Church by Sickness Weakness and Death as we read in the Verse foregoing In few words it was his inflicting punishments upon them for their sins and therefore it is most reasonable to think that this is the judgment he would have them pass upon themselves which might as I said have prevented that judgment of God and still might remove it They should have afflicted and chastised themselves in a contrite manner with Fastings and Mournings and bewailing of their Sins and other Humiliations that so there might have been no need of Gods inflicting punishments upon them for their reformation which they had already begun to inflict on themselves For if by being judged in the latter part of the Verse be meant being punished which is unquestioned it seems the most agreeable interpretation of judging our selves in the former part if we understand thereby punishing our selves by that severe discipline which I am treating of It is true indeed for I will dissemble nothing that I know nor strain any passage of Scripture to justifie this Doctrine that the word we render judge in the beginning of the Verse is not the very same with that which is in like manner so rendred by us in the conclusion But in the Greek there is some difference when he saith if we would judge our selves which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the other we should not be judged which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it is further true that S. Chrysostom and Oecumenius there expresly note that the Apostle doth not say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if we would punish our selves but only if we would sentence and condemn our selves as Sinners which they take to be the import of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But this notwithstanding I cannot think the infliction of such punishments upon themselves as are the subject of this Discourse which are of a different kind from those inflicted by God and so expressed by a different word are here excluded For to what do men sentence and condemn themselves which S. Chrysostom makes the meaning of the word but to suffer all that a just Judge shall inflict if he deal with them according to their deserts And how could they think of inflicting less chastisements upon themselves than such Humiliations as were then in use whereby they acknowledged themselves to be unworthy to live In which saith the Apostle if they had not favoured themselves but pronounced and executed that sentence which their sins justly deserved they might have been spared by God and not punished as some were by those Sicknesses and Infirmities nay Death which he sent among them So that the full import of that word judge our selves I conceive to be this If you had strictly examined your selves and made an exact difference so the word is expounded Ver. 29. between your selves and those who had no sense of their irreverent behaviour towards our Lord if you had acknowledged your Errors and condemned your selves for them and deprecated his displeasure by due Humiliations and studied amendment he would not have handled you in this manner by sending a terrible Plague upon you For it cannot reasonably be denied that in this judging or condemning themselves Translate it how you please all things are contained which were or ought to have been the effects and fruits thereof As in confession of Sin the Scripture includes Repentance and the fruits of Repentance or amendment of Life And in the Exomologesis of the ancient Christians the whole business of Penance was contained as appears sufficiently by the story I related of the Deacons Wife in Asia Now such Humiliations as I have treated of were the effects of their condemning themselves when they were deeply guilty and as deeply sensible of their guilt Which the Corinthians were not and so did not sue out their pardon in such a humble and afflicted manner as became such gross offenders For if they had they should not have faln under such a severe discipline of Heaven as to have been cut off which the Jews say was always by the hand of Heaven from the Land of the living In plainer terms which I take to be the truest Interpretation of all if the Church had judged condemned and exercised its Censures as it ought to have done upon such offenders and punished them for their faults those punishments from the hand of God might have been spared And that 's the cause still perhaps why
many publick judgments of God fall upon us in these days because the Church is negligent in calling offenders to an account And they will not judge that is Afflict themselves for their Offences There are great numbers I doubt not who condemn their Sins in their own Consciences and condemn themselves also for them to deserve punishment from God And this they imagine to be sufficient to make them capable of his Mercy and Forgiveness Whereas they ought to humble themselves with Fasting and Weeping and Mourning with neglect of their Bodies confession of their Guilt confusion of Face lamentable deprecations of Gods displeasure Prayers and Supplications with works of Mery which ought always to accompany Fasting and Prayer as most becoming those who ask mercy of God and as a Revenge upon themselves for their Covetousness and too great love of this present World And because grievous sinners do not thus Afflict themselves with an unfeigned resolution of amendment God himself is pleased to afflict them by sending his Plagues upon them in one sort or other to punish them CHAP. VII Some Cautions to prevent misunderstanding in this matter THUS having proved what I undertook that we ought not to content our selves with inward Sorrow alone without all outward Humiliations and shown the use they have in Religion I proceed now according to the method laid down in the beginning to give some Cautions to prevent the misunderstanding or abuse of this Doctrine 1. And first of all I would not be understood as if I thought they were of such an indispensable necessity that it is impossible for any sinner to obtain Remission and Absolution without them No the very History of the Gospel shows the contrary In which we find our Saviour who came to call sinners to Repentance forgave several persons who did not like that woman in the vii of S. Luke Kiss his very feet wash them with her tears and wipe them with the hair of her head All which were acts of great Humiliation especially the last wherein she imployed that to the meanest use which had been before her principal Ornament and her pride My meaning therefore is that these things are very useful as hath been shown and in some cases necessary when Penitents have been very licentious livers and it is not likely they will otherwise be sufficiently sensible of what they have done and of what they have deserved nor be so humbled as to be reclaimed and brought off from their evil courses 2. They therefore who have constantly led a regular life and are guilty only of the smaller sort of Offences must not take these things as spoken to them unless it be on some occasions which shall be presently mentioned which are intended for gross and scandalous Sinners Such as that woman now named who was a known Harlot unto whom our Lord forgave a great deal when little was forgiven unto Simon who did none of these things vii Luke 46 47. 3. Yet it may be very necessary even for those to take this course who are not such heinous Offenders in case of frequent relapses into the same sin which must be cured by using themselves something severely For though seldom slips of the Tongue suppose may be easily corrected yet frequent returns to folly and that after solemn resolutions to the contrary will require more pains and great Humiliations as a means not only to give a stop to them but to extirpate such roots of bitterness 4. The best also ought to Afflict themselves in times of publick calamity and upon days of solemn Humiliation when men are naturally disposed to that which may signifie their seriousness sobriety sorrow and unworthiness of the Blessings they come to beg of the Father of Mercies 5. By which every one may understand that these Humiliations are not always in season as inward grief and sorrow is But upon such occasions as I have mentioned and also at certain appointed times which the Church hath fixed either Weekly or Yearly for Humiliation in general for our own and other mens Sins or for the bewailing those in particular who have deserved the Censures of the Church when they are executed on them Of which more hereafter 6. At all which times care must be taken that these Humiliations be true significations of our inward grief and proceed from thence And not merely external shews used for fashions sake and to comply with the season For without inward grief and resolutions to be better they are so far from procuring any favour from God that we may justly fear they further incense him as being but a kind of mockery of him Which made the Prophet Joel in the place above named bid the Israelites rend their hearts and not their Garments Not intending hereby to forbid the rending their Garments which he had in effect called for in the preceding words but requiring them not to content themselves with that alone Because that was but a signification and token and a sign where there was nothing really signified thereby could be nothing worth But rather an abomination in the sight of God Who counts it a vile piece of Hypocrisie when we present him with significations which in truth signifie nothing there being nothing within like to that which appears without 7. And further this caution must be used that by these Exercises we neither destroy the health of our Bodies nor suffer any ill affection to be bred in our Minds We ought not to make our selves sick with Fasting nor so weaken our selves by hard usage as to become unfit for our imployments And greater care ought to be taken that we do not grow morose and sowre peevish and untoward unto others while we are severe unto our selves And that the keeping our selves under a strict discipline do not beget a secret pride in us which makes us to think very highly of our selves and to contemn and despise others Just as the conceited Pharisee did the poor Publican in the xviii S. Luke 11 12. But above all we must be watchful that such pride to not creep herewith into our hearts as tempts men to fansie they have by this discipline highly merited at the hands of God whom they had grievously offended Let such Rocks as these be avoided and then these bodily Exercises in their season and due measure may prove very profitable being designed for such other ends and uses as I have named particularly as a means to prevent our relapsing into such sins as have cost us much affliction and trouble 8. But lastly I desire it may be noted that I do not pretend any obligation or fitness either for the use of all and every the very same tokens of inward grief and of the sense we have of our vileness whereby it was expressed in ancient days But we are rather to declare the same things by other signs which are more suitable to our own times For the reason I have shown why they sat down in Sackcloth and