NINTH ORDER OF PRAYER. HOLY Lord God, how can we lift up our face, and make mention of thy loving kindness? for thy praise is only our abasement, and the greatness of thy mercy is the measure of our guilt. Yet turn us not back from thy presence. Look upon us according to our deep need, not our poor deservings. Lift off the burden of our many sins, and revive the contrite that fly to thee. When thou art nigh, we are weary of our selfish desires, our faithless cares, our unresisted temptations; wasted moments and bitter words and vain ambitions rise up in judgment against us: we lay at thy feet with shame the vows we have not kept and the sorrows we have not sanctified. No secret thing is hid from thee. Thou knowest the spirit we are of. Chasten us with thy rebuke, seek us with thy pity, recall us by thy grace, ere we are quite estranged from thee. Let the saving word, once heard on earth, be renewed from heaven, "Your sins are forgiven, go in peace." Amen. GOD, GOD, our everlasting hope, who holdest us in life, and orderest our lot: we ask not for any prosperity that would tempt us to forget thee. As disciples of one who had not where to lay his head, may we freely welcome the toils and sufferings of our humanity, and seek only strength to glorify the cross thou layest on us. Every work of our hand may we do as unto thee; in every trouble, trace some lights of thine; and let no blessing fall on dry and thankless hearts. Redeeming the time, may we fill every waking hour with faithful duty and well-ordered affections, as the sacrifice which thou hast provided. Strip us, 0 Lord, of every proud thought; fill us with patient tenderness for others, seeing that we also are in the same case before thee; and make us ready to help, and quick to forgive. And then fix every grace, compose every fear, by a steady trust in thine eternal realities, behind the changes of time and the delusions of men. Thou art our Rock: we rest on thee. Amen. ALMIGHTY THOU whose eye is over all the children of men, and who hast called them, by thy Prince of Peace, into a kingdom not of this world, send forth his spirit speedily into the dark places of our guilt and woe, and arm it with the piercing power of thy grace. the grace. May it reach the heart of every oppression, and make arrogancy dumb before thee. Let it still the noise of our strife and the tumult of the people; put to shame the false idols of every mind; carry faith to the doubting, hope to the fearful, strength to the weak, light to the mourner; and more and more increase the pure in heart who see their God. Lord, of whose righteous will all things are, and were created; who liftest the islands out of the deep, and preparest not in vain the habitable world: thou hast gathered our people into a great nation, and sent them to sow beside all waters, and multiply sure dwellings on the earth. Deepen the root of our life in everlasting righteousness; and let not the crown of our pride be as a fading flower. Make us equal to our high trusts; reverent in the use of freedom, just in the exercise of power, generous in the protection of weakness. To our Legislators and Counsellors give insight and faithfulness, that our laws may clearly speak the right, and our Judges purely interpret it. Let it be known among us how thou hatest robbery for burnt-offering; that the gains of industry may be all upright, and the use of wealth considerate. May wisdom and knowledge be the stability of our times; and our deepest trust be in thee, the Lord of nations and the King of kings. Amen. Commit thy word, O Lord, to the lips of faithful men, or the free winds of thine invisible Providence; that soon. the knowledge of thee may cover the earth, as the waters cover the channels of the deep. And so let thy kingdom come, and thy will be done. Amen. THE Lord bless us, and keep us may he be gracious unto us; and give us peace now and for ever. Amen. TENTH ORDER OF PRAYER. GOD, ever-blessed and holy, none but the angels and thy Redeemed can serve thee with a perfect joy. and lay on us the cross, if we may but grow into the holiness, of Christ. Amen. On us, as we look up to the ETERNAL God, who comlight of thy countenance, the shadows of shameful remembrance fall; and to all thy mercies we must still answer with a cry for more. Called in our measure to be perfect as thou art perfect, we have been most unlike to thee, and are not worthy to be deemed thy children. Thirsting with momentary desires, we have forsaken the living springs of heavenly wisdom, of which he that drinketh shall never thirst again. We have been slow to the calls of affection, heedless of the duties, hard under the sorrows, which are thy gracious discipline; yet are oppressed with cares thou lavest not on us, with ease thou dost not permit, and wants thou wilt never bless. O Lord, regard our complaint: it is only against our faithless hearts. We have nothing to plead, and renounce our pride before thee. Only leave us not to ourselves. Visit us with the wrestlings of thy Spirit; mittest to us the swift and solemn trust of life, since we know not what a day may bring forth, but only that the hour for serving thee is always present, may we wake to the instant claims of thy holy will; not waiting for to-morrow, but yielding to-day. Lay to rest, by the persuasion of thy Spirit, the resistance of our passion, indolence, or fear. Consecrate with thy presence the way our feet may go; and the humblest work will shine, and the roughest places be made plain. Lift us above unrighteous anger and mistrust into faith and hope and charity, by a simple and steadfast reliance on thy sure will; and so may we be modest in our time of wealth, patient under disappointment, ready for danger, serene in death. In all things, draw us to the mind of Christ, that thy lost image may be traced again, and thou mayst own us as at one with him and thee. Amen. O GOD, who leadest us through seasons of life to be partakers of thine eternity, the shadows of our evening hasten on. Quicken us betimes; and spare us that sad word, "The harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." Anew we dedicate ourselves to thee. We would ask nothing, save only leave to go whither thou mayst guide, to live not far from thee, and die into thy nearer light. Content to accept the reproach of truth and the self-denials of pure integrity, we would take upon us the yoke of Christ, whom it behooved to suffer ere he entered into his glory. Amen. L ORD of all, whose balance trieth the nations, to lift up or to cast down, thou hast planted us, as a people, and laid upon us a mighty trust. Never through vain conceit may we be blind to the unchanging conditions of thy blessing. The world and its fulness are thine our portion thereof may we hold, not in wanton self-will, but reverently, as of thee; making it the stronghold of right, the refuge of the oppressed, and the moderator of lawless ambition. Make all who speak or act for this nation true organs of thine equity, that through their wisdom and faithfulness thou mayest be our Lawgiver and Judge. And let it be that, as with the people so with the chiefs, as with the servant so with the master, as with the buyer so with the seller, all may know thee as weighing the path of the just; that righteousness may be the girdle of our power. Amen. GOD, who didst send thy word to speak in the Prophets and live in thy Son, and appoint thy Church to be witness of divine things in all the world, revive the purity and deepen the power of its testimony; and, through the din of earthly interests and the storm of human passions, let it make the still small voice of thy Spirit inly felt. Nearer and nearer may thy kingdom come from age to age. By the cleansing spirit of thy Son, make this world a fitting forecourt to that sanctuary not made with hands, where our life is hid with Christ in God. Amen. BAPTISM OF CHILDREN. AND Jesus took a child and IN sympathy, as we believe, set him in the midst; and when he had taken him in his arms, he said unto them, Whosoever shall receive one of such children, in my name, receiveth me; and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but Him that sent me. And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them; and his disciples rebuked those that brought them; but when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as a little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven, with the spirit of our Saviour, we are about to dedicate this child to God, in baptism. This water is the emblem of that purity which God desires in the souls of his children, that purity which was in Christ Jesus, his well-beloved Son, in whom we are called to pureness and holiness of living. WILL ye instruct this child in the gospel of Jesus Christ? And will ye faithfully endeavor to rear him in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Answer. We will. Name this child. And, repeating the name, the Minister shall baptize the child, saying: BAPTIZE thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Or, IN the faith, fellowship, and hope of the gospel, I dedicate thee to God, our Father in heaven. |