O God, be merciful to us miserable sinners; for his sake whom thou hast exalted, to be a prince and a Saviour, to give repentance unto thy people and forgiveness of sins. Be merciful O God, be merciful unto our souls which have greatly sinned against thee. O heal our backslidings: renew us to repentance: establish our hearts in thy fear and love; and establish our goings in thy way, that our footsteps slip not. Let us waver no more; let us never more be weary or faint in our minds. Let us not revolt from thee, or turn to folly again, after thou hast spoken peace to our souls: but may we go on conquering and to conquer all the enemies of our souls, and all the hindrances of our salvation, till thou hast bruised Satan under our feet.
Seeing there is in Christ Jesus an infinite fulness of all that we can want or wish, O that we may all receive of his fulness, grace upon grace! Grace to pardon our sins, and subdue our iniquities; to justify our persons, and to sanctify our souls: and to compleat that holy change, that renewal of our hearts, whereby we may be transformed into that blessed image wherein thou didst create us. O make us all meet to be partakers of the inheritance of thy saints in light.
And teach us, O God, to use this world without abusing it: and to receive the things needful for the body, without losing our part in thy love, which is better than life itself. Whatever we have of this world, O may we have the same with thy leave and love; sanctified to us by the word of God and by prayer; and by the right improvement thereof to thy glory. And whatever we want of worldly things, leave us not destitute of the things that accompany salvation; but adorn our souls with all such graces of thy holy Spirit, that we may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.
And now, that thou hast renewed our lives and thy mercies to us this morning, help us to renew our desires and resolutions, and endeavours to live in obedience to thy holy will. O restrain us from the sins into which we are most prone to fall, and quicken us to the duties we are most averse to perform. And grant that we may think and speak, and will and do, the things becoming the children of our heavenly Father; and so find the strong consolation of thy gracious acceptance in Jesus Christ our Saviour: who, when we pray, hath taught us to say, “Our Father, &c.”
FRIDAY EVENING.
O LORD, thou wast before all, thou art above all, and thy years shall not fail. Thou art the searcher of our hearts. Thou knowest the dulness and hardness, the vanity and deceitfulness of them: we were born sinners, and so have we lived. We have added sin to sin. We have abused thy great and manifold mercies, tempted thy patience, and despised thy goodness. And justly mightest thou have cast us into outer darkness, where is wailing and gnashing of teeth.
But of thy loving kindnesses there is no number. Thou still callest us to return to thee: and whosoever cometh to thee, thou wilt in no wise cast out. O meet us with thy heavenly grace, that we may be able to come to thee. Be thou graciously pleased to stretch forth thy hand, and loose the chains wherewith our souls are entangled. O free us from every weight of sin, from every yoke of bondage. O help us to feel, and bewail, and forsake all our sins. And let us never want the comfortable assurance of thy forgiveness of them, thy acceptance of us, and thy love to us, in the blessed Son of thy eternal love.
Thou art never weary, O Lord, of doing us good. Let us never be weary of doing thee service. But as thou hast pleasure in the prosperity of thy servants, so let us take pleasure in the service of our Lord, and abound in thy work, and in thy love and praise evermore. O fill up all that is wanting, reform whatever is amiss in us, and perfect the thing that concerneth us. Let the witness of thy pardoning love ever abide in all our hearts. O speak into every one of our souls the peace which passeth all understanding: and let us always look upon thee as our Father, reconciled to us in Jesus Christ.
In his great name we cry unto thee in the behalf of the whole race of mankind. O that all the ends of the earth may see the salvation of our God. Continue thy mercies to this sinful land; teach us at length to know thy will concerning us: and oh! turn thou all our hearts unto thee, as the heart of one man. Bless the king; O Lord prolong his days and prosper his government; make him always a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to them that do well. And grant unto all magistrates and ministers of thy word, a continual supply of all the needful gifts and graces of the holy Spirit. Be thou a father to the fatherless, a husband to the widow, a refuge to the oppressed, a physician to the sick, a helper of the friendless, a God of consolation to the sorrowful and distressed. Bless to us whatsoever thou art pleased to allot us, and every thing that befals us. Make all work for our good, to build us up in thy grace, and to help us on to thy glory.