XI. MISERERE.

THERE goes a tradition of Ovid, that famous, poet, (receiving some countenance from his own confession,)¹⁸¹⁸De Tristibus, lib. ii. eleg. 10. that when his father was about to beat him for following the pleasant but profitless study of poetry, he, under correction, promised his father never to make a verse, and made a verse in his very promise. 95Probably the same in sense, but certainly more elegant for composure, than this verse which common credulity hath taken up:

Parce precor, genitor, posthac non versificabo.

When I so solemnly promise my Heavenly Father to sin no more, I sin in my very promise; my weak prayers made to procure my pardon, increase my guiltiness. O the dulness and deadness of my heart therein! I say my prayers as the Jews eat the passover, [Exod. xii. 11.] in haste. And whereas in bodily actions motion is the cause of heat; clean contrary, the more speed I make in my prayers, the colder I am in my devotion.