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 Tuesday Evening ALmighty and most merciful God and Father the Maker and Governour of all Creatures in Heaven and Earth and exalted in thy glorious perfections above the thoughts and services the praises and acknowledgments of the highest and best of them thine understanding is infinite and thou seest the hearts and ways of all the sons of men thy holiness is infinite and thou hatest all the sin and iniquity thou espiest in them thy power infinite thou canst easily punish them for the sins that provoke and displease thee and 〈◊〉 yet thine infinite mercies thou pardonest the sins of all that by sincere repentance and a through amendment of their ways return to thee We thy poor Servants in a deep sense of our guilt and wretchedness and the strong encouragements of thy declared mercy and goodness humble our Souls at thy Foot-stool beseeching thee to have mercy upon us and through the righteousness of thy dear Son whom thou hast given to be a propitiation and price of redemptition for us to pardon our many and great transgressions whereof we are guilty before thy Majesty in thought and word and deed and whereby we have deserved to be punished with overlasting destruction from thy presence by thy glorious power Hadst thou O Lord taken advantages against us or been forward to pour out that wrath and vengeance that we have been forward to provoke we had not now been begging thy mercy or cherish'd with the hopes of it but had in vain lamented the bloody and severe effects of thine incensed Justice We are not only by Nature the Children of Wrath but have in the course of our Lives actuated the sinful corrupt principles of our Nature and gone astray from thy holy just and good Laws that thou hast given to be the rule and measure of our actions and though both as thy Creatures thy Servants and thy Children thou hast laid upon us the greatest obligations to obedience and a dutyful complyance with thy Will yet have we in the eager and violent pursuit of our lusts Psal 2. 3. broken thy bonds asunder and cast away thy cords from us We have professed the pure and holy Religion of thy Son but have shamefully dishonoured him and his Religion by impure and unholy practises and 2 Tim. 2. 19. naming the Name of Christ we have not departed from iniquity we have given up our Names to him in Baptism and solemnly vowed obedience to the Laws of his holy Gospel but we have started aside like broken Bows and walked in the imaginations of our own hearts and fulfilled our vile and foolish lusts as if there were no God to be served no Soul to be saved no Hell to be feared no Heaven to be expected and as if the Name of Christians would have carryed us to Heaven we have done those things that many Heathens would have blushed at and been ashamed to have practised so that this might be our condemnation which of all other is the most grievous and insupportable that Light is come into the World and we have loved Darkness rather than Light Joh. 3. 19. because our deeds have been evil So many and undeserved have been thy mercies towards us so kind and unwearied the expressions of thy bounty that all our disobedience is by a shameful and odious ingratitude become exceeding sinful and we cannot without sorrow of heart and confusion of Face reflect upon our wearying thee with our sins when thou hast loaded us with thy benefits But we beseech thee O most merciful Father in the tenderest compassions of thy sounding bowels look down upon us and for thy Names sake the most powerful argument and such as uses to prevail O Lord hear O Lord spare O Lord forgive by a serious and hearty repentance and a true and lively Faith in thy Son make us fit partakers of thy pardoning mercy Though our deserts are thine indignation and vengeance the merit of his righteousness is remission and forgiveness though we have affronted thy Justice he hath satisfied it though we have incensed thy wrath he hath appeased it the chastisement of Isa 53. 5. our peace was upon him O let the merit of his righteousness be upon us And because the holy Jesus together with the guilt and punishment of sin alway delivers from the power of it and they that are Christs crucifie the Gal. 5. 24. flesh with its affections and lusts by the subduing and mortification of our sins convince and comfortably satisfie us that thou hast pardoned them and by thy sanctifying grace help us to cleanse our selves from 2 Cor. 7. 1. all filthiness of the flesh and spirit and to perfect holiness in thy fear sanctifie us wholly 1 Thes 5. 23. and let our whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ Quicken us holy Father by the spirit of life and holiness to run the ways of thy Commandments and as thou hast given our blessed Saviour to be Head of thy Church and anointed him with an unmeasured fulness of thy Spirit that he might communicate and impart it to the Members of his Body let some drops of that holy Oil fall down upon us that was so plentifully poured upon the Head of our High Priest and out of his fulness let us receive Joh. 1. 16. Grace for Grace and so renew the Image of his Holiness in our Souls that as his true Children we may shew forth all the Features and Lineaments of our heavenly Father And because we are not sufficient of our selves to avoid any evil or perform any good be graciously present with us to preserve us from the one and assist us in the other Make us perfect in every good work to do thy will working in us that which is well pleasing in Heb. 13. 21. thy sight through Jesus Christ Make us wise to Salvation and seeing our days are very few and uncertain and repentance both necessary and out of our own power let us not put it off till to morrow not knowing what a day may bring forth nor deceive our selves with vain purposes of parting with our Sins hereafter when this very night our Souls may be Luk. 12. 20. taken from us But seeing the Heavens and the Earth at 2. Pet. 3. 15. length and our selves ere long must be dissolved let us be diligent that we may be found of thee in peace without spot and blameless Bless thy whole Church scattered far and near over the Face of the Earth pour out upon it the Spirit of Truth and Holiness and grant that all that confess thy holy Name may agree in the truth of thy holy Word and live in unity and godly love be thou that art the Lord and
any duty to bear any burden to resist any temptation to mortifie any lust 2. Cor. 3. 5. To think one good thought but all our sufficiency is of thee thou O Lord canst pardon our Sins supply our wants heal our distempers enlighten our blindness soften our hardness strengthen our weakness we have no whither to go but unto thee nor can we come to thee but in thine own Power into such a wretched condition have our Sins brought us that we are both unable to help our selves and unworthy that thou shouldst help us but our comfort is that thy Grace doth not use to find Sinners worthy but make them so nor dost thou shew favour and kindness to them because they please thee but because thou art pleased with thine own Mercy and Goodness Our Iniquities we acknowledge have been many and great a sinful nature as a corrupt Fountain hath sent forth polluted streams in the thoughts words and actions of our Lives and we have often offended against thy holy Laws and expressed the enmity of our carnal minds Though all thy Laws are in themselves most equal just and good and thou hast both encouraged our obedience by the gracious promises of thy favourable acceptance and an eternal recompence and affrighted from sin by threatning it with everlasting punishment yet lightly esteeming thy Promises and contemning thy threatnings we have troddâ—n thy holy Laws under our Feet and broken through the restraints wherewith â—…ou hast hedged us in from finding our own ways Our pride and earthliness our unbelief unthankfulness our hypocrisie sensuality and hardness of heart witness against us to our faces and give us great cause to blush and be confounded to mourn and grieve in the sense of them Who of us hath had that due sense of thy holiness power and goodness thine omnipresence and all-seeing Eye as to be thereby driven from our Sins or quickned to the exercise of Virtue and Godliness Who of us hath been so affected with that Grace that hath appeared bringing Salvation as to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and make it our study and business to please and approve our selves to thee Who of us hath so felt the burthen and tasted the bitterness of our sins as to loath and leave them with dislike and abhorrency Who of us hath been so delighted in thy love as to return thee our hearty love in a sincere and uniform obedience Who of us hath so firmly believed the rewards and punishments of the future state as to press toward the mark for the obtaining the prize and make hast to escape and flee from the bottomless Pit and burning Lake The zeal and earnestness that we should have shewn in matters of Religion we have expressed in following our worldly interests and that coldness and indifferency that would have been well bestowed upon the little and short lived benefits of the present Life hath attended the performance of our holy duties We have in some measure known our Masters Will and yet have done our own and to please our corrupt and fleshly Appetites have done what we have well understood to be displeasing in thy sight Though thou hast often commanded us to repent and turn from our evil ways and we have been convinced that to hear thy Voice to day is both our duty and our wisdom we have demurred by lingring delays and not cast off our Sins by a speedy repentance We are ashamed O Lord of this our folly and beseech thee so to awaken and assist us by thy Grace that we may not receive it in vain nor longer delude our own Souls with the deceitful purposes of a future repentance but let us make haste to hearken to thy loud and earnest 2 Cor. 6. 2. Calls now while it is the accepted time and the day of Salvation And let thy pardoning mercy freely forgive all our Sins thy Grace having by true repentance made us meet partakers of that inestimable benefit So set them before our face as that we may mark and consider them mourn for and confess loath and forsake them and so cast them behind thy back as not to observe them with a wrathful countenance or punish them with a justly deserved vengeance By the precious blood of thy dear Son that immaculate Lamb that was offered to take away the Sins of the World Psal 51. 2. Wash us throughly from our Iniquities and cleanse us from our Sins and through his perfect righteousness let the free gift come upon us unto justification Rom. 5. 18. of Life Deliver us we pray thee as from the guilt and damnation of Sin by his precious Sacrifice so from its power and dominion by his sanctifying Spirit and though like a Leprofie in the Walls of an infected house Sin will remain in us while we are in the world let it not reign Rom. 6. 12. in our mortal Body that we should obey it in the lusts thereof But as the Flesh in us lusteth against the Spirit let thy Gal. 3. 17. Spirit in us resist and subdue the lusts of the Flesh Let not an inordinate love of the allurements and intangling vanities of this World quench or weaken in our Souls that entire and most hearty love that is due to thee and heavenly things nor distracting cares for the conveniencies of the Body eat out and destroy the care of our Souls nor hinder a timely provision for their future and eternal happiness But for as much as our stay here below is very short and the time of our departure hence into an everlasting state very uncertain let us with fear and trembling earnestness and diligence work out our own Salvation and carry our selves with upright and inoffensive Consciences toward thee and all men whilst we are in the World as we shall wish to have done when we come to leave it Help us to run the race of holy obedience meekness and patience charity contentment constancy and perseverance to fight a good fight finish our course and keep the faith that we may receive a Crown of righteousness which the righteous Judge shall at the last day 2 Tim. 4. 7. 8. give unto all them that love his appearing And let the contemplation of that glory and happiness and the well-grounded hope of our attaining it make us diligent and faithful in the discharge of our duty watchful against all fleshly defilements patient and cheerful under all crosses and troubles cold and indifferent to all the profits and pleasures of this Life and let our whole conversation on Earth be such as may become the Heirs of an heavenly glorious and eternal inheritance that when our earthly 2 Cor. 5. 1. house of this tabernacle shall be dissolved we may have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens and be found meet to be Col. 1. 12. partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in Light Look in mercy upon all the Sons of Men
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
coming into this world and as little laid to heart whaâ— will become of us when wâ— shall go hence and be no morâ— and as though we were to dyâ— as the Beasts dye we have livâ—… too much as the Beasts live In our selves O Lord wâ— have no hope but in the muâ—titude of thy tender mercies wâ— cannot despair and thougâ— we have deserved wrath and vengeance and have nothing of our own to plead why we should escape it we are greatly encouraged to sue to thine offended Majesty for pardon and forgiveness by that Proclamation which thou hast made Exod. 34. 6 7. of thy glorious Name the Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands and forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin and because thou hast said thou wilt not clear the guilty take away our guilt by a sincere hearty repentance and a true and lively faith in the merits and righteousness of thy Son Let all our sins be more bitter and burthensom in the review of them than they have ever been pleasant and delightful in the commission of them and grant gracious Lord that â—e may be so sorrowful for 〈◊〉 sins as to loath them so 〈◊〉 them as to take up firm Resolutions against them and so resolve as that by the powerful assistance of thy holy Spirit we may never renew the practice of them and having done iniquity Job 34. 32. we may do so and offend no more Wash and cleanse our sinful Souls from their guilt and filthiness in that fountain of thy dear Sons most precious blood Zech. 13. 1. which thou hast set open for sin and uncleanness and by the grace of thy holy Spirit subduing and mortifying our sins in us convince and satisfie us that thou hast pardoned them create in us clean hearts O God Psal 51. 10. and renew right spirits within us And as we call thy Son Jesus Christ our Saviour and hope to be for ever happy in the light and injoyment of him in Heaven let us make him our example and purifie our selves even as he is pure 1 Joh. 3. 3. Make us as he was holy and humble meek and merciful patient and charitable heavenly minded and self-denying let 's be zealous for thy glory contented with our present condition satisfied with all the wise allotments of thy providence and make it our meat and drink to do the will of our heavenly Father and in all things wherein he was a most lively and admirable pattern for our imitation seeing we profess our selves Christians and say we abide 1 Joh. 2. 6. in him let us walk as he also walked Settle and root in our hearts a stronger and more firm belief of thy holy Gospel and so fix our thoughts and affections upon that unseen happiness that our Saviour in our name and place is possessed of that nothing here below may either allure or affright us from our duty or make us remiss cold and negligent in it but we may be zealous of good works and with fervency of spirit alway serve that gracious Lord from whom we expect the reward of a glorious and immortal inheritance Fill every one of our hearts with a quick and a constant sense an humble and awful dread an ardent and intire love of thee together with an active and vigorous delight in thee and a vigilant and circumspect care universally and in the whole course of our lives to please and approve our selves to thee Let us never adventure to commit any sin as a little one because it will offend and dishonour thee the great and infinite Majesty of Heaven and deserve the eternal punishment and misery of an immortal Soul Keep us by thy grace from every evil way and those sins especially to the which we may be most inclined and easily prevailed upon by custom or example the naughtiness and general corruption of the age we live in our Callings our company or our constitution so that laying aside every weight Heb. 12. 2. and the sins that easily beset us and running with patience and perseverance the race that thou hast set before us we may at length obtain that prize of our High Calling which thou hast prepared and promised in Christ Jesus our Lord. And in his Name we humbly recommend to thy compassion and goodness all the Sons of Men that dwell upon the Face of the Earth beseeching thee that thou wouldst make known thy Will to them and help them to practise according to what they know and whatever affliction or calamity may lye upon them in mind body or estate let them by thy mercy and clemency be supported under them and in thy due time be delivered from them Shew favourable regards of care and kindness towards thy Church engrave her upon the Palms of thine Hands and let Isa 49. 16. her Walls be continually before thee Appoint Salvation for the Walls and Bulwarks of the Nation wherein we live pardon our many crying sins avert thy deserved feared Judgments heal our back-slidings and heal our breaches continue thy Gospel and grant that we may walk worthy of that inestimable favour Bless our dread Sovereign with the blessings of thy right and left hand let his Government be happy and peaceable long and prosperous and a publick blessing to all that are under it and grant that all subordinate Governours in Church in State may faithfully use their power to the discouragement of Vice and ungodliness and the promoting and supporting peace and good order truth righteousness and holiness and let all men by a serious repentance and a through reformation of their ways strive to save the Land from those confusions and miseries into which they have plunged it by their manifold offences Comfort all that mourn give them beauty for ashes and the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness and let all that groan under thy heavy hand triumph in thy salvation Be with us thy servants this day and let that good providence that hath this night preserved and refreshed us direct assist and bless us in all our ways and keep us from the dangers and mischiefs the sins and offences the snares and temptations that we might otherwise fall into Let us be in thy fear all the day long and so order our lives as if it were the last day we had to live in this world that as in the evening we shall be one day nearer our death we may be nearer eternal life and happiness grant us all these our requests most gracious Father and whatever else thou knowest to be needful for us for the sake of thy dear Son in whose Name and Words by his own direction we further implore thy merciful goodness 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
Life As thou hast multiplied thy Blessings we have multiplied our Inquities and transgressed those holy and good Laws which thou hast given us as the rule of our carriage towards thee our selves and others and wherein thou hast commanded us nothing but what tends to the perfection of our nature and the promoting of our happiness We have little regarded thy design in sending us into this World which was that we should serve and please obey and honour thee our great Creator and gracious Benefactor and as little laid to heart the strict account that we must shortly render of all our ways and works before thy exact and impartial Tribunal when we shall go hence and be here no more We have turn'd a deaf ear to thy counsels quencht the motions of thy Spirit misimproved thy mercies to make them the materials of pride and a wanton sensuality rejected the tenders of thy Grace and hardned our hearts under the correction of thy Rod And if thou Lord shouldst mark our Iniquities who of us Psal 130. 3. O Lord could stand How justly mightst thou deprive us of all the blessings that we have forfeited And make us feel the smart and severity of that vengeance that thou hast threatned Thou mightst inflict pains and diseases in our Bodies and pursue us with terrours and the fearful foretasts of wrath in our consciences thou mightst remove thy Gospel which we have abused and withdraw thy Spirit whom we have grieved thou mightst give us up to the lusts of our 〈◊〉 81. 12. own hearts that we should walk in our own counsels till we had filled up the measure of our Sins and ripened our selves to be cut down for everlasting punishment But with thee there is mercy Psal 130. 4. and forgiveness that thou mayst be feared and we may be pardoned work in us we beseech thee that deep contrition and through repentance which wherâ—ever it is wrought is followed by forgiveness and through faith in the blood of thy dear Son who hath made peace by the blood of his Cross let us be justified and reconciled and rejoyce in thee having Rom. 5. 11. received the Atonement Sanctifie us in Soul Spirit and Body to thy Service enlighten our minds with the knowledge of thy Will incline our wills to the obedience of it purifie our affections to a love and delight in it purge our consciences from dead Heb. 9. 14. works to serve thee the living God and as we have yielded our Members Servants of unrighteousness unto Iniquity let us yield them the Servants of Rom. 6. 19. Righteousness unto Holiness And because we are in this World beset with many Snares and Temptations let us be sober 1 Pet. 5. 8. and vigilant and walk circumspectly Eph. 5. 15. not as Fools but as Wise shunning all appearance of evil and avoiding whatever may be an occasion to the Flesh suffer us not at any time so to be led into temptation as that the sollicitations of Satan the Allurements of this vain World or the suggestions of our own carnal and treacherous hearts should draw us into those sinful ways that are displeasing to thee and destructive to our Souls but being alway sensible of how great importance and necessity it is to work out our Phil. 2. 12. Salvation with fear and trembling how short a time is allotted to us How many and powerful Enemies are combined to hinder us How glorious the Reward is that is promised And how dreadful and insupportable the punishment that is threatned Let us make hast to escape the wrath to come and with all our might endeavour to lay hold of eternal Life pressing toward the mark for Phil. 3. 14. the prize of the high Calling of God in Christ Jesus 1 Pet. 1. 17. And seeing we call on the Father who without respect of persons judges according to every mans work let us pass the time of our sojourning here in fear and never allow our selves the commissions of any known Sin nor the omission or neglect of any known Duty Enable us by thy holy Spirit to subdue and govern our unruly passions to resist and crush the first motions of Sin in our earthly members faithfully to trade the several Talents thou putst into our hands regularly to fill up all the relations wherein thou hast placed us patiently to bear all our burdens cheerfully to injoy all our blessings and thankfully to return them to thee in thy service and praise and so wisely to improve all thy providences both of bounty and severity that in our lowest adversity we be not dejected with anxiety and unbelief and in our highest prosperity our hearts be not lifted up with pride to forget thee the Lord our God but in all things the glory of thy great Name may be advanced and the spiritual profit of our Souls and their growth in grace may be promoted and furthered Cherish and increase in us all sincere though feeble motions towards a more perfect and uniform obedience to thy Will and having begun a good work in any of us complete and finish Phil. 1. 6. it until the day of Jesus Christ help us to love thee more entirely to serve thee more diligently to trust in thee more fully to live to thee more exactly to please thee more abundantly than we have hitherto done that in a dying hour our Sins and Follies may not strike us with horror and perplexity but our Souls may be filled with sweet and comfortable reflections upon those ways that have been pleasing to thee that our God our Consciences may smile upon us and speak kindly to us when all the things of this World are forsaking us and we are passing into an eternal state Use us O Lord whilest we live as Instruments of thy Glory in all holiness and as Vessels of Glory fill us when we dye with everlasting happiness Let all the Sons of Men whom thou hast made capable of thy grace and favour be made partakers of it Relieve them that are any way distressed and enlighten them with the knowledge of thy Gospel that sit in darkness Beautifie Mount Sion the joy of the whole Earth with thy Salvation deliver thy Church from ignorance and error pride and hypocrisie strife and contention schism prophaneness tyranny superstition and idolatry and let there be none to offend or oppress in thy Holy Mountain Be gracious and merciful to this sinful and divided Nation though our Sins be as scarlet let them be white as Snow though Isai 1. 18. they be red like crimson let them be as Wool Establish thy Religion in the truth and purity of it and let it be made beautiful by the religious lives and practices of them that profess it Let the King joy in thy Psal 21. 1. strength O Lord and exceedingly rejoyce in thy Salvation bless him with length of days and safety from dangers direct him by wise Counsels to just honourable and