Fifty Sermons, Sermons · Prayer
The Prayer before the Sermon.
O Eternall, and most gracious God, who hast promised to hearken to the prayers of thy people, when they pray towards thy house, though they be absent from it, worke more effectually upon us, who are personally met in this thy house, in this place consecrated to thy worship. Enable us, O Lord, so to see thee, in all thy Glasses, in all thy representations of thy selfe to us here, as that hereafter we may see thee face to face, and as thou art in thy self, in thy kingdome of glory. Of which Glasses wherein we may see thee, Thee in thine Unity, as thou art One God; Thee in thy Plurality, as thou art More Persons, we receive this thy Institution of Mariage to be one. In thy first work, the Creation, the last seale of thy whole work was a Mariage. In thy Sonnes great work, the Redemption, the first seale of that whole work, was a miracle at a Mariage. In the work of thy blessed Spirit, our Sanctification, he refreshes to us, that promise in one Prophet, That thou wilt mary thy selfe to us for ever: and more in another, That thou hast maryed thy selfe unto us from the beginning. Thou hast maryed Mercy and Iustice in thy selfe, maryed God and Man in thy Sonne, maryed Increpation and Consolation in the Holy Ghost, mary in us also, O Lord, a Love and a Fear of thee. And as thou hast maryed in us two natures, mortall and immortall, mary in us also, the knowledge, and the practise of all duties belonging to both conditions, that so this world may be our Gallery to the next; And mary in us, the Spirit of Thankfulnesse, for all thy benefits already bestowed upon us, and the Spirit of prayer for the continuance, and enlargement of them. Continue, and enlarge them, O'God, upon thine universall Church, &c.