fciences, our proud, hard, earthly and deceitful hearts, our perverfe enflaved wills, our turbulent paffions, vile affections, treacherous memories, polluted fancies, fenfes the inlets of luft, and members the inftruments of unrighteoufhefs. O, how are we fallen from the honour in which thou didst create us! how low, by reafon of our fins! O that we may be as low in the abafement of ourselves, and fo repent of the finful evil we have committed, that thou mayeft not inflict upon us the dreadful evil which we have deferved. Though we are unworthy of any fuch favour at thy hands, yet thou, O Lord, gracious and full of compaffion, fheweft thy readiness to forgive, in putting us upon afking for our pardons: and what is thy delight to grant is our encouragement to come and beg, that we may receive. Have mercy upon us, O God, according to thy loving-kindness, and in the multitude of thy tender compaffion blot out our transgreffions; accept the moft available atonement made by thy dear fon our bleffed Redeemer, as the propitiation for all our fins.

Though comfort is more than belongs to us miferable finners, and nothing but forrow our due portion, yet, O Lord of love, take the motive even from our mifery to fhew us mercy, and revive our fouls with the fenfe of thy pardon, and the joy of thy falvation, fo to win our hearts to thyfelf, and fecure us in faithfulness to thy holy interefts, that we may not, for any pleafures of fin, forfeit. the enjoyment of thy love, which is better than life.

O gracious God, our heavenly father, be pleafed to reveal thy Son in us, and enable us to receive and apply him, with all his faving benefits, to ourfelves, and to truft our all into his hands, and depend on him alone for the falvation of our fouls; C

yea,

yea, help us to furrender ourselves to him, to be guided and governed by him, and to fhew our faith in him by our love to him who has firft loved us, and by our love also to all thine, and to all men for thy fake; yea, let the life of our faith be seen in our liveliness and readiness to every good work, whereby we may edify our brethren, glorify our God, and promote the peace of our minds, the beft comfort of our lives, and the eternal happiness of our fouls.

Keep us, Lord, fo mindful of our short abode here, and our certain removal from hence into the place where we must for ever abide, that we may pafs the time of our fojourning here in thy holy fear, and in continual care fo to prepare for our great change, that whenever it comes, we may depart in peace, and in good hope, through grace, to be received up into thy glory.

And that we have been fpared fo long to survive multitudes whom we have feen taken off before us, and that we have not only the bleffings and comforts of this life, but the means and expectations of an infinitely better in mercy ftill continued to us. O, how graciously has our God dealt with us, and what great engagement has thy love laid upon us! We bless thee, Lord, for our lives, and what we have of this world's good, but especially for our heavenly hopes, and thofe opportunities and advantages which we have for our fouls, to build us up in thy grace, and to make us fit for thy glory. O give us (we pray thee) hearts duly fenfible of all that thou haft done for us, and fred faftly purpofing to carry towards thee as does become us. night let us experience, Lord, thy goodnefs to us both in preferving and refreshing us; for all our comfortable expectation is from thee, and all the praise and glory, fervice and duty, that lies in us

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we

we defire to render unto thee, not only at this prefent time, but for evermore. Amen.

Ninth CONSIDERATION.

I Cor. iv. 7. Who maketh thee to differ? THAT I am not in the cafe of that beggar or malefactor, of that worm or toad, what have I done to raise my condition above them? Is not the diftinction only from the favour of my gracious Maker? The tattered wretch that waits for an alms at my door might have been the housekeeper, and I the beggar; the malefactor might have been my better, and the worm or toad, fo vile by nature, yet are not fo bad as the wicked tranfgreffor. 'Tis thereafter as I ufe my fuperiority, that I fhall have caufe to glory. The criminal that went off a right penitent, will have infinite advantage of the hypocrite that here paffed for a good man and true. And the finner that hated to be reformed fhall with he might have gone off like the brute, rather than abide for ever by the punishment of his impenitence. May I learn the policy as well as duty of fhewing mercy to fuch as I fee in mifery, and contribute what in me lies to turn the wicked, confidering myself that I be not tempted to become as wretched. Mercy to the brute, as God's creature, and charity to the rake, in plucking him as a brand out of the fire, are acts well becoming one who knows he has nothing but what is owing to heaven's kindness, for the diftinction that makes him fuperior to either.

Keep me, O Lord, from envying any above me, who are but bigger ftewards, and fo will have heavier accounts; and alfo from defpifing any below me, who may come off eafier, because their trust was lefler. Where they would be refreshed with

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with fome fragments of what I abound with, make me willing to communicate, not in vain glory, but confcience of my duty and gratitude for thy bounty, to give of thy own which thou haft put into my hands; that not to me, whom thou haft made to differ, but to thee, O bleffed God, the gracious donor, may for ever be all the honour.

The Third EVENING PRAYER.

BLefied Lord God, the eternal omnipotent Cre

ator of heaven and earth, thou art infinitely great above all our comprehenfion, but haft. been pleafed fo to reveal thyfelf in thy word and works, that we may difcern how wonderful thou art in thyfelf, and alfo in what thou haft made and brought to pafs, and cannot but admire and adore thee, and offer-up all our highest praises to thee, when we wifely confider thy doing.

But O, how have we forgotten thee and ourfelves, and all our greatest everlasting concerns! to fall in with this prefent world, and fo give ourfelves to mind the body till we have neglected our fouls, and the provifion we fhould make for the eternal world to come, when the main of our bufinefs here is to prepare for what fhall be hereafter; and as we now demean ourfelves, fo it will go with us for ever. We cannot but accuse ourselves of the guilt for which our hearts condemn us, that fo flothful we have been in the most great and needful of all works, and in fuch vanity of conversation we have lived, and fo bold we have made with our God, not only to trifle in thy work, but boldly to go on against the light and charge of thy word; and for the ill frame of our minds, and all the offences of our lives, justly mayest thou abhor our fouls, and reject our prayers, and leave us to perifh in our fins.

But, O Lord God, infinitely good, we beseech

thee, deal not in strictness of justice by us; but according to our extreme need, fhew thy tender mercy upon us. Pardon all the great innumerable fins, whereof we have been guilty. Let the blood of Jefus Chrift, thy dear Son, cleanfe us from them: and let the fanctifying grace of thy holy spirit raise us above the love and power of them.

And being fo releafed from the flavery of our fins, help us to run with enlarged hearts in the way of thy commands; to ferve thee with faithfulness, and alfo with gladnefs: rejoicing in the way of our duty, and counting it the sweetest pleasure of our lives, to be pleafing unto our God. O give us understandings to know thee, and hearts to love thee. Thou that art the most amiable in thyfelf, and full of loving kindness to us, wilt thou, Lord, fo open thy amiableness before us, and fo convince us of thy love to us; that we may find our hearts burn within us, and thy love mightily prevail with us, to make us difregard every thing in the world, that would come in competition with our bleffed Lord; that we may not be feduced with the moft alluring objects, which would take us off thy love: feeing all is but vanity and fhadow, emptinefs and nothing, compar'd with the infinitely good and bleffed for ever. Thus preferve us, Lord, who put our trust in thee fecure us under the fhadow of thy wings, and keep us in thy love, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jefus Chrift unto eternal life.

And may all that are now alive with us upon earth fhare in thy mercy and bounty, according to every one's cafe and neceffity. Such as have not thy word and gofpel, grant them, Lord, fo great a bleffing and all that have it, make them fo conformable to it, that they may be indeed the better for it. Profper all defigns and endeavours, for the enlargement and welfare of thy church; and break

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the