A guide to godliness or a Treatise of a Christian life showing the dutiesA guide to godlynesse or a Treatise of a Christian life shewing the duties

Another Prayer for the Family in the Evening.

Another Prayer for the Family in the Euening.

O Immortal, invisible, and only true God, most wise, mighty, just, and merciful, holy and infinite in all perfection, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in him our most gracious and loving Father: Thou hast in thy Word invited sinners to come unto thee, promising that if we confess and forsake our sins, we shall find mercy; if we lay them open, thou wilt hide them; and if we acknowledge and bewail them, thou wilt show thy self faithful and righteous in forgiving them: we thy unworthy servants, being loaden with sin and misery, do here humble our selves before thee, and in the mediation of Jesus Christ, prostrate our selves before the Throne of grace, suing unto thee for mercy and forgiveness. We confess unto thee, holy Father, that we are by nature dead in trespasses ⟨p. 910⟩and sins, and the children of wrath as well as others, loaded with the guilt, both of that corruption in which we were conceived, and of innumerable actual transgressions, whereby we have violated thy whole Law, and so made our selves subject to the curse thereof, and everlasting death of body and soul. The which our sin and misery is much aggravated, in that we have long lived without any sense of it, or any desire to be freed from it, but took all our delight in displeasing thy Majesty, and in performing cheerful service unto sin and Satan. Yea, Lord, after that thou of thy free grace hast given us a sight of our misery, and hast pulled us out of this wretched thraldom, working in us some desires, resolutions, and endeavours to serve and please thee, we confess that the relics of sin do still remain in us in great strength; and howsoever the old man and body of sin, have by thy holy Spirit received their deadly wound, yet have they in them such life and strength, and are so animated and revived with the suggestions of our old adversary the devil, breathing (as it were) a new life into them, that they do still much vex and trouble us, making continual war against our souls, and oftentimes leading them captive unto sin. Much blindness and vanity do still remain in our minds, so that we have but a dim sight of thee, and thy will and ways. Our memories are weak and slippery, and, like riven vessels, let the precious liquor of the Word of life and grace run out, as soon as it is put into them.