PROVIDENCE.

God has more ways of providing for us, of helping us, than we can poffibly imagine; it is infidelity to defire to confine him to our ways and methods.

Matth. viii. Lord, fave us, we perish. Nothing can better exprefs our own inability, and our whole dependance upon GOD. Two fure conditions of obtaining help.

Since thy mercy, O God, is ever ready to help all that call upon Thee in time of distress, let thy goodness anfwer my wants.

Keep me under the protection of thy good providence, and make me to have a perpetual fear and love of thy Holy Name, through Jefus Chrift.

The more deftitute we are of human aid, the more ought we to truft to that providence which God is pleased to exert in extreme neceffity.

O God,

O God, give me grace never to condemn thy providence; let me adore the wisdom of thy conduct, the holinefs of thy ways, and the power of thy grace.

How many fins fhould we commit, if God did not vouchfafe to oppose our corrupt will! Bleffed be his holy name, for not leaving me to my own choices.

Pfa. xc. 12. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

BIRTH-DAY.

Bleffed be God for my creation and birth; for giving me a being from honeft parents fearing God, and in a Chriftian and Proteftant country; -for giving me perfect members and fenfes, a found reafon, and an healthful constitution,-for the means of grace, the afiftances of the Holy Spirit, and for the hopes of Glory;D 2

for

1

for all the known or unobserved favours, providences, and deliverances, by which my life has hitherto been preferved;-moft humbly befeeching Thee, my God and Father, to pardon 'my neglect or abuse of any of thy favours, and that I have fo very much forgotten Thee, in whom I live, and move, and have my being.

Good Lord, forgive me the great waste of my precious time, the many days and years of health, and the many opportunities of doing good, which I have loft; and give me grace, that for the time to come I may be truly wife, that I may confider my latter end, and work out my falvation with fear and trembling, ever remembering, that the night cometh when no man can work; and that the day of my death may be better to me than the my birth.

day of

O gracious God, grant that before Thou takeft from me that breath

which Thou gavest me, I

repent of the errors of my

may truly

life paft;

that

that my fins may be forgiven, and my pardon fealed in Heaven; fo that I may have a place of reft in Paradise with thy faithful fervants, till the general refurrection; when the good Lord vouchfafe me a better and an everlasting life, through Jefus Christ. Amen.

NEW-YEAR'S-DAY.

Bleffed be God, who has brought me fafe to the beginning of another year.

Bleffed be God, that I am of the number of those who have time and space for repentance yet given them.

My God, make me truly fenfible of this mercy, and give me grace to confider often how thort and how uncertain my time is; that there is one year more of a fhort life paffed over my head; and that I am so much nearer eternity;-that I may in good earnest think of another life, and be fo prepared for it, as that death may not overtake me unawares.

Lord, pardon all my misspent time, and make me more diligent and careful to redeem it for the time to come, that when I come to the end of my days, I may look back with comfort on the days that are past.

Grant that I may begin this new year with new refolutions of ferving Thee more faithfully;—and if, thro' infirmity or negligence, I forget these good purposes, the good Lord awaken in me a fenfe of my danger.

My heart is in thy hands, O God, as well as my time; O make me wife unto falvation;-that I may confider in this my day the things that belong unto my peace; and that I may pass this, and all the years I have yet to live, in a comfortable hopes of a blesfed eternity, for the Lord Jesus' fake. Amen.

LORD'S