Prayers Upon Solemn Occasions, Prayer 4
A Generall forme of Prayers and praise.
LORD prepare our dull and unprepared soules to powre out our petitions with humility, zeale and reverence unto thy great Majesty. LORD make our hearts as mountaines of myrrhe and Incense to send up prayses and thankes-giving to the Sanctuary where thy honour dwelleth.
MOst mighty and most glorious God, thou that inhabitest eternity, and dwellest in the light that no man can attaine unto; at whose terrible presence the mountaines melt away and the Angels hide their faces, yet our most gracious and mercifull Father in CHRIST JESVS, vouchsafing from the height of Heaven to looke upon us vile wormes and dust with the eye of tender compassion, wee thy wretched and sinnefull servants, heires of corruption, children of wrath, sonnes of disobedience; doe in the name and mediation of thy deare Sonne our blessed Saviour prostrate our selves before thy throne of grace and mercy-seate, begging and craving at thy hands pardon and remission for all our sins. LORD they are most grievous and manifold, most horrible and intollerable. To the originall corruption of our sinfull nature, wherein we were conceived, we have added all kindes of actuall transgressions. All the time before our calling wee gave our selves to wantonnesse, to worke all uncleannesse even with greedinesse, we drunke up sinnes like water, and fed upon iniquity as the horse-leach on corrupt bloods, we drew iniquitie with cords of vanity, and sinne as with cart-ropes. All our thoughts, words and deeds were menstruous, filthy and abhominable, nothing but a slavish service of the world, the flesh and the divell; since our calling when we should have beene most pure, sincere and sanctified, we have sinned grievously, although not notorious to the world, yet horribly before thine eyes in privy pride, hypocrisie, dullnesse, security, want of zeale and forwardnesse in thy service; nay LORD we have had many fearefull backslidings into our grossest sinnes, &c. so that now they are become as many in number as the Starres in Heaven, as great as the mountaines, as red as scarlet; for CHRIST JESVS his sake, for thy infinite mercies sake, and for thy holy Names sake, bury them all in the blessed and bloody wounds of our deare SAVIOVR, that they never rise up at the dreadfull day of judgement to give testimony against our soules to our utter confusion. Hide them all in the bottomelesse Ocean of thy endlesse mercy that they die out of thy remembrance everlastingly. And send we beseech thee into every one of our soules that happy and heavenly assurance of the remission of our sinnes, whence springeth joy and contentment most precious and unvaluable, infinite more worth then ten thousand worlds.
LORD wee blesse, praise and magnifie thy great and glorious name, for all those great mercies, benefits and comforts, which out of thy immeasurable bounty thou hast plentifully bestowed upon us.
First and chiefly wee humbly thanke thee, for that it hath pleased thee of thy meere favour and love to elect us before the foundation of the world, to be heires of thy immortall Kingdome, for creating us after thine owne image, for redeeming us with the precious blood of thy deare Sonne, for calling us into the glorious liberty of thy sons, for justifying us, for sanctifying us with thy holy Spirit, for the joyfull hope of glorification in the world to come. Confirme unto us we beseech thee these great and incomparable blessings with the sacred testimony of thy holy Spirit. Let thy blessed Spirit tell our spirits that we are thy Elect. Let our sweet Saviour CHRIST JESVS say unto our soules I am your salvation. Seale our salvation unto our soules with the pledge, seale and earnest of thy holy Spirit.
Furthermore most gratious Father we humbly thanke thee, for that extraordinary and universall blessing vouchsafed this Land by our gracious and religious King it is the greatest that ever the face of this earth enjoyed, that ever thou bestowedst on thy dearest children. For when wicked men and all the world, as thou knowest, expected that this Land should have beene clothed with fiery persecutions, bloody warres, and all manner of calamities as with a garment; Thou that sittest in Heaven, and laughest the vaine plots and devises and wicked men to scorne, against all expectation hast covered it with peace, joy, plenty, prosperity, the free passage of thy Gospell, as the seas are covered with water. Put we pray thee into the heart of every one in this Land a true and continuall thankfullnes, a godly and religious resolution to serve thee in holines and righteousnes all the daies of their life. And LORD we beseech thee continue that good worke that thou hast begun, and let him and his posterity in thy feare and true religion, if it be thy blessed pleasure, sit upon the throne of this Land, so long as the Sunne and Moone endureth. Let his Scepter long flourish in his hand, and set his crowne fast upō his head. O mightily preserve him from all the sonnes of violence and mischiefe. Let all those that with forraine invasion attempt the destruction of his person, and desolation of this Land become like Iabin and Sisera that perished at Endor, like Zeba and Zalmunna that became as the dung of the earth. Let all unnaturall practises, and home-bred conspiracies perish as the untimely fruit of a woman and never see the Sun. Inflame his royall heart with true zeale, and love of thy blessed truth, and as thou hast enlarged his kingdomes, so give him a princely and religious courage to enlarge thy Kingdome, and utterly to confound all Heresie, Schisme and the kingdome of Antichrist. Blesse all his privie Counsellors with wisedome from above, that they may put these things into his heart, which chiefly concerne thy honour and glory, the good of thy Church, the safety of his Person and quiet of this Land. Blesse with severall graces all inferiour Magistrates, that they may all faithfully and religiously discharge the severall places wherein they stand. Blesse all his people with religion and loyalty, the Ministery with learning, zeale and sincerity. O LORD go out with his Captaines and men of warre that fight thy battels.
We thanke thee also deare Father for blessings more particularly concerning us, for delivering us from Popery, Idolatry, and Superstition, and illightning our understanding with thy blessed truth. Confirme it we beseech thee unto us daily more and more, that if need require, we may confirme it with our dearest bloods.
We thanke thee for giving us a taste of the powers of the world to come. Crucifie we beseech thee unto us continually the lusts and corruptions of our sinnefull flesh, that the graces and comforts of regeneration may daily receive in us strength and perfection.
We thanke thee for remooving from over our heads those heavie judgements and violls of thy wrath, that our crying sins have continually called for from Heaven; even all diseases and infirmities of body, all terrours and vexations of conscience, all civill deaths and torments, all shame and confusion; even that the earth should have opened his mouth and swallowed us quick, the water drowned us, the fier consumed us, vengeance from Heaven overtaken us, thy other creatures devoured us. Grant we beseech thee that hereafter by sound and undissembled repentance, and by agodly life wee may abandon them and the feare of them for evermore.