If thou wert pure and upright,-surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.

O Lord, be gracious unto us; we have waited for thee; be thou our arm every morning; our salvation also in the time

of trouble.

O send out thy light and thy truth; let them lead me, let them bring me to thy holy hill, unto thy dwelling.

O put your trust in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption: he shall redeem his people from their sins.

Then shall their light break forth as the morning, and their health shall spring forth speedily; for the glory of the Lord shall be their reward.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the
Holy Ghost,

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.

Amen.

If there be time and conveniency, let a chapter be read out of the Sapiential books in order, viz. the Proverbs of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus.

Then shall follow the Creed, to be said by all together.

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth;-And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord: Which was conceived by the Holy Ghost; born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell: The third day he rose again from the dead: He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty: From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.-I believe in the Holy Ghost: The holy catholic church, the communion of saints: The forgiveness of sins: The resurrection of the body: And the life everlasting. Amen.

Minister. The Lord be with you.
People. And with thy spirit.

I.

Let us pray.

O eternal and most blessed Saviour Jesus, thou art the bright Morning Star, and the Sun of righteousness; thou

dost enlighten our eyes with thy beauties, and our hearts with thy comfort and with the joys of God; thou art the Fountain of health and life, of peace and truth, of rest and holiness; thou givest to them that want, thou comfortest them that suffer, thou forgivest them that repent, and hearest the prayers of all them that call upon thee: we adore thee and praise thy glories, and rejoice in thy salvation, and give thee thanks for thy blessing and defending us, this night, from all the evil which we have deserved every day, and from all the violences and snares by which the enemy of mankind would have hurt us, or destroyed us, unless he had been restrained by thy eternal goodness and thy almighty power. Blessed be God.

II.

We acknowledge, O God and Father of our life, that we are less than the least of all thy mercies, and our iniquity is greater than we can bear: our thoughts are vain, our words are foolish and useless, injurious and uncharitable, our actions criminal and hateful; our devotion cold, our passions violent and unreasonable; our duties imperfect, our repentance little, our holiness none at all. O God our Judge, we confess before thee, that we neither know thee as we ought, nor have taken care that we might; we live in the world to ourselves, but without just regards of thee and of religion; we daily receive thy blessings, and yet we provoke thee every day; we tremble not at thy judgments, though we have deserved them, nor fear till the evil day comes upon us; we are greedy of doing evil, but impatient of suffering any in prosperity: we forget thy severity and justice: in afflictions we are timorous and amazed, and dare not rely upon thy goodness, nor with confidence and love expect the effects of thy mercies and forgiveness. Every thing can tempt us to sin, and we fall infallibly; but by all the arts of thy spirit, and the methods of thy mercy, we are not brought to obey thee as we ought: our state is sad, our condition is sinful, our hopes are broken, and we often forget ourselves, and still neglect and despise our own danger.

III.

But, O God our Father, merciful and gracious, have mercy upon us. Be pleased to admit thy servants to a full

pardon of all our sins, let us not persevere in any one sin, nor pass from one sin to another. Smite us not, O God, in thine anger, and let not thy wrath descend upon our guilty heads. Thy anger, O God, is insufferable, thy vengeance is the portion of accursed souls, and thou hast prepared the everlasting fire for the devil and his angels for ever. O Lord, thou

Father of our life and lover of souls, let us never have our portion in the bottomless pit, in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone for ever: but let our portion be in the actions of repentance, in the service of God, in the aids and comforts of thy spirit, in duty and holiness, in the light of thy countenance, and in the likeness and in the inheritance of our Lord Jesus. O God, let not thine arrows smite us, nor thy judgments consume us; keep us from all expressions of thy wrath, and let us rejoice in thy mercies and loving-kindnesses for ever and ever. Amen.

IV.

And that thy servants may reasonably and humbly hope for thy final mercies and deliverance, be pleased to give us all that we need in order to the performance of our duty, and work all that in us by which we may please thee. Instruct us in thy truth, and prepare the means of salvation for us, providing for the necessities, and complying with the capacities of every one of us. Take from us all blindness of heart and carelessness of spirit, all irreligion, and wilful ignorance. Create in us a love of holy things, and open our hearts, that we may perceive, and love, and retain the things of God with diligence, and humility, and industry. O God our Father, pity our weaknesses and temptations, our avocations and unavoidable divertisements, the prejudices and evil contingencies happening in the state of our lives: enable us with sufficient and active graces, to do whatsoever thou requirest of us severally. Require no more of any one of us than thou hast or shalt give unto us, neither do thou exact all that: for we all confess our weaknesses and defects, our strange imperfections and inexcusable wanderings and omissions: but be pleased to cure all our vicious inclinations; and take care to remove from us all those temptations which without thy mighty grace are not to be avoided, and if they come, are by our weaknesses not to be overcome.

Keep us, O God, from flattery and irreligion, from vicious compliances, and evil customs, and let not the reverence of any man cause us to sin against thee; keep us upright in our religion and worshippings of thee, and let no change of the world engage us in a state of life against our duty; for Jesus Christ's sake, our dearest Lord and Saviour.

ར.

Keep us, O God, by thy holy Spirit of grace, from all the sins of idleness and intemperance, from injustice and sensuality, from the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, from the pride of life and vanity of spirit, from being careless of our duty or false in our trust, from breach of promise or reproachful language, from slandering or traducing any man, from false accusation and false witness, from faction and envy. Grant us thy grace, that we may be diligent in our business, just in our charges, provident of our time, watchful in our duty, careful of every word we speak. O make us to be pleased in the offices of religion, useful to those that employ us, dutiful to our superiors, loving to each other, conscientious in private, humble in public, patient in adversity, religious and thankful in prosperity.

VI.

O blessed God, take care of our souls, and of our bodies: keep us from sharp and tedious sicknesses; let us never fall into want or be unprovided for in our age, and forsake us not, O God, when we are grey-headed; grant us great measures of thy Spirit, that we may abstain from all appearances of evil, and from all occasions of it, and that we may take care to do whatsoever is honest and of good report; that having laid up a treasure of good works against the day of thy visitation, we may rejoice in the day of our death, and find mercy at the day of judgment, through the goodness of our God, and by the grace of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

VII.

Bless and sanctify, defend and save, all Christian kings, princes, governors, and states; grant that all powers, civil and ecclesiastical, may join together in the promoting the honour of God and the kingdom of the Lord Jesus, and may

find the blessings of God, and the rewards of the Lord Jesus, in this world, and in the world to come. Give health and comfort, peace and holiness, long life and increase of grace, to the chiefest of this family [here name the relation]: grant that their portion may be in religion, and the love of God; keep them from all evil by the guard of angels, and lead them into all good by the conduct of thy good Spirit.

VIII.

In mercy and great compassion remember all them that are miserable and afflicted, persecuted or poor; that have lost their estates or lost their liberty, their health or their peace, their innocence or their hopes; restore them, O Lord, to all good, and to all useful comforts; and let not the enemy of mankind invade thy portion, or destroy any soul for whom thou hast paid the price of thy most precious blood. Hear us, O God, in mercy, and bless all our relations, and prosper all our labours, and sanctify all our intentions, and forgive us all our sins, and relieve all our necessities, and defend us from all dangers, and especially from our ownselves, from our evil habits, and foolish customs, from our weak principles and sad infirmities, from our evil concupiscence and vicious inclinations, from the power of the devil, and from thy wrath; and bring us in mercy and truth, in holiness and comfort, in labour and certainty, to a fruition of the glories of God, in the inheritance of our blessed Saviour. Grant this, O God our Father, for the merits and by the redemption and intercession of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communication of the Holy Spirit of God, be with us, defend and guide, sanctify and save us, and all our relatives, and all the servants of God, this day and for evermore. Amen.