TUESDAY EVENING.

O GOD, the infinite eternal spirit; most perfect in power, wisdom and goodness; though mortal eyes cannot behold thee, nor any created understanding 'comprehend thee, thou art ever present with us, and seest the secrets of our hearts. All our sins, and all our wants, are known to thee: but thou wisely requirest our confessions as the exercise of our repentance, and our petitions and thanksgivings as the expressions of our desires, dependance and gratitude. We confess our unfitness for such converse with thee. O thou, whose mercy inviteth miserable sinners to come unto thee, by the new and living way; meet us not in thy justice, as a consuming fire, but accept us in thy righteous and beloved Son.

Thou, who art the creator of all things, didst make us in thine image, to know, love and serve thee. But sin hath corrupted all our powers, and perverted them from the ends for which we were made. [Thou art our owner and sovereign, but we have rebelled against thee, and lived

as if we were at our own disposal, obeying our carnal wills and appetites. Thou art goodness and love itself, and the author of all that is good and amiable. We ought to have loved and delighted in thee above all; but our hearts have been estranged from thee, and have delighted in worldly vanities. Thou hast made us capable of endless glory, and called us to seek it ; but we have lived as if we believed it not: we have despised the joys of heaven, and preferred the short-lived pleasures of sense.]

C

We ought to have served thee with our whole hearts, and to have employed our time, our thoughts, our tongues, and all our powers, for thy glory and the good of men. But alas, we have often trifled in thy worship, and hypocritically served thee with our lips alone, and have taken thy dreadful name in vain. Our thoughts have been guilty of vanity, folly and impurity; our tongues, of idle, wrathful and injurious words. We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves, nor sought each other's welfare, temporal or spiritual, with that zeal and affection which our relation to each other, and thy love to us, required. We have unprofitably abused thy talents,

and done but little good in the world, in comparison with what we might have done.

And though thy wonderful mercy hath given us a Redeemer, and in him such a remedy for our sins, as is the astonishment of men and angels, we have been chargeable with unbelief, and a stupid neglect of this great salvation. [How little have we been affected with the love and sufferings of a Saviour; and how have we made light of Christ and his gospel! Justly mightest thou deny us the mercy which we have so lightly esteemed.] Deal not with us, O Lord, according to our deserts, but according to our necessity, and thy great goodness. Where our sin hath abounded, let thy grace much more abound.

[Thou gavest mankind a Saviour when we were thine enemies; and it is thy great design to glorify thy wonderful love and mercy by means of our unworthiness and misery; to forgive much, that we may love much. Thou soughtest us, when we sought not thee: it is thine own command that we seek thee and beg thy mercy; and thou givest us the very desires which we pour out before thee. Should we, therefore, doubt of thy willingness to forgive

penitent believing souls, we should greatly wrong the riches of thy grace.] There is enough in the merit of thy Son's obedience and sacrifice to expiate our guilt, and justify penitent believers in thy sight. We would therefore encourage ourselves in the Lord our God, and cheerfully rely upon thy pardoning mercy.

And while, in the exercise of faith, we earnestly implore the forgiveness of our past sins, we desire cheerfully to return to thee, in the way of our duty, and humbly give up ourselves to thee as our God, our Father, our Saviour and our Sanctifier; beseeching thee to receive us upon the terms of thy covenant of grace. Renew and sanctify us by thy Spirit. Take from us the heart of stone, and give us hearts of flesh. Impart to us a divine and heavenly nature, and transform us into the image of thy holiness. Enable us to devote ourselves, and all that thou givest us, entirely to thee as thine own. Bring all the powers of our souls and bodies into a full subjection to thy government.

Shed abroad thy love in our hearts, by the power of thy Holy Spirit. Shew us more of thy infinite goodness and perfections, and the wonderful mercy which

thou hast given us in Christ; and let the beams of thy love so fire our breasts, that we may love thee with all our hearts and souls, with all our mind and strength; and may taste the beginning of the felicity of heaven; where we shall love thee more than we can now desire or conceive.

Give us more of the spirit of adoption; possess us with all child-like affections towards thee as our reconciled God and Father in Christ. Teach us to make thee our ultimate end, and to seek thy glory in all we do. And let thy exceeding love and mercy to us, engage us to love one another; to love all mankind, and even our enemies themselves. May we ever be ready to pardon the injuries we may receive, and to do good to all, to the utmost of our power.

Keep us, we beseech thee, from every thing in our words and actions by which we should dishonour thy name, and grieve thy Spirit. Quicken and animate us in every duty, whether personal, relative or divine. And help us to spend this transitory life in a diligent preparation for death and eternity. Let our hearts and our conversation be in heaven. Be with us through all the changing scenes of life;