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us grace whereby we may serve Thee acceptably with reverence and godly fear.

Thou art our hiding-place; Thou art our resting-place; Thou art our dwelling-place; the home of the soul, and our everlasting portion. By sin we revolted from Thee, and Thou couldst have justly left us to the natural and penal consequences of the fall; but in thy love and pity Thou wast pleased to devise means that thy banished should be restored to Thee. Thou hast sent thy only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him; and he has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us unto God.

Having therefore boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him, we draw near and cry, God be merciful to us sinners. Thou hast been merciful to us in the bounties of thy Providence, and thy mercies have been new every morning; but O impress us with the conviction that the body is nothing to the soul, and that time is nothing to eternity. When a few more of these weekly periods have rolled away, our flesh will be laid beneath the cold stone or the green turf, and our spirits will be returned to God who gave them; and the solemn decision will have passed, He that is holy, let him be holy still, and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still. O bless us with the heritage of Jacob; remember us with the favour Thou bearest to thy people. Absolve us from all condemnation; and let the spirit of life in Christ Jesus make us free from the law of sin and death. Deliver us from the power of darkness, and translate us into the kingdom of thy dear Son; that kingdom which is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

In how many ways have we borne the image of the earthly; O let us evermore bear the image of the heavenly. May the humility and benevolence, the devotion and zeal, the patience and submission which adorned his lovely character, be in a measure our attainment now and pressing after a fuller conformity to him, may we rejoice in the assur

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ance that we shall be one day perfectly like him and see him as he is.

Enable us to hold communion with Thee in all the dispensations of thy providence, and display the Christian in all the varying events of life. Man is born to trouble; regard us in all our sorrows. Though our afflictions are the effects of sin, they are taken up, and employed by thy wisdom and goodness for our profit: and though no chastening seemeth for the present to be joyous but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Be it unto us, O Lord, according to thy word. May we learn obedience by the things we suffer; and may every adversity turn to our salvation through prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Though ignorant of the future, and not knowing what a day might bring forth, may we be fearful of nothing, and careful for nothing. May we commit our way and our works unto Him who has been with us in six troubles; and has promised that He will never leave us nor forsake; whose grace will be sufficient for us while we live, and whose hand shall wipe away all tears from our eyes when we die."

May we feel more of the tender and benevolent agency of the gospel. May it make us long for the salvation of souls; and rejoice in the belief that Jesus gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

Already the lines have fallen to us in pleasant places. Blessed are our eyes for they see, and our ears for they hear. Yet the blessing may be converted into a curse; and Thou hast commanded us to fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into thy rest, any of us should seem to come short of it.

We would now dismiss the cares of the world with the week. May we rise in the morning with refreshed bodies and renewed strength, and be in the Spirit on thine own day. And do Thou send out thy light and thy truth, that they may lead us and guide us to thy holy hill and to thy tabernacles. Our Father, &c.

FORMS OF PRAYER

FOR

SELECT OCCASIONS.

CHRISTMAS DAY.

MORNING.

O GOD, Thou art worthy of universal and everlasting adoration. Thy nature is incomprehensible, thy perfections are infinite, and thy ways are past finding out. Thou art the Creator and upholder of all things. All thy works praise Thee, O Lord, and thy saints bless Thee; and were we to hold our peace the stones would immediately cry out and reproach our ingratitude. All our lives have been full of thy undeserved goodness.

But we are called this morning to behold the exceeding riches of thy grace, in thy kindness towards us by Christ Jesus. Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

May we contemplate this matchless event with all those views and affections which its importance demands. May those who observe the day, observe it unto the Lord. May our festivity be becoming the occasion, harmless and holy. Let us not disgrace the season by reviving those works of the devil which the Son of God was manifested to destroy; nor rest satisfied with the mere remembrance of his advent, as founded in truth and attended with wonders, but inquire for what end He was born, and for what cause He came into the world. And since we are informed that He came to seek and to save that which was lost; and suffered the just for the unjust, that He might bring us unto God; may we deem the report not only a faithful saying, but worthy of all acceptation; and may it be in us as a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

mention of his righteousness only, and in his strength go forth into all the duties and trials of life.

May we never feel miserable even in a vale of tears, while we think of the Consolation of Israel; but rejoice in him with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Reflecting upon his grace in becoming poor, that we through his poverty might be rich, may all selfishness and uncharitableness be extirpated from our hearts; may we love one another as he has loved us; and may we delight to go about doing good.

May no coldness, no indifference ever approach our spirits, whenever we are engaged in serving a master who has all the claims of a benefactor; yea who died for us and rose again.

To Him may we consecrate all our faculties and possessions; and on our time and our substance, our souls and our bodies, may there be inscribed, holiness unto the Lord. May we grieve to hear his name blasphemed, and weep to see his laws transgressed.

May his cause lie near our hearts; and may we long for the time when He shall be known and adored from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same; when to Him shall every knee bow, and every tongue confess; and the glad tidings of great joy shall be to all people-Unto you is born a Saviour which is Christ the Lord.

Through his mediation we address Thee; and in his words we conclude our imperfect supplications-Our Father, &c.

CHRISTMAS DAY. EVENING.

May none of us disregard Him, from igne- THOUGH Thou art exalted above all blessrance, worldly-mindedness, presumption, self-ing and praise, yet, O God, we love to explore righteousness, or despondency. As our prophet, may we repair to his feet for instruction. May we look to his sacrifice, and find relief for our burdened consciences. May we acknowledge his authority and obey his commands. In all our approaches to Thee, may we make

thy ways, to admire thy works, and to adore thy perfections. Thy understanding is infinite, thy power is almighty, thy mercy endureth for ever. Thy goodness transcends all our conceptions, as far as the heavens are higher than the earth.

We call on our souls and each other, this evening, to praise and magnify thy holy name. We bless Thee for our creation, and the degree we hold in the rank of being. We bless Thee for our preservation, and for all the supplies which have rendered life supportable; and all the indulgences which have rendered it comfortable. But above all, we thank Thee for thine unspeakable gift. For Thou hast surpassed all thy works and crowned all thy benefits by remembering us in our low estate, and laying help on one that is mighty.

And we have again heard the intelligence, that God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Convince us of our need of this dispensation of mercy and grace; and may we acquiesce in it, not with coldness of assent, but with gladness of heart. May we exclaim with the angels-glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good-will towards men: and with the multitude of disciples, shout-Hosanna, blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Though the world knew him not, and his own received Him not, and He is still despised and rejected of men-may we receive Him as all our salvation and all our desire.

May we rejoice to view Him in a nature which leads Him to call us brethren; in which as our example, He can go before us in the duties of obedience and submission; in which he can sympathize with us in all our wo; and in which He has suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us unto God.

day! May we believe in Him as a Saviour before we meet Him as a judge; that when the tribes of the earth shall wail because of Him, we may lift up our heads with joy, knowing that our redemption draweth nigh; and say with the church, Lo! this is our God, we have waited for Him, He will save us; this is the Lord, we have waited for Him; we will rejoice and be glad in his salvation.

Make thy ministers wise and zealous and successful in the dispensation of thy word; and let signs and wonders be done in the name of thy holy child Jesus.

Bless the king and endue him with all that grace which shall render him equal to his station, and add a lustre to his crown.

We are a sinful people; but Thou hast not dealt with us after our desert; and Thou hast not left us without witness. Thou hast in the midst of us a people for thy name; and we pray that our beloved country may be a growing part of the empire of the Prince of Peace.

May the root of Jesse stand for an ensign to the people; to it may the Gentiles seek; and let his rest be glorious. May he come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth. In his days may the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. Let all nations be blessed in Him; all generations call Him blessed.

And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen.

LAST EVENING OF THE OLD YEAR. O GOD, Thou hast been our refuge and May we look to Him for all we want, and dwelling-place in all generations. Before live a life of faith upon his fulness. In Him the mountains were brought forth, or ever may we know that we have redemption Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, through His blood; that we have righteous- even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou ness and strength; that we have all the trea-art God. A thousand years in thy sight are sures of wisdom and knowledge.

May we connect with his work for us in the flesh, his work in us by the Spirit. While we are reconciled by his death, may we be saved by his life: and remember that his name is Jesus, because He saves his people from their sins.

As He came not only that we might have life, but have it more abundantly, may our expectations be large and our desires importunate. May He dwell in our hearts by faith, that we being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the height and depth, and breadth and length, and know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, and be filled with all the fulness of God.

Once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself; and unto them that look for Him will He appear a second time without sin unto salvation. O prepare us for that solemn

but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. But as for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field so he flourisheth; for the wind passeth over it and it is gone, and the place thereof knoweth it no more.

We appear before Thee, to close in thy presence another of the revolutions of our fleeting existence, earnestly praying that the season may not pass away without suitable and serious reflections. O let us not imagine in spite of scripture and observation, and reason and feeling, that we have many of these periods left to notice; but say with Job, When a few years are come, I shall go the way whence I shall not return. It may be only a few months-or weeks-or daysor hours-for we know not at what hour the Son of man cometh. But we know that our life is a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away; we know the frailty of our frame, and the numberless

and obedience. O that it was not in its power to convict us of the most unworthy requitals of thy goodness. To Thee, O Lord, belong glory and honour, but to us shame and confusion of face. O who can understand his errors? O how many duties have we neglected or improperly performed. How little have we redeemed our time or improved our talents. How little have we been alive to thy glory, or sought, or even seized, when presented, opportunities of serving our generation. How unprofited have we been under the richest means of religious prosperity; and when for the time we ought to be able to teach others, we have need to be again taught ourselves which be the first principles of the oracles of God.

diseases and disasters to which we are ex-upon-bear witness to our gratitude, love, posed: So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. What numbers of our fellow-creatures, and many of them much more likely to have continued than their survivors, have during the past year been carried down to their long home. But we have been preserved, and are the living to praise Thee this day. Blessed be the God of salvation, to whom belong the issues from death, that we are yet in the regions of hope, that we have yet an accepted time and a day of salvation, and that our opportunities of doing good as well as of gaining good are still prolonged. Yet are they all diminished by another irreparable loss; and the reduced remainder, with every trembling uncertainty attached to it, calls upon us to say with growing seriousness and zeal, I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day-the night cometh wherein no man can work.

Thou hast commanded us to remember all the way which Thou hast led us in the wil derness. The scene of our journeying has indeed been a wilderness; but the hand that has conducted us is divine, and a thousand privileges not derivable from our condition have been experienced in it.

Thou hast corrected us-but it is of the Lord's mercies we are not consumed.

We have had our afflictions—but how few have they been in number, how short in continuance, how alleviated in degree, how merciful in design, how instructive and useful their results!

With regard to our severest exercises we are compelled to acknowledge, Thou hast not dealt with us after our sins, neither hast Thou rewarded us according to our iniquities. It is good for me that I have been afflicted.

But O, what a series of bounties and blessings present themselves to our minds, when we look back upon the year through which we have passed: and to what, but to thine unmerited goodness in the Son of thy love, are we indebted for all? Health, strength, food, raiment, residence, friends, relations, comfort, pleasure, hope, usefulness, all our benefits have dropped from thy gracious hand; and there has not been a day, or an hour, or a moment, but has published thy kindness and thy care.

God be merciful to us sinners. Pardon our iniquity, for it is great. Cleanse ns from all unrighteousness, and work in us to will and to do of thy good pleasure. Let us not carry one of our old sins with us into the new year unforgiven, unrepented of, unbewailed, unabhorred. With a new portion of time may we have new hearts, and become new creatures.

If this year we should die and in the midst of life we are in death-may death prove our eternal gain. And if our days are prolonged, may we walk before the Lord in the land of the living and show forth all thy praise. The number of our months is with Thee. In thy hand our breath is, and thine are all our ways. Prepare us for all, and be with us in all, and bring us safely through all into the rest that remains for thy people, for the sake of our Lord and Saviour: in whose words we call Thee-Our Father, &c Amen.

FIRST MORNING OF THE NEW
YEAR.

Or old Thou hast laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure; yea all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change them and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end. Through all the successions of time, Especially would we acknowledge thy which with us constitute the past, the pregoodness in continuing to us the means of sent, and the future, I AM is thy name; and grace. Whatever has been denied us, we this is thy memorial in all generations. We have had the provisions of thy house. The desire, O God, with the profoundest revertoils and trials of the week have been re-ence, to contemplate the eternity of thy nafreshed and relieved by the delights of the Sabbath. Our eyes have seen our teachers; our ears have heard the joyful sound of the gospel; and our hearts have often said, Lord, it is good for us to be here.

And O that every moment of the past year could, if called upon-and it will be called

ture. May our minds be filled with elevation and grandeur at the thought of a Being with whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years are as one day; a Being, who, amidst all the revolutions of empire and the lapse of worlds, feels no variableness nor shadow of turning. How glorious, with im

mortality attached to them, are all thy attributes! and how secure are the hopes and happiness of all those who know thy name, and put their trust in Thee!

May we rejoice, that while men die, the Lord liveth; that while all creatures are found broken reeds and broken cisterns, He is the Rock of ages, and the fountain of living waters. O that we may turn away our hearts from vanity; and among all the dissatisfactions and uncertainties of the present state, look after an interest in that everlasting covenant which is ordered in all things and sure. May we seek after a union with thyself, as the strength of our heart and our portion for ever, and be partakers ourselves of the immutability we adore; for Thou hast assured us that while the world passeth away and the lusts thereof, he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

We thank Thee that Thou hast revealed to us the way in which a fallen and perishing sinner can be eternally united to thyself, and that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. In his name we come. O receive us graciously. Justify us freely from all things. Renew us in the spirit of our minds; and bless us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.

By the lapse of our days and weeks and years, which we are called upon so often to remark, may we be reminded how short our life is, and how soon we shall close our eyes on every prospect below the sun. Suffer us not to neglect the claims of eternity in the pursuit of the trifles of time: but knowing how frail we are, may we be wise enough to choose that good part which shall not be taken away from us; and before we leave the present evil world, may we secure an inheritance in another and a better. May thoughts of death and eternity so impress our minds, as to put seriousness into our prayers and vigour into our resolutions; may they loosen us from an undue attachment to things seen and temporal; so that we may weep as though we wept not, and rejoice as though we rejoiced not.

And remembering that the present life, so short, so uncertain, and so much of which is already vanished, is the only opportunity we shall ever have for usefulness, may we be concerned with a holy avarice to redeem the time. May we be alive and awake at every call of charity and piety. May we feed the hungry and clothe the naked; may we instruct the ignorant, reclaim the vicious, forgive the offending, diffuse the gospel; and consider one another, to provoke one another unto love and good works, not forsaking the assembling ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as we see the day approaching.

As we have entered on a new period of

life, may we faithfully examine ourselves, to see what has been amiss in our former temper or conduct; and in thy strength may we resolve to correct it. And may we inquire for the future, with a full determination to reduce our knowledge to practice, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?

Prepare us for all the duties of the ensuing year. All the wisdom and strength necessary for the performance of them must come from thyself; may we therefore live a life of selfdistrust, of divine dependence, and of prayer; may we ask and receive, that our joy may be full; may we live in the Spirit, and walk in the Spirit.

If we are indulged with prosperity, let not our prosperity destroy us or injure us. If we are exercised with adversity, suffer us not to sink in the hour of trouble or sin against God. May we know how to be abased without despondence, and to abound without pride. If our relative comforts are continued to us, may we love them without idolatry, and hold them at thy disposal; and if they are recalled from us, may we be enabled to say, The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

Fit us for all events. We know not what a day may bring forth; but we encourage ourselves in the Lord our God, and go forward. Nothing can befall us by chance. Thou hast been thus far our helper: Thou hast promised to be with us in every condition; Thou hast engaged to make all things work together for our good; all thy ways are mercy and truth. May we therefore be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, may we make known our requests unto God; and may the peace of God that passeth all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Bless, O bless, the young! May each of them, this day, hear Thee saying, My son, give me thy heart; and from this day may they cry unto Thee as the guide of their youth. Regard those who have reached the years wherein they say, We have no pleasure in them. If old in sin, may they be urged to embrace, before it be for ever too late, the things that belong to their peace; and if old in grace, uphold them with thy free Spirit, and help them to remember that now is their salvation nearer than when they believed.

Bless all the dear connexions attached to us by nature, friendship, or religion. Grace be to them, and peace be multiplied.

Let our country share thy protection and smiles. Bless all our rulers and magistrates.

Bless all our churches and congregations. Bless all thy ministers; may thine ordinances in their hands be enlivening and refreshing, and thy word effectual to wound and to heal.

May this be a year remarkable for the con

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