Quest. C. How far is it lawful, needful, or unlawful for a man to afflict himself by external penances for sin?
Answ. 1. Not to the destroying of his body, life, or health, or the disabling or unfitting body or mind, for the service of God.
2. Not to be the expression of any sinful, inordinate dejection, despondency, sorrow, or despair.
3. Not so as may be an outward appearance of such inordinate passions, or as may be a scandal to others, and deter them from religion as a melancholy, hurtful thing.
4. Nor as if God would accept the mere external self-afflicting for itself, or as if he loved our hurt, or as if we merited of him by our unprofitable, voluntary troubles.
But, 1. It is a duty to express true godly sorrow by its proper exercise and signs, so far as either the acting of it, or the increase or continuance by the means of those expressions is profitable to ourselves.
2. And also so far as is needful to the profiting of others, by showing them the evil of sin, and drawing them to repentance.[342]
3. And so far as is necessary to the satisfying of the church of the truth of our repentance, in order to our absolution and communion.
4. Especially so far as is necessary to subdue our fleshly lusts, and tame our bodies, and bring them into a due subjection to our faith, and to avoid our sin for the time to come. And also by the exercise of sober mortification, prudently, to keep under all our worldly phantasies, and love of this present world, without unfitting ourselves for duty.
5. And so far as is needful by such mortification, to fit us for fervent prayer, especially by fasting on days of humiliation; and to help us in our meditations of death and judgment, and to further our heavenly contemplations and conversation.