Lawgiver of thy Church and People their Protector and Saviour from all their Enemies thou art our Psal 44. 4. King O God command deliverances for Jacob. Be gracious and favourable to these Nations many and heinous are the sins whereby we have provoked thy Majesty great and heavy the Judgments that hang over us for those Sins pardon we most humbly beseech thee our Sins and avert those Judgments thou that sittest between the Cherubims shine forth before England Scotland and Ireland stir up thy Psal 80. 1 2. strength and come and save us And though we of this Nation have deserved to be overthrown with an utter destruction and for ever cast out of thy sight as a loathsome and abominable thing for thy goodness O Lord pardon and spare reform and amend compose and settle heal and establish us in the multitude of thy tender mercies Give us not up to the mischiefs and desolations that we have deserved and thine and our Enemies have designed nor suffer those that hate us proudly to insult and triumph over us Bless with all blessings of this life and the next thine anointed Servant our Sovereign Lord the King direct him in such ways as are pleasing to thee and protect him from all dangers that may at any time threaten him Let all subordinate Ministers Ecclesiastical and Civil be so assisted by thy Grace and holy Spirit that Religion and Godliness Peace and Order Love and Unity Truth and Righteousness may be established and encouraged 1 Pet. 2. 1. among us and let all sorts of men laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings keep the unity Eph. 4. 3. of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace Comfort the afflicted and distressed in Mind Body or Estate recompense the kindnesses of our Friends seven fold into their Bosoms forgive our Enemies and help us so to forgive them that we may comfortably hope for our own forgiveness Keep us O Lord from the evils and dangers that without thy protection might this night befal us refresh and strengthen our frail Bodies with a moderate quiet and peaceable rest and let the strength of this nights healthful repose be returned to thee in the next days faithful service that as every day we are nearer our death we may be nearer an immortal Crown of Life and Glory which thou hast prepared and promised to them that Love and Fear thee through Jesus Christ who by his Righteousness and Intercession hath given us the liberty and confidence to say OVr Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy Will be done in Earth As it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our Trespasses As we forgive them that Trespass against us And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from Evil For thine is the Kingdom and the Power And the Glory For ever and ever Amen Wednesday Morning HOly and heavenly Father thou art infinite in Power and Wisdom in Holiness Truth and Goodness abundant in Mercy to all that call upon thee in truth all thy Works in Heaven and Earth shew forth thy praise the glorious Angels and the glorified Spirits of just Men being themselves honoured in the honouring of thee everlastingly triumph in the celebration of thy divine incomprehensible perfections to praise and magnifie thy great and holy Name is both the duty and priviledge of the Sons of Men to whom thou hast given understandings in some measure to conceive thy glorious excellencies and tongues to declare them We thy poor and unworthy Servants humbly offer up to thy divine Majesty the tribute of our hearty praises and adorations of thine infinite Power and Justice Wisdom and Holiness Truth and Faithfulness and bless thee with our whole Souls for all those blessings for our Souls and Bodies our present and future happiness which are the effects of thy bounty and goodness We thank thee O Lord for our health and strength our liberty and peace the Bread we eat and the Raiment we put on that thou hast delivered us from Pains and Sicknesses and those grievous pressures and calamities wherewith others better than our selves are sorely afflicted that thou hast the last night preserved us from dangers and refreshed us with sleep and bestowest upon us all the supports and conveniencies of Life and above all that thou hast redeemed us from Hell and Damnation by the precious Blood of thy dear Son that by his Gospel thou hast brought to light life and immortality and encouraged our hopes of them by thy precious and faithful promises Lord what is Man that thou art so mindful of him What are Sinners that thou shewest such favour unto them Thy mercies conferr'd upon us are admirable as we are thy Creatures that can no way oblige our Almighty and Independent Creator and much more so as we are Sinners that have offended and provoked our most righteous Sovereign Lord and Lawgiver Ever since we came into the World we have been overspread with a contagious Leprosie and loathsom Disease and have added the iniquities of practise to our natural pollution and more defiled our selves by chusing our own crooked ways and fulfilling the imaginations of our naughty hearts We have many times given scandal to others by our open and observed miscarriages and cast a blemish and reproach upon that holy Religion whereof we have made profession so as to have made it worse thought on by its Enemies and with great folly we have sometimes adventur'd to commit those Sins in our private retirements which we would have been ashamed that men should have taken notice of though we have well known that the Psal 139. 12 light and darkness are both alike to thee and that no secresie can hide from thine all-seeing Eye We have been too careless of avoiding temptations to Sin and have run into those snares that by taking heed to our feet we might have avoided we have neglected the means of mortifying our Lusts watchfulness Prayer and Fasting which through thy blessing might have been effectual to that blessed purpose and instead of strongly and resolutely opposing we have cowardly and treacherously complied with furnished and animated thine and our Enemies making provision for Rom. 13. 14. our Flesh to fulfil the Lusts thereof and though we have been well assured that our lives and all our present earthly injoyments that support and sweeten them are but of a short and momentany continuance we have laboured been sollicitous Joh. 6. 27. for the meat that perishes and neglected that which endures to everlasting Life How often have we deafned our Ear to the calls of thy Gospel And made light of both the invitations of thy gracious promises and the terrors of thy dreadful threatnings How often have we hardned our hearts against the motions of thy holy Spirit How often to satisfie our lustful appetites have we broken through the convictions of
successful Enterprizes let all subordinate Authority be exercised to the beating down of Vice and the exaltation of Religion and Righteousness and dispose all that are under Authority to a pious obedience unto thee a peaceable subjection to them that thou hast set over them not only for wrath but for conscience Rom. 13. 5. sake and to mutual kindness and a brotherly love of one another We come unto thee holy Father for a blessing upon our selves beseeching thee to take our Bodies and Souls our Habitation and Possessions into the safe custody of thy watchful Providence that no evil befal Psal 91. 10. us nor any plague come nigh our dwelling repair the decays of our frail Bodies by a quiet and refreshing rest and let us lay out our strength and vigour in thy service to thy praise and honour and the giving up our account with joy at the appearing of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in whom as the High Priest of our Profession we offer up all our Prayers and Praises and through whom alone we hope to be heard and accepted when praying we say OVr Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy Will be done in Earth As it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our Trespasses As we forgive them that Trespass against us And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from Evil For thine is the Kingdom and the Power And the Glory For ever and ever Amen Friday Morning O Lord the great and holy Dan. 9. 4. God that keepest Covenant and Mercy to them that Psal 145. 18. love thee and art nigh to all that call upon thee in truth and sincerity though thou hast thousands of holy and blessed Spirits and ten thousand times ten thousands dayly Ministring about thy Throne and art not at all better'd by their pure and spotless Services yet thou hast gracious and compassionate regards to the Prayers of weak and sinful Creatures that dwell in Houses of Clay thou openest thine Eyes to take knowledge of their condition bowest thine Ear to hearken to their Cryes movest thy Bowels to pity their infirmities and stretchest forth thine hand to relieve their wants We poor Creatures and guilty Sinners are here fallen down at thy Footstool adoring thine infinite perfections of holiness and wisdom power truth and goodness and beseeching thee mercifully to look upon our follies and frailties to supply our bodily and spiritual necessities to lift up the light of thy countenance upon us and turn away thy Face from our deserts of vengeance to answer 〈◊〉 which purposes we have none in Heaven Psal 73. 25. but thee none in Earth that our Souls can desire in comparison of thee We dare not we confess look up to Heaven with any confidence of being accepted for our own worthiness as being conscious that we have grievously offended that holy just and Almighty Majesty that is there seated on the Throne of his Glory nor are we worthy to tread upon the Earth or injoy the fruits and benefits of it where we have acted our wickednesses in the sight of Heaven We were not only conceived in Sin and brought forth in Iniquity but we have conceived Sin and brought forth Iniquity Num. 32. 14 and are risen up in our Fathers stead a generation of sinful men to kindle and in crease the anger of the Lord against us We have followed after our own imaginations and fulfilled the motions of our own Wills which have been opposite and contrary to the declarations of thine though there hath been the greatest reason we should receive Law from thy Mouth as our Almighty Creator Sovereign Lord and merciful Redeemer How barren and unfruitful have we been in thy Vineyard though thou hast caused the Clouds to drop down their moisture upon us and watered us with the plentiful showers of thy Word and the fructifying dew of thy holy Spirit that should have made us fruitful in all good works How have we neglected the Seasons of Grace And when thou hast called us to a speedy and present repentance the answer of our hearts hath been we will repent to morrow as if we could live as long as we listed and had power in our selves to turn to thee when we listed We bewail before thee the blindness of our understandings the stubbornness of our wills the vanity of our thoughts the earthliness of our affections we have hated what thou lovest and loved what thou hatest and the good things which thou hast allowed us to love moderately and in subordination to thee we have followed with eager and unbounded appetites and embraced with our highest and best love we have not carryed our selves as it becomes those that are Strangers and Pilgrims upon the Earth and profess to seek a better heavenly Countrey but lived as if we were at home and expected nothing better than what is to be here injoyed as if the happiness of this Life would never end and that of the next would never begin O Lord be merciful to us and in the multitude of thy tender mercies be reconciled to us through thy Son and blot out all our Iniquities give us heartily to repent of all our forepast Sins and Follies and so to receive Christ Jesus the Lord as Col. 2. 6. to walk in him And whatever thou denyest us grant us a full pardon through our dear and all-sufficient Redeemer whom thou hast set forth to be a Propitiation Rom. 3. 25. through Faith in his Blood And let the time past of our 1 Pet. 4. 3. Lives suffice to have wrought the wills of the flesh judging that Christ dyed for us that we 2 Cor. 5. 15. should not henceforth live unto our selves but unto him which dyed for us and rose again Col. 1. 10. help us to walk worthy of thee unto all pleasing being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God give us we pray thee a Psal 111. 10 good understanding not only to know but to do thy Commandments and by growing 2 Pet. 3. 18. in Grace let us increase the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Phil. 4. 8. Whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any virtue and if there be any praise let us think on and follow these things and never be slothful in the weighty matters of thine honour and the everlasting interest and happiness of our Souls but diligently follow those that have been followers of thee and have Heb. 6. 12. through faith and patience inherited the promises And because we are weak in our selves and insufficient to perform our duty to subdue our lusts to improve our blessings or bear our burdens to resist and conquer our spiritual enemies to stand our ground in the
heavens Let us hear thy holy Word that shall be read and preached to us as the Oracles of God and those Divine Messages which thou hast sent us from Heaven to guide us in the ways that lead thither Let us hearken to it with diligent attention imbrace it with holy and heavenly affections rejoycing in the Promises dreading the threatnings loving and practising the commands of it let us receive it with meekness and mix it with Jam. 1. 21. Faith that it may be an ingrafted Heb. 4. 2. word to the salvation of our Souls And as the Rain Isa 55. 10 11. cometh down the Snow from Heaven and returneth not thither but watereth the Earth and maketh it bring forth Fruit and bud that it may give seed to the Sower and bread to the eater So let not thy Word that goeth forth out of thy mouth return to thee void but accomplish that which thou pleasest and prosper in the thing whereto thou hast sent it Help us to pray in faith and fervency let all our petitions be addressed to the Throne of thy Grace in the prevailing name of thy dear Son and by the efficacy of thy holy Spirit the Spirit of Supplication And that the Prayers that we shall this day send up to Heaven may find a gracious acceptance with thee Let the holy Ghost make intercession Rom. 8. 26. in our hearts by exciting holy humble earnest and hearty desires and let our blessed Redeemer make intercession in Heaven and sweeten all the displeasing unsavoriness of our Flesh with the Perfume Rev. 8. 3. of his Incense Let us give thanks unto thee with our whole hearts and let all that is within us magnifie and praise thy Name as for all thy mercies to our Souls and Bodies for this Life and a better so especially for our Redemption by the precious death and Sufferings of thy Son and finishing that glorious work by the raising him from the Dead Raise up our Souls O Lord to the highest pitch of hearty thankfulness in the remembrance and sense of those inestimable benefits that redound to us and thy whole Church from this great and alsufficient Redeemer And help us so to sing praises to thee and to the Lamb that sits with thee upon thy Throne that by praising thee on Earth we may tune and prepare our hearts for those glorious and triumphant Praises that in Heaven will be the business and happiness of thy Saints to all Eternity Let us so carry our selves this whole day as remembring thou hast separated and sanctified it to thine own service and made Religion which is the great Work of every day the more proper and peculiar imployment of this Let us therefore make a difference betwixt the thoughts the words the practises of other days and this which thou hast set apart to different purposes and so sanctifie this day of holy Rest and make it our delight that we may be sanctified and fitted for that perpetual Rest that remains for thy People and satisfied with those Rivers of Psa 16. ult Pleasures that are at thy Right Hand for evermore Bless we beseech thee thy whole Church and that part of it especially which thou hast planted in these Kingdoms Pardon our many Sins and remove far away from us whatever may provoke thy displeasure unsettle our foundations or disturb our peace Let thy Servant our Sovereign Lord the King find favour in thine Eyes So bless Him in His Person in His Counsels and Enterprizes that upon his Head His Crown may long flourish and His Government be a publick Blessing to these Kingdoms Govern those that govern under Him in Church and State and let all His Subjects in their several Orders and Stations do what lies in them to the healing of our wide Breaches the restoring of Christian Love and Charity the establishment of Truth and Eph. 4. 3. Righteousness and keeping the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace Let all afflicted ones in what kind soever find thy gracious hand ready for their relief and succour and by the more immediate working of thy holy Spirit supply the want of thy publick ordinances to all that desire them and are by Imprisonment Banishment Sickness or any other hinderance deprived of them let us that by thy special favour are blessed with the rich and in estimable priviledge injoying them carefully improve them to a growth in Grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to an increase of Faith and all godliness till we come to the full and perfect happiness of an immediate injoying thee without them in thy heavenly and everlasting Kingdom by thy dear Son Jesus Christ our ever blessed Redeemer through whose Merit and Mediation and in whose Form of Words we are bold to call thee Father saying OVr Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy Will be done in Earth As it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our Trespasses As we forgive them that Trespass against us And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from Evil For thine is the Kingdom and the Power And the Glory For ever and ever Amen Lord's Day Evening EVer blessed and gracious Lord God and in Jesus Christ our loving and merciful Father and most liberal and open-handed Benefactor from whose favour and kindness we have all the good things that we receive in this Life and the hopes of a better to make us everlastingly happy in the next We thy poor Servants acknowledging our manifold unworthiness of the least of thy mercies and the guilt of those sins whereby we have made frequent forfeitures of them are here before thee to offer up to thee our Evening Sacrifice of hearty praise and thansgivings for all those blessings that with a most free and unwearied bounty thou hast been pleased to confer upon us and continue to us Thy hand hath formed us in the Womb given us Life and Breath and Being and having brought us into the World bestowed on us many conveniencies of Life that have made our Being in the World easie and delightful to us Thine O Lord is our health and strength our ease and liberty thine the Air we breath in and the Earth we tread upon thine our Food and our Raiment the Sun that shines to give us Light and the Rain that falls to give us plenty thine the use of our Limbs and thine the exercise of our Understanding and Reason And we bless thy Name for all those outward and temporal blessings the multitude whereof such is thy goodness makes us unable to recount them and whose dayly repetition that should heighten our esteem of them and thankfulness for them makes us such is our folly and weakness too apt to undervalue them But above all we adore and with our highest and heartiest praises desire to magnifie thy rich and free Grace for spiritual blessings in heavenly
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
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
wherein we must give an account of our Stewardship and Luk. 16. 2. be no longer Stewards We acknowledge O Lord that we are guilty Sinners unable to help our selves and unworthy that thou shouldst help us our own consciences condemn us and thou mightest 1 John 3. 20 much more condemn us for thou knowest more by us than we do by our selves and art greater than our consciences But O God be merciful to us and spare us in the multitude of thy tender compassions Thou that hast promised pardon and forgiveness to all repenting Sinners work in us we beseech thee a serious and unfeigned repentance and let us thereby obtain remission of Sins And by a true and lively faith in our Lord Rom. 3. 24 25. Jesus Christ whom thou hast set sorth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood justifie us freely by thy Grace and let not any of our sins be charged upon us to our condemnation But let us by his Merits and Righteousness be so delivered from the guilt of them that we may serve thee in righteousness Luk. 1. 75. and holiness before thee all the days of our life And grant that as Christ dyed for us that were dead in sin and under a sentence of death for it we may not henceforth live unto our selves but unto him which 2 Cor. 5. 15. dyed for us and rose again Guide our Feet into those ways of righteousness and peace temperance and sobriety mercy meekness and charity that are well-pleasing to thee and guard us against the temptations of the World the Devil and our own naughty Hearts that we never depart from them Let a continued sense of thine Omnipresence and all-seeing Eye make us upright and sincere in the discharge of every duty careful and vigilant for the avoiding of every sin firm and constant in the resisting every temptation let us so set thee alway before us that thou being at our right hand Psal 16. 8. we may not be moved Heb. 13. 9. Keep us stedfast in thy truth and when many are carryed about with divers and strange Col. 2. 7. doctrines let us be more and more rooted and stablished in the faith by bringing forth the fruits of righteousness And 2 Pet. 1. 5 6 7. add to our faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness charity v. 8. that these things being in us we may not be barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ but an entrance may be ministred v. 11. unto us abundantly into his everlasting Kingdom Let the whole race of mankind find favour in thine eyes and let the glorious light of the Luk. 1. 79. Gospel of Salvation shine upon them that sit in darkness and the regions of the shadow of death Let the people praise Psal 67. 3. thee O God let all the people praise thee call home the Jews thine ancient people accomplish the promised fulness of the Gentiles that the whole Church may be in Christ as one Sheepfold under one Shepherd O be gracious and favourable unto Sion and build up the decayed and ruinous Walls of thy Jerusalem Free thy Church from all Heresie Prophaness Schism Superstition and Idolatry and whatever is displeasing in thy sight and a blemish of the blessed Gospel of God her Saviour Keep the Vineyard which thy right hand hath planted from all its enemies that would pull up the Hedges thereof and lay it waste water Isa 27. 3. it every moment lest any hurt it keep it night and day Bless these Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland forgive those many and crying Sins that might make us desolate without Inhabitants and let every one of us that have added to the great weight of wickedness and made it heavy enough to sink us into utter ruine turn from the evil of our ways and by an hearty repentance and real reformation stand in the gap and stop those Judgments that are gone forth against us and entering in at our wide breaches to destroy us Amend us by thy just severities and merciful salvations and let both thy punishments and preservations of us lead us into the ways of righteousness Bless with thy richest blessings our Sovereign Lord the King preserve him as thou hast done wonderfully heretofore from the malice and subtlety the mischievous Plots and Combinations of his Enemies and let him so remember the deep distress out of which thou hast drawn him and the high authority wherein thou hast placed him that in all his actions designs he may promote thy honour and glory and all 1 Tim. 2. 2. that are under him may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty Let the Bishops and Pastors of thy Church further truth and holiness by their life and Doctrine and civil Magistrates discountenance and suppress all wickedness and encourage virtue and goodness and not bear the Sword in vain And let all from the highest to the lowest so carry themselves as that thou mayest be glorified true Religion advanced the Gospel of Christ honoured and Truth and Peace may be established among us Let all that are Sick pained or impoverished distressed either in Body or Mind find thy gracious hand to sweeten and sanctifie their Afflictions and in thy good time to deliver from them Bless us O our God that are here before thee direct assist and prosper us in all that we this day set our hand unto and let us not undertake any business but what thou hast warranted by the rules of Righteousness and upon which we may desire and expect thy blessing Guide us by thy Counsel till Psal 73. 24. thou bring us to thy Glory by Christ Jesus our only Lord and Saviour who in compassion to our Infirmities hath taught us thus to pray OVr Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy Will be done in Earth As it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our Trespasses As we forgive them that Trespass against us And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from Evil For thine is the Kingdom and the Power And the Glory For ever and ever Amen Monday Evening BLessed and holy Lord God who madest all things by thy Power and rulest all things by thy Providence and fillest all places by thy presence art about our Bed and about Psal 139. 3. our Path and spyest out all our Ways we thy poor Creatures most heartily beseech thee that thou wouldest fill every one of our hearts with an awful sense of thee and an humble sincerity in our approaches to thee that laying aside all guile and hypocrisie we may draw near thee Heb. 10. 22. with a true heart and worship thee that desirest truth in the in Joh. 4. 24. ward
part in Spirit and in Truth We thankfully acknowledge our dependance upon thee and that our lives and all the comforts of our lives are the effects of thy bounty and goodness thy hands have both made and fashioned us in the Womb and brought us into the World and ever since we saw the Light thou hast all along opened thine hands and filled us with variety of good things though for our many and great sins thou mightest have left us naked and miserable and brought upon us all the punishments that the threatnings of thy holy and righteous Law have made justly due to the Transgressors of it and had thy ways been as the ways of a Man are or thy thoughts towards us like unto our thoughts we had long since been past the Thank-offering of Praise the benefit of Prayer and the hope of Pardon for our trangressions have been multiplied against thee and our Iniquities have gone over Psal 38. 4. our Heads as a burthen too heavy for us The corruption of our nature is opposite to thy holy Law that requires no less holy principles than holy practises and by the transgressions of our lives we have broken it in thought word and deed We confess O Lord with sorrow and shame our ignorance of thy will and in many things our acting contrary to the knowledge we have had of it our pride earthliness and hypocrisie our injustice uncharitableness and sensuality our inordinate self-love eagerness in the pursuit of worldly things and indifferency in matters of Religion our impenitency and unbelief the hardness of our hearts notwithstanding all the ways and methods thou hast taken to soften them our unthankfulness for all thy mercies our incorrigibleness under all thy chastisements our unfruitfulness under the means of Grace our unfaithfulness under all our vows and promises and resolutions of service and obedience We have sinned against a clear revelation of thy Will and against the greatest obligations to compliance with it against the expressions of a tender kindness in thy multiplyed mercies and the evidence of a righteous severity in thy justly deserved chastisements we have sinned against thine inviting promises and dreadful threatnings against the frequent warnings of thy Word the renewed motions and powerful convictions of thy Spirit and the precious blood of thy dear Son we have sinned against the light of our understandings against our promises and purposes of obedience against the checks of our own consciences we cannot recount the number of our sins they are so exceeding many nor set in order the aggravating circumstances whereby they are become exceeding sinful But O Lord have mercy upon Psal 51. 1. us according to thy loving kindness according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out our transgressions Help us to forsake our sinful Isa 55. 7. thoughts and crooked ways and by unfeigned repentance to return unto thee that thou mayest have mercy on us and abundantly pardon us Speak peace to us most merciful Father through the death and sufferings of thy dear Son who gave up himself in Sacrifice to expiate the guilt of our sins and by that precious ransom to buy off the punishment that was due to our transgressions O sprinkle our consciences with that blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things Heb. 12. 24. than the blood of Abel work in us a true and lively faith that we may be justified and have Rom. 5. 1. peace with thee through our Lord Jesus Christ For though we have no righteousness of our own that we dare plead to the strictness of thy Law and the severity of thy Justice thou hast treasured up an alsufficient righteousness in thy Son that believing in him we may be pardoned and through his stripes be healed And let thy pardoning mercy be accompanied with thy purifying grace that we may be both delivered from the guilt and punishment of our sins and cleansed from the filth and impurity of them And as our Lord Christ dyed unto sin to condemn it in the flesh let us dye unto sin to crucific it in ours that it may never reign in our mortal bodies that we Rom. 6. 10 11 12. should obey it in the lusts thereof Help us heavenly Father to put off the old man which is corrupt according to deceitful Eph. 4. 22 23 24. lusts and to put on that new man which is created after thine own image in righteousness and true holiness and as by the natural birth we have in sin and corruption born the image of the first Adam that was made a living Soul so let us by the spiritual birth in sanctification and holiness bear the image of the second Adam that was made a quickning Spirit Give us a new Ezek. 36. 26 27. heart and put within us a new Spirit take away the stony heart out of our flesh and give us an heart of flesh put thy Spirit within us and cause us to walk in thy Statutes that we may keep thy Judgments and do them Wean our hearts from an excessive and inordinate love of all the things of this World and let us never place our happiness in the pomps and pleasures the profits and honours or any transitory injoyments of this Life where we are told not only in thy Word but by our own experience it is not to be found but let us weep as though we wept not and 1 Cor. 7. 30 31. rejoyce as though we rejoyced not and buy as though we possessed not and use this World as not abusing it because the fashion of this World passeth a-away Let us never adventure upon sin with the foolish and deceitful hopes of getting any thing by it but let our minds be influenced with the great and certain truth of what our Saviour hath taught us that the gaining of the whole World can be 〈◊〉 16. 26. no recompence for the loss of our Souls Let the great and strict account that we must ere long make be often in our serious thoughts and the course of our Lives be thereby so ordered that we may think of it with a joyful expectation and never allow our selves to do to speak or think any thing that may make the thoughts of the day of Judgment a terrour to us Let us so obey the Laws of our great Lord and Saviour and follow the steps of his example that when Christ who is our life shall appear we may lift up our heads with joy and appear with Col. 3. 4. him in glory Show forth the favour and loving kindness of a Father to all the Children of Men and as thou hast made them capable of eternal life and happiness make known unto them the way of thy Salvation that leads unto it Let the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his Mal. 4. 2. Wings and dispel the darkness of Heathenish and Mahometan Superstition and Idolatry that the Kingdoms of the Earth may become the Kingdom of thy Son