A25478:1248
A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically…
A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically resolved by sundry ministers
London: printed for Thomas Cockerill, 1676
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1. Is confession of sin, a fast day is for atonement, and therefore confession of sin is necessary. As we read of Ezra when he heard of the sin of the Jews in their making affinity with the people of the Land, he rent his garment and sat astonied till the evening sacrifice, and made confession of their sin, Ezra 9.7, 8, 9, 10.
So in Nehem. 9.1, 2. we read the Children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and they stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their Fathers.
And so Daniel in his solemn fast, which he set himself to in the behalf of the Captivity now almost expired, he makes an ample confession of sin, as we read Dan 9.4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.
And as a fast is an extraordinary duty, so confession of sin ought to be more than ordinary in such a day, and what may suffice at another time, may not be sufficient then. It ought to be more extensive with respect to the several kinds and acts of sin, with respect to the aggravations of sin, and with respect to the persons that are under guilt, and with respect to the inward principles of sin in the heart, out of which all actual sins do spring. As Daniels confession of sin extended to the kinds of it, the several aggravations of it, and to the persons that were concerned in it, as their Kings, Princes, Fathers, people of the Land, those that were near, and those that were far off, as we find in that chapter. And this confession of sin is requisite to the deeper humiliation of the soul, to the condemnation of our selves; and to the justifying of God, whereby he may have the greater glory.