I have been unthankful to thy Divine Majesty, forgetting that thou madest me and preservest me; to thy Son, my blessed Saviour, forgetting the bitter pains he suffered for me; and to the Holy Ghost, forgetting how many gracious influences I have received from him for my help, comfort, and promotion in the ways of holy religion, but have rebelled against thee, my Maker, have sold myself to work wickedness, from whence, by the passion of thy holy Son, I was redeemed, and have resisted the Holy Ghost. Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. I have offended thee, my God, in an inordinate estimation of myself, in vain complacencies and desires to be esteemed as much or more than others; in not suffering with meekness, indifference, and obedience, the humiliations sent to me by thy Divine providence; in haughty deportment towards my superiors, equals, and inferiors; and in accepting such honours as have been done to me, without returning them to thee the Fountain. Lord be merciful to me a sinner. I have offended thee, my God, in impatience, in anger, intemperate in degree, inordinate in the object, growing peevish and disquieted by trifling inadvertencies of others, and slight accidents about me. Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. I have offended thee, my God, by being envious at the prosperous successes and advantages of my neighbours, and have had resentments of joy at their displeasures and sadnesses. Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. I have been negligent in performance of my charge, idle in doing my duties, soft and effeminate in my life, indevout in my prayers, slothful in the exercises of religion, weary of their length, displeased at their return, without advertency in the execution of them, and glad at an occasion of their pretermission. Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. I have been diligent and curious in pleasing my appetite of meat and drink, and pleasures, losing my time, pampering my flesh, quenching the spirit, making matter both for sin and sicknesses, and have not been sedulous in mortifying my body for the subduing mine own intemperances and inordination. Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. I have been an improvident steward of the good things thou hast given me; I have loved them inordinately, sought them greedily and unjustly, dispensed them idly, and parted with them unwillingly: I have not been so charitable to the poor, or so pitiful to the afflicted, or so compassionate to the sick, or so apt to succour and give supply to the miseries of my neighbours, as I ought, but have too much minded things below; not setting mine affections upon heaven and heavenly things, but have been unlike thee in all things: I have been unmerciful and unjust. Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. Mine eyes, O Lord, have wandered after vanity, beholding and looking after things unseemly without displeasure, despising my neighbours, pryiug into their faults; but have been blind, not seeing mine own sins and infinite irregularities. Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. I have not with care kept the door of my lips, nor bridled my tongue, but have been excessive in talking, immoderate in dissolute and wanton laughter, apt to lie, to deny truth, to accuse others, to scoff at them, to aggravate their faults, to lessen their worth, to give rash judgment, to flatter for advantage, to speak of thy name irreverently and without religious or grave occasions; our discourses have been allayed with slander and backbiting, not apt to edify, or minister grace unto the hearers. Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. Mine ears have been greedy after vanity, listening after things unprofitable, or that might tend to the prejudice of my neighbours, and have not, with holy appetite, listened after thy holy words and conveyances of salvation. Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. I have offended thee by the entertainment of evil thoughts, thoughts of uncleanness and impurity, and have not resisted their first beginnings, but have given consent to them explicitly and implicitly, and have brought them up till they have grown into idle words and actions. Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. I have made myself guilty of the sins of others, by consent, by approving, by not reproving, by co-operating, by encouraging their ill actions, so making mine own heap greater, by pulling their deformities upon mine own head. Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. 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, s tubborn 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's 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 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 |