Be thou to us a strong tower, Our help standeth in the name of the Lord, Lord, hear our prayers, And may our petitions be accepted. Occasional Prayer for the Evening Service. Master. ALMIGHTY God, lighten our darkness we beseech thee, and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night, granting us moderate and refreshing rest, free from sinful imaginations, which too often are the effects of our corrupt natures; when we awake, let our souls be filled with heavenly thoughts and pious meditations, always remembering we are in the presence of God, who knows our downsitting and our uprising, and who art acquainted with all our ways. If we should be so vain and thoughtless as to believe that the darkness would cov er us from thee: yet the darkness and light to thee are both alike. And forasmuch as the closing our eyes to rest, so nearly resembles death, and our beds are but models of our graves, out of which we must one day be called by the sound of the last trump, to arise and come to judgment, let this, and every evening, and every morning, remind us of our dying hour. Make us, therefore, sensible how highly it concerns us while we have health of body and soundness of mind, to be armed, like good 1 soldiers, with Christian courage and resolution for our death-bed conflicts with diseases and spiritual enemies, that, as death to many is a terror, it may be to us a friend, that we may with cheerfulness quit these houses of clay and fleshly tabernacles, and exchange the troubles of a painful pilgrimage in a vale of anxiety for heaven, with the blessed company of saints and angels, and enter into the joy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. Occasional Prayer. Master. ALMIGHTY God, be pleased to accept of our praises and thanksgivings, offered unto thee for thy beneficent pro idence, which has hitherto attended us in every stage, and through all the vicissitudes of past life, making constant provision for our support and comfort, by innumerable blessings which have given us a relish for existence, and laid a foundation for the most animating hopes of deriving from thine inexhaustible munificence all further needed supplies of good, and affords us constant and most reviving evidence of thine unmerited paternal care and bounty, whereof we have had happy experience, and to which we are indebted for our present agreeable circumstances: May we live under an habitual impressive sense of our dependence on Thee, and obligations to thine ever active providence, in acknowledging Thee in all thy ways; may we put our trust in Thee; through all the changing scenes of life, and with the warmest emotions of gratitude and most fixed resolution of holy obedience, make it our constant and devout inquiry what we shall render to Thee for all thy benefits. Master. O THOU that hearest prayer, who hast not only invited and encouraged, but commanded us to maintain a sacred intercourse with heaven by prayer and supplication together with thanksgiving; pardon we beseech thee whatever has been amiss in our present address, and graciously accept us, as we desire with the profoundest humility and reverence to close our devotions. Social. OUR Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven; grant us thy daily blessing, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever. Amen. of |