11
and pretended to give thee glory, when we were yet living in our sins, making thee angry with us every day, and casting the law behind us!
O, our God, let the time past suffice for us to have entered into thy courts thoughtless and unhumbled, self-satisfied, and self-sufficient. Now teach us effectually to reverence thy sanctuary: make us feel awful conceptions of the God with whom we have to do, and of the infinite importance of the holy exercises in which we are going to engage, Thou knowest our souls cleave to the very dust of the ground. O send thy quickening Spirit to raise our thoughts and desires unto thee in every part of thy holy worship. Shield us on every side from the flesh, the world, and the devil, that they may have no power to fill us with sinful distractions, and make us absent in spirit while we are presenting our bodies in thy temple.
While we confess our guilt, open thou our understanding, we beseech thee, that we may understand all the aggravations of our wickedness. Call back to remembrance whatever at any time has made us appear most vile in our own eyes, that we may now feel a godly sorrow, and be really ashamed and confounded at the sight of our iniquity. Accompany, we beseech thee, the reading of thy most holy word with the power of thy own Spirit, that so the practice of thy saints, and thy peculiar favour towards them, may stir us up to be diligent followers of their examples; that we may receive the strong consolation from thy promises, which in Christ Jesus are all sure and infallibly certain, and by hearing the gospel proclaimed, attain to clearer views of thy great salvation. When we are offering up our intercession to thee, give us to feel tenderness of heart, melting pity towards all our
