us for our duty. And make us contented with our daily bread, and patient if we want it. And save us from the love of the riches, and honours, and pleasures of this world, and the pride, and idleness, and sensuality which they cherish. And cause us to serve thy providence by our diligent labours, and to serve thee faithfully with all that thou givest us. And let us not make provision for the flesh, to satisfy its desires and lusts.

And we beseech thee, of thy mercy, through the sacrifice and propitiation of thy beloved Son, forgive us all our sins, original and actual, from our birth to this hour; our omissions of duty, and committing of what thou didst forbid; our sins of heart, and word, and deed; our sinful thoughts and affections; our sinful passions and discontents; our secret and our open sins; our sins of negligence and ignorance, and rashness; but especially our sins against knowledge and conscience, which have made the deepest guilt and wounds. Spare us, O Lord, and let not our sin so find us out as to be our ruin; but let us so find it out as truly to repent and turn to thee. Especially, punish us not with the loss of thy grace! Take not thy Holy Spirit from us, and deny us not his assistance and holy operations. Seal to us by that Spirit the pardon of our sins, and lift up the light of thy countenance upon us, and give us the joy of thy favour and salvation: and let thy love and mercy to us fill us, not only with thankfulness to thee, but with love and mercy to our brethren, and our enemies, that we may heartily forgive them that do us wrong, as through thy grace we hope we do.

And, for the time to come, suffer us not to cast ourselves wilfully into temptations, but carefully to avoid them, and resolutely to resist and conquer what we cannot avoid : and oh, mortify those inward sins and lusts, which are our constant and most dangerous temptations; and let us not be tempted by Satan or the world, or tried by thy judgments, above the strength which thy grace shall give us. Save us from a fearless confidence in our own strength; and let us not dally with the snare, nor taste the bait, nor play with the fire of thy wrath, but cause us to fear and depart from evil, lest, before we are aware, we be entangled and overcome, and wounded with our guilt and with thy wrath, and our end should be worse than our beginning especially, save us from those radical sins of error, and unbelief, pride, hypocrisy, hardheartedness, sensuality, slothfulness, and the love of this present world, and the loss of our love to thee, to thy kingdom, and thy ways.

And save us from the malice of Satan and of wicked men, and from the evils which our sins would bring upon us.

And as we crave all this from thee, we humbly tender our praises with our future service to thee. Thou art the King of all the world, and more than the life of all the living. Thy kingdom is everlasting: wise, and just, and merciful is thy government. Blessed are they that are thy faithful subjects; but who hath hardened himself against thee, and hath prospered? The whole creation proclaimeth thy perfection; but it is heaven where the blessed see thy glory, and the glory of our Redeemer; where the angels and saints behold thee, admire thee, adore thee, love thee, and praise thee with triumphant, joyful songs, the Holy, Holy, Holy God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, who was, and is, and is to come; of thee, and through thee, and to thee, are all things: to thee be glory for ever. Amen.

IV. A Prayer for Morning or Evening in Families.

O GOD, the Infinite Eternal, Spirit, most perfect in power, wisdom, and goodnes; though mortal eyes cannot behold thee, nor any created understanding comprehend thee; thou art present with us, and seest all the secrets of our hearts; our sins and wants are known to thee: but thou requirest our confessions as the exercise of our repentance, and our petitions as the exercise of our desires and filial dependence upon thee. And O that our souls were more fit for thy holy presence, and for this great and holy work! O thou whose mercy inviteth miserable sinners to come unto thee by the new and living way, meet us not in thy justice as a consuming fire, but accept us in thy righteous and beloved Son, in whose mediation is our trust.

Thou, who art the great Creator of all things, didst make us in thine image, to know thee, to love thee, and to serve thee. But sin hath corrupted all our powers, and turned them from thee, and against those holy ends and uses for which thou didst create us. In sin we were conceived, and in sin we have lived, increasing our original guilt and misery. Though we know that thou art our Owner, we have lived as if we were at our own disposal. We have called thee our King and Ruler, but we have rebelled against thee, and obeyed our carnal wills and appetites. Thou art goodness and love itself, and the Author of all that is good and amiable in all the world, and our souls should have loved thee with fervency and delight; but our

hearts have been estranged from thee, and have sought delight in worldly vanities, and in the pleasing of our fleshly minds and lusts. This deceitful world hath had our love, our care, our thoughts, our words, our time, our labour, as if it had been our home and portion, and we had been to continue here for ever, whilst our God and our immortal souls have been neglected. Thou hast made us capable of endless glory, and called us to seek it, and to set our hearts above on thee; but we have lived as if we believed not thy word, and have despised the joys of heaven, which thou hast offered us, and preferred our short and sensual pleasures. We have trifled in thy worship, and served thee hypocritically with our lips alone. We have taken thy dreadful name in vain. We have misspent thy holy day, we have dishonoured our superiors, and neglected our inferiors. Our family, which should have been ordered in holiness, as a church of God, hath been a house of vanity, worldliness, and discontent. Our thoughts have been guilty, not only of vanity, folly, and confusion, but of malice, and of unclean and filthy lusts. Our tongues have been guilty, not only of idle and foolish talk, but also wrathful words and railings, of filthy and immodest speech, and of evil speaking and backbiting others, and of many a lie. We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves, nor done by all others as we would have had them done by us; but we have been all for our carnal selves, proudly desiring our own exaltation and commodity, and sensually desiring pleasure to ourselves, whilst we have too little cared for the corporal or spiritual good of others. We have been very backward to love our enemies, and heartily to forgive a wrong. We have been unprofitable abusers of thy talents, and have wasted our precious time in vanity, and done but little good in the world.

And though thy wonderful mercy hath given us a Redeemer, and in him a sufficient remedy for our sins; and thou hast posed the understandings of men and angels in this strange expression of thy wisdom and thy love; yet have we staggered at thy word in unbelief, and stupidly neglected this great salvation. How carelessly have we heard and read thy gospel! How little have we been affected with all the love and sufferings of our Saviour! We could have been thankful to one that had saved our lives, or enriched us in the world; but how unthankful have we been to him, who hath done so much to save our souls from endless misery? Alas, our hard unhumbled hearts do

make light of our sins and of thy just displeasure, and therefore make light of Christ and grace. And it is just with thee to deny us for ever the mercy which we set so light by.

But deal with us, O Lord, according to thy goodness, and according to our great necessity, and not according to our deserts. We have sinned as men, but be thou merciful as God. Where our sin aboundeth, oh, let thy grace abound much more. Thou gavest mankind a Saviour when we were thine enemies, and thou wast in Christ reconciling the world unto thyself: and it is thy great design to glorify thy wonderful love and mercy, by the advantage of our great unworthiness and misery, and to forgive much, that we may love thee much; and if, after all this, we should doubt of thy willingness to forgive believing, penitent souls, we should greatly wrong the riches of thy grace. Thou soughtest us, when we sought not after thee; and it is by thine own command that we seek thee, and beg thy mercy; and thou givest us the very desires which we pour out before thee: thou beseechest us to be reconciled, and to receive thy grace; and shall we question then whether thou art willing to give it. There is enough in the sacrifice and merits of thy Son to expiate our sins, and justify penitent believers in thy sight. Thou hast made him the infallible teacher of thy church: he is a King most fit to rule us, to defend and justify us: thy Spirit is the Sanctifier of souls; and thy love is sufficient to be our everlasting felicity and rest. We therefore humbly give up ourselves to thee our God; to thee our Father, our Saviour, and our Sanctifier; beseeching thee to receive us upon the terms of thy covenant of grace. Remember not against us our youthful folly, ignorance, and lusts: forgive our secret and open sins: our sins of negligence, rashness, and presumption: especially those sins which we have deliberately and wilfully committed, against our knowledge and the strivings of thy grace. Renew and sanctify us thoroughly by thy Spirit: take from us the old and stony hearts, and give us hearts more tender and tractable; and give us the divine and heavenly nature; and make us holy in the image of thy holiness. Cause us to resign and devote ourselves, and all that thou givest us, entirely to thee as being thine own. Bring all the powers of our souls and bodies into a full subjection to thy government. O show us thine infinite goodness and perfections, and the wonderful mercy which thou hast given us in Christ; and shed abroad thy love upon our hearts, by the

Holy Ghost, that we may be constrained by thy love to love thee above all things, with all our heart, and soul, and might. Let the beams of thy love so fire our hearts, that we may love thee fervently, and delight to love thee, and taste the beginning of the heavenly felicity and pleasures in thy love, and may perceive that we can never love thee enough; but may still be longing to love thee more. We dare not say O that we could love thee as thou art worthy!' for that is above both men and angels : but O that we could love thee as much as we would love thee; till we come to that most blessed state, where we shall love thee more than now we can desire! If we had never sinned in word or deed, the want and weakness of our love to thee is a sin which we can never sufficiently lament; and the very shame of our corrupted natures, and a burden that we cannot bear. We crave no other felicity in this life, than to know thee better and to love thee more. Give us the spirit of adoption, which may possess us with all child-like affections to thee, as our reconciled God and Father in Christ. Cause us to make thee our ultimate end, and to seek thy glory in all that we do. Let it be our chiefest study in all things to please thee, to promote thy kingdom, and to do thy will. Set up thy glory above the heavens, and let thy name be sanctified in all the earth. Convert the heathen and infidel world, and let their kingdoms become the kingdoms of thy Son. Give wise and holy rulers to the nations; and let the Gospel of Jesus go forth as the sun, to the enlightening of all the quarters of the earth. O that the world which is ruled by the malicious prince of darkness might receive and obey thy holy laws; and in the beauty and harmony of holiness be made more like the saints in heaven. Reform the churches which are darkened and defiled, and cast down that tyranny, ungodliness, heresy, and schism, which keep out knowledge, holiness, and peace. Preserve and bless the reformed churches; especially in these kingdoms where we live. Bless the king, and all in authority; teach our teachers, and give both able and faithful pastors to all the congregations of these lands. And give the people obedient, pious, and peaceable minds. Cause us to seek first thy kingdom and righteousness; and let all other things be added to us. Give us all necessaries for the sustaining of our natures; and make us contented with our daily bread; and patient, if for our sins we want it. Teach us to improve our precious time, and not to spend it in idleness, or sin; but despatch the work upon which our endless life de