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THE

ORDER

FOR

EVENING PRAYER,

DAILY throughout the YEAR.

At the beginning of Evening Prayer, the Minifter fhall read with a loud voice fome one or more of thefe Sentences of the Scriptures that follow: and then be fball fay that which is written after the faid fentences.

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HEN the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall fave his foul alive. Ezek. xviii. 27.

2. I acknowledge my tranfgreffions, and my fin is ever before me. Pfal. li. 3.

3. Hide thy face from my fins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Ver. 9.

PARAPHRASE.

"We Henever the finner, by a fincere repentance fhall return to God, he will be received into favour, notwithstanding the tranfgreffions of his paft life, for, (as it appears from the whole tenour of that chapter of Ezekiel from whence this verfe is taken) as thofe who have perfevered in the habitual practice of virtue, fhall forfeit the favour of the Almighty, if they deviate into the paths of fin and deftroy their fouls, notwithanding their former righteoufnefs; fo fhall a wicked man, if he reforms and returns to God, be restored to the divine favour, and refcue his foul from thofe miferies which are the confequences of unrepented guilt.

2. I do not deny or attempt to palliate my offences, but, with grief and confufion, acknowledge them; letting them make fo deep an impreffion upon me, as to be conftantly prefent to my mind, and ever before my eyes. 3. O Lord, out of thy readiness to pardon fin, do thou, as it were, verlook my offence: and upon my fincere repentance, in which I im

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4. The facrifices of God are a broken fpirit: a brokeri and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not defpife. Ver. 17.

5. Rent your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, flow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. Joel ii. 13.

6. To the Lord our God belong mercies, and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him: neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his laws which he fet before us. Dan. ix. 9, 10.

7. O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, left thou bring me to nothing. Jer. x. 24. Pf. vi. 1. 8. Repent ye; for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. St Matt. iii. 2.

PARAPHRASE.

plore the affiftance of thy grace, blot out mine iniquities from the book wherein they stand recorded against me.

4. God is better pleafed with a contrite heart which is truly affected, on account of past fins, and well difpofed to forfake them, than with the moft pompous facrifices which could be offered according to the legal inftitutions. For a broken heart, i. e. a heart dejected by extreme grief, (a. Ixi. 1.) which always attends a fincere repentance, is a facrifice which God will not reject or defpife, as he does the formal facrifices of wicked and hypocritical men.

5. You must be heartily and unfeignedly forry for your fins, and not content yourfelves with a theatrical expreffion of forrow, by external fign's and geitures fuch as the renting of garments were, of which custom many examples occur in fcripture; for the gracioufnefs, the tender mercy, the long fuffering, and benignity of God, give finners the ftrongeft grounds to hope for pardon, upon their return to him: he does likewife, as it were, repent him of the evil which he inflicts on men, when he is refolved to withdraw it in confequence of their repentance.

6. God is a being of fo merciful and forgiving a nature, that he is well difpofed to pardon us, tho' we have ever fo grievously offended him; and tho' we have, as it were, revolted from our allegiance to him, by a notorious violation of his laws, which we were bound to obferve, yet he is Bill willing to forgive us.

7. O Lord, I beseech thee, do not chaftife me with the anger of an enemy, but with the clemency of a merciful judge, for I fhould be totally confumed, if thou should ft proceed with me according to rigid justice, and as my offences have deferved.

8. Repent of your fins, and endeavour to reconcile yourselves to God before Chrift's glorious kingdom begins; it will be preceded by the uni

9. I will arife, and go to my father, and will fay unto him, Father, I have finned against Heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy fon. St Luke XV. 18, 19.

10. Enter not into judgment with thy fervant, O Lord; for in thy fight fhall no man living be justified. Pf. cxliii. 2. 11. If we fay that we have no fin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us: but if we confess our fins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our fins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteoufnels. 1 St John i. 8, 9.

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Early beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in fundry places to acknowledge and confefs our manifold fins and wickednefs: and that we fhould not diffemble, nor cloke them before the face of Almighty God

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verfal judgment, and should you be fummoned thither, without having firft repented of your fins, you can expect nothing but perdition.

9. I will follow the example of the prodigal fon, and preffed down with the guilt and mifery which my fins have brought upon me, return to my heavenly Father, and acknowledge the heinous offences whereby I have justly forfeited the relation which he bore unto me.

10. O Lord, do not call me strictly to an account for my actions, or, according to the Hebrew phrafe, do not go to law with me, or carry me before thy tribunal; for fhouldst thou view all things thro' the rigour of thy juftice, the most virtuous man's life cannot ftand the test, nay, every man living must be indebted to thy mercy for being acquitted.

11. This life being a state so very imperfect, that we are all fubject to great failure; to affert that we are in a state of perfection and entirely free from fin, is a notorious falfhood, and a thing unbecoming the truth and fimplicity of our religion: but if we acknowledge our fins before God, and fincerely repent of them, God, out of his faithfulness and justice, will, upon our complying with thofe conditions, perform the promise he made us on that behalf. by pardoning them and will preferve us, for the future, from any grofs fin, by granting us the affiftance of his Holy Spirit, which will confirm and establish us in every good work.

1. My dear fellow chriftians, the holy fcriptures, for whofe authority you and ail true believers profefs the higheft veneration, not only in the Several paffages which I have juft read to you but in feveral other places, exhort us to confefs unto God the innumerable violations of his facred laws, whereof we are guilty: add to this, that it is the heighth of folly for us to hope to diffemble, or extenuate them, fo as to deceive the all-fearching

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our heavenly Father; but confefs them with an humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient heart; to the end that we may obtain forgiveness of the fame, by his infinite goodness 2. And although we ought at all times humbly to acknowledge our fins before God, yet ought we most chiefly fo to do, when we affemble and meet together, to render thanks for the great benefits that we have received at

and mercy.

PARA PHRASE.

eye of God, who fees the real nature of every thing. Nor fhould we be guilty of fo vile an act of hypocrify, as, notwithstanding our manifold fins, publicly in the church, in the prefence of God and his holy angels, to ftand upon our juftification: but if we difcharge the duty of fincere christians, we must perform these three parts of true repentance: first, with an humble and lowly heart make confeffion of our fins to God, with a dejection of fpirit, and a confufion equal to that of the publican, who stood afar off, and would not lift up his eyes to heaven: fecondly, to this we should add a true penitent forrow of mind, for having offended fo good a Being, and brought ourselves into fuch great danger: finally, all these confiderations fhould give us fuch a difguft against our fins, as to make us form a refolution to pay an uniform obedience to the laws of God for the time to come, If in this manner we repent of our fins, we shall have just grounds to hope, that God will pardon them. But ftill we should not intagine that even a repentance, fo circumftantiated, will give us any elaim to merit, whereby we may be intitled to impunity of our fins: for that we must be indebted to the infinite goodness and mercy of God, reached out to us in the mystery of our redemption, and by the fufferings of our bleffed Saviour Jefus Chrift.

2. And tho' we ought at all times, or in thofe more frequent courses of private devotion, which are enjoined us by our religion, to discharge this duty of religion, as it is one of the most important parts of prayer; it cannot be denied, that there is a more particular reafon for making use of it in the folemn affemblies of chriftians in the church, where they meet together to perform the four great parts of religious worship; firft, thankf giving for favours and mercies already received: fecondly, praises and adorations of the perfections and goodness of the Almighty: thirdly, hearing the word of God read and preached: fourthly, petition or defiring of God both fpiritual and temporal bieffings. But we cannot rightly discharge any of thefe public duties. without the confeffion of our fins, and the other neceffary parts of true repentance. As long as we continue to abufe the mercies of God, we cannot thank him as we ought we cannot praife and admire his excellencies, of which, in an unregenerate ftate, we can have but a faint idea; whilst we retain all our carnal affections, we cannot devoutly liften to the word of God: nor can we hope that our prayers will prove acceptable, when by the wickedness of our lives, they are rendered an abomination unto God.

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his hands, to set forth his most worthy praise, to hear his moft holy word, and to ask those things which are requifite and neceffary, as well for the body as the foul. 3. Wherefore I pray and befeech you, as many as are here prefent, to accompany me with a pure heart and humble voice, unto the throne of the heavenly grace, faying after me.

A general Confeffon, to be faid of the whole Congregation, after the Minifter, all kneeling.

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LMIGHTY, and moft merciful Father. 2. We have erred and ftrayed from thy ways like loft fheep. 3. We have followed too much the devices and de

PARAPHRASE.

3. I therefore earnefty defire of every one of you, (whether laymen or clergymen) to addrefs yourselves with me to God, in fervent prayer; which I, as God's minifter, offer up to the throne of his grace, both for myfelf and you; this I do not do alone, as the priests were wont to do under the Jewish difpenfation, in which circumftance they have been imitated by the papifts, but I defire you who are poffeffed of higher priviledges, by virtue of Christ's covenant, to accompany me thither; repeating after me the words prefcribed by the church on this occafion: intreating you, at the fame time, to manifeft in your devotion, fincerity, attention, and gravity, the genuine effects of a pure heart, and to behave in every refpect in a manner worthy the devout worship of God; taking particular care in your refponfes as well to avoid a loud, clamorous voice, as an inarticulate motion of the lips; and that you use a low and humble tone of voice properly adapted to this folemnity.

1. O Lord, we addrefs ourselves unto thee on account of thofe attributes of thine, which incline thee to pardon finners, thy Omnipotence, by which thou art endowed with fufficient power to help us; and thy mercy, whereby thou art always ready to do it: having likewife a confident expectation of forgivenefs from that relation of father-hood, which thou doft bear to us, as thou art pleased thyself to acknowledge.

2. We must, to our fhame, acknowledge that we have, by our fins of forprife and infirmity, erred and deviated from the path of our duty, and at other times ftray'd and made larger excurfions from thofe ways which the holy religion, by thee revealed, has chalked out to us to walk in; and this, to ufe the comparison of our Saviour, after the manner of loft Cheep that straggle from their thepherd, and are thereby exposed to innumerable dangers.

3 We acknowledge that we have too frequently yielded to thofe unlawful defires, to which we have been prompted by our corrupt nature and riginal depravity

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4. To

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