hee shall prepare his firiest darts to wound our soules to death O then let the light of thy heavenly countenance shine upon us O then let thy blessed Spirit comfort us with his sweetest comforts let the fresh bleeding wounds of our deare Saviour appeare gracious and effectuall to our distressed soules Blesse good LORD protect and defend thy Church wandring farre and wide over the face of the whole earth Let thy mighty hand and stretched out arme encompasse it let thy Omnipotency bee a brazen wall about it leade it we beseech thee into all truth concord and sincerity save it from all schismes errors and heresies mightily fence it from bloody Tyrants hellish Atheists and mercilesse Polititians Comfort we beseech thee all those that bee comfortlesse and distressed with sorrow need sicknesse imprisonment banishment slanderous tongues or any other crosse or calamity Especially good LORD speake comfortably unto them in whose soules are the arrowes of thine indignation and the venome thereof drinkes up their spirit those that groane under the burthen of a vexed conscience and those that suffer persecution for the testimony of thy truth LORD give them faith patience and constancy to abide their triall and a joyfull issue to all their temptations And as at this time we are bound wee humbly intreate thy tender mercies and loving kindnesse for all those in this Land that thou hast heavily visited with the Plague of Pestilence For CHRIST JESUS sake if it be thy blessed pleasure command thy Angell to cease from striking put up the sword of judgement which in great wrath and indignation thou hast drawne out against them And LORD in the meane time give them joy and comfort in thy holy Spirit that howsoever they be strangely and fearefully tormented in their body in this life yet they may be assured of eternall happinesse in the life to come And teach we beseech thee both them and us by thy holy Spirit to take a right view of all our sins the true causes of thy wrathfull displeasure and faithfully to repent for the same And so much the rather O LORD because the reprobate and such as thou forsakest cannot praise thee nor call upon thy Name but the broken heart the sorrowfull mind and a conscience hungring after righteousness shall ever set forth thy praise and glory Lastly most loving Father we beseech thee take us into thy defence and protection this night let thy carefull providence watch over us let thy blessed Angels pitch about us preserve us from all perills and dangers from all the assaults of Satan from vaine idle and wicked dreames Grant unto our bodies comfortable rest and quiet sleepe but let our soules continually watch for the comming of our Saviour in the clouds to end these last and worst daies Amen even so come LORD JESVS that we with thee and the rest of thy Elect may joyfully and triumphantly ascend unto the heavenly Jerusalem there to enjoy fullnesse of joy and pleasures at thy right hand for evermore Our Father which art in Heaven c. A Prayer before a Sermon O LORD prepare our dull and unprepared hearts with feare and humility to enter the presence of thy great and glorious Majesty O Most gracious God our loving and mercifull Father in CHRIST JESVS We thy poore and sinfull servants most humbly beseech thee at this time to blesse and sanctifie unto us the hearing of thy holy Word it is the glorious instrument which thou hast appointed for the conversion and salvation of the soules of men But unto us miserable wretches and full of pollution it hath beene many times through the barrennesse of our hearts the secret and deceitfull corruptions of our nature but even the breath of thy Ministers scattered in the ayre and as water spilt upon the ground Whereas it might be unto some being humbly and reverently received as a two edged sword that would enter through even unto the dividing asunder of the soule and the spirit and of the joynts and the marrow that would breake in peeces their hard hearts and strike their conscience with terrour and remorse for their sinnes a necessary step to regeneration And whereas it might be unto others a pretious restorative to repaire the ruines of their conscience and to put life into their dead zeale and affections graciously to enforme them in all the parts of their callings it is but even as a witnesse of our coldnesse sencelessenesse and unthankefullnesse registred in the booke of our conscience against the day of our visitation LORD wee beseech thee out of thy tender compassions to forgive us all our former untowardnesse irreverence and unprofitablenesse in these holy exercises And now at length before wee goe downe into our graves into black and cruell habitations from whence wee must never returne to praise thee upon earth let us feele thy divine power working in us effectually at the preaching of thy Word let us have a sence of thy Omnipotency in in conquering our corruptions and temptations let thy powerfull Spirit stirre up our hearts and quicken our affections to embrace the power of religion and true godlinesse that so being freed from sinne by the blood of CHRIST and forsaking all our knowne sinnes and labouring sincerely to please thee in all things wee may have our fruit in holinesse and the end everlasting happinesse A Prayer before Sermon MOst mercifull Father we humbly beseech thee to give every one of us grace to let these things sink deeply into our hearts Blesse we beseech thee our wills and affections with sanctified desires to entertaine them our memories with faithfullnesse to retaine them our mindes with serious meditations to digest them our hearts with fervency and prayer for thy blessings upon them our lives with practise and piety to profit by them LORD we see clearely that all our pleasures shall die and perish that our honours shall be laid in the dust that our gold and silver shall canker and the rust of of them shall be a witnesse against us at the last day that outward performances of religious duties without inward sanctification shall have their portion with Hypocrites in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstrone Where then shall appeare the lyar the swearer the drunkard the profaner of the Sabbath the uncleane person the proud the idle the malicious the carelesse in his calling even without timely and sound repentance in the bottomelesse pit of the lowest hell O then we beseech thee gracious Father to vouchsafe us in time wise and understanding hearts the spirit of judgement to discerne betweene the short span of this miserable life and the length and breadth of eternity Let us now at length make a through and deepe search into the state of our soules and consciences and if wee find that we be not yet possest of that inward sincerity and true happinesse let us for ever hereafter with greatest fervency earnestnesse and contention of spirit hunger and thirst labour and
direct we beseech thee and sanctifie all our courses that for a few and evill daies in this vale of teares wee may so store our selves with spirituall comfort with a sound heart with a strong faith and a good conscience that we may stand firme and sure at the day of our visitation and when upon our deaths bed we shall bee set upon by the weakenesse of our owne flesh the terrors of death the fearefullnes of the grave and the firiest darts of Satan we may comfortably passe thorow them all in the name and power of thy Son and be receiv'd with joyfulnes triumph into those sacred mansions which he hath already made ready in Heaven for all those that truly love and feare thee In his blessed name we powre out our soules in thankfullnesse for all those many blessings and comforts which thou hast vouchsafed us both upon our soules and bodies both for this life and a better For our health wealth and liberty our peace plenty and prosperity our food apparell and preservation from our infancy to this very hower and for all the good meanes of all these For the free passage of thy glorious Gospell now so many yeares amongst us But amongst all other temporall blessings of our times let us never forget nor we nor all our posterity for ever how it pleased thee in our daies miraculously to magnifie the glory of thy mercy in our wonderfull deliverance from the most secret bloody and fiery plot of the Gun-powder Treason that great astonishment of men and Angels All these outward comforts both publicke and particular are excellent and pretious yet they are such as wee have common with the reprobates and those that shall never see thy face with comfort but after a short time spent in the miserable pleasures of this vaine world shall bee turn'd to hell and everlasting fire Wee therefore more especially magnifie thy great name for the more speciall pledges and tokens of thy infinite love for that it hath pleased thee to confirme and seale unto us by our effectuall calling and the earnest of thy good Spirit our Election to eternall life from all eternity our particular Redemption from the powers of hell by the death of thy Sonne and an undoubted assurance of the joyes of Heaven in the world to come Increase in us good LORD wee beseech thee daily more and more this blessed assurance which we infinitely esteeme more deare then tenne thousand worlds by making us to grow in repentance and faith and spirituall wisedome and framing us to the obedience of thy Sonne in all knowledge love and obedience Furthermore gracious Father wee humbly intreate thee with the bowels of thy tenderest compassions to be mercifull unto thy whole Church and every member thereof Fence it mightily wee pray thee with the Spirit of truth knowledge and zeale and constancy that in these worst and last daies it may make a strong resistance against the great maine floods of Popery Schisme profanesse and Atheisme Be gracious unto this sinnefull Kingdome and enter not into judgement with the horrible and crying sinnes and the many fearefull provocations thereof In the same looke downe with the speciall eye of providence and protection upon our dread Soveraigne JAMES by thy grace King of great Brittaine France and Ireland Defender of the truly Catholike faith and in all causes and over all persons next and immediatly under thy Sonne CHRIST JESVS in all his Dominions supreme Governour O LORD as thou hast enlarg'd his royall heart even as the sand which is on the sea-shore for understanding learning and wisedome so wee beseech thee to continue unto him a proportionable measure of holinesse zeale and sanctification for the execution of that great place wherin thou hast set him and the enlargement of thy Kingdome here on earth Settle his crowne fast upon his head that he may long and religiously raigne over us in despight of all his enemies both at home and abroad Vouchsafe all the graces of thy good Spirit unto his gracious Queene Plant the true feare of thy great Name in the Princely heart of his Sonne and let thy watchfull providence and thy loving mercies for ever rest upon all that royall family Inspire his Honourable Privie Counsell his Nobility Gentry and Magistracy with spirituall wisedome and heavenly understanding Leade them all into thy Sanctuary and teach them out of thy holy Word first and chiefly those things which concerne thy honour and glory the good of the people which depend upon them and lastly the comfort of their own soules at the dreadfull day of judgement when they shall give an account of their stewardships Enrich we pray thee with thy best graces all the Reverend Bishops and Ministers of this Land Endew them plentifully with knowledge zeale sincerity and discretion that by their faithfullnesse and conscionable discharge of their duties the many multitudes in this Land that lie in darknesse ignorance profanesse Popery and Schisme may be brought to the knowledge of thy truth into a holy obedience to thy heavenly Gospell to their owne everlasting salvation Blesse and be mercifull to both our Universities Oxford and Cambridge Comfort all thy distressed children wheresoever or howsoever afflicted whither with Pestilence Warre Famine banishment sicknesse poverty imprisonment disquietnesse of minde vexation of conscience want of spirituall comfort or what other crosse or calamity soever it pleaseth thee to exercise them with Give them in the meane time a sure faith in thy promises and inward comfort in thy blessed Spirit and in thy good time a happy deliverance whither by life or death as it shall be best for thy glory and the good of their owne soules Lastly gracious Father for this sacred businesse wee have now in hand wee humbly beseech thee to blesse and sanctifie unto us at this time the preaching and hearing of thy holy Word it is the ordinance of thy owne infinite wisedome it is the glorious instrument which thou hast appointed for the conversion and salvation of the soules of men But unto us miserable wretches it hath beene many times thorow the barrennesse of our hearts the secret and deceitfull corruptions of our nature much sleepinesse and drowsinesse but as water spilt on the ground and even the breath of thy Ministers scattered in the aire Forgive us deare Father all our former untowardnesse irreverence and unprofitablenes in these holy exercises and now at length before we goe downe into our graves into black and cruell habitations from whence we must never returne to praise thee upon earth let us feele thy divine finger working in us effectually at the preaching of thy Word Let us have the sence of thine Omnipotency in conquering our corruptions and temptations that we being thorowly sanctified both in our soules and bodies forsaking all our knowne sinnes and labouring with sincerity to please thee in all things may have our fruit in holinesse and the end everlasting life Heare us c. A Morning
thy holy Names sake bury them all in the blessed and bloody wounds of our deare SAVIOVR that they never rise up at the dreadfull day of judgement to give testimony against our soules to our utter confusion Hide them all in the bottomelesse Ocean of thy endlesse mercy that they die out of thy remembrance everlastingly And send we beseech thee into every one of our soules that happy and heavenly assurance of the remission of our sinnes whence springeth joy and contentment most precious and unvaluable infinite more worth then ten thousand worlds LORD wee blesse praise and magnifie thy great and glorious name for all those great mercies benefits and comforts which out of thy immeasurable bounty thou hast plentifully bestowed upon us First and chiefly wee humbly thanke thee for that it hath pleased thee of thy meere favour and love to elect us before the foundation of the world to be heires of thy immortall Kingdome for creating us after thine owne image for redeeming us with the precious blood of thy deare Sonne for calling us into the glorious liberty of thy sons for justifying us for sanctifying us with thy holy Spirit for the joyfull hope of glorification in the world to come Confirme unto us we beseech thee these great and incomparable blessings with the sacred testimony of thy holy Spirit Let thy blessed Spirit tell our spirits that we are thy Elect. Let our sweet Saviour CHRIST JESVS say unto our soules I am your salvation Seale our salvation unto our soules with the pledge seale and earnest of thy holy Spirit Furthermore most gratious Father we humbly thanke thee for that extraordinary and universall blessing vouchsafed this Land by our gracious and religious King it is the greatest that ever the face of this earth enjoyed that ever thou bestowedst on thy dearest children For when wicked men and all the world as thou knowest expected that this Land should have beene clothed with fiery persecutions bloody warres and all manner of calamities as with a garment Thou that sittest in Heaven and laughest the vaine plots and devises and wicked men to scorne against all expectation hast covered it with peace joy plenty prosperity the free passage of thy Gospell as the seas are covered with water Put we pray thee into the heart of every one in this Land a true and continuall thankfullnes a godly and religious resolution to serve thee in holines and righteousnes all the daies of their life And LORD we beseech thee continue that good worke that thou hast begun and let him and his posterity in thy feare and true religion if it be thy blessed pleasure sit upon the throne of this Land so long as the Sunne and Moone endureth Let his Scepter long flourish in his hand and set his crowne fast upō his head O mightily preserve him from all the sonnes of violence and mischiefe Let all those that with forraine invasion attempt the destruction of his person and desolation of this Land become like Iabin and Sisera that perished at Endor like Zeba and Zalmunna that became as the dung of the earth Let all unnaturall practises and home-bred conspiracies perish as the untimely fruit of a woman and never see the Sun Inflame his royall heart with true zeale and love of thy blessed truth and as thou hast enlarged his kingdomes so give him a princely and religious courage to enlarge thy Kingdome and utterly to confound all Heresie Schisme and the kingdome of Antichrist Blesse all his privie Counsellors with wisedome from above that they may put these things into his heart which chiefly concerne thy honour and glory the good of thy Church the safety of his Person and quiet of this Land Blesse with severall graces all inferiour Magistrates that they may all faithfully and religiously discharge the severall places wherein they stand Blesse all his people with religion and loyalty the Ministery with learning zeale and sincerity O LORD go out with his Captaines and men of warre that fight thy battels We thanke thee also deare Father for blessings more particularly concerning us for delivering us from Popery Idolatry and Superstition and illightning our understanding with thy blessed truth Confirme it we beseech thee unto us daily more and more that if need require we may confirme it with our dearest bloods We thanke thee for giving us a taste of the powers of the world to come Crucifie we beseech thee unto us continually the lusts and corruptions of our sinnefull flesh that the graces and comforts of regeneration may daily receive in us strength and perfection We thanke thee for remooving from over our heads those heavie judgements and violls of thy wrath that our crying sins have continually called for from Heaven even all diseases and infirmities of body all terrours and vexations of conscience all civill deaths and torments all shame and confusion even that the earth should have opened his mouth and swallowed us quick the water drowned us the fier consumed us vengeance from Heaven overtaken us thy other creatures devoured us Grant we beseech thee that hereafter by sound and undissembled repentance and by agodly life wee may abandon them and the feare of them for evermore An Evening Prayer VVE thanke thee most mercifull Father for our health wealth food raiment preservation from our cradle to this hower for thy releeving us in all our needs and necessities for comforting us so fatherly in all our tribulations and distresses for sparing us so long a time of repentance and for infinite more blessings which neither our hearts can thinke nor tongues expresse Now one thing deare LORD will we beg at thy hands and that will we crave for evermore that thou wouldst give us grace and power by thy blessed Spirit to direct and dispose all these excellent blessings both eternall and temporall chiefly and principally to the honour of thy great Name to the salvation of our soules and the good of thy Church And to this end roote we beseech thee out of our soules all pride malice envy covetousnesse selfe-love hypocrisie take from us all swearing lying vaine and unprofitable talking al thoughts of Atheisme Infidelity uncleanenesse all the menstruous filthinesse of our abhominable nature And plant we beseech thee and ingraft deepely into our soules the true feare of thy glorious Name true humility true zeale and devotion true sorrow and repentance for all our sinnes true spirituall wisdome and heavenly understanding true hope and charity but above all things a true strong and a lively faith truly to apprehend the death and Passion of our deare Saviour and in particular and effectually to apply it to our sinfull soules LORD make it ever powerfull and invincible but especially in all times of our crosses and afflictions but LORD make it most triumphant and glorious even at the hower of death at our last visitation when the divell shall set before the eyes of our soules the blacke and ougly catalogue of all our sins and when
have made them much more sinfull by our actuall transgressions ever since we have added a great deale of folly in respect of the mystery of CHRIST every way LORD thou knowest we are become exceeding sinfull We humbly intreate thee in the name of the LORD JESVS to illighten our mindes and open our eyes to see the length and breadth the height and depth of this our sinfull misery for which thou mightest justly bring upon us all the curses in thy booke and all the torments in hell and in the meane time plague us with giving us over to more hardnesse of heart blindnesse of minde deadnesse of conscience slavery under our lusts a reprobate sence and to be finally sealed up with the spirit of slumber against the day of vengeance which are farre worse then all the plagues of Egypt 1. Thou mightest Holy Father even thine owne selfe for our many dishonours and disobedience against thee draw that sword against us that would eate flesh and drinke blood suffer that wrath to be kindled in thy bosome against us which would burne unto the bottome of Hell come against us as a Beare robbed of her whelps and rent the caule of our hearts and teare us in peeces like a Lyon when there is none to helpe 2. Thine owne deare Sonne might for ever deny us his pretious bloud to wash away the least staine from our sinfull soules 3. Thy Holy Spirit might never more put any motion into our hearts 4. Thy blessed Angels might take no more charge over us or be ministring spirits unto us for our good but leave us as a prey to that roaring Lyon and his damned Angels 5. All the Creatures might come justly armed against us with their severall stings and rage to make an end of us for rebelling against thee their Creator 6. This Kingdome wherein we live might justly fall into the mouth of some horrible confusion and we inwrapt in the miseries and desolations thereof 7. All crosses afflictions and thine angry visitations upon us might be unto us the very beginnings of Hellish paines 8. Thy many mercies unto us which should leade us unto repentance might onely serve to far us against the day of slaughter 9. The day of our gratious visitation might end and the Sun set upon the Prophets 10. All thy blessed Ordinances might bee unto us the savour of death unto death 11. Our bodies and soules might bee most justly cast into the bottome of Hell there to be tormented with the damned for ever and ever O LORD our GOD we humbly beseech thee for the LORD JESUS his sake let a serious consideration of this our sinfullnesse and cursednesse breake our stony hearts into peeces make them burst and bleed within us and good LORD our GOD we being thus sincerely humbled let us get faster hold upon the LORD JESVS with a sound and fruitfull faith then heretofore by a stedfast looking upon him and all his sufferings and satisfactions from his comming from thy bosome untill his returning unto thy right hand againe by survaying all the promises of of life sealed with his blood by cleaving to his sweetest name which is to forgive iniquity transgression and sin and resting our selves with a thankfull and joyfull acknowledgement upon that blessed mystery of his free grace which reacheth from everlasting to everlasting c. A Thankesgiving MOst mighty and most glorious Lord God of Heaven and Earth our light and life our Sun and shield the strength of our hearts and our portion forever Thou art the Author of all our good the fountaine of all our blisse the well-spring of immortality and life wherein we live and move and have our being even our naturall spirituall and eternall being And therefore to thy great and glorious Majesty we render from the bottome of our hearts all possible praise and thankesgiving for all those glorious mercies and richest favours which thou from time to time hast abundantly and plentifully vouchsafed unto us most rebellious unthankfull and undeserving wretches We thanke thee for the well-head and first fountaine of them all thy love towards us and of all our good every way even the good pleasure of thine own good will thy free grace and that mercy that reacheth from everlasting to everlasting We thanke thee for putting us into this world in the best and blessed part and time thereof We might have beene borne and lived in the time of the flood and so beene drown'd and damn'd or within the compasse of that almost foure thousand yeares betweene the Creation and the comming of CHRIST out of the partition wall and so have had no meanes or ordinary possibility of salvation But have lived and dyed in cursed Paganisme and Heathenish Idolatry we might have lived in that darke and damned mid-night and have beene choakt with the doctrine of divels wee might have lived at this time of the world but amongst Turks Pagans Infidels where wee should never have heard savingly of JESVS CHRIST It 's thy infinite mercy wee have beene borne and bread and brought up in this happy time of the world and blessed corner of the Earth this illightned Goshan where we have enjoyed or might have enjoyed the glorious Gospell of our blessed GOD with such purity power and peace We thank thee blessed GOD for making us reasonable Creatures capable of grace and immortality Thou mightest have let us lie for ever in that abhorred state of being nothing and wee should never have dishonoured thee Thou mightest have made us of those Angels that are become wicked spirits and then we had beene irrecoverably lost Thou mightest have made us Toads or Tygers vermine or any vild thing and we should never have prooved such Traytors and rebells against thee as we have beene O LORD we praise thee that thou hast made us of thy noblest Creatures and given us understandings like the Angels of GOD so that if we be not cursedly cruell to our owne soules they may be saved everlastingly by the meanes that we enjoy We blesse thee Holy Father for thy Fatherly care of us being yet in our mothers wombe wonderfully and fearefully made For that miraculous mercy in bringing us into this world and giving us leave to see this light For thy gratious watching over us while wee hung upon our mothers breasts since that time for thy mercifull continuance to us of our life health liberty outward meanes the use of our wits limbs senses for all the good wee have had by good yoake-fellowes good Parents good children good servants good neighbours good governours or any of thy good creatures for every step we have made upon this Earth every bit of bread we have put into our mouthes for every draught of aire we have drawne into these fraile bodies and blessings more then heart can thinke or tongue tell and which we can neither possibly remember or expresse Above all we of this place are bound to praise thy goodnesse most mercifull GOD for that most