Gods husbandry

wherefore breaking through all unwillingness and delays, and laying aside all shifts and defences, fall upon thy knees in thy secret chamber, and there say unto thy self, and in more words complain against thy self unto God, that thou art as yet an Hypocrite, a barren branch, that standeth every hour in peril of being cut off.

wherefore breaking thorow all vnwillingnesse and delayes, and laying aside all shifts and defences, fall vpon thy knees in thy secret chamber, and there say vnto thy selfe, and in more words complaine against thy selfe vnto God, that thou art as yet an Hypocrite, a barren branch, that standeth euery houre in perill of being cut off.

This done,¹ in the second place frame thy self to mourning and sorrow for thine hypocrisy, and ferret out thy guile by lamenting it. For there is no sin or corruption in the heart of man, so tyrannous and over-ruling, but that godly sorrow will fetch it down and over-master it. Indeed a little whimpering grief, a sigh or two, a tear or two, a sad countenance for a Sermon time or so, will not prevail. The best medicine that is, will not heal a sore, if there be not a sufficient quantity of it applied, if it be not constantly applied and followed close. He that will be content to grieve a little at Church, or so, for his guile, and out of the present evidence of the Spirit working with the Word, will perhaps yield to see and to lament his hollowness, but ⟨p. 46⟩lets the matter pass quickly, and takes no more pains about it, shall anger the sore, as it were, and not heal it, and by careless neglecting of Gods grace in such motions offered, he shall cause his hypocrisy to fester more, and grow more incurable: for even this weak work of the Word will help (out of his own erroneous disposition) to cozen him, and to make him too soon think himself upright, and so he shall never become upright. But the sorrow I speak of, must be a settled and constant sorrow, which a man must let rest upon his soul, and willingly entertain within himself many a day together, though not in a violent manner to hinder his other occasions, yet in a still quiet manner, to make his thoughts in the middest of all other occasions, (as well they may, without offering any wrong unto such occasions) be still running upon the matter of his guile, and in an inward and silent manner continuing to bemoan the same within himself. A spirit of grief will not change an Hypocrite into a true Christian, a constant grief will. This then do, (as he that hath a grievous sore or wound, applies the curing of that wound above all things, until it be whole) set thy self for a good space of time together, to make it thy principal work to observe the working of thine hypocrisy, and to bewail the same. Sometimes be earnest with thy self, and in thy solemn and secret prayers and confessions, labour to rend and break thine heart with grievous sorrow, and to be wonderful vile in thine