I have employed all my members and faculties both of soul and body in the ways of unrighteousness; I have transgressed my duty in all my relations, and in all my actions and traverses of my whole life: even where I might have had most confidence, I find nothing but weakness and imperfections. Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. I have broken my vows and purposes of obedience and holy life; I have been inconstant to all good, refractory to counsels, disobedient to commands, stubborn against admonition, churlish and ungentle in my behaviour, unmindful and revengeful of injuries, forgetful of benefits, seeking my own ends, deceiving my own soul. Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. My secret sins, O Lord, are innumerable: sins secret to myself through inadvertency, forgetfulness, wilful ignorance, or stupid negligence; secret to the world, committed before thee only, and under the witness of mine own conscience. I am confounded with the multitude of them, and the horror of their remembrance. O Jesu God, be merciful unto me. I. SON of David, blessed Redeemer, Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon me; O Jesu, be a Jesus unto me: thou that sparedst thy servant Peter that denied thee thrice; thou that didst cast seven devils out of Mary Magdalene, and forgavest the woman taken in adultery, and didst bear the convert thief from the cross to the joys of paradise, have mercy upon me also: for although I have amassed together more sins than all these in conjunction, yet not their sins, nor mine, nor the sins of all the world, can equal thy glorious mercy, which is as infinite and eternal as thyself. I acknowledge, O Lord, that I am vile, but yet redeemed with thy precious blood; I am blind, but thou art the light of the world; I am weak, but thou art my strong rock; I have been dead in trespasses and sins, but thou art my resurrection and my life. Thou, O Lord, lovest to show mercy; and the expressions of thy mercy, the nearer they come to infinite, the more proportionable they are to thy essence, and like thyself. Behold then, O Lord, a fit object for thy pity: my sins are so great and many, that to forgive me will be an act of glorious mercy; and all the praises which did accrue to thy name by the forgiveness of David, and Manasses, and Saint Paul, and the adulteress, and the thief, and the publican, will be multiplied to thy honour in the forgiveness of me, so vile, so unworthy a wretch, that I have nothing to say for myself, but that the greatness of my misery is a fit object for thy miraculous and infinite mercy. Despise me not, O Lord, for I am thy creature despise me not, for thou didst die for me; cast me not away in thine anger, for thou camest to seek me, and to save me. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation;' let thy Holy Spirit lead me from the errors of my ways, into the paths of righteousness, to great degrees of repentance, and through all the parts of a holy life, to a godly and a holy death. Grant this, O blessed Jesu, for thy mercies' and for thy pity' sake. Amen. II. O Lord God, blessed Jesu, eternal Judge of quick and dead, I tremble with horror at the apprehension, when I call to mind with what terrors and majesty thou shalt appear in judgment; a fire shall go out from thy presence, and a tempest shall be stirred up round about thee, such a tempest as shall rend the rocks, level the mountains, shake the earth; disorder and dissolve the whole fabric of the heavens; and where then shall I, vile sinner, appear, when the heavens are not pure in thy sight? Lord, I tremble when I remember that sad truth, If the righteous scarcely be saved, where then shall the wicked and the ungodly appear?' I know, O Lord, that all my secret impurities shall be laid open before all the nations of the world, before all the orders and degrees of angels, in the presence of innumerable millions of beatified spirits. There shall I see many that have taught me innocence and sanctity, many that have given me pious example, many that have died for thee, and suffered tortures rather than they would offend thee. O just and dear God, where shall I appear? who shall plead for me, that am so laden with impurities, with vanity, with ingratitude, with malice, and the terrors of an affrighting conscience? Lord, what shall I do, who am straitened by my own covetousness, accused by my own pride, consumed with envy, set on fire by lust, made dull with gluttony, and stupid by drunkenness, supplanted by ambition, rent asunder with faction and discord, made dissolute with lightness and inconstancy, deceived with hypocrisy, abused with flattery, fooled with presumption, disturbed with anger, and disordered by a whole body of sin and death? But thou shalt answer for me, O Lord, my God; thou art my Judge and my Advocate, and thou art to pass sentence upon me for those sins for which thou diedst. O reserve not my sins to be punished in the life to come, for then I die eternally; but bring me in this world to a holy, a sharp, and salutary repentance. Behold, I am in thy hands; grant I may so weep and be contrite for my sins, that in the hour of my death I may find mercy, and in the day of judgment I may be freed from all the terrors of thy wrath, and the sentence of the wicked, and may behold thy face with joy and security, being set at thy right hand, with all thy saints and angels, to sing an eternal hallelujah to the honour of thy mercies. Amen, sweet Jesu. Amen. III. Most merciful and indulgent Jesus, hear the complaint of a sad and miserable sinner; for I have searched into the secret recesses of my soul, and there I find nothing but horror, and a barren wilderness, a neglected conscience overgrown with sins and cares, and beset with fears and sore amazements. I find that I have not observed due reverence towards my superiors, nor modesty in my discourse, nor discipline in my manners; I have been obstinate in my vain purposes, cozened in my own semblances of humility, pertinacious in hatred, bitter in my jesting, impatient of subjection, ambitious of power, slow to good actions, apt to talk, ready to supplant my neighbours, full of jealousies and suspicion, scornful and censorious, burdensome to my friends, ungrateful to my benefactors, imperious to my inferiors, boasting to have said what I said not, to have seen what I saw not, to have done what I did not, and have both said, and seen, and done what I ought not, provoking thy Divine Majesty with a continual course of sin and vanity. And yet, O Lord, thou hast spared me all this while, and hast not taken away my life in the midst of my sins; which is a mercy so admirable and of so vast a kindness, as no heart or tongue can think or speak. If thou hadst dealt with me according as I had deserved, and might justly have expected, I had been now, now at this instant, sealed up to an eternity of torments, hopelessly miserable, fearing the revelation of thy day with an unsupportable amazement: and now under the sweet influences of thy mercies, I am praying to thee, confessing my sins, with shame indeed at my baseness and ingratitude, but with a full hope and confidence in thy mercy. O turn the eyes of thy divine clemency with a gracious aspect upon a wretched sinner, open the bowels of thy mercy, and receive me into favour. O my dear God, let thy grace speedily work that in me, for which thou so long hast spared me, and to which thou didst design me in thy holy purposes and mercies of eternity, even a true faith, and a holy life, conformable to thy will, and in order to eternal blessedness. I remember, O Lord, the many fatherly expressions and examples of thy mercies to repenting sinners, thy delight in our conversion, thy unwillingness to destroy us, thy earnest invitation of us to grace and life, thy displeasure at our danger and miseries, the infinite variety of means thou usest to bring us from the gates of death, and to make us happy to eternity. These mercies, O Lord, are so essential to thee, that thou canst not but be infinitely pleased in demonstrations of them. Remember not, O Lord, how we have despised thy mercies, slighted thy judgments, neglected thy commandments; but now, at length, establish in us great contrition for our sins, lead us on to humble confession and dereliction of them, and let thy grace make us bring forth fruits meet for repentance, fruits of justice, of hope, of charity, of religion, and devotion, that we may be what thou delightest in, holy, and just, and merciful, vessels prepared for honour, temples of the Holy Ghost, and instruments of thy praises to all eternity, O blessed Jesu, who livest and reignest ever one God, world without end. Amen. O Lord Jesu Christ, Son of the eternal God, interpose thy holy death, thy cross and passion, between thy judgment and my soul, now and in the hour of my death; granting unto me grace and mercy,-to all faithful people, pardon and peace, to the church, unity and amity,—and to all sinners, repentance and amendment,-to us all, life and glory everlasting, who livest and reignest ever one God, world without end. Amen. A Form of Thanksgiving, with a particular Enumeration of God's Blessings. MOST glorious Lord God, infinite in mercy, full of compassion, long-suffering, and of great goodness; I adore, and praise, and glorify thy holy name, worshipping thee with the lowliest devotions of my soul and body, and give thee thanks for all the benefits thou hast done unto me; for, whatsoever I am, or have, or know, or desire, as I ought, it is all from thee; thou art the Fountain of being and blessing, of sanctity and pardon, of life and glory. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, praise his holy name. Thou, O God, of thine infinite goodness, hast created me of nothing, and hast given me a degree of essence next to angels, imprinting thine image on me, enduing me with reasonable faculties of will and understanding, to know and choose good, and to refuse evil, and hast put me into a capacity of a blessed immortality. O praise the Lord with me, and let us magnify his name together. Thou, O God, of thy great mercy, hast given me a comely body, a good understanding, straight limbs, a ready and unloosed tongue; whereas, with justice, thou mightest have made me crooked and deformed, sottish and slow of apprehension, imperfect and impedite in all my faculties. O give thanks unto the God of heaven; for his mercy endureth for ever. Thou, O God, of thy glorious mercies, hast caused me to be born of Christian parents, and didst not suffer me to be strangled in the womb, but gavest me opportunity of holy baptism, and hast ever since blessed me with education in Christian religion. Thy way, O God, is holy: who is so great a God as our God? Thou, O God, out of thine abundant kindness, hast made admirable variety of creatures to minister to my use, to serve my necessity, to preserve and restore my health, to be an ornament to my body, to be representations of thy power and of thy mercy. Unto thee, O God, will I pay my vows: unto thee will |