Thy throne is established of old, thou art from everlafting. How manifold are thy works! in wisdom haft thou made them all. They are great and honourable, fought out of all that have pleasure therein. Thou haft made thy wonderful works to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and full of compaffion. We are not only the works of thy hands, but the living inftances of thy mercy and bounty; by which it is, that we are in life and hope, and comfort here before thee this morning.

Thou didst create us after thy own bleffed image, in a holy and happy state: but we have made ourfelves vile and wretched; unable to help ourselves, and unworthy that thou, O Lord, fhouldeft help us; when still there cleaves to us fo much that is offenfive and provoking in thy fight. We acknowledge and bewail our ignorance and unbelief, pride, and wrath, luft and fenfuality, worldlinefs and ftrangeness to our God; our infenfibleness of thy love, and unthankfulness for thy benefits, refifting thy authority, and contempt of thy word and commandments. That we have not been awed by thy threatnings, nor trembled at thy judgments, nor been allured by thý promifes, nor won by thy mercies; but ftubborn and untractable to thy holy pleasure, and careless and unreformed under all thy dealings and difpenfations: that nothing has wrought upon us, and prevailed with us, to make us fuch as thou wouldest have us.

And what shall we fay unto thee, O Lord, after we have fo trefpaffed upon thee? Nothing have we to fay for ourfelves, but humbly to implore mercy at thy hands. O let thy mercy hold the hand of thy justice, from doing execution upon us, and fpare us, merciful father, and deliver us from the deferved punishment of all our fins, for thy own mercy fake, in the bleffed Saviour of poor loft fin

ners,

ners.

Blot out our tranfgreffions, and take away our fins; that they may be cancelled, even as if they had not been committed.

:

Nor only fet us clear from all that is paft, but reftrain and preferve us by thy grace, from running into fuch evils for the future. However fin may be represented to us in the hour of temptation, O give us eyes open'd and enlightened, to fee it as the caufe of every curfed evil, and followed with thy wrath and everlasting damnation: and help us, in thy fear, fo to depart now from iniquity, that we may not depart from thee accurfed into that extremity of mifery but living in thy holy fear, may die in thy bleffed favour, and find admittance into thy eternal glory. Yea, fo fill our hearts with thy love, that we may abhor to fin against our deareft Lord, and delight to do thy will: never fo pleafed with ourselves, as when most pleasing to the God of all our mercies. O make us holy in difpofition, and in all our converfation, fuch lovers and followers of holiness, that we may fee the Lord, and find and enjoy our God, to the fatisfaction and rejoicing of our hearts; here, in part, as far as we can attain, and hereafter in fullnefs, as much as we fhall defire, and that for

ever.

And help us, Lord, while we are here, to abide in our callings with God; to remember thee in all our ways, and have an eye to thee in all our affairs. And whatever may feduce us another way, to hear thy voice, while it is called to-day; and even this day, as having no aflurance of another. O make us full of care fo to fpend every day, that in the end of our days, we may go off in comfortable hope of the bleffed end of our faith,, the eternal falvation of our fouls: through thy tender mer. cies, and our Saviour's precious merits; in whofe

name

name and words, we continue to pray, Our Father, &c.

Sixth CONSIDERATION.

Pfal. xxxix. 7. Now Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee.

Na

IN a world where I can enjoy fo little good, and
am furrounded with fo much evil, what comfort
of
my life, were it not for my hope? And how vain
all my hope, that is not in my God? If I truft to
the world's promises, it will be fure to deceive my
expectation; because it can never fill me, and ere
long 'twill utterly fail me. But from the Lord ne-
ver can I hope for greater or better things, than he
is able to do, and free to bestow. No friend or
father fo dear or fure. None fo full of pity, none
fo rich in mercy.
How often has he fpared me in
my fins, reviv'd me under my fears, reliev'd me in
my ftraits, furprised me with his bleffings, and
refreshed me with his comforts? Be I then never fo
unworthy, yet will I hope continually, and fill
truft what I have fo often tried; nor only trust in
his mercy, but rejoice in hope of his glory.

O God of hope, my hope and truft from my youth! On thee will I caft myself even until death. Where my fins are enough to ruin all my hopes, thy long experienced goodness bears up my finking foul. So has thy grace fuper-abounded over all my abounding fins, and fo faithful, as well as merciful, art thou to forgive them, when we confefs them; fo ready to allow for our weak frame, and accept our willing mind, that never will I caft away my hopes, nor leave off my prayers; but ftill pray and hope, and quietly wait for the falvation of the Lord.

The

1

The fixth MORNING PRAYER.

UNTO thee lift we up our eyes, O thou that dwelleft in the heavens, waiting upon the Lord our God, till thou have mercy upon us; according to thy loving kindness, and according to all our needs and diftreffes. In the multitude of thy tender compaffions, blot out all our tranfgreffions; that they may not hinder our prayers from rifing up into thy prefence, nor thy bleffings from coming down upon our fouls.

O how justly mightest thou, Lord, ftop thy ears to our unworthy cries, as we have often turn'd a deaf ear to thy gracious calls; and let us cry in vain for thy mercy, as we have rejected so many of thy motions exciting us to our duty? yea, thou mighteft abandon us over to ourselves, as we have too much loved to live without thee in the world: and fo, put a period to all our hopes, and leave us to perifh in our fins; but, O Lord God, merciful and gracious, long fuffering, and plenteous in redemption, not delighting in the death of finners; deal not with us after our fins, nor reward us according to our iniquities: but look upon us with an eye of pity in our blood, to bid us live; and where we have finned as frail impotent creatures, forgive us, and fhew thy favour to us, as an Almighty Lord, and most gracious God, and tender father, in the fon of thy love.

And as we beg for mercy, to forgive our fins, so for grace, to raise us ftill more and more above them, and enable us against them, and make us virtuous over them. Yea, fo to quicken us, that we may live unto righteoufnefs, and walk, as becomes thy children, in fimplicity and godly fincerity, having our conversation in the world, and framing the course

of

of our lives to the glory of thy name. Renew us ftill more and more after thy bleffed image; and create us in Chrift Jefus to good works: yea make us to abound in the fruits of the spirit, and those better things which do accompany falvation

And to hearten us on now upon the way, fhew us, O Lord, more of those most inviting glorious enjoyments which are at the end; and how fhort is the time, till all the trouble of duty will be over, and nothing remain but ease and delight, rapture and triumph forever. Help us, holy God, to live as the heirs of fuch heavenly hopes; and so to believe, that we may not be confounded. While we hope in thy mercy, let us ferve thee in fincerity, and ftill keep in the way of our duty, leading to the kingdom of thy glory.

And whatsoever we have of this world, O let us not trust to it, nor reft in it: but remember still from whence we had it, and go in care to serve and glorify our Lord, in the ufe of it; ready at thy call to part with it, and evermore prizing and preferring the bleffed giver of all, infinitely above it; counting all but as lofs and dung, that we may win Chrift, and be found in him, and made the happy partakers of him, and the glorious everlafting inheritance purchafed and prepared by him.

And as thou, Lord, haft preferved and refreshed us the last night, for which we give thanks to thy name; fo be pleased to care for us, and fhew thyfelf good to us this day. Direct our path, and profper our work. Let us truft in the Lord, and do good: hope for thy falvation, and keep in the way of thy word, leading to it: and fo fpend this, and all the days of our lives, that we may have comfort in the day of our death, and find it the gate of everlafting life, through the tender mercies of our God, and the precious merits of thy dear

Son