A FAMILY PRAYER for the LORD'S-DAY Evening. Lord God, thou art God over all, and rich in mercy to all that call upon thee : most wise and powerful, holy, juft, and good; the King of kings, and Lord of lords; our Lord and our God. Thou are happy without us, and haft no need of our services, neither can our goodness extend unto thee ; but we are miserable without thee; wc have need of thy favour, and are undone, for ever undone, if thy goodness extend not unto us : And therefore, Lord, we intreat thy favour with our whole hearts; O let thy favour be towards us in Jesus Chrift, for our happiness is bound up in it and it is to us better than life. We confess we have forfeited thy favour, we have rendered ourselves unworthy of it; yet we are humbly bold to pray for it in the name of Jesus Christ, who loved us, and gave himself for us. We bewail it before thee, that we have been miserable sinners; but with thee, O God, there is - mercy and plenteous redemption. Thou hast gra. cioudly p:ovided for all those that repent and believe the gospel, that the guilt of their fins shall be removed ihrough the merit of Christ's death, and the power of their fins broken by his Spirit, and grace : and he is both ways “ able to five to 6 the uttermoit of all those that come urto God by “himn, feeing he ever liveth to make interceffioa “ for us." Lord, we come to thee as a Father, by Jesus Chift the Mediator, and earnestly defire by repente Since and faith to turn from the world and the flesh to God in Jesus Christ, as our ruler and pertion. We are sorry that we have offended thee,' we are ashamed to think of our treacherous and ungrateful carriage towards thee. We defire that we may have no m. re to do with fin, and pray as earnestly that the power of fin may he broken in us, as that the guilt of sin may be removed from us : And we rely upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and upon the merit of his death, for the procuring thy favour. O look down upon us in him, and for his fake receive us graciously, healour backslidings, and love us freely: And let not our iniquity be our ruin. We beg, that being justified by faith, we may have peace with thee, O God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, whom thou hast set forth to be a propitiation for fin, that thou mayest be just, and the justifier of they who believe in Jesus. And mayest thou the God of peace sanctify us wholly; begin and carry on that good work in each of our fouls, and make us in every thing such as thou would't have us to be. Fill us with all the graces of thy Spirit, that we may be fruitful in the fruits of righteousness, to the glory and praise of thee our God. Mortify our pride, and clothe us with humility ; mortify our passions, a d put upon us the ornament of a meek and quiet spirii ; which is in thy fight of great price, Save us from the power of a vain mind, and let thy grace be mighty in us to make us ferious and sober-minded. Let the Acth be crucified in us, with all its aff ations and luits, and give us grace to keep under our body, and to bring it into Ett objęstion to the laws of religion and right reason, 14,7 are de and always to pofless our veffel in sanctification and honour. Let the love of the world be rooted out of us, and that covetousness which is idolatry; and let the love of God in Christ be rooted in us. Shed abroad that love in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, and give us to love thee the Lord our God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and might; and to do all we do in religion from a principle of love to thee. Mortify in us all envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness ; pluck up those roots of bitterness out of our minds, and give us grace to love one another with a pure heart, and fervently, as becomes the followers of the Lord Jesus, who has given us this as his new commandment. O that brotherly love may continue among us without diffimulation. We pray thee, rectify all our mistakes; if in any thing we be in an error, discover it to us : and let the Spieit of Truth lead us into all truth, the truth as it is in Jesus; and give us that good understanding which they have that do thy comInandments; and let our love and all good affections abound in us ftill more and more in knowledge and all judgment. Convince us, we pray thee, of the vanity of this world, and its utter insufficiency to make us happy, that we may never set our hearts upon it, nor raise our expectations from it; and convince us of the vileness of fin, and its certain tendency to make us miserable, that we may hate it and dread it, and every thing that looks like it, or leads Convince us, we pray thee, of the worth of our own souls, of the weight of eternity, and tie awfulness of that everlasting state which we are standing upon the brink of; and make us diligent and serious in cur preparation for it, labouring chiefly, not for the meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth to everlasting life, as those who have set their affections on things above, and not on things that are on the earth, which are trifling and tranfitory. O that time, and the things of time, may be as nothing to us, in comparison of eternity and the things thereof; O chat ETERNITY my be much upon our heart, and ever in our eye; that we may be governed by, that “ faith which is the substance “ of things hoped for, and the evidence of things “not seen;" looking continually at the taings that are not feen, that are eternal. Give us grace, we pray thee, to look up to the other world with such an holy concern, as that we may look down upon this world with an holy contempt and indifferency, as those that must be here but a very little while, and must be somewhere for ever : That we may « rejoice as though we rejoi“ ced not, and weep as though we wept not, and “ buy as though we possessed not, and may use this “ world as rot abusing it;” because the faihion of this world passeth, and we are passing away with it. O give us hearts truly mortified, and crucified to the world, and may the world be crucified to us. O let thy grace be mighty in us, ad Tufficient for us, to prepare us for that great change which will come certainly and shortly, and may come ve ry suddenly, which will remove us from a world of P a {pirits ; from our state of trial and probation, to that of recompence and retribution : Ard to make us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, that when we fail we may be received into everlafting habitations. Prepare us, we beseech thee, for whatever we may meet with betwixt this evenir g grave. We know not what is before, and therefore know not what particular provificn to make, but thou dost; and therefore we beg of thee to fit us by thy grace for all the services and all the sufferings which thou shalt at any time call us out to; and arm us against every temptation we may at any time be affauited with; that we may at all cimes and in all conditions glorify thee, O God, keep a good conscience, and be found in the way of our duty; and may keep up our hope and joy in Christ, and a believing prospect of eternal life; and then welcome thy holy wil. Give us grace, we pray thee, to live a life of communion with thee, both in ordinances and providences; to set thee always before us, and to have our eyes ever up unto thee, and to live a life of dependence upon thee, upon thy power, providence, and promise; trusting in thee at all times, and pouring cut our hearts before thee; and to live a lie of devotedness to thee, and to thine honour and glory, as our ligheft end : And that we may make our religion not only our business, but our pleasure, we beseech thee to enable as to live a life of complacency in thee, and to rejoice in thee always. We beseech thee preserve us in our integrity to our dying day, and grant that we may never for. fake thee, or turn froin following after thee; but thal with purpose of hşart we may cleare unto the a |