Saturday Morning — Week 1

O God, Thou art great and greatly to be feared. And Thou art also merciful and gracious; long-suffering and abundant in goodness and in truth. May we so feel our sinfulness as to be humbled in the dust before Thee, and filled with self-condemnation and self-despair; but let us not shrink back from thy presence, and be afraid to place our faith and hope in the God of love. Help us to remember, that if we have no claim on the footing of desert, we can plead thy promise and invitation; and that if the blessings we want are infinitely great, they are dispensed as gifts whose freeness delights in the unworthiness of the receiver.

We therefore would neither deny nor palliate our guilt. We know there is evil enough in one sin to plunge us into perdition; but our offences are more in number than the sand; and they have been attended with every aggravation, derivable from light and love, means and mercies. Thou hast called, and we have refused; Thou hast stretched out thy hand, and we have not regarded. How often hast Thou wooed and awed, blessed and chastised us—and yet we refused to return. O Lord, pardon our iniquity, for it is great. Let the free gift be of many offences unto justification of life; and where sin has abounded may grace much more abound.

And as we cannot serve or enjoy Thee unless our nature be changed as well as our state, O save us by the washing of regeneration, and by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Deliver us from the dominion as well as the curse of sin; and from the love of it as well as the dominion. May we reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. May we view holiness as the beauty and the dignity of the soul, and long after greater degrees of conformity to the will and the image of God. May our hope purify us; and our religious comforts stimulate as well as relieve. May we never slumber, and like the pilgrim lose our roll; never sleep, and like Saul be robbed of our spear and our cruse. May we watch and pray lest we enter into temptation. When we grow indolent and careless, awaken us by lively apprehensions of thy presence, and of the eternal world, on the borders of which we perpetually move; may we feel the infinite importance of improving the few transient periods intervening between us and death; may we daily and hourly answer some of the grand purposes of life and religion. May every place and every company be the better for us. May we diffuse knowledge and happiness by our conversation, example, and influence: and like our Lord and Saviour, go about doing good.

Whatever advantages we possess, may we never forget that this is not our rest. May we arise and depart hence, not by quitting our stations, or undervaluing the duties attached to them, but by rising above the world as our portion, setting our affections on things above, and having our conversation in heaven. Expecting a succession of encounters in passing through an enemy's land, may we take to us the whole armour of God: and looking for thorns and briers in our marchings through a wilderness, may our feet be shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

Fit us for every changing scene; and in all the events that would alarm or perplex us, may our minds be stayed upon God, and our thoughts be established. May we remember that trials from thy hand are blessings in disguise, and that when they come to be unveiled, and we can view them in their designs and effects, they will draw forth our gratitude and praise. Till we can walk by sight, enable us to walk by faith; and may nothing weaken our persuasion, that all thy ways are mercy and truth to thy people; and that all things work together for good to them that love Thee.

We would not forget those that are in affliction. Do not Thou, O God, forget them. Whatever be their losses or distresses, help them to say, Yet the Lord thinketh upon me. May they know that thy thoughts towards them are thoughts of peace and not of evil, to bring them to an expected end, though it may be by a painful passage. Comfort those who are on beds of languishing. Enter the house of mourning. Be the father of the fatherless, and the husband of the widow, and the friend and helper of the poor and needy—and have mercy upon all men.