we may learn to know the right, and to choose the best. For without thee, O Lord, our wisdom is folly and our debates madness. O be thou graciously present in our councils, and teach thou our Senators wisdom, that they may find out the true expedients to heal our breaches, and redress our grievances; and to keep us safe and do us good, and make us holy and happy. O may we all be taught of God which way to take, and how to determine and act, consonant and agreable to thy blessed will, and for our own peace and welfare, both here and

for ever.

Amen.

A Prayer for Temporal Blessings.

LORD our God, thou knowest that while we are in this life we stand in need of its supplies: and hath both promised to such as seek thy kingdom, and the righteousness thereof, the addition of all other necessaries; and also hast commanded us to ask of thee our daily bread, and to cast our care upon thee, for all that is fitting for us. I pray therefore to thee, my heavenly Father, for such a child's portion as thy wisdom sees to be convenient, and agreable to my condition. O give me such health and wealth, and so much of the world's good, as shall be for my good. And I while I have a life to be nourished, let me not want the supports and comforts of it.

Give me skill and ability to provide for myself, and still add thy blessing to my endeavours. Where I cannot supply all my necessities, O do

thou raise up my friends and means to help me, that I may never be destitute of what is sufficient to sustain me; and be it ever so poor and mean, yet let me acquiesce in the distributions of thy providence and having food and raiment, be therewith content. In prosperity, keep me from forgetting thee; and in adversity, keep me from concluding my self to be forgotten of thee. O keep me from all unnecessary cares, and unprofitable dejections; and teach me how to want as well as how to abound. Add to me, O my Father, what thou knowest me further to need; and bless to me what already I have: that the bodily comforts may not be to my soul occasions of failing, but encouragements to my duty, and engagements on my heart, to abound in thy love and praise, and in the work of the Lord...And in the want of all other supplies and succours, by thou, O God, my all in all, in life and death, and evermore. Amen.

For Rain.

WE confess, O Lord, that we have so

greatly abused the comforts of thy good creatures, that thou mayest justly withdraw them from us, and make the heavens over us as brass, and the rain of our land dust, and the land itself to mourn, and all that grow upon it to wither; but, O thou Father of mercies, who in judgment rememberest me.cy, consult not now our merits, but thy own mercies, how to use us. Thou that bast the bottles and treasures of heaven at thy command, be pleased now to

open

the windows of heaven, and cause the rain to come down in its season; making grass to grow for the cattle, and herbs and fruits of earth for the use of men. And however thou

art pleased to deal with us, O suppress our repinings at any of thy dealings, and let them all amend and better us, and make us people prepared to receive the mercies which we want, and wait and beg for them at thy gracious. hands, upon the account of Jesus Christ. Amen.

For fair Weather."

ORD, if thou shouldst turn a fruitful land

into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein, yet, righteous wert thou, and just would be thy judgments, and we must not open our mouths to reply against God; but bear the indignation of the Lord, which qur sins have so much deserved, when our iniquities have turned away the blessings, and withholden the good things from us. But, O Father of mercies, spare and forgive us, for thy own mercy's sake, and put a stop to the calamity that threatens destruction to the work of thy hands; that the rain, which is thy blessing, may not be turned into a curse, nor descend from heaven to corrupt and spoil the fruits of the earth. O cause the overflowing showers to cease, which damp the joy of the harvest, and endanger the blasting of our blessings. And as thou hast given us plenty, and caused our land to yield its increase, so give us, we pray thee, a seasonable time to gather in the fruits which thy bounty has provided for us,

that, in the use of them, we may joyfully and cheerfully serve thee, and not consume them upon our lasts, but live to thy glory as we do upon thy bounty. And when thy judgments are in the land, O̟ that we who inhabit it may learn righteousness! and let not our concernments be so. great for our bodies as for our souls; that however we fare here, it may go well with us for ever. O let us not labour so for the meat that perisheth, as for that which endures to everlasting life! which everlasting provision for our unchangeable condition, above all we beg at thy hands, O Lord God our hea venly Father, for the sake of Jesus Christ, our only Saviour. Amen.

Prayer and Praise for a public Thanksgiving Day.

BLE

LESSED Lord, the only living and true God, who art of thyself, and givest being and preservation to us, and to all things else that are in the world! We live by thee; our whole dependence is upon thee for all the good that ever we have or hope for. And above all thy mercies, we have cause to admire, and bless, and praise thee, our God, for those mercies which in so large a measure, and especial manner, thou hast been pleased still to vouchsafe unto us, who are the work of thy hands, and the purchase of the blood of thy Son, whom thou hast made and redeemed to shew forth thy praise, and to glorify thy name. And we desire to pay unto thee that tribute of homage and service, and prayer and praise, which thou

hast made us capable of, and so many ways obliged us to. We desire to perform the same in such a manner that thou mayest mercifully accept us, and our services, at the hands of Jesus Christ.

Worthy art thou, O Lord our God, to receive all honour and glory, all thanks and praise, and love and obedience; as in the courts of heaven, so in all the assemblies of thy servants here upon earth: for thou art great, and dost wondrous things: thou art God alone, and thy goodness is equal to thy greatness.Thy mercy is over all thy works, and endureth for ever. Thou, Lord, hast been favourable to thy land, and dealt 'exceedingly gracious with us: for which we desire to bless thy name, and to give thee all the glory. It is of the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed, because thy compassions fail not and that we are here alive to praise thee, and in any condition to keep a thanksgiving day. That we are not now nothing, or worse than nothing, we must acknowledge it to be of thy free grace, O Lord, and thy mere mercy. That all the evils which have threatened us, have not befallen us; and that those evils which have come upon us, have not utterly destroyed and undone us, it is because thou, Lord, art gracious and merciful, and patient and kind, and still doing good to poor sinful men, who deserve nothing but evil at thy hands.

O how much have we to say of the goodness of the Lord by our own experience, and thy help at hand still in all the times and cases of