Selected quad for the lemma: prayer_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A47220
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An exposition on the church-catechism, or, The practice of divine love composed for the Diocese of Bath & Wells.
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Ken, Thomas, 1637-1711.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing K261; ESTC R23977
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74,137
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105
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profess thy Name that in all these and all other possible instances of duty our lives may be continually employ'd to love thee and for thy sake to love our neighbour and to excite our neighbour to love thee The Ninth Commandment O my God O my Love I renounce as p. 52. All manner of bearing false Witness against my Neighbour All false accusations or glosses or pleadings or testimonies or sentences in Courts of Judicature by concealing or overspeaking or perverting right and truth All things prejudicial or destructive to my neighbours good name All censoriousness and slander detraction and calumny forc'd consequences or invidious reflexions All scoffing or exposing the infirmities of others All whispering and tale-bearing or raising of evil reports suspicions or jealousies and all evil-speaking All equivocations and dissembling flattery and lying All the least tendencies to any of these injurious falshoods From all these and the like hatefull violations of thy love and of the love c. as page 52. O my God O my Love who dost love truth and dost hate a lie as perfectly Diabolical instill into my Soul an unalterable love of truth that nothing may tempt me to deviate from an intire veracity in my whole conversation or become a liar which thy Soul abhors O Lord give me grace ever to speak the truth and let my heart and my tongue always go together O my God give me grace to be tender of my neighbour's good name since I cannot love him if I take that from him which I know to be most dear to him Grant O my God for the sake of thy own love that I may be always ready to vindicate my neighbour's good name on all occasions that I may judge the best and speak well of him and conceal or excuse his infirmities that I may be impatient to hear slow to believe and unwilling to propagate evil reports that I may put candid interpretations on his actions since the more he is defamed the less able he is to serve thee the less credit he has to perswade others to love thee O my God O my love let thy c. as page 51. The Tenth Commandment O my God O my Love I renounce as p. 51. All the inordinate desire of what is my neighbour's All coveting his House or Wife or Servant or Maid or Ox or Ass or any thing that is his All discontentedness with my worldly condition and worldly solicitude All covetousness or repining at the happiness of others All taking pleasure in sin or complacence in past impurities All the first motions all the least tendencies to concupiscence From all these and the like hatefull c. as p. 52. O my God O my Love thou art the great searcher of hearts and dost not onely require outward acts of duty but the inward disposition of the heart the heart is the chief sacrifice thou requirest the heart is the proper seat of thy love and my heart I wholly devote to thee O my God create in me a clean heart that the fountain of action being clean the streams may run clean also Give me a heart O thou who onely canst change the heart entirely turn'd to thee that may suppress and resist all the first springings of Lust before they shoot up into consent approbation and desire before lust conceiving brings forth sin Lord make me contented and thankfull and well-pleased with that portion thy providential love has allotted me and to acquiesce in thy choice as best for me O great Lord of hearts lodge my neighbour in my heart next to my self let all my desires be for his good and let it be the subject of my joy and praise and love to see thy love liberal to him to see him abounding in thy blessings O my God my love what can a Soul enamour'd of thee ever desire but thee O let the world never more have place in my heart all my affections I withdraw from that to fix on thee Forgive me O my God if I am unmeasurably ambitious it is onely of thy favour forgive me if I am unsatiably covetous it is onely of thy fruition forgive me if I am perpetually discontented it is onely because I cannot love thee more O unconceivable happiness of Heaven where my Ambition shall rest on a Throne where my Covetousness shall be filled with the â—eartifick Vision and where I shall be eternally satisfied with love O my God O my Love let thy c. as page 51. Q. My good child know this that thou art not able to do these things of thy self nor to walk in the Commandments of God and to serve him without his special grace which thou must learn at all times to call for by diligent Prayer Let me hear therefore if thou canst say the Lords Prayer A. Our 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 Amen Q. What desirest thou of God in this prayer A. I desire my Lord God our heavenly Father who is the giver of all goodness to send his grace unto me and to all people that we may worship him serve him and obey him as we ought to do And I pray unto God that he will send us all things that be needful both for our souls and bodies And that he will be merciful unto us and forgive us our sins and that it will please him to save and defend us in all dangers ghostly and bodily and that he will keep us from all sin and wickedness and from our ghostly enemy and from everlasting death And this I trust he will do of his mercy and goodness through our Lord Iesus Christ. And therefore I say Amen So be it O infinite Lord it is my duty and my happiness to love thee but alas my own sad experience teaches me how little able I am to love Ah Lord there is a dark cloud of Ignorance spread over my Soul that intercepts thy beams I cannot clearly see I cannot fully know how lovely thou art Ah Lord when ever any gleams of thy loveliness break in upon my Spirit and attract my will a crowd of strange Loves importune and tempt me to wander after them Since O my God I can of my self neither know nor love thee since I cannot by my own strength do those things thou requirest nor walk in thy Commandments nor serve thee nor think so much as one good thought whither can I fly but only to thy free and unbounded love Thou art my hope my help and my salvation thou only canst teach and enable me to know and to love thy own goodness By thy special Grace
other discreet and learned Minister of Gods Word and desire him to teach them their Duty in private and they that thus sincerely seek the Law at the Priests mouth shall find that the Priests Lips do preserve Knowledge and shall not go away without a Blessing To God the Father who first loved us and made us accepted in the Beloved to God the Son who loved us and wash'd us from our Sins in his own Blood To God the Holy Ghost who sheds the Love of God abroad in our Hearts be all Love and all Glory for time and for eternity Amen FINIS To the poor Inhabitants within the Diocess of Bath and Wells THOMAS their unworthy Bishop wisheth the knowledge and the love of God Dearly beloved in our Lord THe Catechism truly teaches all Christians that they are not able of themselves to do those things they have vow'd in their Baptism to do namely To walk in the Commandments of God and to serve him without his special Grace oâ— favorable Assistance and this they are to learn at all times to call upon God for by diligent Prayer How good and seasonable this advice is you will all see if you consider what helpless and needy Creatures the very best of Men are Alas our weakness is very great our wants are very many our dependance on God for all things all our lives long is entire and absolute and necessary and there is no way in the World to gain help and supplies from God but by Prayer so that it is as easie and as possible to preserve a natural Life without daily Bread as a Christian Life without daily Prayer It was for this reason that our Saviour himself took a particular care to teach his Disciples to pray Luke 11.1 and it is for the same reason and in imitation of our Heavenly Master that I have joyn'd these directions for Prayer to the Catechism Sure I am the Zeal I ought to have for your Salvation can suggest to me nothing more conducing to the good of your Souls than to exhort and beseech you all of either Sex to learn how to Pray This is the first general Request I shall make to you and I am the more earnest in it because my own sad experience has taught me how strangely ignorant common People usually are of this duty insomuch that some never Pray at all pretending they were never taught or that their memories are bad or that they are not Book-learn'd or that they want mony to buy a Book and by this means they live and die rather like Beasts than Men nay their condition is much worse than that of Beasts for the misery of a Beast doth end at death but the misery of a wicked man does then begin and will endure to all Eternity To prevent then as much as lies in me the damnation of those Souls which God has committed to my care and to cure that lamentable ignorance and forgetfulness of God which is the cause of the damnation of so very many I do not only incessantly pray for you my self but I beg of you all to pray for your selves and I beseech you to read the following Instructions or if you cannot read your selves to get some honest charitable Neighbors to read them often to you that you may remember them and God of his great mercy reward the Charity of such Neighbors If any of you either by your own negligence or by the negligence of your Parents or for want of Catechising in your Parish are wholly ignorant of your duty though it be a most shameful and dangerous thing for one who calls himself a Christian to know nothing of Christ or Christianity yet if you are willing to learn and beg paâ—don of God for your wilful ignorance hitherto and will sincerely do your endeavor to get saving Knowledge and heartily pray to God to assist you you shall find that the very entrance of Gods word giveth light that it giveth understanding unto the simple Psal. 119.130 I must warn you before-hand that corrupt Nature will be very busie in hindering the learning of your duty and thoughts will arise in your mind that the task will be too hard and too tedious for you to undertake but I faithfully promise you to impose no hard or tedious task on you but such as you your selves shall confess to be very complying with your Infirmities for our most compassionate Saviour teaches me to say no more to you then you can bear Iohn 16.11 All I shall exhort you to is to learn your Catechism which you may do by degrees If you learn but a line or two in a day you will by Gods blessing in a very short time learn it all over and you will rejoice and thank God for the sudden and happy progress you have made God forbid you should ever think your selves too old to learn to serve God and to be saved both which are taught in the Catechism and therefore the Catechism is of necessity to be learned For how can you go to Heaven if you never learn'd the way thither How can you be sav'd if you do not know your Saviour 'T is a great Error to think that the Catechism was made for Children only for all Christians are equally concern'd in those saving Truths which are there taught and the Doctrine delivered in the Catechism is as proper for the study and as necessary for the salvation of a great Doctor as of a weak Christian or a young Child But you will be the more encouraged to learn your Catechism when you see how excellent a help it will be to Prayer for it will at the same time further your Knowledge and your Devotion both together and the Prayers I intend to commend to you are chiefly the very Answers in the Catechism which being daily repeated will be the better fix'd in your memory and you cannot imagine any advice for Prayer can be more easie and familiar than that which directs you to turn your very Catechism into Prayers You are by this time I hope satisfied that the Duty to which I exhort you is no hard task and yet I will endeavor by Gods assistance to make it more easie by putting you into an easie method to attain it If you are wholly ignorant of your Catochism let it be your first care to learn such Ejaculations such short Prayers as these and say them often and heartily Lord have mercy upon me Christ have mercy upon me Lord have mercy upon me Lord pardon all my wilful ignorance and gross â—arelessness of my duty for the sake of Iesus my Saviour Amen O my God assist me in the learning of my Duty Lord help me to know and to love thee Lord pity me Lord save me Father forgive me Glory be to thee O Lord who hast hitherto spared me O that I might at last learn to glorifie and love and serve thee Such short Prayers as these you may easily get by heart and the method