Mean while, O gracious Lord, the Crown of all thy Saints, and only Expectation of thy faithful Servants! Make us entertain our Life with the Comfort of this Hope, and our Hope with the Affurance of thy Promises. Make us ftill every Day more perfectly understand our own great Duty, and thy infinite Love. Make us continually meditate the Advancement of thy Glory, and invite all the World to fing thy Praises. Praise our Lord, O ye holy Angels! praise him, ye happy Saints! Praise him, O ye Faithful, departed in his Grace! Praise him, O ye Living, who fubfift by his Mercy! Praife him in the vaft Immenfity of his Power; praise him in the admirable Wif dom of his Providence. Praise him in the bleft Effects of his Goodness; praise him in the Infiniteness of all his Attributes. Be thou for ever thine own first Praise, O glorious God! and to all the Felicities thou effentially poffeffeft, may every Creature fay, Amen. Glory be to the Father, &c. As it was, &c. Antiphon. O how adorable are thy Councels, O Lord, how strangely endearing are the Ways of thy Love? 1 Peter, 1 Peter, 1.3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jefus Chrift, who according to his abundant Mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively Hope, by the Refurrection of Jefus Chrift from the Dead. To an Inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, referved in Heaven for you. HYMN II. Ake, my Soul, rife from this Bed VVA Quickly rife, lift up thy Head, Once he came, O bleffed He! ; Now he comes (both Times for thee) Lo, he rifes fresh and bright, Incircled round with Stars; Still as he his Progrefs makes, And follows in his Train. Thus Thus together they afcend, To bid them welcome Home. Soon they know again their King, Come, my Soul, let us rejoyce, Glory, Honour, Power, and Praise Ant. Why feek ye the Living among the Dead? He is rifen; He is not here: He is gloriously afcended, and the Heavens have receiv'd him. Alleluja, Alleluja. B ple. Benedictus. Leffed be the Lord God of Ifrael; for he hath visited and redeemed his Peo And hath raised up a mighty Salvation for us in the House of his Servant Da vid; As As he spake by the Mouth of his holy Prophets, which have been fince the World began; That we should be faved from our Enemies, and from the Hands of all that hate us; To perform the Mercy promised to our Forefathers, and to remember his holy Covenant; To perform the Oath which he sware to our Forefather Abraham, that he would give us; That we being delivered out of the Hand of our Enemies, might ferve him without Fear; In Holiness and Righteoufnefs before him, all the Days of our Life. And thou, Child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Higheft; for thou fhalt go before the Face of the Lord to prepare his Ways; To give Knowledge of Salvation to his People: for the Remiffion of their Sins, Through the tender Mercy of our God: whereby the Day-fpring from on high hath visited us; To give Light to them that fit in Darknefs, and in the Shadow of Death! and to guide our Feet into the Way of Peace. Glory be to the Father, &c. As it was in the Beginning, &c. Ant. Why feek ye the Living among the Dead? He is rifen; he is not here He He is gloriously afcended, and the Heavens have received him. Alleluja, Alleluja. V. Our Lord is rifen, and afcended indeed : R. The First-Fruits of those that die in his Love. Let us Pray. God, who haft glorified our victorious Saviour with a visible triumphant Refurrection from the Dead, and Afcenfion into Heaven, where he fits at thy RightHand, the World's Supreme Governour and final Judge; grant, we beseech Thee, that his Triumphs and Glories may ever thine in our Eyes, to make us more clearly fee through his Sufferings, and more couragiously wade through our own; being affur'd by his Example, that if we endeavour to' live and die like him, for the Advancement of thy Love in our felves and others, thou wilt raife again our dead Bodies too, and conforming them to his glorious Body, call us up above the Clouds, and give us Poffeffion of thy Everlafting Kingdom; through the fame Lord Jefus Chrift thy Son, who, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth one God, World without End. Amen. |