feel, and gratefully to acknowledge thy condescending goodness, which permits frail creatures to hold communion with their great Creator, even the Almighty Governor of heaven and earth, who comprehendeth the dust of the earth in a measure, and who weigheth the morntains in scales, and the hills in a balance! So shall we be filled with a reverential sense of thy presence, and be prepared to experience that the voice of the Lord is powerful, and that the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. Enable us, we beseech thee, to hearken thereto with a meek and teachable spirit. Let thy Word be sweet unto our taste, yea, sweeter than honey to our mouth. Open thou our eyes, that we may behold wondrous things out of thy law. By thy precepts may we get understanding, so shall we hate every false way. O let us love thy Word, more than thousands of gold and silver, that we may know by experience that thy law is perfect, converting the soul; that thy testimony is sure, making wise the simple; that thy statutes are right, rejoicing the heart; and that thy commandment is pure, enlightening the eyes.

[We pray that not only the words of our mouth which we utter in worship, but that also the private meditation of our hearts, may be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Instructed by thy truth, we would contemplate and approach thee as the great Jehovah, the Self-subsistent I AM, who art Love Itself, Wisdom Itself, and Life Itself! We would lift up our souls unto thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, beholding in thy Divine Humanity the whole divine trinity, the fulness of the godhead, dwelling bodily in thee. We would confess thee only to be our Creator, and would adore thee for our creation, and for all the blessings of preservation and providence; we would acknowledge thee

only to be our Redeemer, and magnify thee for thy great work of redemption; and in thee would we discern our only Regenerator and Sanctifier, and therefore our only Saviour; and bless thee for the gifts and helps of thy Holy Spirit, and for thine incessant operation to save us from our sins, to enlighten our minds, to purify our affections, and to shed abroad thy love in our hearts. O that we may ever co-operate with thy divine operation! O that we may purify our souls in obeying the truth; and by the truth be freed from the slavery and bondage of sin and hell, and be inwardly, as well as outwardly sanctified! May our souls be restored to the image and likeness of thy Love and Wisdom divine, by becoming principled in pure heavenly love, as to our wills, and by being immovably established, as to our understandings, in the truths of thine everlasting Gospel. Then wilt thou indeed be our heavenly Father; the Author and Finisher of our faith and salvation; the spring of our desires, our thoughts, our words, and our works; and then shall we bear much fruit to thy glory, our fellow-creatures' good, and our own present and everlasting peace and joy.] Amen.

III.

(For Sunday Evening only.)

It is a good thing to give thanks unto thee, O Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High; to shew forth thy loving-kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night. Through thy goodness and loving-kindness, most merciful Father, we have this day experienced the blessings of the Christian sabbath. [In thy temple

we have heard of thy glory; we have been abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house, and thou hast given us to drink of the river of thy pleasures! But while we take up the language of thy Word and exclaim, "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!" we are constrained to confess with sorrow, the imperfection and feebleness of our best services! We have need to implore pardon for the iniquity of our holy things. How cold are our praises! how inanimate our prayers! how wandering our thoughts, regardless of thine especial presence! how slow of heart, and how dull of hearing we are, in regard to the teaching of thy blessed Word! Nevertheless, O Father of mercies, thou wilt not in any wise cast out, even the meanest of those who come unto thee for life. Thou wilt not turn aside our prayers, nor disdain our sacrifice of praise, unworthy as it is of thy divine acceptance.]

We thankfully rejoice in the opportunity afforded by the return of thy holy day, to call to remembrance thy resurrection from the dead in a glorified, ever-living, and life-giving, Divine Humanity. We contemplate with lively gratitude, admiration, and astonishment, the triumphs of thy redeeming love. In the Christian sabbath, as a day of rest, we discern a sacred representative of that sabbath of rest which thou didst experience, O Lord Jesus Christ, when thou hadst completed thy great work of human redemption, and when thou hadst fully united thy Human with thy Divine nature. O may each succeeding Sabbath remind us, with ever increasing thankfulness, that into thy rest thou didst enter through intense sufferings and temptations, and through stupendous labours and combats against the hosts of hell. Whenever we lift up our eyes to thy dwelling-place, and in spirit behold

thy Divine Humanity enthroned amid the glories of the Sun of heaven, help us to maintain a grateful recollection of the wonderful process by which thou didst glorify thy Humanity, and how, in order to the accomplishment of that great work, thou didst fulfil all righteousness, conforming thyself to all those laws of divine order which, for the good of man, thy unchangeable wisdom had prescribed. [For agreeably to those perfect and immutable laws, thou didst take our nature upon thee by actual birth; thou didst grow in wisdom as in stature; thou didst perform all things well, and set us an example that we should follow thy steps; yea, for our sakes, and for our redemption and salvation, thou didst suffer many things, and wast tempted in all points as we are: but thou didst overcome and subdue the powers of darkness which assaulted thee; thou didst break the bands of hell by which thy creatures were bound, and didst open the gates of salvation, that the righteous, which keepeth the truth, may enter. Then didst thou gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O Most Mighty, being clothed with thy glory and thy majesty, and in thy majesty thou didst ride prosperously, on the Word of truth, of meekness, and of righteousness, and thy right hand did accomplish terrible things, for thine arrows were sharp in the hearts of thine enemies, and thy foes fell under thy feet! And when thou hadst bruised the head of the serpent, thou didst ascend on high; having led captivity captive, thou didst receive into thy Humanity, together with the fulness of thy Deity, all manner of spiritual gifts for men; that by the dispensation of them to mankind, and their reception and improvement thereof, the Lord their God might dwell among them. Wherefore, we take up the sacred song, and say, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited

and redeemed his people, and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us, that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; that being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousners all the days of our lives." "O sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvellous things, for his right hand and his holy arm hath gotten him the victory."]

And while we celebrate thy triumphs as our adorable Redeemer, we pray that we may not neglect that great salvation, which thy redeeming love hath made accessible to all. May we follow thy divine example, and diligently prepare to enter into that spiritual rest into which thou hast entered, and which thou hast provided for thy faithful followers, by ceasing to do our own work, and to pursue our own pleasure, preferring to be thy servants, and to perform thy acceptable will. May we daily be emancipated from the thraldom of the loves of self and the world, and through thy grace experience somewhat of the glorious liberty of thy true children, and enjoy some foretaste of that eternal rest, into which they alone shall enter. Amen.

IV.

(For Sunday Evening only.)

O LORD, our merciful Father and Saviour, at the close of another day of rest and spiritual instruction, we approach unto thee to thank thee for the heavenly influences of thy Spirit and thy Word, which thou hast poured out