[ 677] Sin, attendant on the best of religious performances.
THere goes a tradition of Ovid, that famous Poet,* 1.1 (receiving some counte∣nance from his own confession) that when his father was about to beat him, for following the pleasant, but unprofitable study of Poetry, he, under correcti∣on, promised his father, never more to make a verse, and made a versein his very promise; probably the same, but certainly more elegant for composure, than this verse, which common credulity hath taken up.
Thus when we so solemnly promise our heavenly Father to sin no more, we sin in our very promise;* 1.2 our weak prayers made to procure our pardon,* 1.3 increase our guilti∣nesse; we say our prayers, as the Iewes did eat the Passeover, all in haste. And where∣as in bodily action, motion is the cause of heat; clean contrary, the more speed we make in our prayers, the colder we are in our devotion; so that sin is a close attendant on the best of our religious performances.