Fast Day: Morning

Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of thy glory. O, for such an impression of thy holmess as Isaiah had, when, penetrated with a sense of his own sin, and the sin of the nation, he exclaimed, Wo is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of un clean lips. Hanish all insensibility and indifference fron our minds, and unite our hearts to fear thy name.

We lament that the world in which we live, formed to show forth thy praise, was so early defiled by sin; that all flesh corrupted its way before God, and every imagination of the thoughts of the heart, was only evil continually. We .adore i.hy awful but righteous displeasure, in bringing the flood upon the world of the ungodly, and taking then all a way

Ytt even this tremendous desolation, d’d not hinder the renewed human race from rebelling against Thee; and a

*The two following prayers are particularly adapted to a fast ippointed ou accou it of some great calSmiitv but with slight alteratious may be u.«ed ou ordinary fast days.

224 FAST DAY MdkniNG.

long” succession of private and public calaml.es, proclains the desperate depravity of our nature, and the evW of sin. Our world is the empire of death, a vale of tears; and tempests and earthquakes, and war, and pestilence, and famine, scatter the tokens of thy wrath, for Thou distributest sorrows in thine anger.

Thy judgments are now abroad in the earth — may the inhabitants thereof learn righteousness. They have reached and invaded us — may we lay them to heart, and be suitably impressed, with the afHicted circumstances of the country to which we belong.

We have been equally distinguished by privileges and guilt, and it is impossible for us to review the one, without being reminded of the other. An innumerable multitude of natural, providential, and religious benefits, has distingulsiied our portion. The lines have fallen to us in pleasant places, yea, we have a goodly heritage. At an early period the gospel visited our shores, and has continued in the midst of us to this hour. We have lived under the administration of laws, just, mild and beneficient. We have enioyed civil and religious freedom. The Scriptures have not been witholden from us, nor have our teachers been removed into a corner — but our eyes have seen our teachers; and sitting under our own vine and fig-tree, none have dared to make us afraid. In our dangers, Thou hast appointed salvation for walls and bulwarks; the earth hi»s yielded to us her increase: and God, even our own God, has blessed us.

It is imposible for us to express or conceive the obligations we are under to love and serve Thee.

But we know — and, O help us to feel, how unworthily and ungratefully we have behaved ourselves, towards our adorable benefactor. We are a sinful nation, a seed of evil-doers; children that are corrupters. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint: from the crown of the nead even to the sole of the foot, there is no soundness, but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores. O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto Thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day, to our rulers.

But thou art the almigh’./. Thou hast all hearts in thy hand, and all events at thy disposal.

And we have heard, that to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him. We are proofs ourselves, that thy compassions fail not — hence though corrected, we are not consumed; and

thoug-h giilty, we are yet allowed and invited to enter thy presence.

With (lee[) humiliation, not unnriing-led with hope, mav we. approach the throne of thy grace, at thi.s time of need. O, be merciful un*o us, and bless us, and cause thy face to shine upon us, that we may be saved. For the sake of thv dear Son, who died, the just for the unjust, by whose name we are called — bel..)ld a country prostrate at thy footstool, and liear the voice, which will issue to-day, from so many temples and closets, .saying, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach

Remove, if it please Thee, the blow of thy heavy hand, in tl)e calamity which we are deploring; and after giving such a deliverance as this, may we no more break thy commandments. Or if Thou hast determined to continue the correction; O, corr.ct us, but with judgment, not in thine anger, lest Thou bring us to nothing.

Aid thy people in the private and p<iblic devotions of the day. Pour out a spirit of grace and of supplication, that w may .sorrow after a godly sort. May thy ministers be fliithful and fearless; may ihey cry aloud, and spare not; but lift up their voice like a trumpet, and show thy people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sin

And let the word that is to be spoken, be quick and powerful, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and be a discernerof the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Our rather, &.c. Amen.