Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
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A50680
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Forms of prayer for every day in the week, morning and evening composed for the use of private families / by John Meriton ...
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Meriton, John, 1636-1704.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing M1818; ESTC R9947
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47,765
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delivered from wrath and condemnation Matt. 22. 37 39. to love thee the Lord our God with all our heart and our Neighbour as our selves and let 's evidence our love to thee by keeping thy Commandments 1 Joh. 5. 3. and our love to our Neighbour by forbearing and forgiving reproving and admonishing counselling comforting and relieving him and performing all acts of charity and kindness to him Let us herein exercise our Acts 24. 16. selves to have always a conscience void of offence toward thee and toward men enlighten our understandings with the knowledge of thy Will inflame our affections with a delightful love of it and so conform our wills unto thine that we may readily do what thou wouldst have us do and cheerfully suffer what thou wouldst have us suffer Give us that Jam. 3. 17. wisdom which is from above that is first pure to fit us for the happiness of another life and then peaceable to give a relish to the injoyments of this and let us so imploy our selves in the affairs and businesses of this World as to make Religion our great business and present Rom. 12. 1. our Bodies and Souls a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto thee which is our reasonable Service Help us to subdue our inordinate desires and all sinful passions and when at any time we are tempted to the breach of thy Laws with courage to resist the temptation not daring to sin against thee our gracious Father and righteous Judge and whatever Talents thou intrustest to our management health strength or credit our time Estates the seasons of Grace and opportunities of doing good let us husband and improve them with that wisdom and faithfulness that become them that must ere long give an account of their Stewardship And because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without thee grant us the help of thy Grace that in keeping thy Commandments we may please thee both in will and deed and in our several Callings whether they be publick or private our several Conditions whether of prosperity or adversity our several Relations whether of Husbands or Wives Parents or Children Masters or Servants Neighbours and Friends we may perform the Duties that those Callings Conditions and Relations require of us And Mat. 5. 16 let our light so shine before Men that they seeing our good Works may glorifie thee our Father which art in Heaven Whilest we are in the way let us quickly agree with our Mat. 5. 25. Adversary and give diligence that by a sincere repentance and an upright universal obedience we may be found of thee in peace and prepared to appear before the Judgment-Seat of Christ when he shall sit upon the Throne of his Glory and weighing our thoughts words and actions in impartial Ballances shall render to us according to our works and let the consideration of that account leave such awful impressions in our hearts as both to hinder the doing of whatever may make the thoughts of it terrible to us and cause us to wait for our Lord with our Loyns Luk. 12. 35. girt and our Lamps burning that at his return we may enter with him into everlasting habitations Let thy merciful hands be opened toward all the Sons of Men whom thy hands have made and with a more especial kindness be gracious and favourable to Sion keep thy Church and Houshold continually in thy true Religion and leaning upon the hope of thy heavenly Grace let them evermore be defended by thy mighty Power Bless this sinful and unworthy Nation pardon all our Sins that cry aloud in thine Ears for vengeance purely purge away Isa 1. 25. our dross and take away all our Tin deliver us from the destructions we have deserved and perpetuate thy Gospel and true Religion among us from generation to generation Let the Life and Health the peace honour and safety of our Soveraign Lord be precious in thy sight and let all that govern under Him in Church and State maintain and encourage Truth and Peace Religion Righteousness and all goodness and grant that all under their Authority may lead quiet and â— Tim. 2. 2. peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty Succour and relieve all in any suffering condition recompence the kindnesses of our Friends and Benefactors seven-fold into their Bosom forgive and help us heartily to forgive all that may have offered injury and unkindness to us Look down upon us in mercy that are here lifting up our hands and hearts to thee we bless thee for the peace safety and refreshment of the last night beseeching thee so to guard us through the hazards and guide us through the affairs of this day that we may glorifie thee grow in Grace and go forward in the way that leads to everlasting Life and happiness through our Lord Jesus Christ according to whose directionâ— and command we further 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 Thursday Evening ALmighty and everlasting God the wise and righteous Governour of all things in Heaven and Earth who dost whatsoever thou pleasest and whatever thou dost is well and wisely done because thou dost it we thine unworthy Servants whom thy hands have made and ever since supported and supplyed beseech thee in mercy to look down upon us that in a sense of our own vileness are here humbling our selves at thy Foot-stool acknowledging it thy mercy and long-suffering that we are intrusted with one opportunity more to implore thy pardon and forgiveness Thou might'st have destroyed us the polluted Off-spring of disobedient Parents as soon as ever we came into the world and ever since we were capable of breaking thy Laws we have added sin unto sin and heapt transgression upon transgression We have trifled away that time that thou hast allotted us to make provision for an happy Eternity in the pursuit of pleasure and profit transient and momentany vanities and have waged and maintained War against thee in those seasons of Grace thou hast afforded us for the making our peace thy patience and long-suffering that should have led us to repentance we have perverted to fleshly purposes and a more presumptuous and impenitent progress in Sin We have over-cared for over-loved over-desired and over-delighted in the good things of this World and inordinately placed our affections upon earthly and temporary injoyments which thou hast fitted to such things as have in them an heavenly spiritual and everlasting excellency How grievously and how justly might'st thou plague us with the desires of our own hearts and punish us by giving us our portion in this
FORMS OF PRAYER FOR EVERY Day in the Week MORNING and EVENING Composed for the use of PRIVATE FAMILIES By John Meriton D. D. Rector of St. Michael Cornhill London and Lecturer at St. Martins in the Fields LONDON Printed by H. H. for Robert Boulter at the Turks Head in Cornhill 1682. THE PREFACE THat all Men are obliged to worship God by praising and praying to him is so evident by the light of natural Reason as well as the Revelation of Scripture that none can question it but they whose Immoralities and improved Debaucheries have laid such a foundation of Atheism as makes them inclinable to deny the Being of God and loath to acknowledge their dependance upon him lest this should involve them in the dreadful consequence of their being accountable to him And that men ought dayly to pay this Homage and Tribute of Praise and Prayer unto God as they stand linked in the relations of Families though all readily grant that are sensible of the Sins there committed that need his Pardon of the many Temporal and Spiritual blessings either wanted and to be sought at his Hands or injoyed and to be thankfully acknowledged yet the too common neglect of Family Prayer is it 's to be feared and he must have a very easie and credulous charity that can be otherwise minded not only one of the many instances of the decay of Piety and Religion but one of the provoking Sins that cry aloud to Heaven for vengeance It is no doubt by many totally omitted from an insensible stupidity an irreligious profane disregard of God and their Duty but by others not a few as was well and charitably suggested by the Good Man that earnestly pressed me to this undertaking only from a consciousness of their inabibility decently to perform it Now that this might be neither a feigned pretence nor a real hinderance But that they that like Joshua are willing and resolved to serve God with their Families might have Materials of Devotion ready at hand As the Water near the Road offered it self to the Eunuch willing to be Baptized I have for the help of such as can read complyed with my Friends desire and composed a Form of Weekly Prayers Morning and Evening And though their length will not I hope be complained of by any whose leasure may allow and whose Affections can vigorously attend one quarter of an hours solemn and religious Address to God Yet in consideration of others multiplicity of Business and that flatting and depression of Spirits that may follow from it all the Prayers are printed in many distinct Paragraphs that some of the Confessions or Petitions or both may easily and without disturbing their Devotion be pass'd over and the Prayer thereby so contracted as to suit their convenience And I desire they would rather do so than wholly omit the Duty for better a short Prayer than none at all Lord's Day Morning ALmighty most high and holy Lord God who art the glorious Creator Preserver and Governour of all things in Heaven and in Earth and most worthy to be praised and honoured by all Creatures And with infinite kindness and compassion hast redeemed lost and undone Sinners by thine only beloved Rom. 4. ult Son whom thou hast delivered to death for their offences and raised again for their justification and so thou art for ever to be loved and delighted in obeyed and worshipped praised and honoured by thy redeemed ones We thy poor Creatures and Children are here before thee this Morning humbly sensible of this our great and bounden duty and of our own inability without the assistance of thy Grace to perform it And in a deep sense both of our duty and insufficiency we desire to offer up our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to thy Divine Majesty our mighty Creator and most merciful Redeemer and humbly desire that thou wouldest sanctifie and prepare both our Souls and Bodies by the Grace of thy Holy Spirit that we may present unto thee acceptable thank-offerings We acknowledge O Lord that besides the sins of our Callings common Imployments and even those of the Week last past whereby we have greatly offended thee the sins of our holy duties and our profanation of this thy holy day have given thee a just provocation to withdraw the grace of thy good Spirit from us and leave us to the ignorance and vanity of our own minds the wandrings and distractions of our thoughts the earthliness and sensuality of our affections the hardness impenitency and unbelief of our hearts And then by all the duties of thy Worship and Service we should dishonour thee and by offering the Sacrifices of Fools increase our own guilt before thee But we humbly beseech thee most merciful Father forgive us all our past offences that they may not stand as a partition Wall between thy Majesty and us to hinder either thy Grace from coming down upon us as Rain upon the tender Herb or our Prayers from coming up before thee as Incense Fill every one of our hearts with awful thoughts of thee as a God that searchest hearts and art throughly acquainted with our most secret imaginations dispositions and purposes and because thou art a God of purer Eyes than to behold iniquity Let us worship thee with an holy worship so as to fear thy Goodness and love thy Justice to delight in thy Mercy trust and rely upon thy Power and Faithfulness to admire praise and imitate thy Holiness In the publick Duties and Services of this thy Day help us so to joyn with the Assembly of thy Servants that our hearts may be inflamed with a love of thee and delight in thee and in the vigour and fervency of devout affections we may together glorifie thy holy and great Name set forward our own edification and comfort and advance in those ways of holiness that lead to everlasting happiness And seeing in great mercy and compassion to our Souls thou art pleased to continue to us thy Sabbaths and the use of thine ordinances which by our many and great sins we have long since forfeited Let us not like Children sitting in Mat. 11. 16. the Market-place trifle away the precious opportunities and means of Grace and Salvation Help us seriously to consider when we are in thine House the Habitation of thine Holiness Psal 26. 8. and the place where thine Honour dwelleth the glorious Majesty and spotless perfect purity of that God with whom we have to do and let us behave our selves in thy sacred and dreadful presence with that reverence and holy fear that humility and lowliness of mind that simplicity and godly sincerity that heavenly mindedness and purity of affection that firm constancy of resolution to devote our selves to thee by our hearty obedience to thy Laws as it becomes dust and ashes vile Creatures that dwell in houses of Clay when they worship and do homage to that Sovereign Majesty the Throne of whose Glory is in the highest