O Lord, by the influences of Thy divine grace upon my stony heart, to dissolve the same into a flood of tears; and that I may perform all the sacred acts and offices of true repentance, unto the remission of all my sins, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, &c. II. O Lord God, Who desirest not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his sin, and be saved; mercifully forgive us our trespasses, receive and comfort us, who are grieved and wearied with the burden of our sins. Turn Thine anger from us, who meekly acknowledge our vileness, and truly repent us of our faults: and so make haste to help us in this world, that we may ever live with Thee in the world to come, through Jesus Christ, &c. III. O merciful Lord, to Whom chiefly it appertain eth to forgive sins, and by Whom alone the souls of true penitents are absolved from all their offences; wash me, O wash my unclean soul in the fountain of Thine inexhaustible mercy, through faith in the Blood of my dear Redeemer, Jesus Christ, &c. IV. Look down from Heaven, O Lord, with the eye of pity and compassion upon Thy humble servant, confessing his wickedness, and being sorry for his sins, imploring withal Thy pardon, and trusting alone in Thy mercies, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, &c. V. Be propitious, O Lord, be propitious to the prayers we humbly beseech Thee, and supplications of Thy that the remission of our humble servants; and grant sins being obtained, we may evermore rejoice in Thy heavenly benediction, through Jesus Christ, &c. CHAP. X. THE LORD'S PRAYER PARAPHRASED. PREFAT. AD ORAT. DOMIN. EX LIT. MOZARAB. Ad te pervenire cupimus, Domine, per Christum, qui apud te factus est Advocatus noster; et Orationem quam ipso Domino instruente didicimus, ad te introire permittas; proclamantes e terris, Pater noster Qui es in cœlis, &c. THE PREFACE. "OUR Father." 1. As we have a being with all things, by creation and providence; 2. As we are reasonable creatures, with all Angels, by representation and likeness: 3. As we are Christians, by adoption and grace. "Which art in Heaven." By Thy majesty and great | glory; in earth, by Thy mercy and good providence; and in all things both in Heaven and earth, by Thy essential Presence. 66 Thou, O Lord, art more ready to hear, than we are to pray, and art wont to give more than we desire or deserve, as being our Father;" and though daily provoked by our sins, yet still 66 our Father:" and Thou art able to do exceeding abundantly, above all that we can ask or think, FIRST PETITION. "Hallowed be Thy Name." O that all the nations whom Thou hast made would come and worship Thee, and glorify Thy Name, Which is Great, Wonderful, and Holy: but more especially, may Thy ever-blessed Name be magnified by me and by all people who have Thy Name called upou us; in all our thoughts and desires, words and deeds, manifesting that reverence and godly fear, that Divine love and filial obedience we owe unto Thee, "Our Father which art in Heaven." SECOND PETITION. Thy Kingdom come.' Mayest Thou rule and reign in all the affections of our hearts, and over all the actions of our lives; swaying Thy Sceptre of Righteousness by Thy holy Word and Spirit, to the destruction of the kingdom of sin and Satan and may we all live in obedience of Thy most holy Laws, and continue such loyal and faithful subjects of Thy "King dom of Grace" in this life, that we may become Saints in Thy" Kingdom of Glory" in the life to come. 66 THIRD PETITION. Thy Will be done in earth as it is Heaven." May all we, whose immortal souls do dwell in earthly tabernacles, as readily, zealously, constantly obey "Thy Will," and as cheerfully submit to 66 Thy good pleasure," as do Thy blessed Angels and Saints in their blissful mansions of Heaven above. FOURTH PETITION. "Give us this day our daily bread.' Even all things necessary both for souls and bodies; both the Bread of Heaven, and the bread of the earth. And grant, that what we do en joy upon earth, may be rightly ours, not to any other belonging: and neither acquired by injustice, nor uncharitably detained by us and our daily bread we beg, according to our daily necessities to be administered to us, who daily wait upon Thee, O Lord, Who givest unto all their meat in due season. FIFTH PETITION. of Thy gifts may not rob us And that our daily abuse of them, "Forgive us our trespasses :" even all our transgressions of Thy most holy Laws; pardon, good Lord, Whose nature and property it is alway to have mercy and to forgive. But this we presume not to ask but upon Thine own terms. As we forgive those that trespass against us." The trespasses of others, and our sufferings from them, are but few and trifling, in respect of our sins and trespasses against Thee; for they be many and heinous : but as sin hath abounded in us, so doth grace and mercy abound also with Thee; but we are men of hard, corrupt, uncircumcised hearts. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, and forgive us both our sins SIXTH PETITION. "Lead us not into temptation." Suffer us not any more to fall into sins and trespasses against Thee. When we are led away with our lusts, and tempted, O leave us not then to ourselves, who are weak and frail, and too prone to all that is evil: but assist and enable us, by Thy divine grace, to overcome all the assaults of our ghostly enemies, and to continue Thy faithful servants and soldiers to our lives' ends. SEVENTH PETITION. "Deliver us from evil." From the evil of sin, by Thy grace; and from the evil of punishment, by Thy mercy and from the author of all evils, the devil: from the temporal evils and miseries of this life, and from the evils of a sad eternity in the life to come; from Thy wrath, and from everlasting damnation, Good Lord deliver us. Liberati a malo, confirmati semper in bono, tibi servire mereamur, Deo_ac Domino nostro. Pone, Domine, finem peccatis nostris, da gaudium tribulatis, præbe redemptionem captivis, sanitatem infirmis, requiemque defunctis; concede pacem et securitatem in omnibus diebus nostris; frange audaciam omnium inimicorum nostrorum, et exaudi, Deus, orationes omnium servorum Tuorum fidelium Christianorum in hac die et in omni tempore, per Dominum nostrum Jesum', &c. CONCLUSION. "For Thine is the Kingdom." Thou rulest and reignest over all: and Thy dominion is absolute and independent, the power whereof cannot be broken, nor its glory eclipsed, like the frail and fading kingdoms of this world: But Thine is "the Power and the Glory, for ever and ever." Thy Dominion is an everlasting dominion, such as shall not pass away; and Thy Kingdom such as cannot be destroyed, but shall stand fast in power, Lit. Mozarab. and eminent in glory, for ever. O give us hearts yielding a wilful obedience to the Laws of Thy Kingdom, full of reverence and awful fear of Thy Power, studious to advance Thy Glory upon earth; that we may in the end arrive at Thy Kingdom in Heaven, where Thou livest and reignest, Blessed Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen. CHAP. XI. THE SEVEN PENITENTIAL PSALMS PARAPHRASED. THE Psalms of David being by all Christians, of what persuasion soever, acknowledged to be the immediate dictates of God's Holy Spirit; it must necessarily be acknowledged also, that he who understandingly and devoutly prays in the very words of the Psalms, prays by the Holy and true Spirit of God. The truth whereof, which by many blind zealots is too much slighted and neglected, we have both confirmed, and the practice commanded, Eph. v. 18, 19. "Be ye filled with the Spirit speaking to yourselves" (or among your selves," which is done by answering each other) “in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs; i. e. such as are the dictates of the Holy 66 + Psalm xxii. 1; xxxi. 5. Spirit; compared with Col. iii. 16. Thus prayed our Lord upon the Cross in the very words of the Psalmist. And so hath ever prayed the Church of Christ, in all the ages thereof. "Psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, are, and ever were, the constant, regular, standingparts of God's Worship, both under the Law, and under the Gospel : and he must needs be a desperate fanatic, who will not acknowledge the words of God's own Spirit to be more wise, pithy, pertinent, and effectually prevailing with God in our prayers, than any words of man's devising, how seeming zealous and taking soever. It is a strange, but not a true spirit of holy prayer, that those persons u Psalmus totius Ecclesiæ vox. Aug. Prolog. in Ps., Chrys. de Poen. Hom. vi., Ambr. de Virgil. 1. iii. |