Puritan Prayer Quotes

My 'morals' were sound, even a bit puritanic, but when a hidebound old deacon inveighed against dancing I rebelled. By the time of graduation I was still a 'believer' in orthodox religion, but had strong questions which were encouraged at Harvard. In Germany I became a freethinker and when I came to teach at an orthodox Methodist Negro school I was soon regarded with suspicion, especially when I refused to lead the students in public prayer. When I became head of a department at Atlanta, the engagement was held up because again I balked at leading in prayer. I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war. I think the greatest gift of the Soviet Union to modern civilization was the dethronement of the clergy and the refusal to let religion be taught in the public schools.

Work in me more profound and abiding repentance; Give me the fullness of godly grief, that trembles and fears, yet ever trust and loves, which is ever powerful, and ever confident; Grant through the tears of repentance I may see more clearly the brightness and glories of the saving cross.

​Oh God, it is amazing that men can talk so much about man's creaturely power and goodness, when, if thou didst not hold us back every moment, we should be devils incar​​nate.

Thou didst love me before I loved thee, an enemy, a sinner, a loathsome worm.

Self is the only oil that makes the chariot-wheels of the hypocrite move in all religious concerns.

O God, make me worthy of this calling, that the name of Jesus may be glorified in me and I in him.

John Knox's dying words were, 'Lord, grant true pastors to Thy kirk.' Such was the last prayer of a great man without whom there would have been no America, no Puritans, no Pilgrims, no Scottish covenanters, no Presbyterians, no Patrick Henry, no Samuel Adams, no George Washington. Could it have been so simple? John Knox's agenda was far from political. All he wanted were more pastors and elders. This is our agenda. Lord grant true pastors to Thy church!

I live here as a fish in a vessel of water, only enough to keep me alive, ut in heaven I shall swim in the ocean. Here I have little air in me to keep me breathing, but there I shall have sweet and fresh gales; Here I have a beam of sun to lighten my darkness, a warm ray to keep me from freezing; yonder I shall live in light and warmth for ever.

I fall short of thy glory every day by spending hours unprofitably, by thinking that the things I do are good, when they are not done to thy end, nor spring from the rules of thy Word. [From the prayer, Shortcomings]

May I consent to and delight in thy law after the inner man, never complain over the strictness of thy demands, but mourn over my want of conformity to them; never question thy commandments, but esteem them to be right. By thy spirit within me, may my practice spring from principle, and my dispositions be conformable with duty.

The important point of this report [Montague, Massachusetts; July 7, 1774] may be summed up in six resolutions: 1. We approve of the plan for a Continental Congress September 1, at Philadelphia. 2. We urge the disuse of India teas and British goods. 3. We will act for the suppression of pedlers and petty chapmen (supposably vendors of dutiable wares). 4. And work to promote American manufacturing. 5. We ought to relieve Boston. 6. We appoint the 14th day of July, a day of humiliation and prayer.

To be humble, and like a little child, afraid of taking a step alone, and so conscious of snares and dangers around us as to cry to Him continually to hold us up that we may be safe, is the sure, the infallible, the only secret of walking closely with Him.

Let us bless thee at all times and forget not how thou hast forgiven our iniquities, healed our diseases, redeemed our lives from destruction, crowned us with lovingkindness and tender mercies, satisfied our mouths with good things, renewed our youth like the eagle’s.

I am well pleased with Thy will, whatever it is, or should be in all respects, and if Thou bidst me decide for myself in any affair, I would choose to refer all to Thee, for Thou art infinitely wise and cannot do amiss, as I am in danger of doing. I rejoice to think that all things are at Thy disposal, and it delights me to leave them there. Then prayer turns wholly into praise, and all I can do is to adore and bless Thee.

O MY FORGETFUL SOUL, Awake from thy wandering dream; turn from chasing vanities, look inward, forward, upward, view thyself, reflect upon thyself, who and what thou art, why here, what thou must soon be. Thou art a creature of God, formed and furnished by him, lodged in a body like a shepherd in his tent; Dost thou not desire to know God’s ways?

As Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) said, “A family without prayer is like a house without a roof, open and exposed to all the storms of heaven.

Subdue in me the love of sin, Let me know the need of renovation as well as of forgiveness, in order to serve and enjoy thee for ever.

As I pursue my heavenly journey by Thy grace let me be known as a man with no aim but that of a burning desire for Thee, and the good and salvation of my fellow men.

Keep my heart tender (2 Kings 22:19), easily impressed with your word and providence, touched with an affectionate concern for your glory, and sensitive to every impulse of your Spirit.

Give me grace to be holy, kind, gentle, pure, peaceable, to live for Thee and not for self, to copy Thy words, acts, spirit, to be transformed into Thy likeness, to be consecrated wholly to Thee, to live entirely to Thy glory.

Lord, help me, for I am often lukewarm and chill; unbelief mars my confidence, sin makes me forget Thee. Let the weeds that grow in my soul be cut at their roots; grant me to know that I truly live only when I live to Thee, that all else is trifling.

Shocking many, Puritans wore hats in church (following Jewish practice), refused to bow or kneel during worship (which they saw as a violation of the third commandment), and allowed pigs and chickens in the church, and some of them didn’t even know the Lord’s Prayer.

I rejoice to think that all things are at thy disposal, and I love to leave them there. Then prayer turns wholly into praise, and all I can do is to adore and love thee. I want not the favour of man to lean upon, for I know that thy electing grace is infinitely better.

THOU RIGHTEOUS AND HOLY SOVEREIGN, In whose hand is my life and whose are all my ways, Keep me from fluttering about religion; fix me firm in it, for I am irresolute; my decisions are smoke and vapour, and I do not glorify thee, or behave according to thy will; Cut me not off before my thoughts grow to responses, and the budding of my soul into full flower, for thou art forbearing and good, patient and kind. Save me from myself, from the artifices and deceits of sin, from the treachery of my perverse nature, from denying thy charge against my offences, from a life of continual rebellion against thee, from wrong principles, views, and ends; for I know that all my thoughts, affections, desires and pursuits are alienated from thee. I have acted as if I hated thee, although thou art love itself; have contrived to tempt thee to the uttermost, to wear out thy patience; have lived evilly in word and action. Had I been a prince I would long ago have crushed such a rebel; Had I been a father I would long since have rejected my child. O, thou Father of my spirit, thou King of my life, cast me not into destruction, drive me not from thy presence, but wound my heart that it may be healed; break it that thine own hand may make it whole.

They [the Puritans] disallowed of the cathedral mode of worship; of singing their prayers, and of the antiphone or chanting of the Psalms by turns, which the ecclesiastical commissioners in King Edward the Sixth’s time advised the laying aside. Nor did they approve of musical instruments, as trumpets, organs, etc.

Etienne’s son Paul, a surly fellow whose erratic conduct had probably provoked the riot which wiped out the family, was particularly a source of speculation; and though Providence never shared the witchcraft panics of her Puritan neighbours, it was freely intimated by old wives that his prayers were neither uttered at the proper time nor directed toward the proper object.

This God-centered way of confessing and forsaking sin is a powerful instrument of change. Fear of consequences changes behavior through external coercion—the inner impulses remain. However, a desire to please and honor the one who saved you and who is worthy of all praise—that changes you from the inside out. The Puritan author Richard Sibbes, in his classic The Bruised Reed, says that repentance is not “a little bowing down our heads . . . but a working our hearts to such a grief as will make sin [itself] more odious unto us than punishment.”330

My mother had been baking more often in general, but she took plates of desserts to the carpentry studio, where her boss, thank God, had a sweet tooth. He just loved the cheesecake, she'd tell me, shining. He ate all of my oatmeal cookies. Some charmed combination of the woodwork, and the studio people, and the splinter excising time with her son kept her going back to Silver Lake even when she hit her usual limits, and every night, tucked into bed, I would send out a thank-you prayer to the carpentry boss for taking in what I could not. But this morning I was the only one, and it was the weekend, and carpentry rested, and the whole kitchen smelled of hometown America, of Atlanta's orchards and Oregon's berry bushes, of England's pie legacy, packed with the Puritans over the Mayflower.

Romans 8:16 tells us that the Spirit bears witness to our hearts that we are children of God. Part of the mission of the Spirit is to tell you about God’s love for you, his delight in you, and the fact that you are his child. These things you may know in your head, but the Holy Spirit makes them a fiery reality in your life. Thomas Goodwin, a seventeenth-century Puritan pastor, wrote that one day he saw a father and son walking along the street. Suddenly the father swept the son up into his arms and hugged him and kissed him and told the boy he loved him—and then after a minute he put the boy back down. Was the little boy more a son in the father’s arms than he was down on the street? Objectively and legally, there was no difference, but subjectively and experientially, there was all the difference in the world. In his father’s arms, the boy was experiencing his sonship.

Sweet was the hour I freedom felt To call my Jesus mine; To see his smiling face, and melt In pleasures all divine.

An humble, faithful life, O Lord, Forever let me walk; Let my obedience testify My praise lies not in talk.

After the Bible the next most valuable book for the Christian is a good hymnal. Let any young Christian spend a year prayerfully meditating on the hymns of [Isaac] Watts and [Charles] Wesley alone, and he will become a fine theologian. Then let him read a balanced diet of the Puritans and the Christian mystics. The results will be more wonderful than he could have dreamed.

With an eye of faith, look within the veil; and whenever you come to pray, see God in heaven, and Christ at His right hand. The great work of faith is to see Him that is invisible; and the great duty of prayer is to get a sight of God in heaven, and Christ at His right hand.

As for ourselves, Lord, help us not to seek the grand things of life. Help us not to worry about the future, but we humbly ask that you would open your bountiful hand—the one on which we always depend. Give us our daily supply for what we need today, and teach us to let you take care of the rest.

Meditate upon final relapses. Meditation on this will make us earnest in prayer to God—for soundness of heart, “Make my heart sound in your statutes” (Ps. 119:80). Lord, let me not be an almost Christian. Work a thorough work of grace upon me: though I am not washed perfectly, let me be washed thoroughly (Ps. 51:2). That which begins in hypocrisy, ends in apostasy!

In cases of disagreement, we need to openly and prayerfully examine whether “we are seeking to make affirmations where Scripture itself is silent” or whether “we have made mistakes in our interpretation of Scripture” through “some personal inadequacy on our part, whether it be, for example, personal pride, or greed, or lack of faith, or selfishness, or even failure to devote enough time to prayerfully reading and studying Scripture.

May nothing stand in the way of faithfulness even to death, or deprive us of the crown of life your grace has promised.

Preserve us from that kind of guilt and ruin, God! Your kingdom has come to us, and its privileges. May we never abuse them and be cast down to hell, but may divine grace open our hearts to the gospel. May we receive all those who faithfully proclaim your word, and welcome them in the name of Jesus. Amen.

So here in your presence, Lord, I confess my own unworthiness to come before you, to call upon you, or to perform the least duty that will concern your worship and glory.

I beg you to be gracious to me for Jesus Christ your Son’s sake. For the sake of his promise, truth, and mercy, have mercy upon me.

Because my heart is polluted and unclean, I beg you to be gracious to me for Jesus Christ your Son’s sake. For the sake of his promise, truth, and mercy, have mercy upon me.

Pardon and forgive all the sins, iniquities, and trespasses I have ever committed against you, in what I have said or what I have done.

Lord, I would be the most miserable person in the world if my hopes were only in this life. Why? Because I am hopeless without Christ’s righteousness. My life could never be comfortable, and there would be no hope at all of eternal life.

If I had all things that that a person could desire on earth, what good would it do me without Christ’s righteousness?

May I be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18) and led by the Spirit (Romans 8:14), and so may it be evident to others that I am a child of God, and an heir of glory.

May I be strong and courageous (Joshua 1:7) and act like a Christian in the work to which I am called. May I labor, not only or chiefly for the food that perishes, but for that which endures to eternal life (John 6:27).

May I be pure in heart, that I may see God (Matthew 5:8); put to death whatever belongs to my earthly nature (Colossians 3:5).

Lord, may I put on meekness under the greatest injuries and provocations (Colossians 3:12), and, as much as it depends on me, may I live peacefully with all (Romans 12:18).

Keep my heart tender (2 Kings 22:19), easily impressed with your word and providence, touched with an affectionate concern for your glory, and sensitive to every impulse of your Spirit. May I be zealous for you, God (Numbers 25:13), with a zeal based on knowledge and love (1 Corinthians 14:14). Teach me in your service to join the wisdom of the serpent with the boldness of the lion and the innocence of the dove (Matthew 10:16).

by your grace, a shining image of my dear Redeemer. May I ascribe everlasting honors to him; and to you, O Father of mercies; and to your Holy Spirit, through whose gracious influence I may call you my Father; and Jesus my Savior! Amen.

Although the move from Calvinism to Arminianism began in the seminary classroom, it came to have a profound influence on American culture through the events of the Second Great Awakening. The revivals of the first Great Awakening were supernatural events, wrought by the power of God’s Spirit. The same could be said of the new wave of revivals that began in the 1790s and continued well into the nineteenth century. Like its predecessor, the Second Great Awakening began and flourished in Calvinist churches, where it was believed that because revival is a work of God alone, it is “peculiarly illustrative of the glorious doctrines of grace.”29 However, since it was only natural to want the awakening to continue, some Christian leaders—especially Methodists—sought to devise methods for promoting revival. Their concern for personal salvation was commendable. However, rather than relying on God to bless the ordinary means of grace (prayer, the ministry of the Word, and the sacraments), they adopted the “New Measures” associated with the invitation system: the protracted camp meeting, the “anxious bench,” the altar call. These pragmatic techniques were susceptible to manipulation, especially where it was considered important to count the number of converts. Preachers stressed the necessity of “coming forward to receive Christ,” with the unintended consequence of con-fusing a human decision (to come forward) with a divine transformation (spiritual conversion). In short, there was a shift from revival to revivalism.30 This transition was rooted in an Arminian theology of conversion, which maintained that sinners were neutral—free to choose their own spiritual destiny. Whereas the Puritans had insisted that depravity prevented anyone from choosing for Christ apart from the prior work of the Holy Spirit, the new revivalists called on people to exercise their own ability to receive the gospel. Gardiner Spring described this as the difference between a revival that is “got up by man’s device” and one that is “brought down by the Spirit of God.”31 The difference can be illustrated by comparing Jonathan Edwards, who described revival as “a very extraordinary dispensation of Providence,”32 with Charles Finney, who insisted that a revival is not supernatural but the natural “result of the right use of the constituted means.” Like most revivalists, Finney explicitly rejected the doctrines of grace. Early in his ministry he left the Presbyterian church and repudiated Calvin’s views “on the subject of atonement, regeneration, faith, repentance, the slavery of the will, or any of the kindred doctrines.”33 The view he eventually adopted was not merely Arminian but actually Pelagian. Finney believed that sinners could initiate their own conversion: “Instead of telling sinners to use the means of grace and pray for a new heart, we called on them to make themselves a new heart and a new spirit and pressed the duty of instant surrender to God.

I thank Thee that many of my prayers have been refused... I have longed for Egypt and have been given a wilderness.

live here as a fish in a vessel of water, only enough to keep me alive, but in heaven I shall swim in the ocean. Here I have a little air in me to keep me breathing, but there I shall have sweet and fresh gales; Here I have a beam of sun to lighten my darkness, a warm ray to keep me from freezing; yonder I shall live in light and warmth for ever. My natural desires are corrupt and misguided, and it is thy mercy to destroy them; My spiritual longings are of thy planting, and thou wilt water and increase them; Quicken my hunger and thirst after the realm above. Here I can have the world, there I shall have thee in Christ;

Of course, the puritanical have opposed idleness since biblical times. Spiritual sloth was the "noonday demon" that distracted a monk from his prayers, a dreamy listlessness that "forces him to step out of his cell and to gaze at the sun to see how far it still is from the night hour, and to look around, here and there, whether any of his brethren is near," wrote the acclaimed preacher Evagrius Ponticus (349-399), describing the ancient equivalent of Facebook addiction.

[O]ur applications are quicker about our sufferings, than our sins(77)[.]

Help me, defend me, until from praying ground I pass to the realm of unceasing praise. Urged

I am all poverty as well as all guilt, having nothing of my own with which to repay Thee, but I bring Jesus to Thee in the arms of faith, pleading

Kill my envy, command my tongue, trample down self. Give

O God, the Eternal All, help me to know that all things are shadows, but Thou art substance, all things are quicksands, but Thou art mountain, all things are shifting, but Thou art anchor, all things are ignorance, but Thou art wisdom.

Let me this day know Thee as Thou art, love Thee supremely, serve Thee wholly, admire Thee fully. Through

May my lips be a well-tuned harp to sound Thy praise. Let

May I view all things in the mirror of eternity, waiting for the coming of my Lord, listening for the last trumpet call, hastening unto the new heaven and earth. Order

May I speak each word as if my last word, and walk each step as my final one. If my life should end today, let this be my best day.

Hold Thou me up and I shall be safe.

Preserve my understanding from subtilty of error, my affections from love of idols, my character from stain of vice, my profession from every form of evil. May

May I engage in nothing in which I cannot implore Thy blessing, and in which I cannot invite Thy inspection. Prosper

Produce in me those principles and dispositions that make Thy service perfect freedom.

Grace seeks the unfit and the unworthy. It is love, mercy, and compassion combined, stretching out toward the guilty, ungracious, and rebellious. It is the only hope for sinful men. If salvation comes not by grace, it can never be ours. Without grace there can be no reconciliation, no pardon, no peace.

The Puritans were masters of meditation. Let me sum up their advice: [44] • Begin with prayer for the Spirit’s help (Psalm 119:18). • Focus on one verse or doctrine—something clear and applicable to your life. It may be a Scripture addressing backsliders (Jeremiah 2; Psalm 25, 32, 51, 130; Hosea 14). Or take a topic like God’s character, or Christ’s person and work, or the sinfulness of sin. • Repeat the verse or doctrine to yourself several times, and think about it carefully. • Preach it to yourself. • Turn it into prayer and praise. • Make specific application. Feed and inflame your soul with the Word. Don’t just chew on the Word, but digest it and incorporate it into your life.

Thomas Goodwin, a seventeenth-century Puritan pastor, wrote that one day he saw a father and son walking along the street. Suddenly the father swept the son up into his arms and hugged him and kissed him and told the boy he loved him—and then after a minute he put the boy back down. Was the little boy more a son in the father’s arms than he was down on the street? Objectively and legally, there was no difference, but subjectively and experientially, there was all the difference in the world. In his father’s arms, the boy was experiencing his sonship. When

The Puritans didn’t have anything in their worship service that wasn’t mentioned in the Bible. So there weren’t any prayer books or hymns. There wasn’t an altar with candles. There wasn’t any heat, either, so some people brought little foot warmers filled with burning coals. We kids sat with the women and were expected to keep quiet. The only time we got to open our mouths was to sing psalms and say “Amen.” “This doesn’t look like a church--it looks more like a storeroom.” “It is a storeroom. But the building isn’t important. It is the people who are the church.” “Children--hush!

The flesh interposes and our carnal hearts interline and interlace our prayers with vain thoughts and earthly distractions. When with our censer we come to offer incense to God, we mingle sulfur with our incense. Therefore, we should labor all that we can to get the heart above the world into the presence of God and company of the blessed, that we may deal with Him as if we were by Him in Heaven, and were wholly swallowed up of His glory. Though our bodies are on earth, yet our spirits should be with our Father in heaven.

If future days be mine, help me to amend my life, to hate and abhor evil, to flee the sins I confess. Make me more resolute, more watchful, more prayerful. Let no evil fruit spring from evil seeds my hands have sown;

As William Bouwsma pointed out, the late medieval and early Renaissance crises of representation did not stall out at their skepticism of the old systems but rather progressed to an even more urgent defense of objective boundaries and quantifiable truths.27 In “The Secularization of Language in the Seventeenth Century,” Margreta de Grazia has shown how this pursuit of certainty led to a skepticism about language itself that dissociated words from God and deverbalized God’s message, prompting thinkers from Thomas Sprat of the Royal Society to Hobbes, Robert Hooke, Galileo, and Newton to seek cer- tainty in mathematical knowledge; quantifiable, identifiable substances; and trial, experiment, and experience.28 As Puritan propagandist Vavasor Powell put it in the middle of the seventeenth century, “Experience is like 42 Rituals of Spontaneity steel to an edged tool, or like salt to fresh meat, it seasons brain- knowledge, and settles a shaking unsetled soule.” Paralleling more sec- ular quests for certainty, the Puritan quest for grounding religious knowledge in a literalist reading of Scripture focused ever more intensely on manifest, genuine experience confirming salvation and the personal application of scriptural truth. The spontaneous “pouring out of the heart” in prayer was just such an evidentiary experience.

Zeal to expunge every trace of Romish superstition resulted in text scrutinizing and “arguments from silence” that forbade traditions such as the exchange of wedding rings and kneeling at Communion, traditions which were not addressed in Scripture and which other Reformers considered adiaphora or “matters indifferent.” In the vigor with which they rejected ritual, turned to an “anti-magical” semiotics, and revised the liturgy, English Puritans have been said to have “out-Calvined Calvin,” becoming a sort of law unto themselves in the world of reformed religion.

As William Bouwsma pointed out, the late medieval and early Renaissance crises of representation did not stall out at their skepticism of the old systems but rather progressed to an even more urgent defense of objective boundaries and quantifiable truths. In “The Secularization of Language in the Seventeenth Century,” Margreta de Grazia has shown how this pursuit of certainty led to a skepticism about language itself that dissociated words from God and deverbalized God’s message, prompting thinkers from Thomas Sprat of the Royal Society to Hobbes, Robert Hooke, Galileo, and Newton to seek certainty in mathematical knowledge; quantifiable, identifiable substances; and trial, experiment, and experience. As Puritan propagandist Vavasor Powell put it in the middle of the seventeenth century, “Experience is like steel to an edged tool, or like salt to fresh meat, it seasons brain- knowledge, and settles a shaking unsetled soule.” Paralleling more secular quests for certainty, the Puritan quest for grounding religious knowledge in a literalist reading of Scripture focused ever more intensely on manifest, genuine experience confirming salvation and the personal application of scriptural truth. The spontaneous “pouring out of the heart” in prayer was just such an evidentiary experience.

PRAYER POINT: Listen to your heart and what is deepest within you. Pray short, heartfelt prayers, not trying to impress God but expressing your inmost feelings.

Almighty God, as I cross the threshold of this day I commit myself, soul, body, affairs, friends, to Thy care. Watch over, keep, guide, direct, sanctify, bless me. Incline my heart to thy ways. Mould me wholly into the image of Jesus, as a potter forms clay. May my lips be a well-tuned harp to sound Thy praise. Let those around see me living by Thy Spirit, trampling the world underfoot, unconformed to lying vanities, transformed by a renewed mind, clad in the entire armour of God, shining as a never- dimmed light, showing holiness in all my doings. Let no evil this day soil my thoughts, words, hands. May I travel miry paths with a life pure from spot or stain. In needful transactions let my affection be in heaven, and my love soar upwards in flames of fire, my gaze fixed on unseen things, my eyes open to the emptiness, fragility, mockery of earth and its vanities. May I view all things in the mirror of eternity, waiting for the coming of my Lord, listening for the last trumpet call, hastening unto the new heaven and earth. Order this day all my communications according to Thy wisdom, and to the gain of mutual good. Forbid that I should not be profited or made profitable. May I speak each word as if my last word, and walk each step as my final one. If my life should end today, let this be my best day.

Morning Needs O God the author of all good, I come to Thee for the grace another day will require for its duties and events. I step out into a wicked world; I carry about with me an evil heart. I know that without Thee I can do nothing, that everything with which I shall be concerned, however harmless in itself, may prove an occasion of sin or folly, unless I am kept by Thy power. Hold Thou me up and I shall be safe. Preserve my understanding from subtilty of error, my affections from love of idols, my character from stain of vice, my profession from every form of evil. May I engage in nothing in which I cannot implore Thy blessing, and in which I cannot invite Thy inspection. Prosper me in all lawful undertakings, or prepare me for disappointments. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny Thee and say, Who is the Lord? or be poor, and steal, and take Thy name in vain. May every creature be made good to me by prayer and Thy will. Teach me how to use the world and not abuse it, to improve my talents, to redeem my time, to walk in wisdom toward those without, and in kindness to those within, to do good to all men, and especially to my fellow Christians. And to Thee be the glory.

MORNING PLEADING FOR BLESSINGS Keep your servant, O God, that I may do no evil to anyone this day. Let it be your blessed will not to allow the devil nor his wicked angels, nor any of his evil members, or my enemies, to have any power to do me hurt or violence. Watch over me for good and not for evil, and command your holy angels to pitch their tents around me, for my defense and safety in my going out and coming in, as you have promised they should do for those who fear your name. Into your hands, O Father, I do here commit my soul and body, my actions, and all that I ever have, to be guided, defended, and protected by you. I am assured that whatever you take into your custody cannot perish, nor suffer any hurt or harm. And if I at any time this day will through frailty forget you, even so Lord, I beg you, in mercy—remember me. And I pray not for myself alone, but I beg you also to be merciful to your whole church, your chosen people, wherever they live upon the earth. Defend them from the rage and tyranny of the devil, the world, and the antichrist. Give your gospel a free and a joyful passage through the world, for the conversion of those you have chosen. Bless the churches and countries we live in with the peace, justice, and true faith. Bless our country’s leaders, and increase in them the gifts and spiritual graces which make them fit for those jobs where you have placed them. Direct the leaders of our country and our churches to lead the people in true faith, justice, obedience, and peace. Be merciful to the believers who fear you and call upon your name. And comfort as many among them as are sick and comfortless in body or mind. Especially be favorable to all who suffer any trouble or persecution for the testimony of your truth and your holy gospel. In your grace, deliver them out of all their troubles—however is best in your wisdom, for the glory of your name, for the further expansion of the truth, and for the increase of their own comfort and consolation. Hasten your coming, blessed Savior, and end these sinful days. Give me grace, that like a wise virgin I may be prepared with oil in my lamp to meet you, the blessed bridegroom, at your coming. Whether it be by my day of death, or at the day of judgment, Lord Jesus, come when you will; come quickly! These, and all other graces which you know I need, this day and evermore, I humbly beg and crave at your hands, O Father. I give you the glory, amen. —Lewis Bayly

John Havel, a seventeenth-century English Puritan, noted that the "greatest difficulty in conversion, is to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion, is to keep the heart with God. . .

I in obedience to Thy will Thou knowest did submit. It was my duty so to do; O Lord, accept of it.

To secure these ends it was necessary to play continually on the Primate’s dislike of the Puritans, and his intense zeal in behalf of all Church forms and ceremonies, including the use of the Book of Common Prayer. The whole political and historical significance of the New Canaan lies in this fact. It was a pamphlet designed to work a given effect in a particular quarter, and came very near being productive of lasting results. Dedicated in form to the Lords Commissioners, it was charged with attacks on the Separatists, and statements of the contempt shown by them to the Book of Common Prayer.

Even so, that is not quite what the Puritans meant when they exhorted one another to “pray until you pray.” What they meant is that Christians should pray long enough and honestly enough, at a single session, to get past the feeling of formalism and unreality that attends not a little praying. We are especially prone to such feelings when we pray for only a few minutes, rushing to be done with a mere duty. To enter the spirit of prayer, we must stick to it for a while. If we “pray until we pray,” eventually we come to delight in God’s presence, to rest in his love, to cherish his will.

Nevertheless, despite his deep concerns, in the end Owen concludes: “It is better that our affections exceed our light from the defect of our understandings, than that our light exceed our affections from the corruption of our wills.”296 That’s a remarkable thing for a Puritan to say. If we are going to be imbalanced, better that we be doctrinally weak and have a vital prayer life and a real sense of God on the heart than that we get all our doctrine straight and be cold and spiritually hard.

Thou art the blessed God, happy in Thyself, source of happiness in Thy creatures, my maker, benefactor, proprietor, upholder.

Thou hast produced and sustained me, supported and indulged me, saved and kept me;

Let Thy unexampled love constrain me into holy obedience, and render my duty my delight.

If others deem my faith folly, my meekness infirmity, my zeal madness, my hope delusion, my actions hypocrisy, may I rejoice to suffer for Thy name.

it is sweet and entertaining to look into my being when all my powers and passions are united and engaged in pursuit of Thee,

my soul longs and passionately breathes after conformity to Thee and the full enjoyment of

Help me to live to Thee for ever, to make Thee my last and only end, so that I may never more in one instance love my sinful self.  

Prayer is thus a means ordained to receive what God has planned to bestow.[22]

Keep me walking steadfastly towards the country of everlasting delights, that paradise-land which is my true inheritance.

Support me by the strength of heaven that I may never turn back, or desire false pleasures that will disappear into nothing.

As I pursue my heavenly journey by Thy grace let me be known as a man with no aim but that of a burning desire for Thee, and the good and salvation of my fellow men.

My God, I feel it is heaven to please Thee, and to be what Thou wouldst have me be.

Woe, woe is me that I am a sinner, that I grieve this blessed God, who is infinite in goodness and grace!

Holy Lord, I have sinned times without number, and been guilty of pride and unbelief, of failure to find Thy mind in Thy Word, of neglect to seek Thee in my daily life.

My transgressions and short-comings present me with a list of accusations, but I bless Thee that they will not stand against me, for all have been laid on Christ.