1 children of difobedience, who promise themfelves liberty, while they are the fervants of corruption. Let us never efteem ourselves poffeft of true liberty, till the Son makes us free, and then we fhall be free indeed. And that we may be able to affert our spiritual liberty, we earnestly pray that we may receive the continual communications of thy enlightening, quickening and fanctifying Spirit, without which our fouls are dark, dead and polluted. May thy Spirit dwell in our hearts, and fanctify us wholly for thy fervice. Suffer not the pleasures, or riches, or honours of this vain world, to withdraw our hearts from thee, or to lead us to the commiffion of any forbidden act, which would offend thy purity, and grieve thy holy Spirit. Enable us to walk circumspectly and without offence, redeeming time, because the days are few and evil. May we do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. May it be our happy attainment, through affifting grace, to be found walking in all the statutes and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. Search us, O God, and know our hearts, try us, and know our thoughts; fee if there be any hidden wickedness in us, which in time past we have overlooked or connived at, and lead us in the way everlafting. We bless thee, O. Lord, for lengthening out our day of grace, and continuing to us the means of grace and falvation; that thine ordinances are ftill dif penfed among us, and that our teachers are not hid in a corner. But feeing Paul may plant, and Apollos may water, but. thou giveft the increase, we fervently pray, that the feed of the word, fown this day, may be watered with the dew of heaven, that thy servants may not labour in vain, and that thy people may not be faithlefs, but believing. Let all the minifters of the gospel, and all the affemblies of thy people, find thee a very prefent help on this day. While we feel our own infirmities, may we alfo fee where our ftrength is to be found. Affift us, gracious God, as we are feverally to be employed at this time. May we fpeak and hear thy word, as becomes the oracles of the living God. Incline thine ear to our requests, O Lord; do for us exceedingly above what we are able to aík, or think. All we afk, is in the prevailing name of Jefus, our advocate and interceffor, to whom, with thee O Father, and the Holy Spirit, we would afcribe bleffing and honour, and glory and power, for ever more. AMEN. DEVOTIONS for the CHURCH. AFTER SERMON. PRAYER III. O LORD our God! thou art giving us line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. Thou art inftructing us both by thy word and by the dispensations of thy providence. Help us to mark the judgments of thy mouth, and the operations of thy hands, and fo to ponder all in our hearts, that we may become wife unto falvation. We thank thee for every renewed opportunity of affembling together in thy houfe of prayer. May we remember that all our opportunities are uncertain, that our days are as a fhadow, that the Judge ftandeth at the door, that we muft ere long give an account of the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or bad. O grant, that under these impreffions, we may ever act, and think, and feel, and believe. Infpire us, we beseech thee, with the sentiments which become the candidates of glory, of honour, and of immortality. If there are any in thy prefence at this time, O omnifcient God, who are utterly unconcerned about the things which belong to their peace, living without thee, without hope in this world, and without care for a better, we pray thee, to arrest them in the carreer of folly, to awaken them to wise reflexion, and fober thought: We befeech thee, O Lord, to fhew them their error, their mifery, their iniquity, and to lead them to. that great Redeemer, who alone can rescue them from this vain world, who alone can deliver them from the bondage of corruption, and make them partakers of a divine nature, and of an eternal inheritance. May it be the great care of each of us, to give all diligence, to make our calling and election fure, that fo |