This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. Searching, reading, printing, or downloading EEBO-TCP texts is reserved for the authorized users of these project partner institutions. Permission must be granted for subsequent distribution, in print or electronically, of this text, in whole or in part. Please contact project staff at eebotcp-info@umich.edu for further information or permissions.
O Lord our Governour, how excellent is thy Name in all the World? Thou art glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders, able to do whatsoever thou wilt, [Ver. 2] and willing to do whatsoever is best for Judah,
whom thou hast adopted to be thy Sanctuary, wherein thou wilt be served; and Israel thy Dominion, over whom thou wilt reign as a King by thy holy Word and Spirit.
O God, Thou hast béen very gracious unto us, that were Aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel; for in every Nation, every one that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is now accepted of thée; all true believers are now become the séed of Abraham, and the house of Jacob. Thou hast brought us out of Aegypt, out of that Kingdom of darkness and ignorance in which we lived, into a marvellous light; Thou hast fréed us from the bondage of Pharaoh, the Prince of darkness, under whom we served and groaned. [Ver. 1] Thou hast taken the burden of the Law, a yoke grievous and heavy to be born, from off our shoulders, and cancelled the Hand-writing that was against us, laying upon our necks an easier yoke, and upon our shoulders a lighter burden. Thou hast overturned, as it were, the Chariots and Horse-men, and destroyed the Host of our enemies, by su••••uing our iniquities, and casting all of them into the bottom of the Sea, that they may never appear before us again, to con∣found our Consetences in this World, or condemn our Souls in the next.
O Lord, shall the dumb and insensible Creatures tremble at thy presence, and shall not we be moved with so great mercies? Shall they all in their kinds praise thée, and shall not we, who are endued with reason, alwayes sing of the loving-kindness of our God? Shall the Sea flée, and the waters r etire, and the Mountains and Hills skip at the presence of the God of Jacob, [Ver. 3] and shall not Jacob himself serve the Lord in fear, and rejoyce before him in trembling? Shall the hard Rock be turned into a standing water, [unspec 4] and the flint-stone into a springing Well, and shall not our hard and flinty hearts, in consideration of our own miseries, [Ver. 8] and Gods unspeakable mercies in delivering us from the bon∣dage of our sins, and tyranny of Satan (if not gush forth into Fountains of tears) express so much as a little standing water in our eyes? It is a hard heart indeed, that is not rent with compunction, nor softned with kindness, nor moved with prayers, nor will yield to threats and blowes.
And yet, O Lord, such are our hearts, so hard, so flinty: O touch thou the Mountains, and they shall smoke; touch our lips with a Coal from the Altar, and they shall shew thy praise: Smite, Lord, our flinty hearts, as hard as the nether milstone, with the hammer of thy Word, and mollifie them also with the brops of thy mercies, and dew of thy Spirit; make them humble, fleshy, flexible, circumcised, soft, obedient, new, clean, broken; for we know, That a broken and contrite heart thou wilt not despise.
O Lord our God, give us grace from the very bottom of our heart to desire thée, in desiring to seek thée, in séeking to find thée, in finding to love thée, in loving thée, utterly to loath our former wickedness; never let us return in our hearts back again into Aegypt, never let us long after the Léeks and Onions, and Garlick thereof: But being by thy mercy delivered and brought from thence, and from the slavery of sin and Satan, let it be our whole endeavour to walk humbly and obediently before our God, that living in thy fear, and dying in thy favour, when we have passed through the Wilderness of this World, we may possess that heavenly Canaan, and happy land of promise, prepared for all such as love thy coming, even for every Christian soul, and who is thy Dominion and Sanctua∣ry. Grant this, O gracious God, in the Name of our Lord and Saviour Ie∣sus Christ, who lives and reigns with thée, and the Holy Spirit, one God, World without end. Amen.