The worthy communicant, or, A discourse of the nature, effects, and blessings consequent to the worthy receiving of the Lords Supper and of all the duties required in order to a worthy preparation : together with the cases of conscience occurring in the duty of him that ministers, and of him that communicates : to which are added, devotions fitted to every part of the ministration / by Jeremy Taylor ...

S. Austins penitential Prayer.

Before thy eyes, O gracious Lord, we bring our crimes; before thee we expose the wounds of our bleeding souls. That which we suffer is but little; but that which we deserve is intolerable: We fear the punish∣ment of our sins, but cease not pertinaci∣ously to proceed in sinning: Our weakness is sometimes smitten with thy rod, but our iniquity is not changed; our grieved mind is troubled, but our stiff neck is not bend∣ed with the flexures of a holy obedience; our life spends in vanity and trouble, but amends it self in nothing: When thou smitest us, then we confess our sin; but when thy visitation is past, then we forget that we have wept: When thou stretchest forth thy hand, then we promise to do our duty; but when thou takest off thy hand, we perform no promises: If thou strikest, we cry to thee to spare us; but

when thou sparest, we again provoke thee to strike us.

Thus O God the guilty confess before thee; and unless thou givest us pardon, it is but just that we perish: But O Almighty God our Father, grant to us what we ask, even though we deserve it not; for thou madest us out of nothing, else we had not any pow∣er to ask.

] Pardon us, O gracious Father, and take away all our sin, and destroy the work of the Devil; and let the enemy have no part nor portion in us; but acknowledg the work of thy own hands, the price of thy own blood, the sheep of thy own fold, the members of thy own body, the purchase of thine own inheritance; and make us to be what thou hast commanded; give unto us what thou hast designed for us; enable us for the work thou hast injoin'd us, and bring us to the place which thou hast prepared for us by the blood of the everlasting Covenant, and by the pains of the Cross, and the glories of thy Resurrection, O blessed and most glo∣rious Saviour and Redeemer Jesus. Amen.