The Lamentation of a Sinner

If an average person, when confronted with the law, wrath and judgment of God confesses his sins and receives in faith his forgiveness and justification, while this is miraculous, it is not monumental. For such an application of the Law and Gospel is the norm whereby an unbeliever becomes a Christian. But if such a deep and profound acknowledgment of sin, ignominy and misery together with a serene confession of faith in the Lord Jesus as the only solution to a troubled conscience, is set forth in writing, for all the world to see, by a person of high and noble standing, such as the Queen of England, this is noteworthy. For this reason, I suggest that The Lamentation of a Sinner, authored by Queen Katherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of King Henry VIII of England, is one of the more significant, and yet largely unknown, documents to emerge out of the sixteenth century Reformation.