against Thee, and our uncharitableness to our neighbours: soften our hard hearts, to be kindly-affectioned one towards another; forbearing and forgiving one another, as we hope and humbly beg to be forgiven by Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

SIXTH PETITION.

"Lead us not into temptation." Suffer us not any more to fall into sins and trespasses against Thee. When we are led away with our lusts, and tempted, O leave us not then to ourselves, who are weak and frail, and too prone to all that is evil: but assist and enable us, by Thy divine grace, to overcome all the assaults of our ghostly enemies, and to continue Thy faithful servants and soldiers to our lives' ends.

SEVENTH PETITION.

"Deliver us from evil." From the evil of sin, by Thy grace; and from the evil of punishment, by Thy mercy and from the author of all evils, the devil: from the temporal evils and miseries of this life, and from the evils of a sad eternity in the life to come; from Thy wrath, and from everlasting damnation, Good Lord deliver us.

Liberati a malo, confirmati semper in bono, tibi servire mereamur, Deo ac Domino nostro. Pone, Domine, finem peccatis nostris, da gaudium tribulatis, præbe redemptionem captivis, sanitatem infirmis, requiemque defunctis; concede pacem et securitatem in omnibus diebus nostris; frange audaciam omnium

inimicorum nostrorum, et exaudi, Deus, orationes omnium servorum Tuorum fidelium Christianorum in hac die et in omni tempore, per Dominum nostrum Jesum', &c.

CONCLUSION.

"For thine is the Kingdom." Thou rulest and reignest over all: and Thy dominion is absolute and independent, the power whereof cannot be broken, nor its glory eclipsed, like the frail and fading kingdoms of this world: But Thine is "the Power and the Glory, for ever and ever." Thy dominion is an everlasting dominion, such as shall not pass away; and Thy Kingdom such as cannot be destroyed, but shall stand fast in power, and eminent in glory, for ever.

O give us hearts yielding a wilful obedience to the Laws of Thy kingdom, full of reverence and awful fear of Thy Power, studious to advance Thy Glory upon earth; that we may in the end arrive at Thy Kingdom in Heaven, where Thou livest and reignest, Blessed Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.

Amen.

CHAPTER XI.

THE SEVEN PENITENTIAL PSALMS PARAPHRASED.

THE Psalms of David being by all Christians, of what persuasion soever, acknowledged to be the immediate dictates of God's Holy Spirit; it must necessarily be acknowledged also, that he who understandingly and devoutly prays in the very words of the Psalms, prays by the Holy and true Spirit of God. The truth whereof, which by many blind zealots is too much slighted and neglected, we have both confirmed, and the practice commanded, Eph. v. 18, 19, "Be ye filled with the Spirit: speaking to yourselves" (or "among yourselves," which is done by answering each other)" in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs;" i. e. such as are the dictates of the Holy Spirit; compared with Col. iii. 16.

Thus prayed our Lord upon the Cross in the very words of the Psalmist. And so hath ever prayed the Church of Christ, in all the ages thereof. "Psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, are, and ever were,

t Psalm xxii. 1; xxxi. 5.

u Psalmus totius Ecclesiæ vox. Aug. Prolog. in Ps., Chrys. de Pœn. Hom. vi., Ambr. de Virgil. 1. iii.

It

the constant, regular, standing parts of God's Worship, both under the Law, and under the Gospel : and he must needs be a desperate fanatic, who will not acknowledge the words of God's own Spirit to be more wise, pithy, pertinent, and effectually prevailing with God in our prayers, than any words of man's devising, how seeming zealous and taking soever. is a strange, but not a true spirit of holy prayer, that those persons pretend unto, who slight the devout use of the Psalms, which are the treasury of all sound devotion, and trust to their own extempore or studied expressions in prayer, preferring the dictates of their own spirit, before those of the Spirit of God Himself.

The Penitential Psalms are so called, because commended by the Church of Christ, and by the constant practice of orthodox, devout Christians, to the religious use of all true penitents in their prayers; to be used upon all days of humiliation and fasting, and in the time of sickness or any distress. So prayed St. Augustine upon his death-bed; he wept and bewailed his sins, in the devout use of the Penitential Psalms. And these are also the most effectual prayers we can use in the practice of repentance, by way of preparation to the Holy Communion.

PSALM VI.

"rebuke me

"O LORD," the Judge of all men, not in Thine indignation," which I have deservedly incurred: "neither chasten me" for mine offences in Thy hot displeasure," flaming to consume me. 2. "Have mercy upon me, O Lord," Whose na

ture and property is ever to have mercy and to forgive," for I am weak;" this corruptible body pressing down the soul, both through original corruption, and manifold actual transgressions: "O Lord, heal me," pour the wine and oil of Thy grace and mercy into the wounds of my sinful soul, "for my bones are vexed;" that interior strength which supports my soul, is troubled and sore shaken by many falls and failings.

3. "My soul also," being conscious of her guilt and distempered condition, "is sore troubled;" being terrified at the apprehension of Thy strict justice, and her own deserts: "but Thou, O Lord," Who desirest not the death of a sinner, "how long" wilt Thou delay to hear, help, and heal my soul?

4. "Return, O Lord," from the rigour of justice, to the sweetness of mercy; "deliver my soul" from the bands and fetters of her sins, and from under the power of Satan, " and save me" from Thy wrath, and from everlasting damnation; good Lord, deliver me, "for Thy mercies' sake," wherein is my only trust, through the merits of my Saviour.

5. "For in death," whether spiritual in sin, or corporal for sin, "there is no remembrance of Thee," either by confessing our sins unto Thee, or imploring mercy from Thee: "and who will give Thee thanks in the pit?" None, sure, do praise Thy Name in the grave of death, which is the dwelling-place of silence and oblivion; much less in the pit of hell, where Thy great Name is not praised, but blasphemed.