From the Pastor in Prayer by C.H. Spurgeon. The Personal Touch. If I touch but his garments, I shall be made whole. Mark 5, 28. O Lord God. Degrade I am. We do confess and cheerfully acknowledge at all comes of you. You have made us, and not we ourselves, and the breath in our nostrils is kept there by your continued power. We owe our sustenance, our happiness, our advancement, our ripening, our very existence entirely to you. We bless you for all the mercies with which you surround us, for all things which our eyes see that are pleasant, which our ears hear that are agreeable, and for everything that makes existence to be life. Especially do we own this dependence when we come to deal with spiritual things. We are less than nothing in the spiritual world. We do feel this growingly, and yet even to feel this is beyond our power. Your grace must give us even to know our need of grace. We are not willing to confess our own sinfulness until you show it to us. Though it stares us in the face, our pride denies it and our own inability is unperceived by us. We steal your power and call it our own until you compel us to say that we have no strength in ourselves. Now, Lord, we would acknowledge that all good must come of you, through Jesus Christ, by your Spirit, if ever we are to receive it. And we come humbly first of all, acknowledging our many sins. How many they are, we cannot calculate. How black they are, how deep their ill desert. Yet we do confess that we have sent ourselves into hopeless misery, unless your free undeserved grace rescues us from it. Lord, we thank you for any signs of penitence. Give us more of it. Let us lay low before you under a consciousness of our undeserving state. Let us feel and mourn the atrocity of our guilt. We know a tender heart must come from you. By nature, our hearts are stony, and we are proud and self-righteous. Help everyone here to make an acceptable confession of sin. with much mourning, with much deep regret, with much self-loathing, and with the absence of anything like a pretense to merit or to excuse. Here we stand, a company of publicans and sinners, with whom Jesus deigns to sit down, Heal us. Emmanuel, here we are, needing that healing. Good physician, here is scope for you. Come and manifest your healing power. There are many of us who have looked to Jesus and are lightened, but we do confess that our faith was a gift of God. We had never looked with these blear eyes of ours to that dear cross unless first a heavenly light had shone. and the heavenly figure had taken the thick scales away. We trace, therefore, our faith to the same God who gave us life, and we ask now that we may have more of it. Lord, maintain the faith you have created. Strengthen it. Let it be more and more simple. Deliver us from any sort of reliance upon ourselves, whatever shape that reliance might take. and let our faith in you become more childlike every day that we live. For there is room for the greatest faith to be exercised upon your blessed person and work. Dear Most High and All-Sufficient God, there is room for the greatest confidence in you. O Divine Periclete, the Holy Ghost, there is now sufficient room for the fullest faith in your operations. Grant us this faith. Work it in us now while at the same time we do confess it if we have it not. It is our shame and sin. We make no excuse for unbelief, but confess it with detestation of it, that we should ever have doubted the truthful, the mighty, the faithful God. Yet, Lord, we shall fall into the like sin again unless the grace that makes us know it to be sin shall help us to avoid it. And now we ask you to accept of us this morning whatever offerings we can bring. We bring our hearts to you full of love to you for what you have done full of gratitude, full of faith, full of hope, full of joy. We feel glad in the Lord. But we do confess that if there be anything acceptable in these our offerings, they are first of all given us of you. No praise comes from us till it is first wrought in us. For every virtue we possess, and every victory won, and every thought of holiness, our thine great God alone. Well, may we lay those fruits at your feet that were grown in your garden, and that gold and silver and frankincense which you yourself bestowed. Only, first give us more. Oh, to love the Savior with a passion that can never cool. Oh, to believe in God with a confidence that can never stagger. O to hoping God with an expectation that can never be dim. O to delighting God with a holy overflowing rejoicing that can never be stopped, so that we might live to glorify God, the highest bent of our powers, living with enthusiasm, burning, blazing, being consumed with the indwelling God who works all things in us according to His will, Thus, would we praise and pray at the same time, confess and acknowledge our responsibilities, but also bless the free, the sovereign grace that makes us what we are, O God, of the eternal choice, of the ransom purchase on the tree, of the effectual call, Father, Son and Spirit, our adoration rises to heaven like the smoke from the altar of incense. Glory and honor and majesty and power and dominion and might be unto the one and only God, forever and ever, and all the redeemed by blood will say, Amen. A prayer from John Udall, 1560-1592, to combat between Christ and the devil. Most gracious God and loving Father, we, your unworthy servants, present ourselves here before your glorious majesty, not trusting in our own merits or worthiness, but only on your mercy and your Son, Jesus Christ. For we acknowledge from the bottom of our hearts against ourselves that we are not only conceived and born in sin, but also have continued in the same from the beginning of our time to this present, transgressing your laws and commandments, both in thought, word, and deed, insomuch that we are not worthy to appear before you, much less to presume to beg or crave anything good to our hand. with hope to obtain the same, if you should deal with us according to our deservings, notwithstanding most merciful and holy Father, for as much as you have commanded us to call upon you, when we feel ourselves loaded with the burden of our sins and a promise to ease us, we, trusting to the truth of this promise, do come to you at this present, most humbly beseeching you for your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ's sake. to pardon and forgive us all our sins, to blot them out of your remembrance, and to bury them in silence, that they never appear before you to accuse us, and we beseech you to work in our hearts and earn us loathing of sin, a detestation of all iniquity. From a careful desire and an unfeigned endeavor to frame our lives and conversations according to your blessed will, for so much as we have learned out of your holy word, that all those whom you have vouchsafed to give into the hands of your Son, Jesus Christ, shall be continually, so long as they live in this present world, be assailed with trials, temptations, tribulations, and afflictions by reason of the malice of Satan, their enemy. The allurements of the world, in the enticements of their own sinful nature, we acknowledge and confess that a greater honor can no way befall us than to be molested by your enemies for the testimony of your truth. Yet, such is our weakness by nature and so unfit is our flesh to begin or continue any good thing. that we must needs quell in the same and utterly renounce you and your truth unless you of your gracious goodness assist us with your grace and such wise as both the loathsomeness of our flesh to do any good thing be taken away and Also your favor so support us that we may be strengthened to abide in your true fear and service We beseech you therefore good father even for his sake, whose blood you account not too dear for our redemption, that, as it is your will to impose upon us this estate of bearing the cross for your sake, so you would give us strength, contentedness, and patience to make us able to undergo this. Lord, let not our weakness betray your glory. Let not our shrinking give advantage to your foes. Neither let our wants any way hinder your grace from coming to us. But for as much as you have thought it most fit to have your glory shown in weakness, your power to be perfect in infirmity, and the foolish ones of the world to confound the wise, grant, we beseech you, that we may so come under the banner of Jesus Christ your Son. And so strive to build his kingdom in the midst of his enemies, that by us your name may be glorified, your truth may be magnified, your son Jesus Christ may be advanced, and our souls and consciences everlastingly comforted. Lord, we pray to you, grant these graces. Amen. A prayer by Henry Smith, 1550 to 1591. A PRAYER FOR THE MORNING O LORD, prepare our hearts to prayer. Lord God, our Heavenly Father, we, your poor and wretched creatures, give you most humble and hearty thanks for our quiet and safe sleep, and for raising us up from the same. We beseech you to prosper us this day in our labor and travel, that principally it may be to your glory, next to the prophet of our master in the commonwealth. And last of all, to the discharging of our duty in this our vocation, Grant. that we may cheerfully and conscionably do our business and labors, not as men please hers, but as serving you, O God, knowing you to be the chief master of us and our masters, and it's you seeing and beholding us with your fatherly eyes, promising reward to those who faithfully and truly walk in their vocation, and threatening everlasting death and damnation to those who deceitfully and wickedly do their works and labors. We beseech you to give us strength of your spirit, that godly and gladly we may overcome our labors, and that the tediousness of this irksome labor which you for our sins have poured upon all mankind may seem to us delectable and sweet. Grant that we may cheerfully walk in our vocation and faithfully serve you in this our service, and gladly and joyfully go forth in our labors. Fulfill now, O Lord, these our requests for your Son, our Saviour's sake, in whose name we pray, as he has often taught us, our Father, and so on. Another prayer. Eternal God, almighty and most merciful, we, your unworthy servants, prostrate before the throne of grace. Do yield ourselves, body and soul, to you for all your benefits, which you from our birth have heaped upon us. It is though we had always done your will, although we occupied about and vain things, never marked, never loved, never served, never thanked you so heartily for them, as we esteem a mortal friend for the least courtesy. Therefore we come with shame and sorrow to confess our sins, not small but grievous, not few but infinite, not past but present, not secret but presumptuous against your express word and will. against our own conscience, knowledge, and liking, if any had done them but ourselves. O Lord, if you should require but the least of them at our hands, Satan would challenge us for his, and we should never see your face again, nor the heavens, nor the earth, nor all the goodness which you have prepared for man. What shall we do then but appeal to your mercy and humbly desire your fatherly goodness to extend that compassion towards us which your beloved Son, our loving Savior, has purchased so mightily, so mercifully, so graciously, and so dearly for us? We believe and know that one drop of His blood is sufficient to heal our infirmities, pardon our iniquities, and supply our necessities. And without your grace, our strength, our guide, our life, we are able to do nothing but sin. This woeful experience too long has taught us. Any example of those which are void thereof, whose life is nothing else but the service of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Therefore, as you in special favor have appointed us to serve you, like as you have ordained all other creatures to serve us, So may it please you to send down your heavenly spirit into this earthly mansion to illuminate our minds, mollify our hearts, cleanse our affections, subdue our reason, regenerate our wills, purify our natures with your spirit. So shall not your benefits, nor your chastisements, nor your word return void, but accomplish that for the which they were sent, until we be renewed into the image of your Son. Good Lord, we beseech you to look down on the multitude of your compassions upon your militant church, this sinful realm, your gracious handmaid, our dread sovereign, her honorable counselors, the civil magistrates, the painful ministers, the two universities, the people who sit in darkness, and all who bear your cross. Gather us into one communion of your truth. and give to everyone a spirit to his calling, to being mindful of the account, and that we are told Christians may firmly resolve, speedily begin, and continually persevere in doing and searching your most holy will. Bless and sanctify our meeting, that no temptation hinder me in speaking, or the congregation in hearing, but that your word may be heard and spoken as the word of God, which is able to save our souls in that day, howsoever it pleases you by weak and foolish things to magnify yourself. There is no cause, most just, why you should hear sinners who are displeased with sin, but for his sake who has suffered for sin and did not sin, in whose name we are bold to lift up our hearts, hands, and voices to you. In the name of Jesus, Amen. The following prayer is taken from William Krashoff, 1572 to 1626, the ambassador between heaven and earth, between God and man. A morning prayer for the Sabbath day. Most merciful God and eternal Father, what may we render to you for all your loving kindness, for the which blessings and thanksgivings forever be heaped upon your holy name. in whom the treasures of mercy and loving-kindness dwell bodily, who, of your own good will and pleasure, have been pleased to communicate to us so many of your favors, so many several ways, without any manner of desert of ours, to the which may it please you to add steel to the number, by taking away those iniquities of ours, to take away your favors and blessings from us, or is a stranger that knows him not, pass by our transgressions. Do not retain your anger against us forever, though we retain our sins the cause of your anger, but return to us by grace, who don't return to you by repentance, and have compassion upon us, who have not compassion. on our own souls. Subdue our reigning and raging unrighteousness and drown our offenses in the bottom of the sea, which else will drown us in the bottom of destruction? Raise up our souls from the dead sleep of sin, as you have raised up our bodies from this night of darkness. protect us from all dangers from the which no minute we are secured of ourselves but in you brought us to the beginning of this your blessed sabbath of rest which so sanctified to a through your blessed spirit that your name may be hallowed your power admired, your mercy magnified, and your love manifested to your glory and our everlasting comfort. Fill our hearts with such a desire and longing after you that no earthly felicity betrays an allurement of the flesh in which this vain world with her multitudes is carried along. Take hold on us, that see me honey in the mouth, butter-found wormwood in the stomach, that say peace, peace and all is well, when destruction and death has baited over with them. But let our delight be in your law, nearing to exercise ourselves both day and night, our whole felicity. Let that treasure be our pleasure that is laid up in heaven, while other joys are brittle and fading. And therein is bitterness, but in this there is neither bitterness nor end. Bless the seed of your word that shall this day be sown in our hearts and all faithful teachers and hearers of it. that it may fructify and bring forth fruit, to the amendment of our lives and the salvation of our souls in that great day of joy, sorrow, and for the better furtherance thereof enlarge and reform our understanding, keep the watch of our tongues and the door of our lips in such sort that no ill word be uttered by or through the same. And so rule and govern our hearts, that they think not, our hands that they touch not, our feet that they go not to, our eyes that they see not, our ears that they hear not, our senses that they taste not, our hearts that they consent not to anything but that which is to your glory and our good. That by this your love may be confirmed in us, and we in it. That so we may walk cheerfully in our vocations, waiting for that full redemption and crown of glory that remain for all such as persevere in your ways, without weariness to the end, which grant in whatsoever besides in your wisdom you know needful and necessary for us. For your dear son Jesus Christ's sake, in whose name we further entreat your mercy and goodness toward us in that form of prayer which himself has both commanded and taught us, saying, in the name of Jesus, Amen. A reading again from the book, The Pastor in Prayer by C. H. Spurgeon. Jesus, interceding for transgressors. He buried the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors. Isaiah 53, 12. Gracious God, we praise you with our whole hearts for the wondrous revelation of your loving Christ Jesus our Lord. We think every day of his passion, for all our hope lies in his death. But as often as we think upon it, we are still filled with astonishment that you should so love the world as to give your only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life, that heaven's eternal darling should come to earth to be made a man. and in manhood's form to be despised and rejected of the very man whom he came to bless, and then should be made to bear the sin of many, and to be numbered with the transgressors, and being found in a number to die a transgressor's death, a felon's death upon the gibbet of the cross. Oh, this surpasses all belief, if it had not indeed been actually so. And if the sure word of prophecy had not of old declared it, we could not have imagined it. It would have seemed blasphemy to have suggested such a thought. Yet, you have done it. Your grace has almost outgraced itself. Your love has reached its height. Love to rebels, so to love, that even your son could not be spared. We are afflicted in our hearts to think. We do not love you more. After such love as this, oh, were there not a stone in our hearts, we should melt in love to you. We should account that there was no thought fit to occupy the mind but this once-dependent thought of your love to us. and henceforth this would be the master key to our hearts that should unlock or lock the mature will, the great love in which you have loved us. We lie in the very dust before you in utter shame to think that we have sometimes heard this story without emotion and even told it without tenderness. The theme truly has never become stale to us. We can say in your presence that the story of Christ's death still brings joy and makes our hearts to leap. But yet, it never has affected us as we could have expected it would. Give us more tenderness of heart. Give us to feel the wounds of Jesus till they wound our sins to death. Give us to have a heart pierced even as his was, with deep sympathy for his griefs, and an all-consuming love for his blessed person. We adore you, O Father, for your great love and the gift of Jesus. We equally adore you, most blessed Jesus, for resigning your life for our sakes. And then we adore the Blessed Spirit, who has led us to know this mystery and to put our trust in Jesus. To the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob do we pay our reverend homage this morning, only we see him yet more clearly than the patriarchs of old did. For God, in the face of Jesus Christ, is seen in the clearest light the mortal eye can bear. And now, we have a prayer to put up to you, and it is this, that in us your dear son may see some portion of the travail of his soul. Lord, let him see a reward for his sufferings and all of us being repentant for sin and trusting in God and confessing your name. We fear there are among us this morning some who still indulge in the sins which brought Christ to death. Did some stiller trusting in their own righteousness, and are so despising his, because of theirs will suffice, than his were superfluous? O God, we beseech you, bring men away from all their false trusts, to rest in the great sacrifice of your dear son. Let not one person here be so callous to the merit of Christ, is not to love him, or indifferent to the efficacy of his blood, is not to desire to be cleansed in it. O bring every one of us now to believe in Jesus Christ with our whole heart, to eternal life, that, so the thousands in this tabernacle may belong to Jesus, that he may have abortion with the great, But even those who have believed in Christ have need to put up the same prayer. Our Lord and Master, Redeemer and Savior, come and take entire possession of us. We own your right, but you must take by force what you have purchased or you will never have it, by force of arms. The arms must be those of love. Will you capture our willful, wayward spirit? Come and divide the spoil with the strong in us, we pray you. Take every faculty and use it. Overpower and sanctify it. Every moment of our time, help us to employ for you. Every breath, may we breathe out to your honor. We feel that there is unconquered territory in our nature yet. Subdue it, Lord, we beseech you. Our corruptions, cast them out. And in our spirit, rule and conquer. Amen.