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Behold O God, our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed ;a in whom thou hast by a voice from heaven declared thyself to be well pleased; Lord be well pleased with us in him,b

CHAP. II.

Of the second part of PRAYER, which is Confession of Sin, Complaint of ourselves, and humble Professions of Repentance.

HAVING given glory to God, which is his due, we must next take shame to ourselves, which is our due, and humble ourselves before him in the sense of our own sinfulness and vileness; and herein also we must give glory to him as our Judge, by whom we deserve to be condemned, and yet hope, through Christ, to be acquitted and absolved.c

In this part of our work,

1. We must acknowledge the great reason we have to lie very low before God, and to be ashamed of ourselves when we come into his presence, and to be afraid of his wrath, having made ourselves both odious to his holiness, and obnoxious to his justice.

O our God! we are ashamed, and blush to lift up our faces before thee, our God; for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up into the heavens.d

To us belong shame and confusion of face, because we have sinned against thee.e

Behold we are vile, what shall we answer thee?g We will lay our hand upon our mouth, and put our mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope,h crying with the convicted leper under the law, Unclean, unclean.i

Thou puttest no trust in thy saints and the heavens

a Psal. 84.9.

d Ezra 9. 6.

b Mat. 3. 17.

e Dan. 9. 8,

c Josh. 7. 19. g Job 11.4.

h Lam. 2. 29.

i Lev, 13. 45,

are not clean in thy sight: how much more abominable and filthy is man, who drinketh iniquity like waters !a

When our eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts, we have reason to cry out, Wo unto us, for we are undone.b

Dominion and fear are with thee, thou makest peace in thy high places: there is not any number of thine armies, and upon whom doth not thy light arise? How then can man be justified with God, or how can he be clean that is born of a woman ?c

Thou, even thou art to be feared, and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry ?d Even thou, our God, art a consuming fire,e and who knows the power of thine anger g

If we justify ourselves, our own mouths shall condemn us; if we say we are perfect, that also shall prove us perverse; for if thou contend with us, we are not able to answer thee for one of a thousand.h

If we know nothing by ourselves, yet were we not thereby justified, for he that judgeth us is the Lord,2 who is greater than our hearts, and knows all things.k But we ourselves know that we have sinned, Father: against heaven, and before thee, and are no more worthy to be called thy children./

2. We must take hold of the great encouragement God hath given us to humble ourselves before him with sorrow and shame, and to confess our sins.

If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who should stand! But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared; with thee there is mercy, yea, with our God there is plenteous redemption, and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.m

Thy sacrifices, O God, are a broken spirit ; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise ;n nay, though thou art the high and lofty One that inhabitest eternity, whose name is holy ;o though the heaven be thy throne, and the earth thy footstool,p yet to this man wilt

a Job 15. 15, 16.
d Psal. 76. 7.
h Job. 9.3, 20.
Luke 15, 21.
o Isa. 57. 15.

b Isa. 6, 5.

e Héb. 12. 29.
i 1 Cor. 4. 4.
m Ps. 130. 347 8.
Isa. 66. 1, 2.

c Job. 25. 2, 3, 4,

g Psal. 90. 11. k 1 John 3. 20. n Ps. 51. 17.

thou look that is poor and humble, of a broken and a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at thy word, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

Thou hast graciously assured us, though they that cover their sins shall not prosper, yet those that confess and forsake them, shall find mercy.a And when a poor penitent said, I will confess my transgression unto the Lord, thou forgavest the iniquity of his sin; and for this shall every one that is godly in like manner, pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found,b

We know that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us; but thou hast said that if we confess our sins, thou art faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighte

ousness,c

3. We must therefore confess and bewail our original corruption in the first place, that we were the children of apostate and rebellious parents, and the nature of man is depraved and wretchedly degenerated from its primitive purity and rectitude, and our nature is so.

Lord, thou madest man upright, but they have sought out many inventions ;d and being in honor did not understand, and therefore abode not, but became like the beasts that perish.e

By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned by that one man's disobedience many were made sinners, and we among the rest.g

We are a seed of evil doers,h our father was an Amorite, and our mother a Hittite,i and we ourselves were called (and not miscalled) transgressors from the womb, and thou knowest we would deal very treacherously.k

The nature of man was planted a choice and noble vine, wholly a right seed, but it is become the degenerate plant of a strange vine ;l producing the grapes of Sodom, and the clusters of Gomorrah.m How is the gold be come dim, and the most fine gold changed !n

a Prov. 28. 14.
d Eccl. 7,19.
h Isa. 1. 4.

¿ Jer. 2.21.

b Psalm 32. 5, 6.
e Pal. 19. 12. 20,
iEzek. 16 3.
m Deut. 32. 32,

c 1 John 1. 8.9.
g Rom. 5. 12, 19.
k Isa. 48, 8.
n Lain. 4. 1.

Behold we were shapen in iniquity, and in sin did our mothers conceive us.a For who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.b We are by nature children of wrath, because children of disobedience, even as others.c

All flesh hath corrupted their way,d we were all gone aside, we are altogether become filthy, there is none that doth good, no, not one.e

4. IVe must lament our present corrupt dispositions to that which is evil, and our indisposedness to, and impotency in, that which is good. We must look into our own heurts and confess, with holy blushing.

(1.) The blindness of our understandings, and their unaptness to admit the rays of the divine light.

By nature our understandings are darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in us, because of the blindness of our hearts.g

The things of the Spirit of God are foolishness to the natural man, neither can we know them, because they are spiritually discerned.h

We are wise to do evil, but to do good we have no knowledge. We know not, neither do we understand,

we walk on in darkness.k

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God speaketh once, yea twice, but we perceive it not ;/ but hearing, we hear, and do not understand,m and we see men as trees walking.n

(2.) The stubbornness of our wills, and their umaptness to submit to the rules of the divine law.

We have within us a carnal mind, which is enmity against God, and is not in subjection to the law of God, nither indeed can be.o

Thou hast written to us the great things of thy law, but they have been accounted by us as a strange thing, and our corrupt hearts have been sometimes ready to say, What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?q And that we should certainly do whatsoever thing goes

a Psal, 50, 5.
d Gen. 2.12.
h1 Cor. 2. 14.
I Job 33. 14.
o Rom. 8.7.

b Job 14. 4.
e Psal. 14. 3.
i Jer. 4. 22.
m Matt. 13. 14.
p Hos, 8.12.

c Eph. 2. 2, 3.
g Eph. 4. 18,
k Psal. 82. 5.
n Mark 8. 24.
q Job. 21. 15.

forth out of our own mouth.a For we have walked in the way of our own heart, and in the sight of our eyes, fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and of the mind.b

Our neck hath been an iron sinew,c and we have made our heart as an adamant ;d we have refused to hearken, have pulled away the shoulder, and stopped our ears like the deaf adder, that will not hearken to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely.e

How have we hated instruction, and our heart despised reproof, and have not obeyed the voice of our teachers, nor inclined our ear to them that instructed us !g

(3.) The vanity of our thoughts, their neglect of those things which they ought to be conversant with, and dwelling upon those things that are unworthy of them, and tend to corrupt our minds.

Every imagination of the thoughts of our heart is evil, only evil, and that continually, and it has been so from our youth.h

O how long have those vain thoughts lodged within us i those thoughts of foolishness, which are sin ;k from out of the heart proceed evil thoughts ; which devise mischief upon the bed, and carry the heart with the fool's eyes into the ends of the earth.n

But God is not in all our thoughts, 'tis well if he be in any :0 of the Rock that begat us, we have been unmindful,p and have forgotten the God that formed us :q we have forgotten him days without number, and our hearts have walked after vanity, and become vain. Their inward thought having been, that our houses should continue for ever; this our way is our folly.r

(4.) The carnality of our affections, their being placed upon wrong objects, and carried beyond due bounds.

We have set these affections on things beneath, which should have been set on things above,s where our treasure is, and where Christ sits on the right hand of God, the things which we should seek.t

a Jer. 44.17

d Zech.7.11. 12.
h Gen. 6. 5, 8, 21.
Matt. 15, 19,
Psalm 10.4.
r Psalm 49, 11, 13.

b Eccl. 11. 19.
e Psalm 58. 4, 5.
i Jer. 4. 14.
m Mic. 2. 1.
Deut. 32. 18.
Col. 3. 1.

c Isa. 48. 4.

g Prov. 5. 12. 13.
k Prov. 24.9.
n Prov. 17. 24.
qJer. 2. 32,
Matt. 6, 21.

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