A Puritan Prayer For Contentment
Heavenly Father, if I should suffer need, and go unclothed, and be in poverty, make my heart prize Thy love, know it, be constrained by it, though I be denied all blessings. It is Thy mercy to afflict and try me with wants, for by these trials I see my sins, and desire severance from them. Let me willingly accept misery, sorrows, temptations, if I can thereby feel sin as the greatest evil, and be delivered from it with gratitude to Thee, acknowledging this as the highest testimony of Thy love.
When thy Son, Jesus, came into my soul instead of sin He became more dear to me than sin had formerly been; His kindly rule replaced sin's tyranny. Teach me to believe that if ever I would have any sin subdued I must not only labour to overcome it, but must invite Christ to abide in the place of it, and He must become to me more than vile lust had been; that His sweetness, power, life may be there. Thus I must seek a grace from Him contrary to sin, but must not claim it apart from Himself.
When I am afraid of evils to come, comfort me by showing me that in myself I am a dying, condemned wretch, but in Christ I am reconciled and live; that in myself I find insufficiency and no rest, but in Christ there is satisfaction and peace; that in myself I am feeble and unable to do good, but in Christ I have ability to do all things. Though now I have His graces in part, I shall shortly have them perfectly in that state where Thou wilt show Thyself fully reconciled, and alone sufficient, efficient, loving me completely, with sin abolished. O Lord, hasten that day.
4 comments:
"When thy Son, Jesus, came into my soul instead of sin He became more dear to me than sin had formerly been"
Wow, what a statement! Cuts right into the heart of the matter. If only all professing Christians, including myself most of all, made this our priority.
You are right, Sparks. I have been listening to and reading Puritan prayers for a few months now and they are incredible prayers. Not at all what we hear today which mostly goes like this: help me, help us, do this, do that.
They are prayers of humility and praise for our Holy Father with supplication to become to become more Holy! I have been so blessed by them.
Are you finding these online somewhere? I'd like to read more.
Try this site for written prayers: http://www.oldlandmarks.com/puritan.htm
There are some CD's for sale called the valley of vision by mongerism. Those are great for bedtime listening :)
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