wherein we must give an account of our Stewardship and Luk. 16. 2. be no longer Stewards We acknowledge O Lord that we are guilty Sinners unable to help our selves and unworthy that thou shouldst help us our own consciences condemn us and thou mightest 1 John 3. 20 much more condemn us for thou knowest more by us than we do by our selves and art greater than our consciences But O God be merciful to us and spare us in the multitude of thy tender compassions Thou that hast promised pardon and forgiveness to all repenting Sinners work in us we beseech thee a serious and unfeigned repentance and let us thereby obtain remission of Sins And by a true and lively faith in our Lord Rom. 3. 24 25. Jesus Christ whom thou hast set sorth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood justifie us freely by thy Grace and let not any of our sins be charged upon us to our condemnation But let us by his Merits and Righteousness be so delivered from the guilt of them that we may serve thee in righteousness Luk. 1. 75. and holiness before thee all the days of our life And grant that as Christ dyed for us that were dead in sin and under a sentence of death for it we may not henceforth live unto our selves but unto him which 2 Cor. 5. 15. dyed for us and rose again Guide our Feet into those ways of righteousness and peace temperance and sobriety mercy meekness and charity that are well-pleasing to thee and guard us against the temptations of the World the Devil and our own naughty Hearts that we never depart from them Let a continued sense of thine Omnipresence and all-seeing Eye make us upright and sincere in the discharge of every duty careful and vigilant for the avoiding of every sin firm and constant in the resisting every temptation let us so set thee alway before us that thou being at our right hand Psal 16. 8. we may not be moved Heb. 13. 9. Keep us stedfast in thy truth and when many are carryed about with divers and strange Col. 2. 7. doctrines let us be more and more rooted and stablished in the faith by bringing forth the fruits of righteousness And 2 Pet. 1. 5 6 7. add to our faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness charity v. 8. that these things being in us we may not be barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ but an entrance may be ministred v. 11. unto us abundantly into his everlasting Kingdom Let the whole race of mankind find favour in thine eyes and let the glorious light of the Luk. 1. 79. Gospel of Salvation shine upon them that sit in darkness and the regions of the shadow of death Let the people praise Psal 67. 3. thee O God let all the people praise thee call home the Jews thine ancient people accomplish the promised fulness of the Gentiles that the whole Church may be in Christ as one Sheepfold under one Shepherd O be gracious and favourable unto Sion and build up the decayed and ruinous Walls of thy Jerusalem Free thy Church from all Heresie Prophaness Schism Superstition and Idolatry and whatever is displeasing in thy sight and a blemish of the blessed Gospel of God her Saviour Keep the Vineyard which thy right hand hath planted from all its enemies that would pull up the Hedges thereof and lay it waste water Isa 27. 3. it every moment lest any hurt it keep it night and day Bless these Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland forgive those many and crying Sins that might make us desolate without Inhabitants and let every one of us that have added to the great weight of wickedness and made it heavy enough to sink us into utter ruine turn from the evil of our ways and by an hearty repentance and real reformation stand in the gap and stop those Judgments that are gone forth against us and entering in at our wide breaches to destroy us Amend us by thy just severities and merciful salvations and let both thy punishments and preservations of us lead us into the ways of righteousness Bless with thy richest blessings our Sovereign Lord the King preserve him as thou hast done wonderfully heretofore from the malice and subtlety the mischievous Plots and Combinations of his Enemies and let him so remember the deep distress out of which thou hast drawn him and the high authority wherein thou hast placed him that in all his actions designs he may promote thy honour and glory and all 1 Tim. 2. 2. that are under him may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty Let the Bishops and Pastors of thy Church further truth and holiness by their life and Doctrine and civil Magistrates discountenance and suppress all wickedness and encourage virtue and goodness and not bear the Sword in vain And let all from the highest to the lowest so carry themselves as that thou mayest be glorified true Religion advanced the Gospel of Christ honoured and Truth and Peace may be established among us Let all that are Sick pained or impoverished distressed either in Body or Mind find thy gracious hand to sweeten and sanctifie their Afflictions and in thy good time to deliver from them Bless us O our God that are here before thee direct assist and prosper us in all that we this day set our hand unto and let us not undertake any business but what thou hast warranted by the rules of Righteousness and upon which we may desire and expect thy blessing Guide us by thy Counsel till Psal 73. 24. thou bring us to thy Glory by Christ Jesus our only Lord and Saviour who in compassion to our Infirmities hath taught us thus to pray OVr Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy Will be done in Earth As it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our Trespasses As we forgive them that Trespass against us And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from Evil For thine is the Kingdom and the Power And the Glory For ever and ever Amen Monday Evening BLessed and holy Lord God who madest all things by thy Power and rulest all things by thy Providence and fillest all places by thy presence art about our Bed and about Psal 139. 3. our Path and spyest out all our Ways we thy poor Creatures most heartily beseech thee that thou wouldest fill every one of our hearts with an awful sense of thee and an humble sincerity in our approaches to thee that laying aside all guile and hypocrisie we may draw near thee Heb. 10. 22. with a true heart and worship thee that desirest truth in the in Joh. 4. 24. ward
part in Spirit and in Truth We thankfully acknowledge our dependance upon thee and that our lives and all the comforts of our lives are the effects of thy bounty and goodness thy hands have both made and fashioned us in the Womb and brought us into the World and ever since we saw the Light thou hast all along opened thine hands and filled us with variety of good things though for our many and great sins thou mightest have left us naked and miserable and brought upon us all the punishments that the threatnings of thy holy and righteous Law have made justly due to the Transgressors of it and had thy ways been as the ways of a Man are or thy thoughts towards us like unto our thoughts we had long since been past the Thank-offering of Praise the benefit of Prayer and the hope of Pardon for our trangressions have been multiplied against thee and our Iniquities have gone over Psal 38. 4. our Heads as a burthen too heavy for us The corruption of our nature is opposite to thy holy Law that requires no less holy principles than holy practises and by the transgressions of our lives we have broken it in thought word and deed We confess O Lord with sorrow and shame our ignorance of thy will and in many things our acting contrary to the knowledge we have had of it our pride earthliness and hypocrisie our injustice uncharitableness and sensuality our inordinate self-love eagerness in the pursuit of worldly things and indifferency in matters of Religion our impenitency and unbelief the hardness of our hearts notwithstanding all the ways and methods thou hast taken to soften them our unthankfulness for all thy mercies our incorrigibleness under all thy chastisements our unfruitfulness under the means of Grace our unfaithfulness under all our vows and promises and resolutions of service and obedience We have sinned against a clear revelation of thy Will and against the greatest obligations to compliance with it against the expressions of a tender kindness in thy multiplyed mercies and the evidence of a righteous severity in thy justly deserved chastisements we have sinned against thine inviting promises and dreadful threatnings against the frequent warnings of thy Word the renewed motions and powerful convictions of thy Spirit and the precious blood of thy dear Son we have sinned against the light of our understandings against our promises and purposes of obedience against the checks of our own consciences we cannot recount the number of our sins they are so exceeding many nor set in order the aggravating circumstances whereby they are become exceeding sinful But O Lord have mercy upon Psal 51. 1. us according to thy loving kindness according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out our transgressions Help us to forsake our sinful Isa 55. 7. thoughts and crooked ways and by unfeigned repentance to return unto thee that thou mayest have mercy on us and abundantly pardon us Speak peace to us most merciful Father through the death and sufferings of thy dear Son who gave up himself in Sacrifice to expiate the guilt of our sins and by that precious ransom to buy off the punishment that was due to our transgressions O sprinkle our consciences with that blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things Heb. 12. 24. than the blood of Abel work in us a true and lively faith that we may be justified and have Rom. 5. 1. peace with thee through our Lord Jesus Christ For though we have no righteousness of our own that we dare plead to the strictness of thy Law and the severity of thy Justice thou hast treasured up an alsufficient righteousness in thy Son that believing in him we may be pardoned and through his stripes be healed And let thy pardoning mercy be accompanied with thy purifying grace that we may be both delivered from the guilt and punishment of our sins and cleansed from the filth and impurity of them And as our Lord Christ dyed unto sin to condemn it in the flesh let us dye unto sin to crucific it in ours that it may never reign in our mortal bodies that we Rom. 6. 10 11 12. should obey it in the lusts thereof Help us heavenly Father to put off the old man which is corrupt according to deceitful Eph. 4. 22 23 24. lusts and to put on that new man which is created after thine own image in righteousness and true holiness and as by the natural birth we have in sin and corruption born the image of the first Adam that was made a living Soul so let us by the spiritual birth in sanctification and holiness bear the image of the second Adam that was made a quickning Spirit Give us a new Ezek. 36. 26 27. heart and put within us a new Spirit take away the stony heart out of our flesh and give us an heart of flesh put thy Spirit within us and cause us to walk in thy Statutes that we may keep thy Judgments and do them Wean our hearts from an excessive and inordinate love of all the things of this World and let us never place our happiness in the pomps and pleasures the profits and honours or any transitory injoyments of this Life where we are told not only in thy Word but by our own experience it is not to be found but let us weep as though we wept not and 1 Cor. 7. 30 31. rejoyce as though we rejoyced not and buy as though we possessed not and use this World as not abusing it because the fashion of this World passeth a-away Let us never adventure upon sin with the foolish and deceitful hopes of getting any thing by it but let our minds be influenced with the great and certain truth of what our Saviour hath taught us that the gaining of the whole World can be 〈◊〉 16. 26. no recompence for the loss of our Souls Let the great and strict account that we must ere long make be often in our serious thoughts and the course of our Lives be thereby so ordered that we may think of it with a joyful expectation and never allow our selves to do to speak or think any thing that may make the thoughts of the day of Judgment a terrour to us Let us so obey the Laws of our great Lord and Saviour and follow the steps of his example that when Christ who is our life shall appear we may lift up our heads with joy and appear with Col. 3. 4. him in glory Show forth the favour and loving kindness of a Father to all the Children of Men and as thou hast made them capable of eternal life and happiness make known unto them the way of thy Salvation that leads unto it Let the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his Mal. 4. 2. Wings and dispel the darkness of Heathenish and Mahometan Superstition and Idolatry that the Kingdoms of the Earth may become the Kingdom of thy Son
and cause the light of thy Gospel to guide their feet into the way of peace that are wandring in the darkness of sensuality profaneness superstition and idolatry and shew them thy Salvation Bless thy whole Church throughout the World preserve it from the offences and reproachful scandals of its professed Friends and from the oppressions and persecutions of its open and declared Enemies Let thy continual care keep and cleanse thy Vineyard that it may abound in the Fruits of Righteousness Be merciful to this Nation where we live pardon the Sins that cry aloud for vengeance heal the breaches that threaten its ruine and avert those dreadful Judgments that hang over our heads and as thou hast all along often saved us from the destructions miseries that our daring wickednesses might have pull'd down upon our heads give us cause more and more to magnifie thy mercy and triumph in thy Salvation Bless our Lord the King with Wisdom and Courage a zeal for thy glory and a continual care of promoting Righteousness and true Religion and let all under him in places of Civil and Ecclesiastical Government make it their business to further Righteousness and Peace and the good of Souls and let all sorts of men follow after peace without which they cannot see happiness on Earth and holiness without which they shall not see thy Face in Heaven Be thou a present help for the relief and succour of all that are in a suffering condition and let that good providence that hath defended directed and assisted us in the dangers the occurrences and businesses of the day so protect and refresh us with sleep this night that in the morning we may be more fit to serve thee and live to thy praise in Christ Jesus our Lord through whom we beseech thee to accept our persons pardon our sins and hear our Prayers when we say OVr Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy Will be done in Earth As it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our Trespasses As we forgive them that Trespass against us And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from Evil For thine is the Kingdom and the Power And the Glory For ever and ever Amen Thursday Morning MOst gracious God and merciful Father in Jesus Christ the Author of our Being and the Fountain of all those good things that may make us happy in this World and that which is to come we thy poor Creatures vile and provoking Sinners in the sense of our own guilt fly to thy mercy to pardon us in the sense of our weakness fly to thy might to strengthen us in the sense of our own ignorance and folly fly to thy wisdom to instruct and counsel us in the sense of our manifold wants and necessities fly to thy fulness and all-sufficiency to supply us We acknowledge O Lord that our nature is not only corrupt and sinful overspread with a Leprosie and loathsome Disease that might make us for ever abominable in thy pure Eyes but our practises have been contrary to thy holy and righteous Laws both in the doing what thou hast forbidden us and the leaving undone what thou hast commanded us we have followed after and fulfilled our own Lusts and yielded to them a vile and slavish subjection as to our Lords and Lawgivers whilst we have refused and been weary of thy Service as a slavery which is perfect freedom We have forgotten thee our God and turning aside to lying vanities have sinned against thee in every state and condition of our lives in our health we have seldom thought how soon we might be cast upon a sick Bed and in our sickness have been unprepared for death that might have been the issue of it in our prosperity we have been secure and sensual wanton proud and unthankful and in our adversity we have repined and murmured with impatience and discontentment and when our folly hath perverted our ways our hearts Pro. 19. 3. have fretted against the Lord. We have suffered our selves to be prevailed upon by the pleasures and profits of this Life those deceitful baits of the Flesh that having for a while gratified our sensual inclination have left the sharp and wounding hook of fear and disquiet in our consciences And though thou hast graciously forewarned us that our most pleasant Lusts will be bitterness in the latter end and the wages of Sin Rom. 6. 23. is nothing less then death and eternal misery yet by our unbelief and carnal affections and the present seeming advantages of Sin we have been drawn into Sin and not frighted from it by its future mischiefs and punishments Thou hast sent thy Son into the World to redeem and save us from our Sins to make known thy Will and publish to us his holy and good Laws that we should govern our thoughts our words and actions by them but we have by our disobedience vilely cast away his Scepter and disown'd the authority of his Laws notwithstanding our professions to Tit. 1. 16. know and believe him we have by wicked works denyed him and naming the Name of Christ 2 Tim. 2. 19. we have not departed from Iniquity We have so resisted and grieved thy holy Spirit who hath earnestly pleaded with us to cast off our Sins and return to our Duty that he might in displeasure withdraw from us and forbearing his blessed motions and leaving us destitute of his gracious assistance might give us up to the blindness of our own minds the unbelief and impenitent hardness of our hearts and suffer us to go on in our own ways till our condition were wholly hopeless and without possibility of recovery we had sinn'd our selves into eternal misery Awaken O Lord we pray thee our sleepy Consciences and so throughly convince us of the great evil of Sin and those fearful punishments that follow it that we may in good earnest and without the least delay flee from it by a most serious and hearty repentance and return unto the Lord our God from Hos 14. 1. whom we have fallen and gone astray by our Iniquities Through the sufferings and precious death of thy Son be reconciled and speak peace to us though our offences are very foul and heinous and our best righteousness cannot encourage us to look up with confidence to thine offended Majesty yet in the righteousness of our blessed Mediator we both pray and hope to be forgiven being by thy self assured that thou hast given him a great and all-sufficient Redeemer for the Atonement of great Transgressors and exalted him Acts 5. 31. to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance and remission of Sins For our sakes and in our stead he endured the punishments that himself had not deserved he Isa 53. 5. was wounded for our Transgressions and the chastisement of our peace was upon him O let us through his Stripes be healed Help us being