Puritan Prayers

O Lord God, Who inhabitest eternity,
The heavens declare thy glory,
The earth thy riches,
The universe is thy temple;
Thy presence fills immensity,
Yet thou hast of thy pleasure created life,
and communicated happiness;
Thou hast made me what I am,
and given me what I have;
In thee I live and move and have my being;
Thy providence has set the bounds of my habitation,
and wisely administers all my affairs.
I thank thee for thy riches to me in Jesus,
for the unclouded revelation of him in thy Word,
where I behold his person, character, grace, glory,
humiliation, sufferings, death and resurrection;
Give me to feel a need of His continual saviourhood,
and cry with Job, 'I am vile,'
with Peter, 'I perish,'
with the publican, 'Be merciful to me, a sinner.'
Subdue in me the love of sin,
Let me know the need of renovation as well as of forgiveness
in order to serve and enjoy thee for ever.
I come to thee in the all-prevailing name of Jesus,
with nothing of my own to plead,
no works, no worthiness, no promises.
I am often straying,
often knowingly opposing thy authority,
often abusing thy goodness;
Much of my guilt arises from my religious privileges,
my estimation of them,
my failure to use them to my advantage,
But I am not careless of thy favor regardless of thy glory;
Impress me deeply with a sense of thine omnipresence,
that thou art about my path, my ways, my lying down, my end.

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