and that godly sorrow for them which worketh Repentance not to be repented of Give us therefore to repent and turn to God and do Works meet for repentance and by repentance fit us for remission and pardon of sin Lord help our Unbelief and enable us by Faith to receive Christ as Prophet Priest and King Make us willing to be taught by him and to obey him in all things Enable us by Faith to embrace the Promises and obey the Precepts of the Gospel Bless us O Lord with all spiritual Blessings in Christ Bless us in forgiving our Iniquities and bless us in turning every one of us from our Iniquities Wash us in the Blood of Jesus Christ that Lamb of God which taketh away the Sins of the World and purge our Consciences from dead Works to serve thee the living God V. AND let thy Holy Spirit sanctifie us wholly and throughout in Spirit Soul and Body Let our Minds and Hearts be renewed more and more that being transformed by the renewing of our Minds we may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect Will of God that we may be enabled to know it as we ought to know and delight to do thy Will O our God And let thy Law be within our Hearts Give us so to know Christ and his Life that he may be formed in our Hearts and that he may live in us that the same Mind may be in us which was in Christ and that we may be in the World as he was in the World Give us so to know Christ and his Death and Sufferings that we may be made conformable to his Death that we may feel the Virtue and Power of the Cross of Christ within us in being crucified to the World and having the World crucified unto us in crucifying the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts thereof that the Body of Sin may be destroy'd and that henceforth we may not serve Sin nor obey it in the Lusts thereof Give us so to know Christ and the Power of his Resurrection that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the Glory of the Father so we also may walk in newness of life and may mind and seek those things that are above where Christ sitteth at the right-hand of God Let the Love of Christ constrain us his Love in dying for us and let us not live unto our selves but unto him which died for us and rose again Enable us to walk worthy of the Gospel and the Grace of God and as we are taught thereby to deny all Ungodliness and worldly Lusts and to live soberly righteously and godlily in this present World Help us O Lord to consider our selves to be but Strangers and Pilgrims here on Earth and to behave our selves as those that seek and desire a better Country that is an Heavenly Let our Affections and Conversations be in Heaven and make us meet for the Inheritance of the Saints in light Give us O Lord to consider our latter end and to prepare for it and to work out our own Salvation with fear and trembling So teach us to number our Days that we may apply our Hearts unto Wisdom VI. KEEP and deliver us O Lord from the Lusts of the Flesh the Lusts of the Eye and the Pride of Life that no Temptation of worldly Pleasure Profit or Honour may prevail over us And enable us by thy Grace to live a Life of Purity and Chastity a Life of Temperance and Sobriety a Life of Humility and Self-denial help us to deny our selves and to take up our Cross and follow Christ Keep and deliver us O Lord from all worldly Cares and Fears from all discontent with our own estate from all distrust of Providence And help us to sanctify thee in our Hearts to make thee our fear and our dread help us to cast our Care and Burden upon thee to commit our selves unto thee in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator Prepare us for all disposals of thy Providence and make all Things work together for good unto us Keep and deliver us from the temptations either of Prosperity or Adversity that in fulness and prosperity our Hearts may not be lifted up and forget the Lord our God that in Adversity and time of Trial we may not forsake thee nor murmur and repine against thee But enable us to possess our Souls in Patience and to endure unto the end Make us to know both how to be abased and how to abound to do all Things or to suffer all Things through Christ strengthening us Deliver us from all coveting envying and grieving at the Good of others or from rejoicing at their Evils and Sufferings And enable us to be content with our own Estate and Condition and to love our Neighbour as our selves and to do to others as we would they should do to us Deliver us from all bitterness wrath and anger from all hatred and malice and desire of revenge And give us to put on Bowels of mercies kindness humbleness of Mind meekness long-suffering not rendring evil for evil unto any but over-coming evil with good Keep and deliver us O Lord from the wrath and craft of Satan and his wicked Instruments Make us sober and watchful against temptations Make us strong in the Power of thy might that we putting on the whole Armour of God may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil Thy Grace is sufficient for us give us the victory over Satan the World and the Flesh and all those Lusts that would war against our Souls Deliver us from all Blindness of Mind and from all Hardness of Heart And give us a right Understanding in all things Enlighten thou the Eyes of our Mind and give us an Heart of Flesh Put thy Laws into our Hearts and write them in our Minds and put thy Fear into our Hearts that we may not depart from thee VII AND now O Lord who hast brought us to see the Light of another Day lift thou up the light of thy Countenance upon us and watch over us for good keep and preserve us this Day from all Evil from all Sin and Danger Thou hast been our Helper leave us not nor forsake us O God of our Salvation Preserve our going out and our coming in from this time forth and for evermore Direct our Thoughts our Words and Ways that we may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing Give us Grace to walk circumspectly redeeming the time because the Days are evil Enable us to keep our selves unspotted from the World and herein to exercise our selves to have always a Conscience void of offence
FORMS OF PRAYER FOR A FAMILY COMPOSED By the Late Pious and Learned John Worthington D. D. PUBLISHED By the Right Reverend Father in God Edward Lord Bishop of Gloucester LONDON Printed for Luke Meredith at the Star in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1693. TO THE READER THE following Prayers for a Family being hereafter to accompany the Scripture-Catechism which I published soon after the Author's Decease It was thereupon desired by some Friends that I would recommend these additional Prayers to you And I could not but comply with their Request though the Author's Name is sufficient to bespeak their Acceptance I gave a brief Character of that Excellent Person in a Preface to the Catechism And the little that is there said which I need not tell those that knew him he highly deserved and a great deal more is abundantly enough to invite all good People to the perusing of any of his Writings And as to these Prayers Whoever reads them must needs judge them well fitted for the Vse of Families The more so for their being for Substance penned in the Words and Sentences of the divinely-inspir'd Writers which are the aptest of any to excite Devotion and in this Respect they have the Advantage of all the Prayers that I have seen This and other Instances of their Excellency and Usefulness I might here insist upon but I think it wholly needless they being easily to be discerned by a serious Reader I will add a few Words concerning the daily worshipping of God in our Families which I cannot forbear having this Opportunity This is a Duty very shamefully neglected in this loose Age. And no wonder it is so by such as are irreligious and can be content to live in gross Ignorance and the disacknowledgment of him in whom they live move and have their Being But that so many of those who are well instructed in Religon and keep themselves from the more scandalous Pollutions of the World and make Conscience of attending on the Publick Worship of God and of Secret Prayer should be able to satisfy themselves constantly to Neglect Family-Worship is very unaccountable Especially since not only pious People in all Ages have so commended it by their Practice but also that nothing seems more clearly discoverable by Natural Light than that it is the paying of a most Reasonable Service and nothing doth more plainly tend to the begetting keeping up and encreasing a sense of Religion in Families than this doth In a Word since the Divine Providence watcheth over Families as such what serious Christian can doubt whether the Governours of them are strictly obliged to call them every Day together thankfully to acknowledge the daily care God takes of them and the great Obligations he continually heaps upon them to make a penitent Confession of their daily Offences against him and to deprecate the Punishment deserved by them and to put up humble Petitions to the Throne of Grace for the Continuance of those Spiritual and Temporal Blessings they enjoy and a Supply of those they want And that we may be more generally awakened to a Sense of this great Duty as also that the following and all other good Helps for the better Performance thereof which pious Persons have given those who stand in need of them may have the Divine Blessing accompanying them is the Hearty Prayer of Your Faithful Servant Edw. Gloucestr Morning-Prayer FOR A FAMILY I. EVER-Blessed Lord God the God that hearest Prayers and therefore should all Flesh come unto thee Thou who hast promised that where two or three are met together in thy Name there thou wilt be in the midst of them We thy poor and unworthy Servants who are less than the least of all thy Mercies desire in all Humility to offer up unto thee this our Morning-Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving we acknowledge O Lord that it is of thy Mercies that we are not consumed because thy Compassions fail not they are new every Morning Thou hast not dealt with us after our Sins nor rewarded us according to our Iniquities But thou hast spared us according to the greatness of thy Mercy and kept us unto this present Moment In thee we live and move and have our Being with all the comforts thereof Thou O Lord hast preserved us from the dangers of the Night past whereas we might have slept the Sleep of Death and thou hast raised us up to the Light of another Day to walk before thee in the Land of the Living What have we O Lord which we have not receiv'd of thee The Mercies of this Life the means of Grace and the Helps and Advantages for that better Life which is to come they are all from thee And by these Mercies we should have been perswaded to offer up our selves a Living Sacrifice holy and acceptable unto thee O God which is our reasonable Service II. BUT we confess O Lord that we have not rendered unto thee according to what we have received from thee We have been unthankful and have not glorified thee as God We confess O Lord we have sinned against thy Law written in our Hearts and against the Light shining in our Consciences We have sinned against thy righteous Law declared in thy Holy Word whereas thy Word should have been a Lamp unto our Feet and a Light unto our Paths We have sinned against the Light of the glorious Gospel of Christ against the Precepts and Promises of the Gospel nor have we walked agreeably to that excellent Pattern of Holiness shining out therein even the Life of Christ who left us an Example that we should follow his Steps We have sinned O Lord against thy Mercies and against thy Judgments and Corrections against the Motions of thy Holy Spirit against Purposes and Promises of better Service and Obedience Father we have sinned against Heaven and in thy Sight and have made our selves unworthy to be called thy Children And therefore to us belongeth nothing but shame and confusion of Face and the Wrath to come III. BUT there is forgiveness with thee O Lord To the Lord our God belong Mercies and Forgivenesses though we have rebelled against him Thou hast declared thy self in thy Word to be the Lord the Lord God merciful gracious and long-suffering forgiving Iniquity Transgression and Sin not willing that any should perish but that all should come to Repentance Thou willest not the Death of Sinners but hadst rather they should turn from their evil Ways and live Thou didst so love the World that thou gavest thine onely-begotten Son Jesus Christ that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life Thou didst send thy Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins that we might live through him IV. GOOD Lord give us such a sight and sense of our Sins as may beget in us an holy hatred of them
toward God and toward Men Bless us in our Callings in all lawful Endeavours and Employments Bless all that belong to us Bless all that are nearly related to us let them be near unto thee and find favour in thy sight Be thou their Refuge and Strength a very present help in trouble Let them obtain Mercy and find Grace to help in time of need VIII NEITHER are we mindful of our selves alone but we beseech thee that thou would'st manifest thy Goodness and thy Power throughout the World Have mercy upon the Jews and all other Infidels Bring in both Jews and Gentiles that there may be one fold as there is one Shepherd the Lord Jesus Christ that good Shepherd who laid down his life for the Sheep Give grace unto all those Nations that name the Name of Christ to depart from all Iniquity and so to live as becomes the Gospel of Christ Purge and purify all Christian Churches from all corruption of Doctrine and Life and let the Doctrine and Truth which is according to Godliness prevail more and more in the World against the spirit of Error and all false Doctrine whatsoever Bless the Protestant reformed Churches with Peace among themselves Sanctify them through thy Truth make them sound and stedfast in the Faith Defend and deliver them from the Oppressions of their Enemies Save thy People and bless thine Inheritance govern them and lift them up for ever IX IN mercy O Lord look down upon these Realms and Dominions Cause us to repent and to turn our selves from all our Transgressions so Iniquity shall not be our ruin Take away all our Iniquity and receive us graciously Give us in this our Day to know the things that belong unto our Peace Look down in mercy upon all from the highest to the lowest Establish the King's Throne in Righteousness Bless him in his Relations in his Council Let the Judges judge the People with just Judgment Let Magistrates rule in the fear of God Cloath thy Ministers with Righteousness make them burning and shining Lights thou who art the Lord of the Harvest send forth faithful Labourers into thy Harvest X. IN mercy look down upon all ranks and estates of Men. Visit the sick strengthen the weak pity the afflicted and remember them in their low estate Succour the tempted heal the broken in spirit and let those that sow in tears reap in joy Instruct the ignorant and enlighten those that are in darkness Convince and humble those that are presumptuous and secure and give them repentance unto Life Confirm and comfort the converted and establish them in every good Word and Work that they may be blameless and harmless the Sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse Generation that they may be steadfast unmoveable always abounding in the Work of the Lord as knowing that their Labour is not in vain in the Lord XI THESE Mercies and whatever else thou knowest to be needful for us or for others we humbly beg of thee for the sake of thy dear Son and our Saviour Jesus Christ in whose Name and Words we further call upon thee XII 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 For thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory for ever Amen Evening-Prayer FOR A FAMILY I. MOST Holy and Glorious Lord God Infinite in Goodness and Wisdom and Power the Father of Mercies and the God of all Comfort We thy unworthy Creatures desire in all humility to offer up unto thee this our Evening Sacrifice of Praise for the Mercies of thy Providence over us this Day Blessed be the Lord who daily loadeth us with his Benefits even the God of our Salvation Thou art Good and doest Good Thou art unwearied in doing us Good O let us never be weary in well-doing While we live let us praise thee and sing Praises unto our God while we have any being Let us praise and glorify thee in ordering our Conversation aright in devoting our selves to thy Fear and consecrating our lives to thy Service Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honour and Power for thou hast created all things and through thy Pleasure they are and they were created Thou art worthy to be loved by us with all our Heart with all our Mind and with all our Strength II. BUT we confess O Lord we have not given thee the Glory due unto thy Name We have been Lovers of our own selves and Lovers of Pleasures more than Lovers of God We have loved this present World and the things that are in the World How have we wandered from thy Commandments and walked contrary unto thee in walking in the ways of our Heart and in the sight of our Eyes And therefore thou might'st walk contrary unto us and make us feel that it is an evil and a bitter thing to have forsaken thee the Lord our God If thou O Lord shouldst mark our iniquities we could not stand in thy sight III. BUT with the Lord there is Mercy and with him there is plenteous redemption Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath visited and redeemed his People Who sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the Law from the curse thereof that we might receive the adoption of Sons And Blessing and Honour and Glory be unto Jesus Christ the Lamb of God who was slain that he might redeem us unto God by his Blood IV. WE beseech thee O Lord that thou wouldst fit us and prepare us more and more for that eternal Redemption and the Benefits thereof which Christ hath obtained for us Create in us clean Hearts O God and renew right Spirits within us Give us that broken Spirit which thou wilt not despise that contrite and humble Spirit which thou delightest to revive Give us that repentance toward God and Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ as may fit us for pardon and peace for Mercy and Grace that in Christ we may have redemption through his Blood even the forgiveness of Sins according to the riches of thy Grace And give us Grace to live as the Redeemed of the Lord and to walk worthy of Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all Iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar People zealous of good Works We are not our own but are bought with a price even with the