ENGLAND'S PATTERN AND DUTY IN IT'S MONTHLY FASTS PRESENTED IN A SERMON, Preached to both Houses of Parliament assembled, on Friday the 21. of July, An. Dom. 1643. BEING An extraordinary Day of public Humiliation appointed by them, throughout London and Westminster, that every one might bitterly bewail his own sins, and cry mightily unto God for Christ his sake, to remove his wrath, and heal the Land  
By WILLIAM SPURSTOWE sometimes Fellow of KATHERINE HALL. in Chambridg, and now Pastor of HACKNEY near LONDON.  
Published by Order of both Houses of Parliament.  
In that day did the Lord God of Hosts ●…ll to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth; and behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and kill sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine, let us eat, and drink for to morrow we shall die. And it was revealed in my ears by the Lord of Hosts; surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till you die, saith the Lord God of Hosts,  Isa. 22. 12. 13. 14. 
LONDON Printed for Peter Cole at the sign of the Glove in Cornhill near the Royal Exchange, 1643.   

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE The House of Lords AND THE HONOURABLE HOUSE Of Commons ASSEMBLED IN PARLIAMENT.  
IT is reported of a great Persian Monarch, that having lost his royal Consort, he was so deeply affected with sorrow, as that he refused to admit of any comfort: In this height of passion, a certain Philosopher undertook, if that he would furnish him with things necessary for his purpose, to raise the dead Queen again: the Empirour much taken with the offer, was willing for that end, to exhaust all his Treasures: but the other only demanded of him three names of such persons as had never felt any grief or sadness, to engrave them on the Queen's Monument: which after much search throughout his Empire could not be found. I to the restoring of this bleeding & dying Kingdom, whose wounds every day grow wider and wider, shall not desire the names of any such persons as have been altogether strangers unto sorrow and humiliation, they being those that have drawn the heaviest judgements upon it; but the names of such as have been real and solemn mourners before God in the behalf of this Land, which if in any competent number they may be found, I shall not fear but this Kingdom may see a glorious and happy resurrection.  
This affection of sorrow is that which this Sermon did first call for, from the Pulpit, and doth still continue (being published by your Command) to do it from the Press, as being the most suitable posture and dress to the present conditon of this Land, it calls and invites all, to an holy mourning and humiliatiation before the Lord, whose sins have been as oil to the lamp, and fuel unto the fire, to feed and nourish that displeasure, that burns in the bowels of the Kingdom, But more especially your Honours, who are the two eyes of the Kingdom not only to watch over it for its good, but to mourn over it for its sins and misery: not only to be Reformers of it, but Weepers for it. And the first stones of Reformation, which are not like the foundation of the Temple, that was laid with the weep of the old men, and the shoutings of the young men, but with the bitter mourning of all sorts will (I doubt not) in the finishing, and perfecting of the work receive the joyful acclamations both of young and old, both of Governors and People, the God of Heaven himself turning our water into wine on the wet seedtime of tears, into an harvest of joy and spiritual blessings: which that he may speedily do, prays,  
Your Honours to serve you for Christ. WILLIAM SPURSTOWE.   

A SERMON PREACHED To both Houses of PARLIAMENT On Friday, the 21. of July, 1643.  1. Sam. 7. 6. 
And they gathered together to Mizpeh, and drew water, and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted that day, and said there, we have sinned against the Lord.  
THe strength and happiness of the State and Kingdom of Israel, was (if you look into the present Story) sorely shaken and wasted from a double Hand, the Sword of God, and the Sword of Man: the Sword of the Philistines in one Battle took away thirty thousand, and the Sword of God at one stroke swept away fifty thousand. 
Cap. 4. 10. Cap. 6. 19  So that all Israel in this sad plight wherein they stand, can scarce tell what else is left them for to do, but to bewail their condition: The Philistines they are strong and cannot be resisted, God is angry, and will not be entreated; they sigh unto him through the weight of their oppressions, but are not eased, they lament after him, but do not find him.  
In this exigency, the Prophet Samuel counsels and excites Israel, to the practice of two most seasonable duties, to a real and perfect Reformation, v. 3. to a deep and serious Humiliation, ver. the fift, the joint performance of both which, procure no less than a miraculous help from Heaven, to the ruin of the Philistines, and salvation of all Israel ver. 10. 11.  
This Text (which I have read) contains the Relation and Manner of Israel's performance of that second duty, to which the Prophet did excite them: And in it there are these two parts.  

The parts of the Text.  First, a general Convention and meeting of the whole State and Kingdom. They gathered together to Mispeh.  
Secondly, a particular account of what they did at this Meeting, and that is set down in three Actions: 1. they drew water, and poured it out before the Lord, 2. And fasted on that day, 3. And said there, we have sinned before the Lord.  
These three Actions (enlightening the first only with some brief Commentary) will exactly point out the duty and task of this Day, which is a Day of mourning, a Day of fasting, and a Day of self arraining before the Lord.  
And drew water and poured it out before the Lord. Some Interpreters understand it of the water of Purification, whereby they testified their hope and faith in the remission and washing away of their sins. Others think that their drawing and pouring forth of water, was a lively ceremony to express the great measure of their Humiliation, that their Souls were poured forth as water upon the ground. 
Hieroin 〈◊〉. Quaest 〈◊〉. tradit Hebr.  Hierome goes alone, at least without any considerable Train, and saith, that into this water Curses were thrown; and that as in the Law, the water of Jealousy was apppointed for the trial of Adultery, so was this for the trial of Idolatours whose lips did clamme and cleave together, when they had tasted of it.  
The Chaldee, whom Junius and Osiander follow, expound it of the plenty of tears, which streamed from their eyes as so many fountains. And this last sense, shall I at present close with: and so turn the three Actions in Israel's Nationall Convention (in the midst of which fasting is so ranked, as to eye and respect both the other) into two points suitable to this representative Assembly of this whole Kingdom now met about the same work and duty.  
First, that true fasters should be weepers.  
Secondly, that in fasting there should be an acknowledgement and confession of sin.  

Doct. 1.  That true fasters should be weepers. Fasting and tears you shall find in Scripture to be like two twines that cannot be separated, like a pair of mournful Doves that always accompany together, Nehemiah 1. 4. I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted and prayed before the God of Heaven. Joel 2. 12. Turn ye to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. Hester 4. 3. And every Province whether-soever the King's Commandment and his Decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews and fasting, and weeping, and wailing.  
For the clear explicating of this point; I will propound two things.  
First I will show, why tears are requisite to fasting.  
Secondly, what qualifications those tears should have, which are shed in a day of Fast and Humiliation.  

Tears are requisite to fasting for 3. respects.  First, why tears are requisite to fasting, and that in these three respects.  
First, in regard of the prevalency that tears have with the God of Mercy and bowels. Eusebius tells a Story of a certain Altar that was Clementiae consecrata, dedicated and consecrated to mercy, upon which no other Sacrifice was to be laid but tears; intimating thereby, a peculiar aptness in tears to stir up bowels, and to beget Compassions, above all other Sacrifices whatsoever: And indeed with God we shall find them of that e●…cacy, as that none have bedewed his Altar with their unfeigned tears, but he hath made their Faces to shine with his oil of gladness.  
Hannah in bitterness of Soul, prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore: 1. Sam. 1. 10. But she went her way, and her countenance was no more sad: ver. 18. Good Hezechia, by his prayer and tears, reversed the Sentence of death; and had fifteen years added unto his days, 2. King. 20. 5. 6. Jacob had power with God: yea, he had power over the Angel, and prevailed: but how? he wept and made supplication unto him, Hosea 12. 3. 4.  

Prevalency of tears strang●, in 2. respects.  And this prevalency of tears, as it is great, so it is strange and wonderful, and that in a double regard  
1. Deorsum fluunt, et Coelum petunt: They drop and fall from the eyes to the earth, but yet by their power they reach and pierce the highest Heavens.  
2. Mutae sunt, et loquntur: They hold their peace, and yet they cry, they are mute, and yet they speak, Psal. 6. 8. The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping, Lam. 2. 18. In the Original it runes thus, Non taceat pupilla oculi tui, let not thine eye hold its peace.  
A second respect, that makes tears requisite, is, because the eye hath been the chiefest Broker for sin and vanity: Sin made its first entrance by the eye, Gen. 3. 6. and still it is one of the widest Gates by which lusts and follies are let into the Soul.  
Fit therefore it is, that in the duties of humiliation, the eye should bear a part with the other members of the body; that as the heart doth sigh, the face doth blush, the tongue doth cry, the hand knocks the breast, the lips do tremble, and the knees do bend, so the eye should mourn and weep, it having exceeded in guilt any other part, and member of the body; otherwise it's rather the eye of an Idol, then of a Christian.  

Three things occasion tearce.  A third respect, is taken from the confluence of all those things in a day of Humiliation, which usually are the occasions, and rise of tears.  
Now, there are three things, that do dispose and incline a person to weeping.  
First, The loss, or absence of some Great Good: That was it which put Micha, Judges 18. 24. into such a strange mixture of passions, of anger, weeping, crying out, when being asked, what aileth him? he replies, ye have taken away my gods which I made and the priest, and ye are gone away: and what have I more? and what is this that you say unto me what aileth thee? that was it which sprang as a new leak in Mary's eyes Joh. 20. 13. They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him▪ that was it which made David and his people when Ziklag was burnt with fire, and their wives, their sons, and their daughters were taken captives, to lift up their voice and weep, until they had no more power to weep, 1. Sam. 30. 4. Now in a day of fasting what truly broken and humbled heart reflecting upon its own condition, finds not such a loss of peace with God, such suspensions of light from God, such an absence of holiness in itself, such a want of mortification of lusts, as may justly call for tears, sighs, and what ever else doth usually attend great sorrow? But especially we on this day have cause to mourn, having loss upon losses, that may provoke us thereunto: A loss of Worthies, that have lately fallen, and miscarried in our Israel, a loss of hopes and affairs in State, a loss of expectation in main blessings, that concern the beauty and the settlement of the Church whose Foundations are still shaken by the violence and opposition of many sons of Belial, that are risen up against it. In a word, I am afraid, that most of us are this day at a loss in regard of all those affections, of fear, of shame, of indignation, which should be a stirring in this present duty; the very want of which may cause us to weep, in that we can fast and mourn no better before the Lord.  
Secondly, the fear of some great approaching evil. In the Object which moves, and begets fear, futurition is required as a necessary condition; but yet all evil the less future it is, the more dreadful it is: it being with the Objects of passion in nearness of time, as it is with the Objects of sense in nearness of place; propinquity in either making the objects more present, and the impressions therefrom upon the faculties more strong. The fear of Ninivehes speedy destruction (which was prophesied to be within foutie days) did strike that Heathen King with such apprehensions of dread, as to make him change his Throne for the pavement, his robes for sackecloath, his mirth and fullness into a bitter mourning and fasting. Jonah 3. 6. the going out of the Decree of Ahasuerus, to destroy and extirpate forthwith all the Jews, was that which filled every Dwelling with sadness, and every eye with tears. In every province whethersoever the King's Commandment and his Decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing. Est. 4. 3.  
Now, if the fear of imminent evils do occasion weeping, what wonder is it if a faster be a weeper? who fears almost every evil to be feared: He fears that God may call to remembrance his former iniquities, and make him to possess the sins of his youth, and therefore weeps: 
Psal. 79. 8. job. 13. 26.  He fears that God, whose blows he can better brook then his absence, will not be entreated to take up in his bosom, but hold him as a stranger, and therefore weeps: He fears, that his sins, his deafness to Gods call, his conterlusting to Gods will, his impurity in God's service, his security under God's Judgements may cause the hand of Heaven, which is lifted up in threatnigs, to fall down in seveare punishments, and therefore weeps. Speak you, whose hearts and eyes are exercised in this day's duty, are not these and suchlike evils the causes of your fears, and the motives to your weeping?  
Thirdly, the sense and smart of some grievous pain and extremity. That is it, which in Hell causes an eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth, the fire always burns, the worm continually gnaws, they have no moment free from pain, therefore no moment free from tears. Now this cause of mourning meets with both the former in a day of humiliation as lines in a Centre, to make fasters to become weepers; for than it is, that the afflicted soul is made sick with sin, and burdened with the weight of its own guilt, cries out, who will take this dagger out of my bowels, this poisoned arrow out of my heart, this millstone off my back, this fire out of my bones, these stings out of my conscience? then it is, that seeming sweetness of sin is turned into gall, and the heart of a sinner is scalded with the estuations of those lusts, with which formerly it pleased itself: not unlike to the fish that is often times boiled in that water in which it swimes and sports itself.  
I now come to the second particular propounded, to show what kind of tears should be shed in Fasts. For there are lacrymae mentiri doctae (as Bernard speaks) 
Ber. Ep. 247.  tears that are taught to lie and feign. There are praeficarum lachrymae, the tears of hired women, which gain and money draws from them, Jer. 9 17. there are lachrimae Hiericuntinae, tears that are like Jerichoes waters, though the duties are sweet in which they be shed, yet they are bitter and unpleasing.  

Six properties of prevailing tears.  I shall therefore acquaint you with six properties, that tears that will preavaile aught to have.  
First: They must spring from a tender and broken heart freely and voluntarily: They must be like water from a living fountain that flows naturally; not like water from a dead pit that is drawn forth with engines: like water from a cloud, that is melted by the Sun; not like water from a Still that is forced with fire: the beams of God's love are they which must di●…olve our hearts, and not the fire of his judgements. An hard heart in times of sore distress may have plenty of tears, and yet retain its hardness; like marble that sweats in foul weather, but is not the softer: An Ahab may humble himself when God threatens, and a Felix may tremble when he hears of Judgement: 
2. King. 23. 29. Act 24. 25.  But a Josiah only whose tears spring from a broken and tender heart, so mourns 〈◊〉 to please God, and prevail with God: Chron. 2. 34. 27. Because thine heart was tender and thou didst humble thyself before God, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me, I have even heard thee also saith the Lord.  

2 Cor. 3. 6.  Secondly, Prevailing tears, must be reforming, and cleansing tears, not such as wet only the face, but such as wash the heart. Humiliation without reformation, is like the Word of God in the Letter, which kills, and not quickens, which accents sin, & not lessens it, which hastens judgement, and not defers it. Paleness in the face, and blood in the heart, whiteness in the eye, and blackness in the soul, a knee-bowing to him, and thoughts rising up against him, an head hanging down like a bulrush, and an heart like an Adamant hard and unreformed, are of all sins in God's sight the worst: like the Leprosy in the Law, which was ever uncleanest when whitest: And shall by God be doomed with the heaviest of judgements. hypocrisy is the first borne of Hell, and must there look for its double portion: Oh therefore take heed to yourselves what you do this day! be sure you that are fasters be reformers, bring your lives to the Rule, and your actions to the Law of God, and let all run parallel with the Word, as an exact, and well-made Dial with the Sun.  
Thirdly, Prevailing tears and sorrow must eye that more, which dishonoureth God, then that which afflicts ourselves: they must be more for that which fighteth against his Image, then for what is contrary to our nature: more for that which defileth the spirit, then for that which paineth the flesh: we must grieve more that sin hath made us unholy, then that it hath made us unhappy, that we have run out of the way of the Law, then that we have run in danger of the Law: we must not cry only with Pharaoh, take away this plague: but with Israel in the Prophet, take away all Iniquity, and receive us graciously, Hos. 14. 2.  

Brisson de Reg. Persi. lib. 2.  Fourthly, Prevailing tears must be constant. The Persians had one day in a year a festival, which they called vitiorum interitum, wherein they slew all Serpents, and venomous creatures, and after that till the return of the same day, suffered them to swarm as fast as ever: not in an unlike manner do many mourn for their sins; at some set day in the month, or the year appointed by the State, they hang down their head, they cry out of their sins, and make professions of better living, and then till the revolution of the same time, suffer them to spread in their lives, and to grow up in their conversations as fast as ever.  
But those sudden motions and ●…ashes, those fits, and starts in humiliation, are so far wide from the mourning of a true Christian, who in a constant and regular course crucifies his lusts, weakens the strength of sin, sighs over his corruptions when he cannot weep and has a bleeding heart oft times, when not a wet eye; as that they will be never able to denominate that man a Christian in whom they are only found. 
In Categ. cap. de qualit.  Aristotle excellently distinguisheth between colours that arise from passion, and from complexion. The one he saith giveth the denomination to the subject wherein it is, which the other doth not. If the Question be asked, what a like man is Socrates? If he be of a pale or high-coloured complexion, it may be fitly Answered, that he is a pale man, or a sanguine man; but when a man of another complexion is pale for fear, or red with blushing; we do not use to say, neither can we properly, that he is a pale man, or an high-coloured. Accordingly in matters of grace, and duties of holiness: we cannot say he is a penitent, a zealous, a religious man, whose constant motions are in a way of sin, and his humiliations only in some short fits, that are scarce so long as the paroxcisme of a burning Ague, which in a few hours goes off again.  
Fiftly, prevailing tears must drop from the eye of hope.  
To mourn and not to hope, hath a double evil in it, both in that it defiles, and in that it ruins a man: defiles, in that it conceives low and base thoughts of God himself: in rendering our guilt more omnipotent than his power, and sin more hurtful than he is good: ruins, in that the mind is thereby driven to a dreadful flight, and wretched contempt of all the true means of recovery. But hope which is as the cork to the net, that keeps it floating amidst the roughest Seas, teacheth a relapsed yet repenting sinner, when he despairs in himself to fly to God, when he sees nothing below him, nothing about him, to believe there is something above him that can, and will support: It quickens him also in the use of every means, and makes him to do as Marie did, who being above other sorrowful for the loss of Christ, was above all other most diligent to seek him.  
Sixtly, prevailing tears must be timely and seasonable.  
Historians make mention of a fountain that never sent out any streams, but the evening before a famine: this fountain (I am afraid) our tears have too much resembled, which have been so late as to serve only to bemoan our misery, and not to prevent it: had we wept more timely (I am persuaded) we should not have so many occa●…ons of weeping, as we now have: we now weep, because the means of our hope are much blasted, and success denied to our enterprises, but we should have wept unto God that they might have been blessed, and prospered by his favour. We mourn now because the Heavens are darkened with God's displeasure, which is ready to fall in storms upon us, but we should have mourned when the cloud was but an hands breadth, and so prevented the gathering of it: and yet let me not discourage any, that are newly entered upon this duty of mourning, as if it were altogether too late: the Jews had a saying amongst them, that the door of prayer hath sometimes been shut, but never the door of tears, and therefore, you that have not yet mourned, now begin, and you that have begun, still continue, for who knoweth, if God will return, and repent, and leave a blessing behind him, joel 2. 14.  
I now hasten to application: wherein,  

1. Use.  First, I shall endeavour to provoke all to an holy, and exceptable weeping, before the Lord.  
It is the errand we all come about, let us not therefore go away, and leave it undone. Oh that this day you Nobles and Rulers of the people would begin to them in this weighty service, the mourning of a Great Person is most powerful Rhetoric to persuade others to weep: as running metal, will sooner melt other of it's own kind then fire alone: so will examples sooner frame men's minds to the same temper, then bare and naked devotions can ever do: neither is it any minoration of your Greatness, to weep, and to be humbled before your God, to lick the dust of whose feet is greater Honour, then to possess Crowns and Sceptres, without his Favour: Oh that I could prevail with you of the People, to make this place a Bochim with your tears! and to this end I could wish, that I had some Moses his Rod in my hand, to smite all the Rocks that are before me, that they might flow forth with water: A Rod (I mean) of persuasion, that might dissolve, and melt your hearts into tears: I had thought to framed many, and to have told you, that they are Theriaca potentissima, the best treacle to expel the venom of sin, lixivium forte, the strongest  to wash out the deepest stains; imbres vere aurei, the true golden showers, in which God comes down into the heart of a Christian. But that we may lose no time in the duty, give me leave to, propound Five melting Considerations, that may incline you to a serious mourning.  

Five melting Considerations.  First, take into your thoughts your condition by nature. And such a one it is, which tears and sighs may better express then words: a condition of nakedness, blood, impotency, wrath, (in one word) of sin. Hell itself, which is the drain and sole receptacle of sin, and sinners, is not more full of sin in regard of the kinds of it, than your Natures: For, the Seeds of all those sins, for which the damned are now tormented in hell, lie hid in our hearts, all being alike corrupted in the root; and therefore it behoves you, if you would escape the fullness of wrath, which is due to the fullness of sin that is in you, to cry mightily unto God that he would pity you, yea though your natures be changed, yet you have cause still to weep and mourn. For as Basil said of the rose, that it was a fair flower, but it wanted not his prickles, that might put him in mind of the curse the earth was subject unto; so in the best, there are those remainders and relics of sin, which may cause them to mourn and weep still before the Lord.  
Secondly, let me propound the present occasion as an inducement unto weeping. Did you not take this day to afflict your souls before God, as not knowing whether you might see any more the return of your monthly Fasts, so exceedingly did the wrath of God hasten its progress against you? And now, when you come unto the duty, will you do nothing, that may witness how bitter your sins are unto you, that have procured all those evils? Let me tell you, and that without prophesying, if that which God hath already done, prevail not to humiliation, that there are judgements not far off, that will prevail to ruin and destruction.  
Thirdly, consider, what a shame it is for a christian, that crosses and fears should sit heavy, and that sin should sit light on his spirits.  
Sometimes the smart of a single cross enters so deep into us, as that all expressions of sorrow seem to be far below what we feel: Sometimes, the very news of an approaching danger, fills the eye with tears, and the mouth with shrieks: And yet when we come to stand at God's Bar (as we all do this day) the confessions of the rebellion of our whole lives, the sad History our fins, and the acknowledgement of God's wrath due to all, make such weak impressions upon our spirits, as they scarce produce a sigh or troubled thought about our condition: Now what a shame is it, to hear more outcries from a Christian for one cross then for thousand sins, one of which, hath in it more power and venom to afflict the conscience, and to make life miserable, than many legions of devils.  
Fourthly, Consider, the Lord Christ himself how deeply he was affected when he stood under the weight of our sins, and his Father's wrath.  
St Luke speaks much in one word, when he tells us, that Christ was in an agony, Luke 22. 44, but if you please to admit a brief Commentary upon it, out of the Evangelists themselves, you may then learn, how sharp and bitter the agony was. 
Mar. 14. 33: Mat. 26. 37. 38.  Will you see how it affected his Head? upon the fore-taste he began 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to be amazed; how it affected his heart? he began 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to droop, to faint; how it affected his soul? 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it was all overcast with a heaviness to death; how it affected his body? it made it to sweat great drops of blood. Luke 22. 44. Shall now our sins thus affect Christ and not afflict us? shall they be as monntaines upon his back, and as Atoms on ours? like to the stone of the Sibyls, (Dio. Chry. orat. 13.) which to some weighed like lead, and others like a feather: If so, know for a certain, that you whose hearts the love of a bleeding and crucified Saviour do not melt, his glorious and terrible power shall one day break and afflict for ever.  
Fistly, Consider, we have all contributed to that multiplicity of evils under which the Kingdom labours and struggles for life.  
Had Great ones been more resolute for God, and not like the top of a Fisher's Angling rod, have bowed and bended to all purposes, and indangger Religion to save their Honours, had our Magistrates been more wakeful to prevent both the sowing and growth of divers tares, had our Ministers been more conscientious, then to daub with vntempered mortar, and to expose glass for pearls, 
Tertul.  had all of us less complied with vanities, with fashions, and sins of the time, God had not been so angry, nor we so miserable, as now we are. Requisite therefore it is, that as we have brought fuel to the fire to nourish it, so we now bring water, to quench it, and not stand, as many do, when an house is on fire, like idle spectators, that hinder rather than further the quenching.  
I have done this use, and only by way of caution shall add a few words to relieve some troubled souls, with whom tears perhaps are scarce, though grenes are plentiful: be not discouraged, as if you had done nothing in the duty of the day, you have had a rational sorrow, though not a passionate sorrow, you have had sighs which are the inward tears, (as Austin calls them) though not the outward; and that is the mourning which is most effectual with God.  

2. Use.  To discover (for happily we may wonder) why our humiliations and fastings which have been so frequent, have not been returned with success into our bosoms, suitable to our desires: but that still there are as many dangerous symptoms of a languishing and dying Kingdom as ever. We have Fasted, but have we wept? we have wept, but have we wept aright? Give me leave to run over three of those foremention'd qualifications, and you shall see eminent defects in our weep.  

Three defects in our weeping.  First, the tears which have been shed, have been rather forced then voluntary, more from the smart of Strokes, than the sense of sin, more from a want of outward contentments, then for the loss of God's favour: And therefore it is no wonder, if we say with Israel we have covered the Altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, and yet he regardeth it not, Mal. 2. 13.  
Secondly, our tears have not been reforming tears. And here give me leave (Right Honourable) to speak to you whom Reformation most concerns, you have passed worthy Votes for a strict Observation of the Sabbath and of fasting days, but you have been too apt to sit down without a pursuance of the same. Alas! it is not a naked Vote that passeth within your walls, that can vote our Churches full and the Taverns empty: there must something else be done, before a Reformation in either will be obtained; offenders must be punished, Ministers of Justice must he quickened, and called upon by yourselves: for else you will find that true which Alphius the usurer sometime said of his clients, Optima nomina non appellando fiere mala: (Colum. de re rust. lib. 1. cap. 7.) good Debtors will grow bad paymasters; if they be let alone.  
Thirdly, our mourning have not been constant. The hearing of some ill tidings, the miscarrying of some hopes have caused us to hang down our heads for a day, and to power forth some tears in the presence of God: but when these things have been a little digested and slept upon, we have been as secure about our conditions, dead and flat in our duties as ever before. Our tears have been like water in the conduits, that runs at times; but not like water in the spring that rnnes constantly: by fits and starts we have been earnest with God, like the grasshoppers (as Gregory speaks) 
Greg. mor. lib. 13. cap. 12.  that make faint assays to fly up to Heaven, and then presently fall to the earth again. But if ever we would appease God, while his anger burns, let our eye weep; while he denies, let us beg; while he withdraws and absents himself, let us uncessantly cry out, as the Church did, Jer. 14. 9 Oh thou hope of Jsrael, the Saviour thereof in the time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a stranger in the Land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth a side to tarry for a night.  
I come now to the second point, which is,  
That with fasting and weeping Confession and acknowledgement of sin is to be joined.  
The using of certain words in healing the diseases of the body, with which many ignorant people are better acquainted then with prayer, is no other than a sinful Charm, but in curing the diseases of the soul, and diverting the Judgements of Heaven words are God's Recipe: Hosea 14. 2. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord, say unto him, take away iniquity, and receive us graciously: They are the Saints practice, Ezra 9 9 O Lord my God I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to to thee my God: for our iniquities are increased over our heads, and our trespass is grown up unto the Heavens: Dan. 9 4, 5. I set my face unto the Lord God, and to seek by prayer and supplication, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes, and I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession.  
For the explicating of this point, I will show, first, wherein a true confession of sin stands: Secondly, in what manner it must be performed.  
True confession is made up of two particulars, sui ipsius accusatio, sui ipsius condemnatio: of a man's accusing of himself, and of a man's judging of himself.  
First, in accusing himself, he is to be coelestis et fidelis Dei orator contra seipsum, (as Parisiensis speaks) a heavenly and faithful pleader for God against himself: he is to set out his sins with those particular aggravations, that have run into them, and do truly greaten them in God's sight: for as in Greek, we do not usually pronounce according to to the long or short Syllable, but accorditg to the Accent; so in sin, God doth not always judge the greatness from the Fact, but from the circumstances with which it is committed: or as in matter of Grace, God doth not weigh it by the Scale, but tries it by the touchstone; so in sin God doth not weigh it by the bulk, but by the ingreadients. A sin of a lesser magnitude committed with light, with love, stirs up and provokes God more, than a greater sin with reluctancy, passion, or surprisal: for gravius est peccatum diligere, quam committere, it is far worse to be in love with sin, then to commit it, as Gregory well saith.  
Secondly, In condemning a man's self, he is to pass a severe Sentence against himself, by acknowledging that God may justly let him sink in the midst of his rebellions, without casting forth a new cord of mercy to help or save; thus did the humble Prodigal, Luke 15. 18. 19 I have sinned against Heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy Son.  
Now in the doing of these there is a double good that the sinner gets in the accusing of himself, he puts Satan that is the great accuser of the Brethren quite out of office, he can lay no more to his charge, than he hath already laid to his own in condemning himself; he puts God out of office (as I may so speak) who will not judge them, that have judged and sentenced themselves, 1. Cor. 11. 31.  
But to speak more distinctly of this first part of confession, viz, self accusation; give me leave to propound three particulars about it.  

Three partic. in self accusat.  First the Indictment and charge, that a man prefers against himself, it must be special, and not general.  
Confession with many is reckoned to be well enough done, when that some few such overlie expressions drop from their lips, as, that they are sinners God help them, and who is not? and they are hearty sorry for what they have done; but if you descend to particulars, run over the whole Law, and they plead not guilty; Images they defy, swear they do not, and for Church they come with the first, and go with the last, as for repentance, if you ask them wherein it lies, they answer not much unlike him in Quintilian, 
Quintil. inst. l. 2. c. 11.  who being demanded, what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was; replied, truly he could not tell, but if it were any thing to the purpose, he was sure it was in his Declamation: what repentance and sorrow for sin is, they cannot tell, but sure they are, they have long ago repent for their sins. But how wide such acknowledgements are from that exact confession which the Scriptures call for, the practice of repenting sinners doth abundantly evince. How often is David upon his knees in confessing his murder, his adultery? what an History doth Nehemiah make of Israel's sins in his prayer to God? 
Neh. cap. 9  how particularly doth Paul describe his madness against the Church, his blasphemies against Christ? and all to this end, that themselves may be more ashamed, and God the more glorified. In sins indeed of ignorance God is pleased to accept of confession in the general, and in the lump, but for sins of knowledge he looks that they be brought in as distinct debts, and urged in our confessions as so many new Inditements against ourselves.  
Seconly, as we are to charge particulars upon ourselves, so also among them to single and cull out our principal and chief sins, streading them before God with all their aggravations: As Physicians in their Anatomy Lectures, though the whole body lie before them, yet they read chiefly upon some more noble and Architectonical parts, the brain, the heart, the stomach, or the like, so in our humiliations, though we bring the whole body of sin and death into God's presence, yet are we to dwell andinsist cheisly upon those corruptions, which have a greater transcendency of evil in them above others: As for instance, upon our unbelief, which is a mother sin, and carries a thousand others in the womb of of it: upon your worldly mindedness, which takes of the strength of all our affections from God, and pitcheth it upon the creature, like to an ill spleen that robs the body of its best nourishment to feed itself. Upon the breaking of our solemn Covenants made and renewed with God, a sin which above many others, hath helped to unsheathe the Sword of God against us, and to let forth that dispeasure and indignation of the Lord, which burns like a fire, that will not be quenched.  
Thirdly, In Confession we are to charge upon ourselves those powerful stir of lust, which spring from the sinful frame and constitution of our nature and derive a venom to every action that comes from us; sin being in the faculty, as poison in the Fountain, that sheds infection into every thing, that proceeds from it. And this is it, which begets an indisposition of heart to holy services, that in our prayers damps our zeal, fervency, humiliation, self abhorrency; that in our meditations makes us roving and unsettled, driving to no point or issue, like a ship in a tempest, that tosses much, and sails little; that in our converse mingles much levity, frowardness, unfaithfulness: in a word, that is it, which though it do not make our holy duties sins, and so hateful to God, (as our Adversaries slander us) 
Bellarm. de justif. lib. 4. cap. 10.  yet doth contribute such a viciousness, as a foul channel doth to clean water, to every thing that proceeds from us, as that God may justly charge us for mixing our sin with his grace, and throw all our best works as dung in our faces. Great reason is there therefore, that we should both accuse ourselves for this pravity and deordination of nature, and before God condemn and sentence ourselves for the cursed fruits that flow from it, which is the second branch of true confession, that is briefly to be unfolded.  
This self condemnation lieth in two things. First in acknowledgement, that the umost wrath and severity of God is justly due to such sins as we have fallen into: for though a justified person by his transgressions do not the facto become subject to the wrath and vengeance of God, being a person privileged and exempted from the maledictions of the law, yet they do de merito make such a person liable to death; for the covenant of grace doth not nullify the merit of sin, but causeth that sin shall not actually condemn and exclude such a person from salvation; So that a regenerate man when he hath sinned against God, may truly say, as the Prodigal did, Luke 15. 18. I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy Son. Yea, it is his duty in such a manner to sentence the merit of his sins, that he may the more abundantly admire the riches and fullness of that grace, that hath delivered him from so heavy a curse.  
Secondly, In self condemning: we must confess that the smart and chastisements from God, which for sin at any time we lie under, are exceeding just and righteous. Hath God withdrawn from any of us the light of his countenance because of our sins, and turned his smiles into frowns? hath he sealed up our lips, straitened our spirit? hath he kindled a fire in our bones, hath he blastour estate, hath he put gall into our contentments, and made life itself a sore and heavy burden unto us? yet must we give glory unto god, and say, as the Church did in the height of all its afflictions, the Lord our God is righteous in all his works; for we have not obeyed his veyce, Dan. 9 14,  
I come now to the manner, how the duty of confession is to be performed, and that consists of of divers ingredients and qulifications.  

Five Qualific. in a true Confession.  First, a genuine confession of sin must be performed, with a great measure of self abasing, and self humbling. The Leper in the Law Leu. 13. 45. was prescribed to have such a carriage and behaviour, as might most clearly express his shame and sorrow for such sins as had drawn so heavy hand of God upon him, he was to go with his garments rend, that all might see and behold his leprosy: with his head bare, to typisie what a servant of servants he had been what a drudge to his lusts, and the will of the flesh: with his lip covered, to express (as some of the Hebrews say,) that he was fit for no company or friendly salutes, but to sit and mo●…e alone: to cry, unclean, unclean; thereby to proclaim his own misery, and forewarn others that they approach him not, lest they be defiled by touching him: this deportment of the Leper, some of the Ancients have thought, to be a lively emblem of a penitent and broken sinner, who when he come before God, to acknowledge his vileness, is to use all means, and to take all advantages of abasing and shaming himself in his presence: 
Vide Mendoc. in lib. 1. Reg. cap. 7. Num. 6. Annot. 25.  he is in some measure to afflict his body in the laying aside all ornaments; he is to confess his vassalage to his 〈◊〉 in whose service his hands and his heart have been so much hardened: he is to mourn, as one that deserves to have none to be a comforter: he is with doubled and loud confessions to cry out before God and man, that he is as an unclean thing, and all his righteousnesses are as filthy rags, Isaiah 64. 6.  
Secondly, true confession as it debaseth a sinner, so must it exalt and set up God. In this work God and a sinner are like unto quantitas discreta, and quantitas continua, the one of which may be infinitely diminished, and the other infinitely increased: God's mercy in bearing, pardoning, healing that may be highned, and exalted without bounds, and man, wretchedness and baseness that may be so aggravated, as to make him worse than nothing: Both these things doth Nehemiah excellently perform, in that confession which he makes in the behalf of the Church, which is all interchangeably woven and interstreaked with an holy exalting of God's goodness, and a serious acknowledgement of their vileness. He gins cap. 9 ver. 7. to ver. 16. with a pithy and sweet abridgement of God's goodness to Israel, made known in eminent deliverances, precious mercies, and strange miracles: then he subjoins their ill requital of this his love, from ver. 16. to ver. 19 then from ver. 19 to ver. 26. he declares a new, how good God was to them, when they had been thus evil to him: and then again adds, their inflexablenesse and disobedience under all his continued goodness. And thus like chequer work in white and black, in a narration of God's mercies, and Israel's unthankfulness, he continues his prayer unto the end.  
Thirdly, a true Confession must be voluntary. Pij non trahuntur ad tribunal dei, sed sponte accedunt: holy men prevent summons in God's Court, and resolve up on a voluntary appearance, they are active in this work, and not passive. Wicked men when God awakens their consciences in their bosom, and makes the smell of the brimstone and the fire of Hell, to come up into their nostrils, when their soul is sitting upon their lips, and ready to take its flight into an other world, will then happily cry out of their sins, and seek pardon, which in their lives they have despised; but all this is like the howling devotion of some, desperate mariner in a storm, which is not at all out of aflection, but out of fear, which will in the end be as fare from peace, as it is at the present from truth, it is the voluntary penitent that finds mercy, and not he qui ad delinquendum exporrigit frontem, ad confitendum contrahit, 
Tertul.  as  
Fourthly, a true confession it must be real and sincere.  
It must be a work of the heart, and not of the lips, else though we be much in the duty, we shall reap little of the fruit of it. Sincerity is that, which in every service obtains the blessing, but especially in this, when an humbled soul lies in the midst of darkness as in a dungeon, sincerity in its prayers in its confessions, is as a chink to let in some beams of light, and hope, when as all shows and pretences without it in any kind whatsoever, are but like windows fastened upon a thick wall, that though they contribute beauty to the building, and seem specious to the beholder without, do yet transmit no light to the dweller within.  
Fiftly, a true confession must exclude a willing return to sin again. Among many names which Parisienses gives to confession, this is one, he calls it spiritualis vomitus, spiritual vomit, whereby the burdened soul doth ease itself, like an overcharged stomach by getting up that, which lies hard and indigested upon it. Now it is the part of a dog to take up his vomit, and not of a man, much less of a christian.  
Oh therefore take heed what you do, that are exercised in the weighty duties of this Day! do not turn your fastings and confessions into a lie by to morrow's lose living, contradict not the words that have gone forth out of your mouths, by a fresh practice of such sins, which you have now engaged yourselves to relinquish, let no lust that you have professed this day to be a thorn in your sides, be as a crown or garland on your head to morrow, take nothing again as a friend into your bosom, that you have this day looked upon as an enemy, But if any man shall dare to mock God, and by fresh apostasies to break the solemn covennat that he hath now entered into, let him know this for a certain, that if there be justice in Heaven, or fire in Hell, he shall one day be filled with the bitter fruits of his own ways, and shall find the wages of sin to be death. For the application of this point, I shall confine myself unto two Uses, the first whereof shall consist only of some directions, that may help us in confession, which to perform aright, is not the least part of a christians work or care.  

1. Use.  First, study well your hearts. the heart is a vast maze and labyrinth, in which not he that runs fastest, soon comes to an end, but he that walks most circumspectly: as a dark vault, that stands in need of all the candles of the Lord, for to enlighten it: as a vast Sea, which needs the longest line for to fathom it: and the more you are acquainted with it, the more you shall see cause to abhor your-selves, and matter to plead against your-selves. There are in the eye a thousand vanities, adulteries, pride, curiosity, thefts, and the like, but si trabs in oculo, sylva in cord, if there be a beam in the eye, there is a wood in the heart: there are in the hands violence, rapines, bloodshed, but they are there only as water in a stream, the heart is the fountain, that feeds and nourisheth it: in all the members there is a fullness of sin, but the heart is the root that derives life and strength unto all: as the Sea, that fills the Rivers, but yet itself is never the less empty: After all communications and diffusions of lust into every faculty there are in the heart as the proper seat, Atheism, blasphemies, treasons against the very life and being of God, sins at which the very flesh itself will quake and tremble, when they do begin to peep and put out in the very shadow of a thought.  
Now can a man that is any way apprehensive, that he hath such a treasure, such an Hell, such a magasin of sins within him, want what to confess? and what to condemn himself for in the sight of God? no certanly, words he may want, and tears and sighs, but never matter of confession, and astonishment, were his life drawn out to an eternity. it is the ignorance only that men have of their hearts, that fills them with pride, boastings, presumptions of their estates, opinions of their goodness that make them like the Pharisee that can find little to confess, but much to commend himself for; whereas if God did but discover the true condition of their hearts unto them, they would like the Publican knock and smite their breasts? and cry out, Lord be merciful to me a sinner.  
Secondly, Get a spiritual knowledge of the Law of God. That is it which as a light discovers those corruptions and sins which lie hid and unseen in the dark night of ignorance, and makes them to appear in their due shape and proportion: Paul while this light of the Law shone into his heart, was alive (as himself confesseth) Rom. 7. 9 full of conceits of his own righteousness, and abilities to perform what ever the Law had required to salvation: but when the Commandment came, sin revived, and Paul died: all his presumptions and misperswations they withered and fell away as leaves do from the trees in Autumn, and his sins they like the Crow's nests appeared, which before are unseen and undiscerned: then he saw that to be a mountain, which before he judged to be a moat, and that to be sin, which before he looked upon as righteousness, than he saw much to bemoan, much to confess, and to be ashamed of, but nothing to boast, and glory of: some sins indeed the weak glimmerings of nature may discover unto men to be vile; lying, luxury, idleness; the Cretian Poet could tax in his own country men: but to read over the whole History of a man's life without any other candle, is as impossible, as to turn over great volumes by the light of a glowworm. 
Tit. 1. 12.   
Thirdly, Keep alive in your hearts, the apprehension, of some particular sins, for which God hath deeply humbled you. Christians in their way to Heaven as they are not without assaults, temptations, importunities of the flesh; So are they not sometimes without falls and bruises, lusts tempt and they yield, the flesh flatters and must be gratified, and by this means oftentimes their peace is impaired, and their consciences deeply wounded: Now if any of us have such black days in our Calendars, such foul sins in our private Registers, that may mind us what we have sometimes been, let us as much as we can, keep up the apprehensiof that deformity, ugliness, contrariety to the Law, which they seemed to have, when first God set them upon our consciences, the fresh remembrance of sin in this kind; it is like a pease in an issue, that keeps it open and makes it run: it makes the heart to be in a broken and melting frame, to be free in confession and earnest in prayer, that God would show him mercy, and let him live before him.  
Fourthly, Reflect seriously upon your ways. Running waters cast no shadow, no more do fleeting thoughts make any representation of a man's condition: he that rides post, can never make a true map of a Country, nor that man any discovery of himself whose thoughts do not now and then make a stand and look backward, it is consideration, that tells us what need we stand in of mercy to pardon us, and what need we have to confess our sins, that we may be pardoned: it's consideration, that makes the issues of sin dreadful, and causeth us with trembling to seek him whom we have offended, and to turn our feet unto his Testimonies.  

2. Use.  A second Use is in brief to discover. how injurious they are, not only unto themselves, but unto the the happiness of the whole Kingdom, that would in these sad times cry down all acknowledgement and confession of sin, as that which is useless, and unbecoming the days and times of the Gospel, and would by certain arts and wiles put a beauty upon most misshapen and deformed opinions. Pausanias tells a story, of a mirror in the Temple of Smyrna, that if any that had a beautiful face, looked in it, he would appear exceedingly deformed; and if any that were ill-favoured did look in it, they did appear beautiful and amiable. not much unlike to this glass are their fancies, which render the blessed truths of God, sorrow for sin, confession of sin, and prayer for pardon, as things that the Law of the Gospel doth not enjoin, or Christ accept, and cry up a liberty and freedom from the Law, as a rule to guide and order our conversations, by which Opinion if they should once come to prevail in men's minds, they will quickly bid farewell to all holiness. But I spare to speak any more, because that you with whom the weighty affairs of the Church are betrusted, will do that right to the Gospel and truth, which shall beseem Persons of your worth and piety.  
FINIS.   

ERRATA.  
Page 13. l. 4. for devotious r. directions. pag. 14. l. 8. r. prescribed, pag. 17. l. 10. r. stroke.   

Die Jovis 27. Julij, 1643.  
IT is this day Ordered by the Lords in Parliament, that Master Spurstowe hath hereby thanks given him from their Lordships, for the great pains taken by him in his Sermon he made in Saint Margaret's Church Westminster before the Lords and Commons on Friday the 21. of this instant July, at the public Humiliation; And is hereby desired to cause his said Sermon to be forthwith Printed and Published.  
John Browne Cler. Parl.   

Die Veneris 21. Julij, 1643.  
IT is this day Ordered by the House of Commons, that Master Salloway do give thanks to Master Spurstowe, who at the desire of the House this day Preached before the Commons at St. Margaret's, Westminster, it being an extraordinary day of public Humiliation, and that he be desired to print his Sermon. And it is Ordered that no man shall print his Sermon, but whom the said Mr. Spurstowe shall Authorise under his hand-writing.  
H. Elsygne Cler. Parl. D. Com.   

I appoint Peter Cole to print my Sermon.  
William Spurstowe