us, we having redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of fins; and the renovation of our natures, by the operation of his good spirit. 7. Bring us, we humbly pray thee, to the truth of a creature-ftate, humility, and modefty: cloath our minds with that humility that befits creatures; with that modesty that becomes finners. Suffer us not to be vainly fraught nor poffeffed; to be giddily minded, or intoxicated with fond conceits. O let us not live in a lie, flatter ourselves, deceiving our own fouls, promifing that of ourselves, or of any other creature, that will not prove true. Help us all along in life to fubordinate all the affairs and tranfactions of time to ferve the intereft of our fouls in the state that is before us. Help us to shake off this vain world, and to breathe after eternity, immortality, and glory; being in perfect reconciliation with the law of everlafting righteousness, goodness, and truth; which are the laws of heaven : fo fhall we comply with thy nature, mind, and will, and fully answer the relation we ftand in to thee. Relieve and ease our confciences, by the blood of fprinkling, according to our feveral conditions of body and mind; fupply us with fuitable grace and ftrength. 8. We are, O Lord, thy care and charge; thou undertakeft for us; we confefs and acknowledge that we are in nothing felf-fufficient: not wife enough for our own direction; not able enough for our own defence; nor yet good enough for our own fatisfaction. We came into being at thy call; and we continue in being at thy maintenance and allowance; and we fhall go out of these beings which now we have, at thine appointment; and it will not be in our power to with-hold our fouls from thee one moment, tho' the state and welfare of them to all eternity did depend thereupon. 9. Help us therefore to acknowledge thee in all our ways, and not to lean to our own understandings. Teach us, bleffed God, so to number our days, as to apply our hearts unto wifdom; and to mind those things which are in conjunction with our everlasting welfare. Take us out of an earthly and worldly fpirit, and give us fenfes fpiritually exercifed, that we may favour and relifh, judge and difcern, the ways and things of God. O, let us be always under thy communication and influence; fo in the light of thy countenance attract and draw us to thyfelf; and stay us with thee; and fuffer us never to depart from thee, upon any temptation, provocation, or fuggestion whatsoever. O Lord, communicate thy light to our minds, thy life to our fouls: as thou art original to us by thy creation of us, fo be thou also final by our intention of thee. 10. Go over the workmanship of thy creation in us again to mend all the defects we have contracted, and to deftroy out of us, by the working of thy grace and spirit, whatsoever we have acquired unnatural to thy creation of us. Transform us into the image of thy fon, conform us to his likeness, make us, body and foul, an habitation for thyself, by thy holy spirit. Make thy fon to us, all which thou haft appointed him to be unto finners. Make him to us wifdom, that we who have played the fool, by confenting to iniquity, and giving our good God an offence, may better understand ourselves in the great concernments of our fouls. Make him to us righteoufnefs, that we may be out of danger, by reafon of the deferved punifhment of our fin. Make him to us fanctification, that we who have marred our fpirits, and spoiled our principles, by unnatural ufe, may inwardly be made whole, and renewed in the fpirit of our minds. Make Make him to us redemption, that we may be fet at liberty, and delivered from the tyranny of fin and fatan, who hath many times led us captive. 11. We thank thee for the happy terms of the covenant of grace; terms that are good in themselves, and fit for thy creatures, fuch as our own hearts cannot defire better, or other. For, what is it that the Lord our God doth require of us, but only those things which are neceffary to our everlasting welfare? Neither haft thou denied us any thing but what is for our hurt and prejudice. O, bring us into thy good terms, and fuffer us not herein to fail, or fall fhort. 12. We bless thee for that good hand which thou haft held over us by day and by night, at home and abroad, alone and in company; that thou hast put away evil things from us, and conferred many good things upon us in great kindnefs, tenderness, and compaffion. For, either the evil things that threatned us, have not come at all; or it they have come, they have not continued fo long as we fufpected, nor have been fo great as we imagined; or else thou haft over ruled them, fubdued. and turned them unto good; and for good things, thou haft even tranfcended our hopes, and exceeded our expectations. O, be thou endeared and recommended to us by thy goodness, kindnefs and faithfulnefs; and let us be engaged unto thee in duty and affection, that fo with choice and delight we may live to that God by whom we live. 13. We thank thee, that we have the use of our reafon and understanding, in which many fail, that we have power of felf-enjoyment, and taking content in our lives; that thou haft given us power to choose and determine ourselves; and that thou haft permit→ ted our choice. We We acknowledge, that if in any thing cur conditions are better or eafier than the conditions of thofe that are most miferable and neceffitous, that herein the goodness of the Lord our God hath been extended towards us: for we have used ourselves as venturoufly, and run as many hazards, as others; and but for thy gracious interpofure, we might have been as miferable as others. 14. Acquaint us, bleffed God, in this day of our exercife, probation and trial, with the employment of eternity, (converfation with our God by holy meditation, by heavenly ejaculations, by conftant intention of God, his honour, and fervice; by exact waiking according to the difference of good and evil; and by frequent application to thee by prayer, and all other holy exercifes) that fo when thefe frail bodies of ours fhall fall away and tumble into the duft, and leave our fouls alone, and when there fhall be no more either of bodily employment, or concernment: that our fouls may then readily adjoin themselves unto thefe immediate attendants upon God, the angels and faints in glory; and in that bieffed confort spend eternity, in finging praifes and hallelujahs to that God, of whofe grace and goodness we have had fo great experience all along in life. may 15. Help us fo to order our converfation in the world, fo to govern our spirits, and to lead fuch lives, upon which we may fafely die; and when we fhall come to leave the world, afford us fuch a mighty power and prefence of thy own good fpirit, that we have folid confolation in believing, and depart in the faith of God's elect. That we may escape the dreadful pangs of death, all confternation of mind, all confufion of thoughts, all doubt ulness and uncertainty concerning our everlafting condition; that fo we may chearfully follow thee into the eftate on the other fide death, of which thou haft given us fo great affurance affurance by the refurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jefus Chrift, who hath brought life and immortality to light by the gofpel, and who hath promised to change these our vile bodies, that they may be fafhioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working of his mighty power, by which he is able to fubdue all things unto himself: and, Lord, give us in the mean time in faith and patience to poffefs our fouls. 16. We are daily admonished, as by years growing upon fome of us, fo by experience and obfervation abroad every day, one or other taken away from our fociety, converfe and acquaintance; and fometimes perfons of fewer years, and of greater ftrength, and more likely to live than ourselves: neither do we know how it comes to pass that we furvive them, nor how long it will be, e're we fhall follow them, nor yet what matter of diseases may be gathering together, in these bafe and vile bodies of ours, which tho' we feel them not to-day, may appear tomorrow. Lord, keep us in confideration hereof, and the reference of time to eternity, to apply our hearts unto wisdom; and to mind those things that are in conjunction with our everlafting welfare. 17. And fuperadd this to all the grace and favour thou haft fhewn us all along in life, not to remove us hence, but with all advantages for eternity; when we fhall be in a due preparation of mind, in a holy difpofition of foul, in a perfect renunciation of the guife of this mad and finful world; when we shall be entirely refigned up unto thee our God; when we fhall have clear acts of faith in God by Jefus Christ in our fouls; high and reverential thoughts of thee in our minds; enlarged and inflamed affections towards thee. 18. Wherefore, bleffed God, confummate the work of thy grace which thou hast begun in our fouls; per fect |