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A Prayer to conclude our Devotions upon this day and every day in the week,

Verily, Verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father, in my name, he will give it you. John xvi. 23.

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LMIGHTY God, who hast promised to hear the petitions of them that ask in thy Son's name: I beseech thee mercifully to incline thine ears unto me, who have now made my prayers and supplications unto thee: and grant that those things which I have faithfully asked, according to thy will, may be effectually obtained, to the relief of my necessities, and to the setting forth of thy glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Blessing.

HE peace of God, which passeth all un

Tderstanding, keep my heart and mind in

the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be with me now and at the hour of my death. Amen.

On Monday night (and the rest of the Week) at going to bed, say,

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Will lay me down in peace and take my rest, for it is thou, O Lord, only that maketh me dwell in safety.

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Into thy hands I commend my Spirit, for thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, thou God of truth.

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Have mercy upon me, O Lord, now, and at the hour of death. Amen, Amen.

The Meditation for Tuesday Morning.

Upon God's Mercy and Christ's Incarnation, to prepare us for a worthy Receiving of the Holy Sacrament.

God so loved the World, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting Life John iii 16.

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RAW near, all that fear the Lord, and I will tell you what he hath done for my soul; hear, and I will tell you what he hath done for yours, and the wonders of his bounty towards all the World. When we lay asleep, in the shades of nothing, his Almighty hand awakened us into being; not to that of stones, or plants, or beasts, over which he has made us absolute Lords; but to a body wonderfully made, and an immortal Soul, little inferior to his glorious Angels; he printed on our Souls his own similitude, and promised to our obedience a share

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Here you may observe the directions given, page 3.

share in his own felicity; he endued us with appetites to live well and happy, and furnish ed us with means to satisfy those appetites; creating a whole world to serve us here, and providing a Heaven to glorify us hereaf

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II. These are the favours of God's infinite goodness: But what return have we made to him? My Soul should blush for shame, should weep for grief at so extreme an ingratitude. We childishly preferred a trivial apple before the law of our. God, and the safety of Our Souls; changed the pleasures of eternity of Heaven, for satisfaction,

we foolishly ex Paradise, and the a little needless

II Behold the unhappy source of all our miseries, which still increased as they went farther on, till they brought down a flood of Justice to drown their enormous iniquity; and here, alas had been an end of man, a sad and fatal end of the whole world, had not our wise Creator foreseen the danger, and in mercy prevented the extremity of the ruin, reserving for himself a few choice plants to replenish the earth with more hope. ful fruit : Yet they grew quickly wild, and brought forth sour grapes, and their children's teeth were set on edge; quickly they aspired

pired to an intolerable pride of fortifying their wickedness against the power of Heaven.

IV. This rebellion provoked justice to a second deluge, and to bring again a cloud over the earth; but mercy discovered a bow in the cloud and our faithful God remembered his promise, allaying their punishment with a milder sentence, and only scattered them from the place of their conspiracy which yet his providence turned into a blessing, by making it an occasion of peopling the world. Still their rebellious nature dis obeyed again, and neither feared his judgements, nor valued his mercies; but with a graceless emulation propagated sin, as far as his goodness propagated mankind, then he selected a private family, and increased and governed them with a particular tenderness, giving them a law by the hands of Angels, and engaging their obedience by a thousand favours; but they likewise neglected their God and Heaven, and fell in love with the ways of Death

V. When thou hadst thus, O merciful Lord, used many remedies. and our disease was beyond their power to cure; when the light of nature proved too weak a guide, and the general flood too mild a correction; when the miracles of Moses could not soften their hearts, por the law of Angels bring any to

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perfection; when the whole was reduced to this desperate state and no imaginable hope left to recover us; behold! thy eternal wisdom finds an amazing expedient, the last and highest instance of almighty love; he resolves to cloath himself with our flesh, and come down amongst us, and die to redeem us, and has left us to the blessed sacrament of his body and blood for a perpetual remembrance of the

same.

VI. Wonder O my Soul, at the mercies of the Lord! how infinitely do they transcend even our utmost wishes? wonder at the admirable Providence of his councils, which are exactly fitted to their great design! had our Saviour been less than God, we could never believe the sublime mysteries of this heavenly doctrine; had he been other than man, we must needs have wanted the powerful motive of his holy example. Had he been only God, he could never have suffered the least of those afflictions he so gloriously overcame: had he been merely man, he could never have overcome those infinite afflictions he so patiently endured. In thee, O blessed Saviour, the two natures of God and Man were so mysteriously united, without either change or confusion, that they made in thee but one Person, one Mediator, one Lord.

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