First Week: Saturday Morning
O God, Thou art great, and greatly to be feared And Thou art, also, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and in truth. May we so feel our sinfulness, as to be humbled in the dust before Thee, and filled with self-condemnation and self-despair; but let us not shrink back from thy presence, and be afraid to place our faith and hope in God. Help us to remember, that if we have no claim, on the footing of desert, we can plead thy promise, and invitation; and that if the blessings we want are infinitely great, they are dispensed as gifts, where freeness delights in the unworthiness of the receiver.
We therefore, would neither deny, nor palliate our guilt. We know there is evil enough in one sin to plunge us into perdition; but our offences are more in number than the sand; and they have been attended with every aggravation, derivable from light and love, means and mercies. Thou hast called, and we have refused; Thou hast stretched out thy hand and we have not regarded. How often hast Thou wooed and awed, blessed and chastised us; and yet we refused to return. O Lord, pardon our iniquity, for it is great. Let the free gift be of many offences unto justification of life,* and were sin has abounded, may grace much more abound.
And as we canno/. serve or enjoy Thee, unless our nature be chantyed, as well as our state, O save us by the washin,^; of regeneration, and by the renewing oi the Holy Ghost. Deliver us from the dominion, as well as the course of sin; and from the love of it, as well as the dominion. May we reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. May we view holiness as the beauty and the dignity of the soul, and long after greater degrees of conformity to the will and the image of God. May our hope purify us, and our religious comforts stimulate, as well as relieve. May we never slumber, and lose our roll; never sleep, and like Saul be robbed of our spear and our cruse. May we wutch and pray, lest we enter into temptation. When we grow indolent and careless, awaken us by lively apprehensions of thy presence, and of the eternal world, on the borders of which we perpetually move; may we feel the infinite importance of improvin;.;- the few transient periods, intervening between us and death; may we daily and hourly answer some of the grand purposes of life and religion. May every place and every company be the better for us. May we diffuse knowledge and happiness by our conversation, example, and influence; and like our Lord and Saviour go about doing good.
Whatever advantages we possess, may we never forget, that this is not our rest. May we arise and depart hence, not by quitting our stations, or undervaluing the duties attached to them, but by rising above the world, as our portion, seting our affections on things above, and having our conversation in heaven. Expecting a succession of encounters in passing through an enemy’s land, may we take lo us the whole armour of God; a-.ia looking for thorns and briars in our marchings through a wild’^rness, may our feet be shod witn the preparation of the gospel of peace.
Fit us for every changing scenej and in all the events that would alarm or perplex us, may our minds be stayed upon God, and our thoughts be established. May we remember that trials from thy hand are blessings in disguise, and that when they come to be unveiled, and we can view them in their designs and effects, they will draw forth our gratitude and praise. Till we can walk by sight, enable us to walk by faith, and may nothing weaken our persuasion, that all thy ways are mercy and truth to thy people; and that all things work together for good to them that love Thee.
We would not forget those who are in affliction — Do not Thou, O God forget them. Whatever be their losses or distress, help them to say. Yet the Lord thinketh upon me: and may they know, that thy thoughts towards them are thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to bring them to an expected end, though it may be by a painful passage. Comfort those who are on beds of languishing. Enter the house of mourning. Be the father of the fatherless, and the husband of the widow, and the friend, and helper of the poor and needy — and have mercy upon all men.
Our Father, See.