The Practice of Piety

O Most righteous Judge, yet in Jesus Christ, my gracious Father: I wretched sinner, do here return unto thee (though driven with pain and sickness,) like the prodigal child, with want and hunger. I acknowledge that this sickness and pain comes not by blind chance or fortune: but by thy divine providence and special appointment. It is the stroke of thy heavy hand, which my sins have justly deserved: and the things that I feared are now fallen upon me. ¹Yet I do well perceive,² that in wrath thou rememberest mercy: ⟨p. 798⟩When I consider how many, and how heinous are my sins, and how few and easy are thy corrections. Thou mightest have strucken me with some fearful and sudden death, whereby I should not have had either time or space to have called upon thee for grace and mercy; and so I should have perished in my sins, and been for ever condemned in Hell.

O Most righteous Iudge, yet in Iesus Christ, my gracious Father: I wretched sinner, doe here returne vnto thee (though driuen with paine and sicknesse,) like the prodigall childe, with want and hunger. I acknowledge that this sicknesse and paine comes not by blinde chance or fortune: but by thy diuine prouidence and speciall appointment. It is the stroke of thy heauie hand, vvhich my sinnes haue iustly deserued: and the things that I feared are now fallen vpon mee. ¹Yet I doe vvell perceiue,² that in wrath thou remembrest mercie: ⟨p. 798⟩When I consider how many, and how hainous are my sinnes, and how few and easie are thy corrections. Thou mightest haue strucken me with some fearefull and sodaine death, vvhereby I should not haue had eyther time or space to haue called vpon thee for grace and mercy; and so I should haue perished in my sinnes, and beene for euer condemned in Hell.

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