London: Thomas Mabb, 1660.

Certain additionall Prayers.

O Almighty God, who art high above all Nations, and whose glory is above the Heavens, the comfortable successe of all enterprises is from thee onely to be looked for; Thou art he which givest victory unto Kings, to thee it is all one to save by many or few, thou canst make one to chase a thousand, thou canst cause the hearts even of the most valiant to melt, their hands to be weak, their minds to faint, and their knees to fall away like water. If thou fight for us, we cannot miscarry. If thou favour us not, we must needs be discomfited. O be gracious unto us, and be on our side, now that men are risen up against us. They take crafty Counsell against thy Church, and consult how to cut us off from being a Nation, and by what means to quench the light of thy Truth which hath shined in our streets. Their desire is to imbrue their hands in blood, and to advance their own ambition by our overthrow. O turn their Counsels into foolishness; Let not their mischeivous imaginations prosper, lest they be too proud. O our God, make them like unto a wheel, and as the stubble before the winde, Scatter the People that delight in War.

Go out, O Lord, with our Armies, give wisdom and courage, to our Captains, gird them with strength unto the battell, be with our Souldiers, teaching their hands to war, and their fingers to fight. Assist all the Consultations, prosper the Policies, crown those enterprises with good successe which are undertaken for the common good and comfort of the Weal-publique. Doubtless O Lord, we have deserved thine anger, and our sins do cry loud in thine ears for vengeance, and it were but just with thee, if thou shouldst make us a prey and a spoil unto our Enemies; But O, Gracious God, let us now fall into thy hands, for thy mercies are great, and let us not fall into the hands of men, whose displeasure at us, is not for our sins, but for our Profession and Religions sake, and that they may fill their own inlarged and insatiable desire, with those blessings of wealth which thou hast given us; Put therefore thy hook into their nostrills, and bring them back by the same way they came. Let it appear that thou art in the midst of us, and that we shall not be moved: That thou wilt help us, and that very early. Let there be no invasion, no going out, nor no crying in our streets. But set thou Peace in our Borders. Make strong the bars of our gates, especially, let the Gospel of thy Son sound yet lowder among us; that by it many Souls may be gathered unto thee. So we thy People and the sheep of thy Pasture shall praise thee for ever, and from Generation to Generation, we will set forth thy glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord and only Saviour,

O Lord, it is thy glory to be called, The Lord of Hosts: and it is thou alone, from whom, when men have made their most politick and puissant preparations, the victory must be looked for. Draw my heart, I beseech thee, from all relying upon my own valour, or upon the strength of the battail in which I stand: and teach me to look upward, and to wait and trust only upon thee.

Thou givest conquest, and thou givest courage: thou deliverest from the perill of the Sword, or else makest death a means of happinesse to thy servants. Forgive my sins, I pray thee, and assure me of pardon by the witnesse of thy Spirit, that the guilt thereof make not my heart to tremble within me, and to behold death as a messenger to convey me into hell. If thou (O Lord) bee on my side, peace being made betwixt thee and my soul through Christ, what can be against me, what hazard can befall my soul? Nothing shall be able to deprive me of thy love.

Let not spoil, or blood, or mine own advancement, be the ends of mine attempts, but make me to aim only at thy glory in the defence of thy truth, and in the good and safety: of the Kingdome wherein I live.

The issue of all things to thee (O Lord) is known, but to man it is hidden: Prepare me therefore indifferently to whatsoever shall befall me. If I die give me comfort in my last breathing, and take my soul into thy gracious hand: If I be taken captive, give me patience, give me wisdom and godly courage, to do nothing contrary to the honour of my Country, or prejudicial to the profession of a faithfull Christian, If I return with life and victory, make me thankfull: Keep me from taking from thee any part of thy glory. Preserve me from those riotous, lascivious, and blaspheming courses, which are the usuall fruits of good successe: let me not think devotion to be an enemy to resolution, or that a religious fear of thy Majesty, doth abate the spirit that should be in a Souldier: but settle me in this, that the assurance of a lawfull cause, the hope and confidence of a better life, by the merits of Christ, the care to please thee, and to depend upon thy power, are the only true grounds of valour, which can give a man boldnesse and life in the day of battel. Vouchsafe me these, and all other needfull favours, in and for Christ Jesus sake,

A Prayer upon the strange revolution on the twenty first of February, 1659. when the formerly secluded Members were readmitted into the House of Commons.

O Most mighty God, who sittest upon the Cherubims, be the people never so impatient; and after thine own counsells governest all that is done among the children of Men.

We most humbly confess, that it is for our sins, that thou hast so often changed thy rod, and brought such variety of confusions upon us; that all the world stands a gaze to see what will become of such a people, that will not see the things that belong unto their peace.

But, O gracious God, though we forget our selves, forget not thou thine own goodnesse; for there is yet time for mercy, and such an expedient left as may cure all our wounds, and close up all our divisions; by restoring him who was once designed by thee, to be the common Father of us all, though we like rebellious children have disdainfully cast him from us.

And as thou hast begun already to shew some glimmerings of our future happiness, by unexpectedly dissolving the Assembly of those (Achitophels) who by their dark counsels, have so long obstructed it: so go on (we most earnestly beg of thee) and let not the sins of this wretched Nation hinder thee from compleating, what thou hast for thine own glory so wonderfully begun.

Work powerfully upon the minds of all that are any wayes concerned in the redeeming of our peace; Give them but as much honest courage to do right, as they have formerly shewn in acting all those mischiefs, that have been done among us, O plead the cause of an oppressed KING; strenghthen the hands and hearts of all that appear for him; direct his counsels, prosper his enterprizes, make his very enemies to be at peace with him, and when thou shalt vouchsafe to us our former happiness both in Church and State, give us then thankfull hearts to imbrace it as a blessing from thy hands alone, who hast wrought these great wonders for us, for Iesus Christ's sake.

O Most great, most wise, and most powerfull Lord God, in whose hands are the hearts of all men, and turned them as thou doest the rivers of waters.

Shew thy power and come among us, and be present at this great meeting, when after so many years of confusion, there's once more a consultation had to settle this distracted Church and Nation; and as there is nothing hid from thee, who seest the very thoughts and ends, and divided interests of them that meet together; so there is nothing so impossible to thee, but that thou canst by the hidden workings of thy Providence unite what thou findest divided, and oversway every counsell and design, and every imagination that shall set it self against thee.

Let there be no root of bitternesse among them which are intrusted in this great work, no thoughts of revenge; No Ambition of making themselves great; no particular or separate interest of their own; but instead of these, give them bowels of, compassion towards their bleeding and expiring Country; strike a sense into them of the blood already shed, and the desolation yet to come, if they prevent it not.

And let thy fear run through all their consultations, that remembring the sad account, which in the last great day will be required of them, they may unanimously set themselves to find out those blessed expedients as may restore the voice of joy and peace into our dwellings, in such a way as may be most for the glory of thy great Name, the righting of those that are opprest, and the setling of the happinesse of this Church and Nation, upon the right basis of that former government, from which it hath stood so long, so unhappily divided. And this as being neither impossible to thy Power, nor unusuall to thy Mercy, we most humbly beg for his sake, to whom thou canst deny nothing, even Jesus Christ the righteous,

A thanks giving for his Majestyes safe arrival and returne to his Kingdome. May 25. 1660.

GLory be to God on high on earth, peace, good will towards men.

We praise thee, we blesse thee, wee worship thee, We glorify thee; and at this time, in a more especiall manner, with the highest expressions of our devoutest hearts. We most humbly give thanks unto thee, For that thou hast been pleased out of thine infinite goodness, mercifully to look down upon the late low estate of our gracious soveraign.

That thou hast brought him from so much scornfull neglect, in so most unjust, so tedious a banishment, to appear now so terrible unto his enemies, both at home and abroad, that thou hast blessed him through the sole strength of thine own arme, by thine own way, and at thine own time, so much beyond the hopes and expectation of Man, with so signal, and with so dry & bloudlesse a victory.

O Lord God, heavenly King. God the father Almighty; O Lord the onely begotten Son Jesus Christ;

As thou hast thus begun with thy wonderfull providence to showre down thy blessings upon the head of the King, and upon the hearts of his subjects, so continue these thy favours to him and us; and perfect we beseech thee, that glorious work, which none but thine own strength can finish, the establishment of the throne in righteousnesse, the settlement of the Church in purity, and the uniting of these kingdoms in a well grounded and lasting peace.

And to that end, thou that takest a way the sins of the world take away for ever, from this sinfull land and Nation, the foule sin of rebellion, together with its monstrous of-spring, the crying sins of sacrilege, of perjury and hypocrisy.

Thou that sittest at the right hand of God the Father, smite through the loynes of those sons of Belial, who oppose the peace of Jerusalem, and that have evill will at Sion.

Lord make the enemies of our gracious Soveraigne to fall down before him like Dagon before the Ark. That they may neither have heads to plot, nor hands to put in practice any mischievous design against him. So shall we still blesse and magnifie thy Name, in the midst of the great Congregation; so shall we thy servants never cease to be still praysing thee, and saying,

Thou onely art holy, thou onely art the Lord, thou onely O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high, in the glory of God the Father.

To thee be all praise, and honour, and glory, ascribed, world without end,

Amen.

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