"So that godly sorrow may be discerned by this train of graces wherewith it is accompanied, that worldly sorrow wants, at least in the truth of them, though it may have some shadows of them"
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Hooker is doing what Puritan leaders did best: turning the inner life into a diagnostic chart with eternal consequences. In this single sentence, he draws a sharp border between two kinds of grief, not by asking how intense sorrow feels, but by insisting it can be verified by its moral aftereffects. “Godly sorrow” isn’t merely regret; it arrives with a “train of graces” - visible, sequential markers like humility, confession, restitution, renewed obedience. The grief that matters is the kind that reforms you.
The subtext is both pastoral and disciplinary. Hooker speaks as if the soul can be audited. If your sorrow doesn’t produce the right “accompanied” virtues, it isn’t spiritually trustworthy. That move comforts the anxious believer (there is a way to tell you’re not self-deceived) while also tightening communal control: private emotion becomes public evidence. In a New England world where church membership and civic standing were entangled, distinguishing genuine repentance from performative remorse wasn’t abstract theology; it was social infrastructure.
His phrasing is tellingly skeptical about human self-reporting. “Worldly sorrow” can mimic the real thing, offering “shadows” of grace - tears without transformation, fear of consequences dressed up as contrition. Hooker’s intent is to strip sentimentality out of repentance and replace it with proof. Grief, for him, is not a therapeutic release but a theological instrument: it either bends the will toward God or it’s just another form of self-absorption, spiritually impressive in silhouette and empty in substance.
The subtext is both pastoral and disciplinary. Hooker speaks as if the soul can be audited. If your sorrow doesn’t produce the right “accompanied” virtues, it isn’t spiritually trustworthy. That move comforts the anxious believer (there is a way to tell you’re not self-deceived) while also tightening communal control: private emotion becomes public evidence. In a New England world where church membership and civic standing were entangled, distinguishing genuine repentance from performative remorse wasn’t abstract theology; it was social infrastructure.
His phrasing is tellingly skeptical about human self-reporting. “Worldly sorrow” can mimic the real thing, offering “shadows” of grace - tears without transformation, fear of consequences dressed up as contrition. Hooker’s intent is to strip sentimentality out of repentance and replace it with proof. Grief, for him, is not a therapeutic release but a theological instrument: it either bends the will toward God or it’s just another form of self-absorption, spiritually impressive in silhouette and empty in substance.
Quote Details
| Topic | Faith |
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