The practice of piety directing a Christian how to walk, that he may please…

But thou, O Lord, visitest me with such a fatherly chastisement, as thou usest to visit thy dearest Children whom thou best lovest: giving me (by this sickness) both warning and time to repent, and to sue unto thee for grace and pardon. I take not therefore, O Lord, this thy visitation, as any sign of thy wrath or hatred; but as an assured pledge, and token of thy favour and loving kindness, whereby thou dost with thy temporal Judgments draw me to judge my self, and to repent of my wicked life,¹ that I should not be condemned with the godless and unrepentant World. For thy holy Word assures me, that whom thou lovest, thou thus chastenest: ²and that thou scourgest every son that thou receivest. That if I endure thy chastening, thou offerest thy self unto me as unto a son: and that all that continue ⟨p. 367⟩in sin, and yet escape without correction (whereof all thy children are partakers) are bastards and not sons; and that thou chastenest me for my profit, that I may be a partaker of thy holiness. O Lord, how full of goodness is thy Nature, that hast dealt with me so graciously in the time of my health and prosperity: and now being provoked by my sins and unthankfulness, hast such fatherly and profitable ends, in inflicting upon me this sickness and correction!

But thou, O Lord, visitest me with such a fatherly chastisement, as thou usest to visit thy dearest Children whom thou best lovest: giving me (by this sicknes) both warning and time to repent, and to sue unto thee for grace and pardon. I take not therefore, O Lord, this thy visitation, as any sign of thy wrath or hatred; but as an assured pledge, and token of thy favour and loving kindness, whereby thou dost with thy temporal Judgments draw me to judge my self, and to repent of my wicked life,¹ that I should not be condemned with the godless and unrepentant World. For thy holy Word assures me, that whom thou lovest, thou thus chastenest: ²and that thou scourgest every son that thou receivest. That if I endure thy chastening, thou offerest thy self unto me as unto a son: and that all that continue