Lord, be merciful unto us, for our sins are very great. 8. O God of mercy, pardon the hypocrisy of our lives, our desires to seem holy, our neglect of being so, our being satisfied with shadows and outsides, with an unactive faith, with the faith of devils and the hope of hypocrites, with the comforts of the presumptuous and the confidence of the proud: we have rested in outward works, and have not secured the truth of the Spirit; we confess our sins, and still commit them; we pray against them, and yet we love them; we call thee Father, and obey thee not; we say thou art our Lord, and yet we do not fear thee; we approach thee with our lips, and our hearts are far from thee; we bow our heads and lift up our hearts and hands against thee: we humble ourselves in flattery, and mortify our affections with deceit; we pretend religion to serve our own worldly ends; resting in forms of godliness, but denying the power of it. O God, be merciful unto us, for our state is very miserable. 9. O God of mercy, pardon our impatience and immortification, our secret murmurs and open rebellions; our temptings of God, our provocations of thee to anger, our entering into needless dangers, the deferring of our repentance, and the hardening of our faces against thy judgments; our contempt of thy mercies, and turning thy grace into wantonness, despising thy long-suffering and thy goodness, and trusting boldly where thou hast given us no ground of hope or comfort. O blessed Jesu, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. 10. O God of mercy, pardon the innumerable sins of our tongue, our vain and common swearings, our bold affirmatives of what we know to be false or know not to be true, our crafty and ensnaring talk, our secret and injurious whispers, our backbiting and detraction, our undervaluing our brother and easily reporting evil, our bragging and vain-glorious words, our laying snares for praise, our flattering some and reproaching others, our clamorous revilings and uncharitable chidings, and in whatsoever we have spoken against thee or ...against our brother. * O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. 11. O God of mercy, pardon our abuses of thy sacred and venerable name, our unworthy usages of ourselves upon whom thy name is called, our profanation of thy word, our irreverent using the sacraments, our dishonouring thy houses of prayer, our curious inquiries into the secrets of God and the secrets of men, our wilful angering and provoking our neighbours to cursing and swearing and all intemperate wrath, our unnecessary troubling them and betraying them to folly and indignation. O remember not our old sins, but have mercy upon us, and that speedily. 12. O God of mercy, pardon our abuse of holy times and holy offices, our neglect of assembling ourselves together, our vain recreations and foolish employments, the prodigality of our precious time in idle gaming and useless business, our being idle servants or cruel masters, false in our trust, or unreasonable in our commands, our peevish neglect of the customs of the church, and our schismatical behaviour in the congregations of the Lord. Help us, O God of our salvation, and for the glory of thy name, save thy sinful servants. 13. O God of mercy, pardon all our rebellions against thee and against thy representatives our lawful superiors; our irreverence and disobedience, our murmurs and repinings against them, our rude words and perverse disputings, our neglect of their persons and desires, our publication of their faults and rejoicing in their infirmities, our being ashamed of their poverty and condition, our boasting of our kindred and extraction, our secret cursings or open reviling the ministers of justice, our mocking and scorning old and aged persons, and whatsoever is irreverent, froward, disobedient, unjust or uncharitable towards our betters. O deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name's sake. 14. O God of mercy, pardon all our cruel thoughts, and provoking words, and injurious actions, cleanse our hands from violence and our hearts from blood-guiltiness; O God, forgive us our uncharitable treating of ourselves or others, our unjust wranglings and peevish quarrels, our taking things and words in an evil sense and to purposes of discord and dissension, our threatening and keeping men in fears, our not rescuing, or not preserving those whom we could and ought to have preserved, our embittering the spirit of our neighbour, our unpeaceable dispositions, our tempting and betraying, our wounding and killing our own souls and the souls of our brethren, whom we ought to have snatched from the fire, and, according to our powers, withheld from the everlasting burning. O take away our iniquities from us, and remember our sins no more. 15. O God of mercy, pardon our gluttony and drunkenness, the disorders of our diet and the disorders of our passion, our wanton thoughts and wandering eyes, our impure desires, and all our actions of uncleanness, our lascivious dressings and idle consumptions of our time, our making provisions for the flesh to fulfil the lusts of it, the dishonourings of our body, and the pollutions of our spirit, our making the members of Christ be the members of a harlot, and defiling the temples of the Holy Ghost by unnatural actions and desires, not to be named, and much less to be entertained, our softness and effeminacy, our sensualities and studies of the flesh, and all the excesses and irregularities within that state which thou hast blessed and sanctified: but we are unclean, we are unclean. O cleanse our souls from sin; take away our iniquities, and thou shalt find none. 15. O God of mercy, pardon our injustices and rapines, our open invasion and secret underminings of the rights of others, our greedy desires and fierce pursuances of money, our love of wealth, and our hastiness to be rich, our arts of unequal bargaining and deceitful words, our unjust lawsuits and the vexatious prosecutions of just or unjust, our detaining the wages of the hireling and our defalking of his dues, our pressing upon the necessities of the poor, and raising prices for their need, our hard and oppressive contracts, our rigours of justice and varieties of injustice, our want of charity and tenacious retaining our money, our reception or retention of unjust purchases; our sacrilege and simony, our entering into the fields of the fatherless, wronging the helpless widow, who is thy care; our forwardness to run into debt, and our carelessness to come out of it: our improvident conduct of our estates and our foolish mispendings, our causing diminution to the goods of others, and the avaricious increasing of our own. Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our sin. 17. O God of mercy, forgive us our breach of promise to men, and of our holy vows made to thee our God: our wilful or careless lying, our false accusation or false witnessing, our perverting righteous judgment by bribery or false information, and causing the innocent to suffer; our leading the blind out of his way; our accusing others, and justifying ourselves, our false excuses and feigned pretences, our causeless affirmings and denyings, our jealousies and suspicions, and all the iniquity of our hearts and tongues. Hide thy face from our sins, and blot out all our transgressions. 18. O God of mercy, pardon our envy and our discontented hearts, our ambitions and curiosities, our rejoicings in the evil of our neighbours, and our repining and displeasure at his advancement, our violent and distracting carefulness for the things of this world, our affrightments in every sad accident, and all our covetous thoughts and degenerous and unworthy practices. Lord Jesu, be merciful to us miserable, but penitent and returning sinners. O that our head were waters, and our eyes a fountain of tears, that we might weep day and night, till thou wert reconciled to thy people! Thy congregation is an assembly of adulterous and treacherous men. We have bent our tongues like a bow for lies, but we are not valiant for the truth upon earth; we have proceeded from evil to evil, and we have not known thee. Every one deceives his neighbour, and weary themselves to commit iniquity: for these things thou hast visited us in anger, thou hast fed us with wormwood, and given us water of gall to drink. Thou hast sent the sword upon us to consume us, and the spirit of division to scatter us abroad. But in thee, O Lord, is our confidence and our glory; for thou dost exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things thou dost delight. O Lord, therefore, correct us, but with judgment, not in thine anger, lest thou bring us to nothing: we pray not against sorrow; but pray thee to multiply our penitential sorrows upon us; that we may truly mourn for our offences against thee, and may, with great caution, take care we may no more offend thee, and redeem the time which we have spent in vanity; and employ the remaining portion of our days in the ways of peace and righteousness, of wisdom and the fear of God; that when thou shalt send thy angels to gather the wheat into thy granary, we may be bound up in the bundle of life, and dwell in the house of God for ever, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Καί σοι τὴν δόξαν ἀναπέμπομεν Τῷ Πατρὶ, Kai Tw Tiw, Kai Τῷ ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι, Νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ καὶ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας Αμήν. |