Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mercy_n	father_n	lord_n	spare_v	2,118	5	9.2354	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23775	The whole duty of man laid down in a plain way for the use of the meanest reader divided into XVII chapters : one whereof being read every Lords day, the whole may be read over, thrice in the year, necessary for all families : with private devotions.; Whole duty of man	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.; Fell, John, 1625-1686.; Sterne, Richard, 1596?-1683.; Henchman, Humphrey, 1592-1675.; Pakington, Dorothy Coventry, Lady, d. 1679.	1659 (1659)	Wing A1170_PARTIAL; Wing A1161_PARTIAL; ESTC R22026	270,427	508

of those sins which have provoked thy Judgements that thou also mayest turn and repent and leave a blessing behinde thee Bless those whom thou hast appointed our Governours whether in Church or State so rule their hearts and strengthen their hands that they may neither want will nor power to punish wickedness and vice and to maintain Gods true Religion and Vertue Have pity O Lord on all that are in affliction be a Father to the fatherless and plead the cause of the widow comfort the feeble minded support the weak heal the sick relieve the needy defend the oppressed and administer to every one according to their several necessities let thy blessings rest upon all that are near and dear to me and grant them whatsoever thou seest necessary either to their bodies or their Souls Here name thy neerest Relations Reward all those that have done me good and pardon all those that have done or wisht me evil and work in them and me all that good which may make us acceptable in thy sight through Jesus Christ. For PRESERVATION OMerciful God by whose bounty alone it is that I have this day added to my life I beseech thee so to guide me in it by thy grace that I may do nothing which may dishonour thee or wound my own soul but that I may deligently apply my self to do all such good works as thou hast prepared for me to walk in and Lord I beseech thee give thy Angels charge over me to keep me in all my wayes that no evil happen unto me nor any plague come nigh my dwelling but that I and mine may be safe under thy gracious protection through Jesus Christ. O Lord pardon the wandrings and coldness of these petitions and d●al with me not according either to my prayers or deserts but according to my needs and thine own rich mercies in Jesus Christ in whose blessed Name and Words I conclude these my imperfect Prayers saying Our Father c. DIRECTIONS for NIGHT. AT NIGHT when it draws towards the time of rest bethink thy self how thou hast passed the day examine thine own heart what sin either of Thought Word or Deed thou hast committed what opportunity of doing good thou hast omitted and what soever thou sindest to accuse thy self of confess humbly and penitently to God renew thy purposes and resolutions of amendment and beg his pardon in Christ and this not slightly and only as of course but with all devout earnestness and heartiness as thou wouldest do if thou were sure thy death were as near approaching as thy sleep which for ought thou knowest may be so indeed and therefore thou shouldest no more venture to sleep unreconciled to God then thou wouldest dare to die so In the next place consider what special and extraordinary mercies thou hast that day received as if thou hast had any great deliverance either in thy inward man from some dangerous temptations or in thy outward from any great and apparent danger and offer to God thy hearty and devout praise for the same or if nothing extraordinary have so happened and thou hast been kept even from the approach of danger thou hast not the less but the greater cause to magnifie God who hath by his protection so guarded thee that not so much as the fear of evil hath assaulted thee And therefore omit not to pay him the tribute of humble thankfulness as well for his usual and dayly preservations as his more extraordinary deliverances And above all endeavour still by the considerations of his mercies to have thy heart the more closely knit to him remembring that every favour received from him is a new engagement upon thee to love and obey him PRAYERS for NIGHT. O Holy blessed and glorious Trinity three persons and one God have mercy upon me a miserable sinner Lord I know not what to pray for as I ought O let thy Spirit help my infirmities and enable me to offer up a spiritual Sacrifice acceptable unto thee by Jesus Christ. A CONFESSION O MOST Holy Lord God who art of purer eyes then to behold iniquity how shall I abominable wretch dare to appear before thee who am nothing but pollution I am defiled in my very nature having a backwardness to all good and a readiness to all evil but I have defiled my self yet much worse by my own actual sins and wicked customes I have transgrest my duty to thee my neighbour and my self and that both in thought in word in deed by doing those things which thou hast expresly forbidden and by neglecting to do those things thou hast commanded me And this not only through ignorance and frailty but knowingly and wilfully against the motions of thy Spirit and the checks of my own conscience to the contrary And to make all these out of measure sinful I have gone on in a dayly course of repeating these provocations against thee notwithstanding all thy calls to and my own purposes and vows of amendment yea this very day I have not ceased to adde new sins to all my former guilts Here name the Particulars And now O Lord what shall I say or how shall I open my mouth seeing I have done these things I know that the wages of these sins is death but O thou who willest not the death of a sinner have mercy upon me work in me I beseech thee a sincere contrition and a perfect hatred of my sins and let me not dayly confess and yet as dayly renew them but grant O Lord that from this instant I may give a bill of Divorce to all my most beloved lusts and then be thou pleased to marry me to thy self in truth in righteousness and holiness And for all my past sins O Lord receive a reconciliation accept of that ransome thy blessed Son hath paid for me and for his sake whom thou hast set forth as a propitiation pardon all my offences and receive me to thy favour And when thou hast thus spoken peace to my soul Lord keep me that I turn not any more to folly but so establish me with thy grace that no temptation of the world the Divel or my own flesh may ever draw me to offend thee that being made free from sin and becoming a servant unto God I may have my fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord. A THANKSGIVING O Thou Father of Mercies who art kind even to the unthankful I acknowledge my self to have abundantly experimented that gracious propertie of thine for notwithstanding my dayly provocations against thee thou still heapest mercy and loving kindness upon me All my contempts and despisings of thy spiritual favours have not yet made thee withdraw them but in the riches of thy goodness and long suffering thou still continuest to me the offers of grace and life in thy Son And all my abuses of thy temporal blessings thou hast not punished with an utter deprivation of them but art still pleased to afford me

be such as becometh the Gospel of Christ that his Name be no longer blasphemed among the Heathens through us O Blessed Lord how long shall Christendom continue the vilest part of the world a sink of all those abominable pollutions which even Barbarians detest O let not our Profession and our Practice be always at so wide a distance Let not the Disciples of the holy and Immaculate Jesus be of all others the most profane and impure Let not the subjects of the Prince of Peace be of all others the most contentious and bloody but make us Christians in deed as well as in name that we may walk worthy of that Holy vocation wherewith we are called and may all with one mind and one mouth glorifie thee the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Have mercy on this languishing Church look down from heaven the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory where is thy zeal and thy strength the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies towards us Are they restrained Be not wroth very sore O Lord neither remember iniquity for ever but though our backslidings are many and we have grievously rebelled yet according to all thy goodness let thy anger and thy fury be turned away and cause thy face to shine upon thy Sanctuary which is desolate for the Lords sake and so separate between us and our sins that they may no longer separate between us and our God Save and defend all Christian Kings Princes and Governours especially those to whom we owe subjection plead thou their cause O Lord against those that strive with them and fight thou against those that fight against them and so guide and assist them in the discharge of that office whereunto thou hast appointed them that under them we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty Bless them that wait at thine Altar open thou their lips that their mouth may shew forth thy praise O let not the lights of the world be put under bushels but place them in their Candlesticks that they may give light to all that are in the house Let not Jerohoams Priests profane thy Service but let the seed of Aaron still minister before thee And O thou Father of mercies and God of all comfort succour and relieve all that are in affliction deliver the out-cast and poor help them to right that suffer wrong let the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come before thee and according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die grant ease to those that are in pain supplies to those that suffer want give to all presumptuous sinners a sense of their sins and to all despairing a sight of thy mercies and do thou O Lord for every one abundantly above what they can ask or think Forgive my enemies persecutors and slanderers and turn their hearts Powre down thy blessings on all my friends and benefactors all who have commended themselves to my Prayer Here thou mayest name particular persons And grant O merciful Father that through this blood of the Cross we may all be presented pure and unblameable and unreproveable in thy sight that so we may be admitted into that place of purity where no unclean thing can enter there to sing eternal praises to Father Son and holy Ghost for ever A Prayer in times of common Persecution O BLESSED Saviour who hast made the Cross the badge of thy Disciples enable me I beseech thee willingly and chearfully to embrace it thou seest O Lord I am fallen into days wherein he that departeth from evil maketh himself a Prey O make me so readily to expose all my outward concernments when my obedience to thee requireth it that what falls as a Prey to men may by thee be accepted as a Sacrifice to God Lord preserve me so by thy grace that I never suffer as an evil doer and then O Lord if it be my lot to suffer as a Christian let me not be ashamed but rejoyce that I am counted worthy to suffer for thy Name O thou who for my sake enduredst the cross and despisedst the shame let the example of that love and patience prevail against all the tremblings of my corrupt heart that no terrors may ever be able to shake my constancy but that how long soever thou shalt permit the rod of the wicked to lye on my back I may never put my hand unto wickedness Lord thou knowest whereof I am made thou remembrest that I am but flesh and flesh O Lord shrinks at the approach of any thing grievous It is thy Spirit thy Spirit alone that can uphold me O stablish me with thy free Spirit that I be not weary and faint in my mind And by how much the greater thou discernest my weakness so much the more do thou shew forth thy power in me and make me O Lord in all temptations stedfastly to look to thee the author and finisher of my faith that so I may run the race which is set before me and resist even unto blood striving against sin O dear Jesus hear me and though Satan desire to have me that he may winnow me as wheat yet do thou O blessed Mediator pray for me that my faith fail not but that though it be tryed with fire it may be found unto praise and glory and honour at thy appearing And O Lord I beseech thee grant that I may preserve not only constancy towards God but charity also towards men even those whom thou shalt permit to be the instruments of my sufferings Lord let me not fail to imitate that admirable meekness of thine in loving and praying for my greatest persecutors and do thou O Lord overcome all their evil with thy infinite goodness turn their hearts and draw them powerfully to thy self and at last receive both me and mine enemies into those mansions of peace and rest where thou reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost one God for ever A Prayer in time of affliction O JUST and holy Lord who with rebukes dost chasten man for sin I desire unseignedly to humble my self under thy mighty hand which now lies heavy upon me I heartily acknowledg O Lord that all I do all I can suffer is but the due reward of my deeds and therefore in thy severest inflictions I must still say Righteous art thou O Lord and upright are thy judgements But O Lord I beseech thee in judgement remember mercy and though my sins have inforced thee to strike yet consider my weakness and let not thy stripes be more heavy or more lasting then thou seest profitable for my soul correct me but with the chastisement of a father not with the wounds of an enemy though thou take not off thy rod yet take away thine anger Lord do not abhor my soul nor cast thy servant away in displeasure but pardon my sins I beseech thee if yet in thy fatherly wisdome thou see fit to prolong thy corrections

the Apostle saith Rom. 1. 31. We do not only do the things but take pleasure in them that do them and therefore intice and draw as many as we can into the same sins with us Then it is risen to the highest step of wickedness and is to be look't on as the utmost degree both of sin and danger Thus you see how you are to examine your selves concerning your sins in each of which you are to consider how many of these heightning circumstances there have been that so you may aright measure the hainousness of them 7. Now the end of this Examination is to bring you to such a sight of your sins as may truly humble you make you sensible of your own danger that have provoked so great a Majesty who is able so sadly to revenge himself upon you And that will surely even to the most carnal heart appear a reasonable ground of sorrow But that is not all it must likewise bring you to a sense and abhorrence of your basenesse and ingratitude that have thus offended so good and graecious a God that have made such unworthy and unkind returnes to those tender and rich mercies of his And this consideration especially must melt your hearts into a deep sorrow and contrition the degree whereof must be in some measure answerable to the degree of your sinnes And the greater it is provided it be not such as shuts up the hope of Gods Mercy the more acceptable it is to God who hath promised not to despise a broken and contri●e heart Psalm 51. 17. And the more likely it will be also to bring us to amendment For if we have once felt what the smart of a wounded Spirit is wee shall have the lesse minde to venture upon sin again 8. For when wee are tempted with any of the short pleasures of sinne wee may then out of our owne experience set against them the sharp pains and terrors of an accusing conscience which will to any that hath felt them be able infinitely to outweigh them Endeavour therefore to bring your souls to this melting temper to this deep unfeigned sorrow and that not only for the danger you have brought upon your self for though that be a consideration which may ought to work sadnesse in us yet where that alone is the motive of our sorrow it is not that sorrow which will avail us for pardon and the reason of it is clear for that sorrow proceeds only from the love of our selves we are sorry because we are like to smart But the sorrow of a true penitent must be joyned also with the love of God and that will make us grieve for having offended him though there were no punishment to fall upon our selves The way then to stir up this sorrow in us is first to stir up our love of God by repeating to our selves the many gracious acts of his mercy towards us particularly that of his sparing us and not cutting us off in our sins Consider with thy self how many and how great provocations thou hast offered him perhaps in a continued course of many years wilful disobedience for which thou mightest with perfect justice have been ere this sent quick into hell Nay possibly thou hast before thee many examples of less sinners then thou art who have been suddenly snatcht away in the midst of their sins And what cause canst thou give why thou hast thus long escaped but only because his eye hath spared thee And what cause of that sparing but his tender compassions towards thee his unwillingness that thou should'st perish This consideration if it be prest home upon thy soul cannot chuse if thy heart be not as hard as the nether Milstone but awake somewhat of love in thee towards this gracious this long suffering God and that love will certainly make it appear to thee that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord Jer. 2. 19. That thou hast made such wretched requitals of so great mercy it will make thee both ashamed and angry at thy self that thou hast been such an unthankful creature But if the consideration of this one sort of mercy Gods forbearance onely be such an engagement and help to this godly sorrow what will then be the multitude of those other mercies which every man is able to reckon up to himself and therefore let every man be as particular in it as he can call to minde as many of them as he is able that so he may attain to the greater degree of true contrition 9. And to all these endeavours must be added earnest prayers to God that he by his holy Spirit would shew you your sins and soften your hearts that you may throughly bewail and lament them 10. To this must be joyned an humble consession of sins to God and that not only in general but also in particular as far as your memory of them will reach and that with all those heightning circumstances of them which you have by the forementioned examination discovered Yea even secret and forgotten sins must in general be acknowledged for it is certain there are multitudes of such so that it is necessary for every one of us to say with David Psal. 19. 12. Who can understand his errors cleanse thou me from my secret faul●s When you have thus confest your sins with this hearty sorrow and sincere hatred of them you may then and not before be concluded to feel so much of your disease that it will be seasonable to apply the remedy 11. In the next place therefore you are to look on him whom God hath set forth to be the propitiation of our sins Rom. 3. 25. Even Jesus Christ that Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world John 1. 29. And earnestly beg of God that by his most precious blood your sins may be washed away and that God would for his sake be reconciled to you And this you are to believe will surely be done if you do for the rest of your time forsake your sins and give your selves up sincerely to obey God in all his commands But without that it is vain to hope any benefit from Christ or his sufferings And therefore the next part of your preparation must be the setting those resolutions of obedience which I told you was the third thing you were to examine your selves of before your approach to the holy Sacrament 12. Concerning the particulars of this resolution I need say no more but that it must answer every part and branch of our duty that is we must not only in general resolve that wee will observe Gods Commandments but we must resolve it for every Commandment by itself and especially where we have found our selves most to have failed heretofore there especially to renew our resolutions And herein it neerly concerns us to look that these resolutions be sincere and unfeigned and not only such slight ones as people use

one the lesson of the other and therefore 't is the greatest absurdity and contradiction to profess themselves Christians and yet at the same time to resist this so express Command of that Christ whom they own as their Master If I be a Master saith God where is my fear Mal. 1. 6. Obedience and reverence are so much the duties of servants that no man is thought to look on him as a Master to whom he payes them not Why call ye me Lord Lord and do not the things that I say saith Christ Luke 6. 46. The whole world is divided into two great Families Christs and Satans and the obedience each man payes signifies to which of these Masters he belongs if he obey Christ to Christ if Satan to Satan Now this sin of malice and revenge is so much the dictate of that wicked spirit that there is nothing can be a more direct obeying of him 't is the taking his livery on our backs the proclamation whose servants we are What ridiculous impudence is it then for men that have thus entred themselves of Satans Family to pretend to be the Servants of Christ Let such know assuredly that they shal not be owned by him but at the great day of accompt be turned over to their proper Master to receive their wages in fire and brimstone A second consideration is the example of God this is an argument Christ himself thought fit to use to impress this duty on us as you may see Luk. 6. 35. 36. Where after having given the Command of Loving Enemies he encourages to the practise of it by telling that it is that which will make us the Children of the Highest that is 't will give us a likeness and resemblance to him as children have to their Parents for he is kind to the unthankfull and the evil And to the same purpose you may read Mat. 5. 45. He maketh his sin to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust And sure this is a most forcible consideration to excite us to this duty God we know is the fountain of perfection and the being like to him is the summe of all we can wish for and though it was Lucifers fall his ambition to be like the most high yet had the likeness he affected been only that of Holyness and goodness he might still have been an Angell of light This desire of imitating our Heavenly Father is the especial mark of a child of his Now this kindness and goodness to enemies is most eminently remarkable in God and that not only in respect of the temporal mercies which he indifferently bestowes on all his sun and rain on the unjust as in the text forementioned but chiefly in his spiritual Mercies We are all by our wicked works Col. 1. 21. Enemies to him and the mischief of that enmity would have fallen wholly upon our selves God had no motive besides that of his pity to us to wish a reconciliation yet so far was he from returning our enmity when he might have revenged himself to our eternal ruine that he designes and contrives how he may bring us to be at peace with him This is a huge degree of mercy and kindness but the means he used for effecting this is yet far beyond it He sent his own Son from Heaven to work it and that not only by perswasions but sufferings also So much did he prize us miserable crea●ures that he thought us not too dear bought with the blood of his Son The like example of mercy and patience we have in Christ both laying down his life for us Enemies and also in that meek manner of doing it which we finde excellently set forth by the Apostle 1 Pet. 2. 22 23 24. and commended to our imitation Now surely when all this is considered we may well make S. Johns inference Beloved if God so loved us we ought also to love one another 1 John 4. 11. How shameful a thing is it for us to retain displeasures against our brethren when God thus layes by his towards us and that when we have so highly provoked him This directs to a third consideration the comparing our sins against God with the offences of our brethren against us which we no sooner shall come to do but there will appear a vast difference between them and that in several respects For first there is the Majesty of the person against whom we sin which exceedingly encreases the guilt whereas between man and man there cannot be so great a distance for though some men are by God advanced to such eminency of dignity as may make an injury offered to them the greater yet still they are but men of the same nature with us whereas he is God blessed for ever Secondly there is his soveraignity and power which is original in God for we are his creatures we have received our whole being from him and therefore are in the deepest manner bound to perfect obedience whereas all the soveraignty that one man can possibly have over another is but imparted to them by God and for the most part there is none of this neither in the case quarrels being most usual among equals Thirdly there is his infinite bounty and goodness to us all that ever we enjoy whether in relation to this life or a better being wholly his free gift so there is the foulest ingratitude added to our other crimes in which respect also 't is impossible for one man to offend against an other in such a degree for though one may be too many are guilty of unthankfulness towards men yet because the greatest benefits that man can bestow are infinitely short of those which God doth the ingratitude cannot be neer so great as towards God it is Lastly there is the greatness and multitude of our sins against God which do infinitely exceed all that the most injurious man can do against us for we all sin much oftner and more heinously against him then any man be he never so malicious can find opportunities of injuring his brethren This inequality and disproportion our Saviour intimates in the parable Mat. 18. where our offences against God are noted by the ten thousand talents whereas our brethrens against us are described by the hundred pence a talent hugely out-weighs a penny and ten thousand outnumbers a hundred yet so and much more does the weight and number of our sins exceed all the offences of others against us Much more might be said to shew the vast inequality between the faults which God forgives us and those we can possibly have to forgive our brethren But this I suppose may suffice to silence all the objections of cruel and revengefull persons against this kindness to enemies They are apt to look upon it as an absur'd and unreasonable thing but since God himself acts it in so much a higher degree who can without blasphemy say 't is unreasonable If this or

thy blessed will be done I cast my self O Lord at thy feet do with me what thou pleasest Try me as silver is tried so thou bring me out purified And Lord make even my flesh also to subscribe to this resignation that there may be nothing in me that may rebel against thy hand but that having perfectly supprest all repining thoughts I may cheerfully drink of this cup. And how bitter soever thou shalt please to make it Lord let it prove medicinal and cure all the diseases of my soul that it may bring forth in me the peaceable fruit of righteousness That so these light afflictions which are but for a moment may work for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory through Jesus Christ. A Thanks giving for Deliverance O BLESSED Lord who art gracious and merciful slow to anger and of great kindness and repentest thee of the evil I thankfully acknowledge before thee that thou hast not dealt with me after my sins nor rewarded me according to my iniquities My rebellions O Lord deserve to be scourged with Scorpions and thou hast corrected them only with a gentle and fatherly Rod neither hast thou suffered me to lie long under that but hast given me a timely and a grcaious issue out of my late distresses O Lord I will be glad and rejoyce in thy mercy for thou hast considered my trouble and hast known my soul in adversity Thou hast smitten and thou hast healed me O let these various methods of thine have their proper effects upon my soul that I who have felt the smart of thy chastisements may stand in awe and not sin and that I who have likewise felt the sweet refreshings of thy mercy may have my heart ravished with it and knit to thee in the firmest bands of love and that by both I may be preserved in a constant entire obedience to thee all my days through Jesus Christ. Directions for the time of Sickness WHEN thou findest thy self visited with Sickness thou art immediately to remember that it is God which with rebukes doth chasten man for sin And therefore let thy first care be to find out what it is that provokes him to smite thee and to that purpose Examine thine own heart search diligently what guilts lie there confess them humbly and penitently to God and for the greater security renew thy Repentance for all the old sins of thy former life beg most earnestly and importunately his mercy and pardon in Christ Jesus and put on sincere and zealous resolutions of forsaking every evil way for the rest of that time which God shall spare thee And that thy own heart deceive thee not in this so weighty a business it will be wisdome to send for some godly Divine not only to assist thee with his prayers but with his counsel also And to that purpose open thy heart so freely to him that he may be able to judge whether thy Repentance be such as may give thee confidence to appear before Gods dreadful Tribunal and that if it be not he may help thee what he can towards the making it so And when thou hast thus provided for thy better part thy Soul then consider thy Body also and as the Wise man saith Ecclu● 38. 12. Give place to the Physician for the Lord hath created him Use such means as may be most likely to recover thy health but always remember that the success of them must come from God and beware of Asa's sin who sought to the Physicians and not to the Lord 2 Chro. 6. 12. Dispose also betimes of thy temporal affairs by making thy Will and setting all things in such order as thou meanest finally to leave them in and defer it not till thy sickness grow more violent for then perhaps thou shalt not have such use of thy Reason as may fit thee for it or if thou have it will be then much more seasonable to imploy thy thoughts on higher things on the world thou art going to rather then that thou art about to leave we cannot carry the things of this world with us when we go hence and it is not fit we should carry the thoughts of them Therefore let those be early dispatched that they may not disturb thee at last A Prayer for a sick Person O MERCIFUL and Righteous Lord the God of health and of sickness of life and of death I most unfeignedly acknowledg that my great abuse of those many days of strength and welfare which thou hast afforded me hath most justly deserved thy present visitation I desire O Lord humbly to accept of this punishment of mine iniquity and to bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him And O thou merciful Father who designest not the ruine but the amendment of those whom thou scourgest I beseech thee by thy grace so to sanctifie this correction of thine to me that this sickness of my body may be a means of health to my soul make me diligent to search my heart and do thou O Lord enable me to discover every accursed thing how closely soever concealed there that by the removal thereof I may make way for the removal of this punishment Heal my soul O Lord which hath sinned against thee and then if it be thy blessed will heal my body also restore the voice of joy health unto my dwelling that I may live to praise thee and to bring forth fruits of repentance But if in thy wisdom thou hast otherwise disposed if thou have determined that this sickness shall be unto death I beseech thee to fit prepare me for it give me that sincere and earnest repentance to which thou hast promised mercy and pardon wean my heart from the world and all its fading vanities and make me to gasp and pant after those more excellent and durable joys which are at thy right hand for ever Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me and in all the pains of my body in all the agonies of my spirit let thy comforts refresh my soul and enable me patiently to wait till my change come And grant O Lord that when my earthly house of this Tabernacle is dissolved I may have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens And that for his sake who by his precious blood hath purchased it for me even Jesus Christ. A THANKSGIVING for RECOVERY O GRACIOUS Lord the God of the spirits of all flesh in whose hand my time is I praise and magnifie thee that thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption and restored me to health again it is thou alone O Lord that hast preserved my life from destruction thou hast chastned and corrected me but thou hast not given me over unto death O let this life which thou hast thus graciously spared be wholy consecrated to thee Behold O Lord I am by thy mercy made whole O make me strictly careful