vengence of our sins The Litanies of the Saints LOrd have mercy upon us Christ have mercy upon us Lord have mercy upon us Christ heare us Christ graciously heare us God the Father of Heaven Have mercy upon us God the sonne Redeemer of the world Have mercy upon us God the Holy Ghost Have mercy upon us Holy Trinity one God Have mercy upon us Holy Mary Pray for us Holy Mother of God Holy Virgin of Virgins S. Michael Pray for us S. Gabriel S. Raphael All yee holy Angels and Archangels All yee holy Orders of blessed spirits S. John Baptist All yee holy Patriarcks Prophets S. Peter S. Paul S. Andrew S. James S. Philip. S. Bartholomew Pray for us S. Mathew S. Simon S. Thadey S. Mathias S. Barnabe S. Luke S. Marke All yee holy Apostles and Evāgelists All yee holy Disciples of our Lord. All yee holy Innocents S. Stephen S. Laurence Pray for us S. Vincent S. Fabian and Sebastian S. John and Paule S. Cosme and Damian S. Geryase and Protase All yee holy Martyrs S. Sylvester S. Gregory S. Ambrose Pray for us S. Augustin S. Hierosme S. Martin S. Nicolas All yee holy Bishops and Confessors All yee holy Doctors S. Antony S. Benet S. Bernard S. Dominick S. Francis All yee holy Priests and Levits All yee holy Monkes and Eremits S. Mary Magdalen S. Agatha S. Lucy S. Agnes Pray for us S. Cicily S. Chatherine S. Anastasia All yee holy Virgins and widowes All yee Men and Woemen Saints of God Make yee intercession for us Sonne of God We beseech thee to heare us Lambe of God that taketh away the sins of the world Spare us O Lord. Lambe of God that taketh away the sins of the world Heare us O Lord. Lambe of God that taketh away the sins of the world Have mercy vpon us Christ heare us Christ graciously heare us Vouchsafe O Almighty God that we honouring the memory of thy blessed Saints thou grant us by their intercession the desired abundance of thy mercy through Christ Jesus our Lord Amen O God whose proper it is alwayes to have mercy and to spare receive our petition that the tender mercy of thy piety may mildly absolve us and all thy servants whom the chayne of sin doth binde Amen Heare we beseech thee O Lotd the prayers of thy supplicants and pardon the sins of them that confesse to thee that thou being unto us benigne maist in like manner give us pardon and peace Shew with clemency O Lord thy unspeakable mercy unto us that thou both acquit us of our sins and deliver us from the paines which for them we deserve O God who by sin art offended and by penance art pacified mercifully respect the prayers of thy people making supplication to thee and turne away the scourges of thy āger which for our sins we deserue Haue mercy on all sinners sweet Jesu I beseech thee turne their vices into vertues and make them true observers of thy law and lovers of thee bring them to blisse in everlasting glory Have mercy also on the soules in Purgatory for thy bitter passion sake I beseech thee and for thy glorious name Jesu O holy Trinity one true God have mercy on me Your prayer ended dispose your selfe in recollection of mind to bed and putting of your cloathes consider how fast the tyme is comming on and is perchaunce much neerer then you imagin when you shall be vncloathed of all but a poore winding sheet to be covered with earth which your bedcloathes covering you doe represent as also the ensving sleepe doth your death and your bed the grave where laying downe your selfe commende both your body and soule vnto God saying as did Iesus Christ upon the Crosse recommending your soule to the Eternall father in these sacred words Into thy hands O Lord I recommend my spirit In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ I laye me downe to rest he blesse me defend me and bring me to life everlasting Amen Save us good Lord wakeing and keepe us sleeping that we may watch with Christ and rest in peace Amen God the Father blesse me Jesus Christ defende me the vertue of the holy Ghost illuminate and sanctify me this night and ever more Amen O Angel of God who art my keeper me by the supernal piety committed to thy charge keepe and defend this night from all peril of body and of soule Amen And lastely with a fervent aspiration to God conclude saying O deare Jesu the everlasting repose of thyne elect when will the happy houre come that my soule may without end receiue her rest in thy eternall glory And herevpon with an act of the love of God compose your selfe to sleepe When awakeing in the night IF you awake in the night endeavour to make an elevation of your hart to God by some ejaculatory prayer as O good Iesu be to me Iesus and save me or O deare Iesu that I may know thee and that J may know my selfe vpon which words S. Augustin was wont to spend whole nights in pious contemplation As also did S. Francis in these other not unlike O who art thou my divine Lord and who am I or say O Eternal God when shall I love thee with my whole hart and soule and if I were at this very instant now to dye am J in the state to obtayne thy gracious mercy or the like And then without any further application of mind compose your selfe againe to sleepe Holy cogitations wherof some one being chosen at the end of your evening or morning prayer may serve as a subject for a vertuous employment of your minde when either you cannot sleepe or for all the day following at such tymes as best leasure shall give occasion to make some good Reflection there upon Of the true end of Man MAn is made to love and to serve God and thereby to obtayne his owne Beaitude Our very hart assures us of this certaine truth which being made for God it findes no quiet rest but only in that its proper center thou hast created us O Lord for thy selfe saith S. Augustin and our hart is unquiet untill it repose in thee Yea plaine experience makes it manifest for neither could Alexander the great be content with his glorious conquest of the world togeather with all other temporall felicity nor Salomon with all which his soule could either possesse or desire for the full content both of his body and mind all which in the end he confessed to be but vanity and affliction of spirit And Alexander did no lesse who weeped when he was tould that there were no more worlds for him to conquer the satisfaction of what he had done gave him so smale content We being therfore made only for God let us be only his and give our selves entierly to him performing what according to our end we are made for For as the suune is made to give light the fier to heate and salt to season to which end should they
they meane Acts of the love of God WHo am I my Souveraine Creator and who art thou who thus imposest so expresly on me a commande to love thee was it not sufficient for thee my God to permit me so to doe and was it not thy abundant goodnesse to permit thy selfe to be belou'd by so poore and so wretched a hart as mine and with thy grace ther unto to enable me Wherfore seeing that is thy commande my God I will obey and though a wretch and unworthy sinner I here in thy presence protest that I will love thee with my whole hart and with my soule and force And from hencefourth I chuse thee for ever to be the chiefe and Souveraine object af all the purest affections of my hart the accomplishment of whose blessed will I preferr before all that is in Heaven or Earth yea and my dearest life I would hold most gladly employd to testify this my love and due homage vnto thee O deare Jesu king of eternall beauty and heavenly glory I will no other inheritance but the O divine keeper of my soule take thou possession of this my hart wich was created for thee and pierce it with a thousand wounds of pure love that I may sweetly languish with wholsome sorrow for my having so much offended thee Acts of Faith OOmnipotent and Eternall God who hast given me an understanding to knowe thee and a wil to love thee I here protest before thy souveraine Majesty that with a firme faith I doe beleeve what thy holy Church inspired by the holy Ghost proposeth to be beleeved to which I intirely submit as being reveled to her by thee which therfore I embrace professe and by thy grace shall persever in it untill my dying day And I doe utterly disclayme and disavow what thy beloued spouse the holy Catholik Church condemns This is the faith which I professe and wherin I desire to be found at the hour of my death and at that dreadfull day of dome to be judgd by it accordingly Acts of Hope ALl my hope and considence is in thy mercy my loving God and in the sacred merits of my divine Redeemer Iesus by whom I hope for remission of my sins and humbly trust in his great goodnesse to continue in thy grace to my lives end and to praise and glorify him with thee o eternall Father and with the holy Ghost for all Eternity this my hope is laid up in my bosome Iob. 19. And although through humane fralty I daily offende thee yet I hope most gracious Lord by thy divine assistance to amende and to gaine more strength and constancy against my ghostly enemies O Lord of infinit mercy to whom a sorrowfull ād repentinge hart is alwayes a greatefull sacrifice although the multitude of my fins and great ingratitude might tempt me to despaire yet certaine I am my mercifull God that a contrite and humble hart thou wilt not dispise Psal 50. Acts of Adoration WIth the profundest and most humble respect of my soule prostrate both in hart and body before thy souveraine Majesty ô Omnipotent and eternall God I adore and acknowledge thee my souveraine Lord both of my life and beeing who can againe reduce me to that nothing out of which thou first createdst me and who by thy meere boundlesse goodnesse hast preserved me from it till this present day I render thee ô Lord all adoration and homage as thy submissive and humble creature depending intirely upon thy blessed will and pleasure And considering that what honour I am able to render to the merit of thy infinit Deity is so inconsiderable to supply that great defect I offer to thee the adoration which eternally thy Saints and Angels shall ever render to thee and my great desire is that all the creatures of Heaven and Earth may blesse adore and glorify thee with endlesse praise for all Eternity Acts of thankes giving and gratitude I Have merited nothing accordinge to the effect of thy great liberality to me ô my great God nor is there any thing in me which could move thee to bestow so great and many benefits both of body and soule on me who am so farr vncapable to render thee due thankes for having created redeemed preserved and calld me to the happy way for my salvation Thou hast given me o Lord reason both to know and serve thee and what daily favours hast thou conferd on me from how many perils of body and soule hast thou carefully by thy fatherly providence preserud me how great spirituall benefits hast thou bestowd on me by the merits of the bitter death and passion of my most loving Redeemer Jesus how often hast thou nourisht my soule at the sacred table with the bread of Angels wherby to give true force and grace to serve thee O how often hast thou awaked me from the mortall drousinesse of sin by thy heavenly grace and prevented me by thy holy inspirations from grievously offending thee Accept o heavenly Father in stead of my defect all the acceptable workes which Jesus Christ my loving Saviour hath offered to thee for me take this in my acknowledgment of due gratitude for these thy gracious benefits bestow'd on me and grant that all my life may be a continuall thankes giving to thy divine Maiesty to whom only is due all honour glory praise and benediction for ever and ever without end Acts of Love towards our Enemies THou hast taught me o God of all love both by thy word and example to love my enemies yea the whole practise of thy divine life well appears to have been a continuall exercise of doing good for evill as also was thy death the souveraine sacrifice to expiate their sins O grant me grace I beseech thee herein to imitate thy charity and to observe this thy holy commande Forgive therfore sweet Jesus I beseech thee all those that persecute and doe me any injury grant them finall repentance of all their sin̄es and after a happy persevetance in thy grace to enjoy thee in eternall blisse Acts of Humility I Acknowledge and before thee my God doe confesse that of my selfe I am a pure nothing neyther any thing could I doe My extraction is from nothing and my inheritame and proper share is only weackenesse sin and misery It is thou o Lord who hast drawne me from my nothing wherrin without thy meere goodnesse I had continued for all Eternity and thither should I againe returne wer 't not thy powerfull hand which continually preserves me from it All this I now acknowledging for truth what greater follye can ther be then to flatter my selfe with vaine esteeme nay lett me but passe yet one stepp further onn and consider my innumerable sins committed against this souveraine Majesty ought not I then to confesse my ill deserving the least of these thy so gracious benefits I doe acknowledge to my great confusion and thy glory that I neither have deserved thy consolation nor from thy creatures
Masse 2. To keepe fast and abstinence certaine dayes appointed 3. To pay tithes to the Pastor of the Church 4. To Confesse to their Pastor at least once a yeare or to an other with his licence 5. To receive the blessed Sacrament at Easter or there about To which many doe adjoyne not to marry at certaine tymes forbidden nor within certaine degrees nor privately without witnesse The workes of mercy corporall 1. To feed the hungry 2. To give drinke to the thirsty 3. To cloathe the naked 4. To visit and ransome the Captives 5. To harbour the harbourlesse 6. To visit the sicke 7. To bury the dead The workes of mercy spirituall 1. To correct the sinner 2. To instruct the Ignorant 3. To counsel the doubtfull 4. To comfort the sorrowfull 5. To beare patiently injuries 6. To forgive all wrongs 7. To pray both for the quicke and the dead The eight Beatitudes 1. Blessed are the poore in spirit for theirs is the kingdome of Heaven 2. Blessed are the meeke for they shall possesse the Land 3. Blessed are they that mourne for they shall be comforted 4. Blessed are they that hungar and thirst for righteousnesse for they shall be filled 5. Blessed are the mercifull for they shall finde mercy 6. Blessed are the cleane of hart for they shall see God 7. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God 8. Blessed are they that suffer persecution for righteousnesse sake for theirs is the kingdome of Heaven The 5. senses of the body 1. Sight 2. Smelling 3. Hearing 4. Tasting 5. Touching The 3. faculties of the soule 1. Memory 2. Understanding 3. and Will The office of Christian justice To decline from evill or sin and to doe good or the duty of Justice Of sin Sin is double Originall or Actuall Mortal or Venial 7 Capitall sins commonly called mortal or deadly sins 1. Pride 2. Coueteousnesse 3. Lechery 4. Wrath 5. Gluttony 6. Envy 7. Sloath. The 7 contrary vertues 1. Humility 2. Liberality 3. Chastitv 4. Meeknesse 5. Astinence 6. Patience 7. Devotion 6 Sins against the Holy Ghost 1. Presumption of Gods Mercy 2. despaire 3. Impugning truth more freely to sin 4. Enuiing an other mans spirituall good 5. Obstination in sin To dye in final Impenitency 4. Things crying to Heaven for vengeance 1. Wilful murther 2. Sin of Sodome 3. Oppression of the poore Widowes and fatherlesse 4. Defrauding Labourers of their wages 9. Wayes of being accessory to an other mans sin 1. By Counsaile 2. by commandement 3. by Consent 4. by Provocation or Leading others 5. by praise or flattery 6 by concealing the faulty 7. by partaking 8. by holding our peace and not speaking unto such as be Under our charge 9. by dissembling or not finding fault or hindring when we may or have charge 3. Kinds of good workes 1. Almes deeds or workes of mercy 2. Praying 3. Fasting 3. Evangelicall Counsels 1. Voluntary poverty 2. perpetual Chastity 3. Entire Obedience The 4. Last things 1. Death 2. Judgment 3. Hell 4. Heaven THE LITTLE MANUEL OF THE POORE MANS DAILY DEVOTION Contayning severall exercises of piety as time and fit occasion may require An exhortation to prayer ST Thomas gives this solid reason for the great necessity of prayer that God by his Divine order and Providence from all Eternity hath determin'd to bestow upon soules what in tyme he affords them by prayer as also that therby he hath measured the salvation the conversion and perfection of soules For even as he hath disposed that by plowing and cultivating the ground he affords us abundance both of bread and wyne and other necessaries for the life of Man so hath his Divine disposition ordayned to communicate his graces and heavenly guifts to our soules by this good meanes of holy prayer For to receive of him he first requires that we should aske Math. 7. to find that we should seeke and that we knock before the dore be opened to let us in So that prayer is the proper meanes and conduit wherby God supplies our necessities releeves our poverty and replenisheth us with grace and benefits By this we see our great necessity of betaking our selves unto prayer which is compared by the holy Fathers to Jacobs Ladder reaching from Earth to Heaven Gen. 28. and the Angells descending and ascending therby S. Augustin calls prayer the key of Paradise which opens to all the treasure of God oratio justi clavis est coeli ascendit precatio descendit Dei miseratio Yea prayer is to the soule as is bread to the body saith he all men have as much need of prayer saith S. Chysost as plants have of water nor is it possible for us to bring forth the fruits of piety saith this great saint unlesse our harts be well watered with prayer A Morning exercise of holy prayer YOU awakeing in the morning endeavour to raise up your first thoughts to God with thankes giving for preserving you that night and affording you the good beginning of a new day wherin to labour for his glory and for your owne salvation by the amendment of your life and better serving his Divine Majesty You having now taken sufficient rest and your usvall repose being hindred by no just cause nor indisposition but if it be meere sloth and slugishnesse which would robb you of precious tyme whereof for every moment we must give exact accompt to God then endeavour to surmount all sinfull sloth by offering that act of mortification to God as your first fruits of that new day most justly due to him and immediately raising up your selfe makeing the signe of the holy crosse say In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ crucifi'd I doe rise he blesse me governe me and confirme me in all good workes this day and ever more And after this mortall life bring me to life everlasting Amen Here make to God a morning oblation of all your thoughts words and deeds of that day And in particular resolve carefully to avoyde that sin to which you finde your selfe daily most subject to fall into You being now made ready and kneeling downe devoutly in your place of prayer before a Crucifix or some devout picture therby the better to fix your thoughts upon piety there humbly adore the Divine presence of God acknowledge your owne vilenesse and render him most humble thankes for all his gracious benefits Crave humbly his grace to preserve you that day from all sin and to enlighten your Vnderstanding to knowe his blessed will and his divine help to performe the same Come holy Ghost replenish the harts of the faithfull and kindel the fire of thy divine love in them Illuminate our mindes o Lord we beseech thee with the light of thy cleerenesse that we may see what we ought to doe and have power to accomplish those things which be rigtfull through Christ our Lord. Amen Prevent we beseech thee o Lord our actions by thy holy spirit assisting and
in helping forward prosecute them that all our prayers and workes may begin alwayes from thee and begun by thee may so be ended Through Lord Jesus our mercifull Redeemer Amen Our Father c. Haile Mary c. I beleeve in God c. All as above I Confesse me to Almighty God To the blessed Virgin S. Marie To the blessed S. John Baptist To the holy Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul and to all the Saints in Heaven that I have grievously sinned in thought Word and deed Through my fault Through my fault through my most grievous fault Therfore I Beseech the blessed Virgin Marie blessed S. Michel the Archangel blessed S. John Baptist the holy Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul and all the Saints in Heaven ro pray unto our Lord God for me Almighty God have mercy upon us and all our sinnes being forgiven he bring us to everlasting life Amen Almighty and mercifull Lord give unto us pardon absolution an remission of all our sins Amen Vouchsafe O Lord to keepe us this day without sin be mercifull unto us let thy mercy O Lord be upon us even as we have our trust in thee O Lord heare my prayer and let my cry come to thee O Father Almigthy who hast brought us to the beginning of this new day save us by thy power to the end that we fall not this day into sin but that our words our thoughts and workes may be directed to execute thy justice through our Lord Jesus Christ Amen A devout recommendation to be used every morning I Adore blesse and glorify thee O holy Trinity God Omnipotent Father Sonne and Holy Ghost Behold I offer my selfe to thy Divine Majesty Take from me I beseech thee and from all faithfull Christians what soever displeaseth thee and give unto us that which is gratefull in thy sight and grant that we may become such as we are comanded to be I recommend unto thee O Lord my soule my body my wife my children my Father and Mother my brothers and sisters my kindred and benefactors friends and enemies and all those who have recommended themselves to my prayers or for whom I am bound to pray I commend unto thee the holy Catholique Church grant O Lord that every one may know thee that all may worship honour and reverence thee all may love thee and likewise be beloved of thee Those who erre reduce and bring againe into the way Destroy all false sects and heresies convert all to the true faith grant O Lord thy peace let thy holy will de donne comfort and help all who are in tribulation and misery as well Spirituall as corporal Grant O Lord unto the living grace and to the faithfull soules departed mercy and everlasting rest A recommendation to God INto the hands of thy infinit mercy O Lord I commend my soule and body my senses my words my counsailes my thoughts my workes and all my actions with all the necessites of my body and soule my conversation my death and resurrection with thy Saints and happy elect Amen A recommendation of ourselves to the blessed Virgin Mother of God To the Angels and Saints out of S. Augustin ch 40. of his medit O Marie Mother of God our Lord and Saviour Jes Christ thou sacred and unspotted Virgin vouchsafe to make intercession for me unto him who made thee a worthy temple for himselfe to inhabit O S. Gabriel S. Raphael O holy quiers of Angels and Archangels of Patriarkes and Prophets of Apostles and Evangelists of Martyres and Levits of Monkes and Virgins and all such as have lived righteously I beseech you even for his sake by whom you have been elected and in whose contemplation you have so much delighted that you will be pleased to pray for me a poore sinner unto him our God that I may be delivered from the furious jawes of the infernal Fiend and from that death which shall never have end Amen A devout Prayer to our Lord Iesus O My divine and most mercifull Redeemer Jesus sonne of God and of the glorious Virgin Marie who dying for all mankind and me the third day didst rise againe I beseech thee deare Lord have mercy on me a vile and wretched sinner but yet thy creature and for thy bitter Passion save and keepe me from all perils bodily and ghostly and specially from all things that may turne to thy displeasure And with all my hart I thanke thee most mercifull Lord for the many mercies thou hast shewd me in the great dangers I have past both in body and soule and as thy grace and endlesse goodnesse hath alwayes kept and saved me from the houre of my birth until this day so Lord I beseech thee that thy mercy may continue my safety And for my many offences and great ingratitudes of my sinful life I humbly aske mercy And for that I cannot leade such a life as it becommeth thy servant I humbly prostrate and cry God be merciful to me a most wretched sinner And I humbly thanke thee most gracious Lord for the multitude of Divine benefits which thou hast more largely bestowed on me then upon many others who have much better deserved them then I. Wherefore most gracious Lord I humbly thanke thee rendring all honour and praise to thy holy name who livest and reygnest one God world without end Amen A Prayer to persever in goodnesse GRant O Lord Jesu that I may persever in good purposes and in thy holy service untill my death and that I may now this present day perfectly begin for it is nothing that hitherto I have done A Prayer to our Angel guardian O Angel of God who art my keeper illuminate guard rule and governe me this day by the supernal piety committed to thee Amen O Lord blesse us and defend us from all evill and bring us to eternall life And the soules of the faithful through the mercy of God rest in peace Amen A blessing THe peace of our Lord Jesus Christ the vertue of his sacred holy passion the signe of the holy crosse the integrity and great humility of the blessed Virgin Mary the blessing of the glorious Saints the keeping of the happy Angels and the suffrages of all the chosen of God be with me and between me and all myne enemies now and in the hour of my death sweet Jesu Amen The Almigthy and mercifull God the Father Sonne and Holy Ghost blesse and keepe us nowe and evermore When at morning noone and evening you heare the Ave Mary bell to ring say THe Angel of God declared unto Mary and shee conceived of the Holy Ghost Haile Mary full of grace c. Behould the hand-maide of our Lord be it unto me according to thy word Haile Mary full of grace c. And the word was made flesh and dwelt in us Haile Mary full of grace c. The Prayer VOuchsafe we beseech thee O Lord to power forth thy grace into our harts that we who know the
incarnation of Christ thy sonne the Angel declaring it may be brought by his holy Crosse and Passion unto the glory of his Resurrection through the same Christ our Lord Amen The soules of the faithfull through the mercy of God rest in peace Amen Be mindfull to say this holy devotion thrice every day In the morning in gratefull memory and adoration of that divine Mystery of the glorious Resurrection of our Redeemer Iesus Christ At midday in memory and adoration of his bitter death and Passion And at the Evening in memory and adoration of the Incarnation of the sonne of God in the wombe of the pure and immaculate ever Virgin Certaine generall advertisments much conducing to Christian perfection THinke often upon the moment of this life whereon depends Eternity Call frequently to minde that thou art placed in this world for no other end but that by serving God to save thy soule Remember that thou art alwayes in the presence of God and raise often thy hart unto him Observe not the imperfections of other persons but think rather of mending thy owne Judge rashly of no body nor give any willing care unto the detractor Let no drynesse nor barrenesse in devotion cause you to omitt any accustomed exercise of piety Doe all your actions with a pure intention for the glory of God When you heare the clock to strike stirr up sorrow for your sins beseeching God to have mercy on your soule at the dreadfull houre of death Be not singular in your exteriour devotion least some inward vanity may outwardly appeare thereby Neglect not divine inspirations which God shall give for the amendment of your most habitual and daily sins When you are assaulted with any dangerous temptation crosse your hart in token that you humbly crave Gods grace and disavow the sin which that ill thought suggests to you Be not forward to contradict others and if you be contradicted grow not angry thereat but only mildly make answere that so is your opinion Remember that there is but one Heaven which if we seeke it in this world we shall not find it in the other Vertue and true resignation to the will of God consists not in words but in real deeds and actions An Evening Exercice for Prayer before bed IT being now tyme for your repose retyre your selfe to the place of prayer and in the presence of God devoutly upon your knees there adore his divine Majesty acknowledging your owne unworthinesse render him most humble thankes for all his gracious benefits beseech him to preserve you that night from all sin And sixing the interiour sight of your soule upon Gods infinit greatnesse and Majesty and upon your owne basenesse abjection and indignity say as in the morning Exercise In the name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the Holy Ghost Amen Blessed be the holy and undevided Trinity now and for ever more Amen Our Father c. Halle Mary c. I beleeve in God c. I confesse me to Almigthy God c. all as in the morning prayer Almighty God have mercy upon us and all our sins being forgiven bring us to everlasting life Amen Omnipotent and mercifull Lord give unto us pardon absolution and remission of all our sins Amen I most humbly thanke thee my great God who hast created me of nothing and redeemd me with thy precious blood made me a member of the Catholick Church and graciously provided for me all necessaries both for body and soule For all which as also for thy so frequent heavenly inspirations Sacraments and sacrifices as also for so many other meanes for my salvation from the bottome of my hart and with all the powers of my soule I render thee my loving God most humble thankes beseeching all the holy Quires of Angels and all the blessed Saints in thy celestiall kingdome that they vouchsafe to supply my deficiency in praising adoring magnifying and extolling this thy great mercy and infinit goodnesse owards me Almighty and everlasting God I yeeld thee most harty thankes for that thou hast vouchsafed of thy great mercy and goodnesse to preserve me this day from all evill And I also beseech thee for thy bitter death and passion most mercifully to forgive me a wretched sinner all my offences which I have this day committed by thought word and deede and hereafter to preserve and keepe me from all danger as well of body as of soule to the end I may rise againe in health to praise thy glorious name and joyfully to serve thee in thankesgiving with a chast body and cleane hart Amen O Lord God and my heavenly Father for as much as by thy divine ordinance the night approacheth and tyme requireth that we give our selves to bodily rest I yeald unto thee most harty thankes for thy great love vouchsafing to preserve me this day from the danger of all enemies to give me my health to feede me and afford me all necessaries for the comfort of this my mortall life I most humbly beseech thee for thy blessed sonne Jesus his sake that thou wilt mercifully forgive me all that I have this day committed against thy fatherly goodnesse by thought word or by deed and that thou wilt vouchsafe to shadow me this night under the safe winges of thy Almigthy power and defend me from Sathan and all dangerous assaults that neither he not any of his ministers have power either over my body or soule But that although my body enjoyeth sleepe yet my soule may watch unto thee delight in thee and ever more praise thee that when the comfortable light of the day returneth according to thy good appointment I may rise againe with a faithfull soule and undefiled body and so afterwards behave my selfe all my life according to thy blessed will and commandment by casting away the workes of darknesse and putting on the armour of light that men seeing my good workes may be mooved to glorify thee my heavenly Father who with thy only begotten sonne our loving Saviour and the holy Ghost livest and reygnest one true and everlasting God world without end Amen A Prayer to our B. Lady and to her divine Sonne O Benigne and mercifull Virgin Mother most meeke most mild and gracious obtaine for us O B. Lady grace and strength to withstand and overcome all our enemies ghostly and bodily visible and invisible that after the course of this short life we may by thy gracious help attayne everlasting life in the kingdone of Heaven where wee may with thee O Virgin ever more dwell and with all the holy Angels Archangels Patriarcks and Prophets Apostles and Martyrs Confessors and Virgins worship glorify and magnify our divine Redeemer and thee O sacred Virgin in everlasting blisse without end Amen O Lord Jesus Christ the glory of the Father the orient beauty of eternal light and bright mirrour wihout spot or deformity I humbly beseech thee by thy sacred divinity to grant me this night chastity of minde cleanesse
They that repay evil things for good did back bite me because I followed goodnesse Forsake me not O Lord my God depart not from me Incline unto my helpe O Lord God of my salvation Glory be to the Father c. Psalme 50. HAve mercy on me O God according to thy great mercy And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my iniquities Wash me hencefourth from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin Because I doe know my iniquity and my sin is alwayes against me To thee only have I sinned and have donne evill before thee that thou maist be justified in thy words and maist overcome when thou art judged For behould I was conceived in iniquities and my mother conceived me in sin For behould thou hast loved truth the uncertaine and hidden things of thy wisdome thou hast made manifest to me Thou shalt sprincle me with hysope and I shall be cleansed thou shalst wash me and I shall be made whiter then snow To my hearing thou shalst give joy and gladnesse and humbled harts shall rejoyce Turne away thy face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities Create a cleane hart in me O God and renew a right spirit in my bowels Cast me not away from thy face and thy holy spirit take not away from me Render unto me the joy of thy salvation and confirme me with a principall spirit I will teach the unjust thy wayes and the impious shall be converted unto thee Deliver me from blouds O God the God of my salvation and my tongue shall exalt thy justice Thou O Lord shalt open my lips and my mouth shall declare thy praise Because if thou wouldest have had sacrifice I had verily given it with whole-burnt-offerings thou wilt not be delighted A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit a contrite and humble hart O God thou wilst not dispise Deale favorably O Lord in thy good will with Syon and let the walls of Hierusalem be built up Then shalt thou accept sacrifice of justice oblations and whole-burnt-offerings then shall they lay calves upon thine altar Glory be to the Father c. Psalme 101. O Lord heare my prayer and let my cry come unto thee Turne not away thy face from me in what day soever I am in tribulation incline thine eare to me In what day soever I shal call upon thee heare me speedily For my dayes have vanished as smoke and my bones are withered as a dry-burnt fire-brand I am smitten as grasse and my hart is withered for I have forgotten to eate my bread For the voyce of my groning my bonne hath cleaved to my flesh I am become like a pelican of the wildernesse I am become as a night raven in the house I have watched and am become as a sparow solitary in the house toppe All the day did my ennemies upbraide me and they that praised me sware against me For I did eate ashes as bread and mingled my drink with weeping At the face of the wrath of thy indignation for that lifting me up thou hast throwne me downe My dayes have declined as a shadow I am withered as grasse But thou O Lord endurest for ever and thy memoriall in generation and generation Thou rising up shalt have mercy on Syon for the tyme is come Because the stones thereof have pleased thy servants and they shall have pitty on the earth thereof And the Gentils shall feare thy name O Lord and all the Kings of the Earth thy glory For our Lord hath builded Syon and he shall be seene in his glory He hath had respect to the prayer of the humble and he hath not dispised their petition Let these things be written in an other generation and the people that shall be created shall praise our lord Because he hath looked fourth from his high holy place our Lord from Heaven hath looked upon the earth That he might heare the gronings of the fettered that he might loose the children of them that are flayne That they may shew fourth the name of our Lord in Syon and his prayse in Hierusalem In the assembling of the people togeather in one and kings to serve our Lord. He answered him in the way of his strength shew me the fewnesse of my dayes Call me not back in the halfe of my dayes thy yeares are unto generation and generation In the beginning O Lord thou hast founded the earth and the Heavens are the workes of thy hands They shall perish but thou art permanent and they shall all wax old as a garment And as a vesture thou shalst change them and they shall be changed but thou art the selfe same and thy yeares shall not faile The children of thy servants shall inhabit and their seede shall be directed for ever Glory be to the Father c. Psalme 129. FRom the depthes I have cryed to thee O Lord Lord heare my cry Let thine eares be intent to the voyce of my petition If thou shalt observe iniquities O Lord Lord who shall sustayne it Because with thee there is propitiation and for thy law I have expected thee O Lord. My soule hath expected in his word my soule hath hoped in our Lord. From the morning watch even until night let Israel hope in our Lord. Because with our Lord there is mercy and with him plentifull redemption And he shall redeeme Israel from all his iniquities Glory be to the Father c. Psalem 142. LOrd heare my prayer with thine eares receive my petition in thy truth heare me in thy justice And enter not into judgment with thy servant because no man living shall be justifi'd in thy sight Because the enemie hath persecuted my soule he hath humbled my life in the Earth He hath set me in obscure places as the dead of the world and my spirit is in anguish upon me with in me my hart is troubled I was mindfull of old dayes I have meditated in all thy workes in the facts of thy hands did I meditate I have stretched forth my hand to thee my soule is as earth without water unto thee Heare me quickly O Lord my spirit hath fainted Turne not away thy face from me and I shall be like to them that descend into the lake Make me heare thy mercy in the morning because I have hoped in thee Make the way knowne to me wherein I may walke because I have lifted up my soule to thee Deliver me from mine enemies O Lord to thee I have fled teach me to doe thy will because thou art my God Thy good spirit will conduct me into the right way for thy names sake O Lord thou wilt quicken me in thy equity Thou wilst bring forth my soule out of tribulation and in thy mercy thou wilst destroy mine enemies And thou wilst destroy all that afflict my soule because I am thy servant Glory be to the Father c. The Antiphone Remenber not O Lord our or our Parents offences Neither take
not answer to what purpose remayned they in the world but with the insipid salt are to be cast forth as saith Jesus Christ upon the dunghill And so likewise if we correspond not to our end what can we justly expect but our owne destruction But dost thou my soule now act according to the end of thy creation are all thy actions directed to the glory of God ô how farr am I from it and therefore how fruitlesly doe I employ both my tyme and labour and what a reproach will it be to me an other day for so shamefull a sin unlesse I doe speedily amend The due gratitude which in justice we owe unto Iesus Christ YOV are not your own saith the great Apostle for you are bought with a deare price which was no lesse then the precious blood of Jesus Christ by which he so mercifully hath redeemed us from the eternall captivity of Sathan And therefore most duly as redeemed slaves we ought both in justice and true gratitude to consecrate with a pure intention to his greater glory all our actions and service which not doing we doe robb most unjustly Jesus Christ of his right Which well considered ô what confusion will it be at our appearing before his dreadfull tribunall when after 40. 50. or 60. yeares as in proper quality of his redeemed slaves we shall not be able to shew one day perhaps employed faithfully in his service or true gratitude If I give but a dog an unprofitable bone he faunes and shewes me love yea and renders me much service wheras we shew neither loue nor gratitude to Jesus Christ who hath given us his life his infinit merits so many severall great graces and divine inspirations and finally purchaced Heaven for our Beatitude and we remayne insensible O horrid ingratitude the dog will be our shamefull reproach unlesse touched by his example we amend Our maine great affaire in this World is to save our soules O Strange and stupide folley of man to spare no cost paines nor diligence for meere worldly vanity and to want courage and resolution to labour for eternall salvation for which least care or industry is taken All losse whatsoever doth trouble us and we are insensible of loosing our owne dearest soule We finde upon our accompts great expences for our bodily commodities so much for apparel so much for feasting and curiosity in dyet so much in pleasure and gaming so much to gaine or to preserve some temporall interest so much to Phisitions and Apothecaries for our corporal health but little or nothing for the spiritual health of our infirme and much diseased soule which in some manner and unchristian like might seeme least of all to belong to us or as if it were to dye and end as doth the soule of a beast O what true brutality is this in vaine worldly and voluptuous men thus to preferre Earth before Heaven misery before beatitude their corruptible body before theire immortal soules and this uncertaine moment before an Eternity of blisse and never ending happinesse A serious reflection upon so great a folley ought to give us warning that whilst it is the acceptable tyme and the dayes of health we ought to prevent our crernall misery Of the divine presence of God WHo is a Christian must both be leeve and religiously adore Almighty God as truly present and really acting at the very botome of our soule for him we both live and moove in all we doe and therfore much greater confusion a thousand tymes needs must it be to us that our many and great desloyalties should lye more open to his divine view then were they exposed upon a publique stage to the eyes of all the kings and people of the world And yet O senslesse and wretched man to feare and be so much asshamed to committ in the sight of a mortall man that which he most impudently feares not to doe in the sight of God who immediately in most just revenge may command the Earth to open and swallow him downe alive both body and soule into the eternall tormenting flames of Hell which if we desire to avoyde let us deepely imprint this Christian verity in our soules by a serious and frequent reflection of this overseeing divine presence of God in all both our actions and thoughts whereof we are to give to him an exact accompt even to the least idle words And hereafter to receive an everlasting reward or punishment according to due desert Use often this holy practise whilst the tyme of health and the dayes acceptable are afforded you and feare to offend How we ought to distrust our selves NO enemy is so dangerous to damne us as our selves and therfore the best meanes to avoyde sin is to distrust our owne great frailty and carefully to watch over that badd humour and vicious propension to which we find our corrupt nature most inclined to draw us to offend which being well observed we shall easily perceive that all our sin and misery springs from that infected fountaine in following our disordinate humour and naturall inclination quite contrary to the internall holy motion of grace well verifying that mans domestick enemies are most dangerous We ought therefore seriously to examen what is our predominant and most vicious inclination against which we must earnestly crave Gods grace to resist and to stand watchfully upon our garde to suppresse and oppose the same But to gett a perfect victory over this dangerous enemy we must resolve to oppose it by the practise of that vertue which is most opposit thereunto as who is inclind to covetousnesse must practise the vertue of liberality if to vaine glory and pride the vertue of humility must be opposed If to cholere and passion the mildnesse and meeknesse of Jesus Christ and soe of all the rest Who shall practise this will not faile to bee happy Against detraction and Calumny THe holy proverb and S. Paul doe both agree that the detractor is odious both to God and Man Proverb 24.9 Rom 1.30 and yet no fault is so frequently committed in conversation as is this cursed sin of backbiting and calumny which sends more to Hell saith S. Benard then any other vice whatsoever for as the Divill possesseth the tongue of the detractor so doth he also the eare of him who willingly harkneth there unto and of-the two who committeth the greater sin S. Bernard confesseth jugenuously he could not easily determine A good expedient in hearing detraction to avoyde the danger of offending God will be to answere as did our B. Saviour to the accusing Pharisies he who amongst you is free from sin let him cast the first stone at her We must also abstaine from speaking of other mens faults in their absence nor willingly harken to them who shall doe it as being a thing from which no good can be likely to procede but rather breach of charity and much harme Wherefore if any shall presse you to give eare to them in
any such backbiting discourse imitate the excellent practise of a holy servant of God who used to desire them who made any such discourse that they much rather would tell him of some fault of his owne whereof he had many for therby said he you will doe me great charity for which I will both hartely thanke you and also endevour to amende Thinke well upon this holy practise for it is of great importance to avoyd much sin to practice true charity towards our neighbour and finally to procure peace and happy quiet to our owne minde therby Of flying the occasion of sin WHo loves danger shall porish therein saith the wise man and who is most carefull to shun the occasion Eccles 1.17 he doubtlesse will least offende for as who stops the fountaine will certainly dry up the brooke so likewise who flyes the occasion will preserve himselfe from sin For as taking away the cause one wil hinder the effect so in the combat with vice no way is so secure to gaine the victory as by flight The holy Ghost assures us that as we cannot touch pitch without being defiled so is it also as difficult to stay voluntarily in the occasion of sin without a defiled conscience The common proverb saith very well that the occasion makes a Thiefe which is but too truly verifi'd in makeing adrunkard a detractor a Luxurious man and the like And who but reflecteth upon his most offending God will finde that his neglect of avoyding the occasion was still the chiefest cause of his sin Salomon David and Sampson did all greatly offend by exposing themselves to the occasion let us take good warning by them who are much inferiour to their perfections To avoyde therfore sin we must beware of all ill company for they serve but as alluring baites to draw soules to offende We must greatly mistrust our owne frailty and place our whole confidence in God craving humbly his celestiall grace to strengthen us against all the dangerous temptations of our three mortall ennemies the world the flesh and the devill The small number of the Elect. THis thruth is exceeding terrible Math. 7. grounded upon the words of Jesus Christ saying that the gate is wide and the way broad which leadeth to death and many walke therein but the gate unto life is narrow and few doe find it many ate cal'd but few are chosen God himselfe hath said it and therefore it must be true The figures of this divine truth doe well confirme it and by the holy Fathers they are soe expounded As that infinit number perishing in the deluge and but eight persons only escaping it in the Arke And secondly of eighteene hundred thousand Israelits who went out of Egipt two only of them lived to goe into the land of promise These are esteemed by the holy Fathers true figures to represent to us the small number of the Elect which ought not to seeme incredible considering the small number of Christians in comparaison of all the rest And secondly amongst the Christians how few are truly vertuous or love God as they ought or live according to their calling This wel considered what horrid feare ought we to have least our unhappy lot should fall out of this little blessed compagnie of the Elect. Phill. 2.21 Which to prevent by S. Pauls advise whorke in feare and trembling your salvation O what would not a damned soule now wish to have donne wherby to have escaped those eternall flames let us doe now what at the houre of our death we should undoubtedly wish to have done And according to S. Peter lett us imploy all our sollicitude and labour to secure our salvation by good workes Let us frequently renew the promise and protestation which we made in Baptisme â—et 1. to renounce the devil and all his workes the pompes and vanities of the world to follow our Christian maxims and to imitate the holy vertues of Jesus Christ Who suffer persecution for justice sake Math. 5. are beatifi'd by Iesus Christ himselfe THe souldier seekes no priviledge above is Prince or General nor is the servant more then his Maister now our divine Redeemer having led us the way through all manner of perfection why should we despicable wormes and criminel offenders be troubled or refuse cheerefully to follow him through so much easier a combat of suffering and persecution in comparison of what this great Lord of glory and inÌ„ocent laÌ„be of God hath suffered for our sakes for are our persecutors more cruel barbarous or inhumane then were his have they so greatly injured moked scorned or affronted us as they did him have they spitt or struck on our faces as they did on his have they by false calumny taken away our honour and sought our death and destruction as they did his O no not such outrageous injuries have been offered us and therfore it would be most unworthey for the member of so suffering a head to be so very nice and delicate or much troubled at smale and little injuries Finally what other perswasion need we to suffer with all cheerefulnesse then is the very conclusion of this Beatitude Math. 5 in these words exult yee and rojoyce because your reward is very copious in Heaven this reward being the beatificall vision of God for all Eternity To what multitude of miseries Mans life is subject MAns life though but short and very uncertaine yet it is replenisht with a multitude of miseries aswell of body as of soule the holy wiseman calls it a heavy yoake imposed vpon the children of Adam Ecc. 40.1 from the day of their birth till the day of their death and buriall These miseries now being so very great may wel make our life seeme long to us though but short in it selfe by reason of the sad and tedious accidents to which our fraile nature is so subject by feare by paine by griefe by necessity and want which to prevent and to grow rich what paines and industry doe Men use in crossing the dangerous seas undertakeing long painfull journies enduring great distempers of opposit clymats for gayning wealth And having at last quite spent tyred and worne out themselves how properly may that their great toyle and industry be compared to the spinning but à poore spiders webb consuming their whole life and labour as doth that little creature by drawing out the substance of their very bowels to weave their little nett to catch some contemptible fly Which lively represents meere worldly men whose thoughts and industry both day and nigth are to contrive the obtayning wealth honour or some small sensvall pleasure which by a right understanding and vertuous soule ought to be esteemed as vnworthey the occupation of his life and whole industry as is the catching of a silly fly The premisses well considered we must adore the great goodnesse of God who therfore hath mixed these many miseries with this present life therby to compell us to hate
say with a devout and repentant hart this following prayer A devout Prayer after Confession O Soueraine Creator of all things I a most vile and ungratfull sinner prostrate before thy sacred feet in true griefe and harty sorrow for all may haynous Trespasses wher with I have so grievously offended my Lord and Maker and for which thou hast vouchsafed to endure so cruell torments upon the Crosse I confesse my great ingratitude deare Lord for all thy innumerable benefits and for having thus mercifully spared me so long persisting in my sinfull courses and contempt of thy divine commandements and blessed will for which in stead of casting me into Hel as I most justly deserved thy boundlesse goodnesse hath expected me to penance and amendment of my life For which o how often hast thou knockd at the dore of my hart by thy heavenly inspirations how often hast thou prevented me with blessings allured me with comforts drawne me with favours Yea forced me many tymes by crosses and afflictions to seeke unto thee and yet neither hath my flinty hart been mollifid ther with nor my will reclaymed But behould now at last o my ungratfull soule the grievousness of this thy sin and pierce my obdurate hart o divine Redeemer with contrition and detestation of the foulness of all my detestable offences for which unworthy I am to be called thy creature or whom the earth should beare much lesse afford so plentifully all conveniences for humane life to me upon whom even nature it selfe ought rather to take just vengance of my great contempt and odious sin O mercifull Father how many by thy righteous judgment are now burning in the eternall flames of Hel for a lesse number of sins then those of myne who might have been Saints in Heaven had they received so great a measure of thy gracious mercies as I have donne But now o mercifull Father of all pittie and compassion in unfeyned sorrow and remonse of conscience for all my misdeeds I prostra to at thy feet most humbly beseech thy pardon looke on me o loving Lord a wretched sinner with the eye of mercy as thou didst on the pentitent Publican the repentant Magdalen and the Apostle who thrice denied thee vouchsase once more to admit me againe unto thy gracious favour Lord worke that speedily in me for which cause thou hast so long spared me and to which from all Eternity thou hast ordayned me But woe is me who have refused to bestow my hart on thee who wouldst have made it a temple and habitation for thy owne aboad which I have sacrilegiously defiled with so much impiety and made it but as a stew of unpure thoughts But I confesse all this my grievous wickednesse to thee my God of all piety and therefore will not dispaire but throw my selfe into the sea of thy infinit mercy for as my sins be numberlesse so are thy mercies endlesse O Most loving Father if thou wilst thou canst make me cleane heale the wounds of my soule Remember sweet Lord thy comfortable promisse to us pronunced by thy Prophet thou hast committed folly with many lovers yet returne thou againe to me and I will receive thee Great confidence this gives me O Lord and with my whole hart I returne to thee I am that defiled soule that prodigall child that unfaithfull servant who have separated my selfe from thee I have forsaken thee o fountaine of living waters and diged to my selfe cisterns which will hould no water I have fedd upon empty husks with the swyne which could not satiate my hunger But what is past let it be cancelled o gracious Lord and forgot I bessech thee and for the tyme to come let there be an eternal covenant betwixt us that thou wilt vouchsafe to be my mercifull Father and that I againe may be for everthy obedient and faithfull child I aske deare Lord neither riches honours nor long life but this one only thing alone which I will never cease to crave that from this present instant untill the dreadfull houre of my death I may never more offend thy heavenly Majesty nor defile my conscience with any mortall sin Grant me this my humble suite for the merits and bitter death and Passion of thy only and dearely beloued sonne Jesus my divine Redeemer to whom with thee and the holy Ghost three persons and one euer living God be all honour and glory now and for evermore Amen I beseech thee Lord Jesu let this my Confession be gratefull and acceptable to thee by the merits of the blessed Virgin thy Mother and all thy glorious Saints and whatsoever hath been wanting unto me now and at other tymes of the sufficiency of Contrition of the purity and integrity of Confession let thy piety and mercy supply and according to the same vouchsafe to accompt me more fully and perfectly absolved in Heaven who liuest and raignest world without end Amen A Reflection IT may here finally be observed as it happens ofentymes that the sick man dies because he makes not use of the Phisition concealing his disease and not following his order and davise so many a soule doth perish for not making use of his spirituall phisition by the holy Sacrament of Confession The great benefit whereof were it but well considered we should not so much neglect the incomporable benefits which are to be reaped thereby For being duly frequented it expiats the guilt of all sin and changeth the eternall paine which was due to mortall sin into temporall It purifies our soules and renders them gratefull to God By infusion of grace and guifts of the holy Ghost It greatly strengthens as against all evill temptations and gives great quiet to our couscience All which but scriously considered who will neglect frequently to make vse of so souveraine a good For is there any that had he but a plant in his garden of so rare a vertue as if but weekely taken should cure all diseases and preserve him in perfect he alth would he neglect to make use therof undoubtedly he would not Let us then for the eternall health of our soule doe what we ould most diligently performe for the meere temporall health of our body OF THE HOLY COMMVNION Come ye to him and be illuminated and your faces shall not be counfounded Psal 35.6 A preparatory instruction disposing to the holy Communion IF it be requisit that a Chrifstian come well prepared and with due disposition to any Sacrament it ought to be doubtlesse with greatest care and diligence to this of the holy Eucharist it contayning the divine Author himselfe both of all Sacraments and grace And therfore to be received with all purity and devotion to receive the great fruit and benediction therby For as he who receives it worthely becomes the habitation and temple of God who replenisheth him with all abundance of grace so who receives him unworthely receives according to the Apostle his owne damnation and judgment It doth therfore greatly import him
discover my shame I know my sins to be many and great and withoot number Looke downe upon me with the eyes of thy mercy O Lord Jesus the eternall King God and Man and Crucifi'd for Men. Heare me graciously hoping in thee have mercy upon me full of sin and wretchednesse thou that wilt never restraine the fountaine of thy pitty to flow All hayle healthfull sacrifice offered upon the tree of the Crosse for me and for all Mankinde All hayle o noble and precious blood gushing out of the wounds of my Lord Jesus Christ crucifi'd and washing away the sins of the whole world Remember o Lord thy Creature which thou hast redeemed with thy blood It repenteth me that I have sinned I desire to amend what I have done amisse Take then away from me o most clement Father all myne iniquities and offences that purifi'd in mind and body I may deserve worthely to tast the holy of holies And grant that this holy tasting of thy precious body and blood which I most unworthy intend to receive may be the remission of my sins perfect purgation of my crymes driving away of filthy cogitations an a begetting of good thoughts and holesome efficacy of workes pleasing to thee and withall a sirme protection of soule and body against the dangerous wiles of my Ghostly enemy Amen An other payer of S. Tho. of Aquine before receiving the holy Communion ALmighty and eternall God behold I comme to the Sacrament of thy only begotten sonne our Lord Jesus Christ I repaire as one being sick unto the Phisition of life As one uncleane unto the fountaine of mercy As one poore and needy to the Lord of heaven and earth I beseech therfore the aboundance of thy infinit bounty that thou wouldest wouchsafe to cure my infirmity to wash my filth to lighten my blindnesse to enrich my poverty to cloath my nakednesse that I may receive thee the bread of Angels King of Kings Lord of Lords with so great reverence and humility with so great contrition ad dovotion with so great purity and faith with such good purpose and intent as is expediēt for the health of my soule Grant me I beseech thee not only to receive the Sacrement of our Lords body and blood but the thing and vertue therof O God most meeke grant me so to take the body of thy only begotten sonne our Lord Jesus Christ which he tooke of the Virgin Mary that I may deserve to be incorporated into his mysticall body and accompted amongst the members therof O most loving Father grant me for ever with open face to behold thy beloved sonne whom now covered in this way-fare I intend to receive Who together with thee the holy ghost three persons and one only God liveth world without end Amen A preparatory meditation disposing our soules before the holy Communion to approach with due disposition to receive not only the Sacrament but also the grace and great vertue therof Approach yee with faith with feare and with love S. Greg. Dial. li. 2. THese words were antiently pronunced in the Church with a loud voyce by the Deacon to all such as intended to communicate To which holy action for a more fitt disposition foure things are required For like as to a solemne banquet it is necessary first that our hands face and linning be pure well washt and cleane 2. that we come decently and well apparelld 3. that we bring a rigthly prepared stomack and good appetite And 4. we must not sit downe to a feast with a hart charged with anger gall or enuy for that would hinder both the content and benefitt which otherwise we should or might have received therby So in like manner our soule must come pure clean and well washt from the foule stayne of sine and as a neate vessel to receive the grace of this holy Sacrament Math. 5.3 For blessed are the clean of hart c. 2. It must come clad with the nuptiall garment of vertue and good purposes Friend wher fore entredst thou hither without a nuptiall garment Math. 22. 3. with hungar and a true desire to please God and to serve him with fidelity the best we can Matth. 5. For blessed are they who hungar and thirst after justice c. And lastly as the holy Ghost commands we must depose all enmity and ill will against our neighbour and embrace all in love and charity Math. 5.24 Leave thy offering before the Altar and goe first to be reconciled to thy brother c. And as truth convinceth all this to be most just and reasonable so ought we to practise it with due fidelity so that neither blindnesse of passion nor frailty of nature may leade us out of this true path or rightly loving serving and enjoying this our loving Lord and Saviour Grant me thy grace deare Jesu to receive thee in this divine Sacrament with firme faith of thy presence with true purity and contrition of hart with dreadfull feare of thy Majesty which makes all the celestiall spirits with reverentiall feare to tremble and to receive thee with a hart enflamed with divine and ardent love of soe mercifull and bountifull a loving Lord who in this divine Eucharist gives vs thyselfe wholy and intirely body and soule divinity humanity thy graces and merits and therefore I give thee my loving great God wholy and intirely my selfe in perfect oblation my soule and body life and death tyme and Eternity And finally I most humbly crave such necessities as I most need for thy glory and my owne souls heath Of Thankes giving after the holy Communion IT is the practise of most pious persons to make best use of the most precious tyme whilst this divivine gueste remaines with us under the consecrated species vniting there their harts and all the faculties of their soules in doing homage and adoration unto their great Lord and God craving humbly pardon for their sins force to overcome their passions and temptations grace to obtayne the vertues of humility of patience conformity charity perseverance and the like then also making good purposes and firme resolutions to amend our most habituall vices And that day in tankes-giving and for his honour to resolue and practise as occasion shall be offered that vertue which is most opposit to the vice which is in us predominant Or to exercise some worke of mercy with that prious intention This done you may continue your devotion by these flollowing prayers A Prayer after the holy Communion O My divine Recdemer I humbly beseech thy unspeakable mercy that this Sacrament of thy precious body and blood which I most unworthey have received may be to me a purging of offences a fortitude against frailties a fortititude against the perils of the world and obtayning of pardon an establishment of grace a medicin of life a memory of thy passion a nourishment against weakenesse and a happy viaticum of this my pilgrimage Let it guide me going reduce me
wandering receive me returning uphould me stumbling lift me up falling and persevering bring me into glory O God of all goodnesse and Majesty let the most blessed presence of thy most precious body and blood so alter the tast of my hart that besides thee at any tyme it feele no sweetnesse it love no fairenesse it seeke no unlawfull love it desire no consolation it admit no delectation at any tyme it care for no honour it feare no cruetly who livest and reighnest God with thy eternall Father in unity of the holy Ghost world without end Amen An other prayer after the holy Communion THankes be unto thee o Eternall Father that thou didst vouchsafe of thy great pitty to send thy only deare sonne from thy glorious throne into this vale of woe here to take our mortall nature and in the same to suffer sharp paines and a bitter death to bring our soules unto the glory of thy happy kingdome and to leave that precious body here to be our strength and comfort I thanke thee o most loving Lord Jesu with all the powers of my soule for that thou hast thus graciously fed me with thy most precious body by which I hope to have health of soule and eternall life with joy at my depar ture from this vale of teares and misery O holy Ghost come Lord and enflame my hart with the burning beames of thy love and make me with true humble and vertuous gratitude continually to yeald acceptable thankes to the holy and glorious Trinity three persons and one eternall God to whom be all honour glory and thankes-giving from all creatures without end Amen The soule of Christ sanctify me the body of Christ saue me the water of the side of Christ wash me o good Jesu heare me within thy wounds hide me suffer me not to be separated from thee from the malignant enemy defend me and bid me come to thee that with all the celestiall blessed spirits I may praise and glorify thee throughout all Eternity A Conclusion COnvert o Lord all wicked sinners call to true faith all hereticks and schismaticks lighten the infidels who doe not know thee help all that be in great necessity releeve all who have commended themselves unto my prayers have mercy upon all my parents friends and benefactors as also upon all those for whom I am bound to pray Let thy blessing be upon this place with humility peace charity purity and conformity to thy blessed will that we may all amend feare and faithfully serve thee love and please thee Lord be mercifull to all people for whom thou hast shed thy precious blood Grant to the liuing forgivenesse and peace and to the faithfull departed rest and everlasting life Amen Finally the devout soule the more to dilate her selfe in the praises of her mercifull and loving Lord and to render him due humble thankes for so great a benefit may here with a fervent hart inflamed with love and gratitude recite this following canticle wherin all creatures are invited to Laude and praise Almighty God The Canticle of the three children ALl the workes of our Lord blesse yee our Lord Daniel 5. praise and extol him for ever Blesse yee our Lord yee Angels of our Lord ye Heavens blesse our Lord. All waters that are above the Heavens blesse yee our Lord blesse yee our Lord yee powers of our Lord. Sun and moone blesse yee our Lord starrs of Heaven blesse yee our Lord. Shower and dew blesse yee our Lord every spirit of God blesse yee our Lord. Fire and heate blesse yee our Lord cold and summer blesse yee our Lord. Dewes and hoarie frost blesse yee our Lord frost and cold blesse yee our Lord. Ice and snow blesse you our Lord nights and dayes blesse yee our Lord Light and darknesse blesse yee our Lord lightming and clouds blesse yee our Lord. Let the earth blesse our Lord let it praise and extoll him for ever Mountaines and little hills blesse yee our Lord all things that spring in the earth blesse yee our Lord. Blesse our Lord yee fountains seas and rivers blesse yee our Lord. Whales all that move in the waters blesse yee our Lord blesse our Lord all yee foules of the aire All beasts and cattel blesse yee our Lord sonnes of men blesse yee our Lord. Let Israel blesse our Lord let it praise and extoll him forever Priests of our Lord blesse yee our Lord servants of our Lord blesse yee our Lord. Spirits and soules of the just blesse yee our Lord holy and humble of hart blesse yee our Lord. Ananias Azarias Misael blesse yee our Lord praise and extol him for ever Let us blesse the Father and the sonne with the holy Ghost let us praise and extol him for ever Blessed art thou o Lotd in the firmament of Heaven and praised and glorifid and extolled for ever This Canticle of thankes giving with the two following and the Hymne of S. Ambrose and S. Augustin in praise and thankes-giving at his conversion are proper to be used to blesse and praise God for some singular favour and benefitt The Canticle of Zacharie BLessed be our Lord God of Israel be cauese he hath visited and wrought the redemption of his people And hath erected the horne of salvation to us in the house of David his servant As he spake by the mouth of his holy Prophets that are from the beginning Salvation from our Enemies and from the hand of all who hate us To worke mercy with our Fathers and to remember his holy testament The oath which he sware to Abraham our Father thathe would give himself to us That without feare being delivered from the hand of our enemies we may serve him In holinesse and justice before him all our dayes And thou child shalst be called the Prophet of the highest for thou shalt goe before the face of our Lord to prepare his wayes To give knowledge of salvation to his people unto remission of their sins Trough the bouels of the mercy of our God in which the Orient from on high hath visited us To illuminate them that sit in darknesse and in the shadow of death to direct our fect in to the way of peace Glory be to the Fater c. The blessed Virgins Canticle of Magnificat c. MY soule doth magnify our Lord and my spirit hath rejoyced in God my Saviour Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid for behould from hence fourth all gererations shall call me blessed Because he that is mighty hath done great things to me and holy is his name And his mercy from generation to generation to them that feare him He hath shewed might in his arme he hath disperced the proud in the conceit of their hart He hath deposed thy mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble The hungry he hath filled with good things and the rich he hath sent away empty He hath receaved Israel his child being mindfull of his mercy As he spake to
but thine be done Grant sweet Jesus even for thy bitter passion's sake that I may performe what by thy grace I have thus resolved humbly fervently faithfully constantly that my ghostly enemy may never have any just cause to reproach me for my infidelity therein Amen Acts to be made in tyme of affliction or of trouble either in body or minde O Father of mercy and God of all consolation it being now the houre ordayned by thy divine pleasure that I should suffer I blesse and adore thy holy name desiring to persevere in that due fidelity which I owe thee I most humbly submit my selfe to the divine order of thy holy will as well in all griefe and paine as in my consolation and joy I acknowledge and doe freely confesse that the least sin which I have committed against thee deserves farr greater punishment And therfore I most humbly thanke thee O mercifull Lord for thy so lovingly and so very favorably chastising me And notwithstanding all the repugnance nature feeles herein with a most willing hart I accept thy correction and most willingly submit to it in what manner soever it shall please thee to dispose of me and I will alwayes sincerely say with my divine Redeemer thy will be done not myne Grant me the patience O heavenly Father by the sacred merits of thy deare sonne Jesus which shall be necessary for my well suffering and then accomplish in me what shall be to thee most pleasing For to thee I doe intirely abandon my body my soule my goods my life yea all I have into the hands of thy fatherly providence to the end that both for tyme and Eternity thou dispose of me according to thy blessed will and pleasuro Acts of mildenesse and meeknesse THou O my Lord who art the true peace thou lovest to rest in a quiet mild and gentle hart Grant me I beseech thee this thy beloved vertue wherby I may truly banish from my hart all disquiet and impatience therby to enjoy true solid content of mind for the meeke shall delight in abundance of peace Vouchsafe O Lord that I may learne this lesson of thee who commandest me to be milde and humble of hart therby to find true rest unto my soule for as no quarrel can be fixt upon a pleasant countenance and cheerefull minde so also courteous language and gentle hehaviour will conque the greatest enemy the conversation of such a Man is gratfull to every company and yealds both comfort and content to all for nothing is more pleasing then is a sweet milde and peacible humour nor is there any thing more offensive and displeasing then is a froward peevish and impatient nature Acts of Mortification THou knowest right well my God that such is the corrupt inclination of Man that it incits him continually to sin and keeps him as tossed with the contrary waves of unruly passions unlesse by needfull mortification he make vertuous resistance thereunto Grant therfore to me a true mortifi'd spirit wherby to subject the flesh to the spirit my passions to reason and my reason intirely unto thee But oh how farr am I from enjoying this holy vertue who give so great scope to my unruly passions to my disordered affections as also to my proper judgment and will Grant me Lord Jesu that I may shew this vertue unto others much rather by practise then by faire promissing words and that I may put a carefull watch both over my senses affections and passions of hatred chollar feare or love c. and finally to mortify my unruly will and to submitt my judgment in all things to thy divine will and pleasure Acts of the vertue of Patience NO vertue is more necessary then holy Patience we being almost continually in occasions for the practise of it and by the helpe therof we surmount the greatest difficulties wheras an impatient Man refusing sinfully to submit to Gods decrees who is the Author of all our sufferings in as much as they cannot be resisted he is most unreasonnable and by that meanes he begins his Hell even in this present world And as that Man is of all others living the most happy who is of all others the most patient so on the contrary he is most miserable who is most impatient Thy heavenly grace therefore O loving God enable me to practise this so great a vertue and to avoyde the contrary which is so dangerous a vice Vouchsafe O gracious Lord that I may but well reslect upon thy long great patience in suffering my perverse and many sins against thee And secondly conceave how justly I have deserved to suffer farr greater evils without comparison and them too eternally And therefore what afflictions soever shall befall me I resolve by thy holy grace to suffer patiently for thy sake and in hopefull expiation for my sin Acts of Perseverance IT is upon Perseverance my God on which depends the assurance of salvation all former resolutions and good purposes whatsoever without it were but lost labour and in vaine for he only that persevers shall be crowned with victory and will save his soule which is a reward indeed sufficient to encourage us to give the present moment of an uncertaine life for so never-ending a Blisse O happy perseverance which winns such a glorious crowne and without it to small purpose it would be with Judas well to begin the holy practise of vertue unlesse by the help of mortification we shall persever to the end Yea our damnation would be much the greater for our neglect of Gods holy grace Strengthen my soule O my souveraine Redeemer with this happy vertue of perseverance in holy patience and conformity in all adversity as well as in prosperity in sicknesse as in health in poverty as in wealth in contempt and calumny as in prosperity and praise or heighest favours from Men. For our beginning well is the effect of Gods grace but our not persevering is sinfull neglect and deeply deserveth punishment O what cause of horrour and just feare have I to conceive for my so great inconstancy in persevering in so many good purposes and pious resolutions which thy great goodnesse my loving God hath vouchsafed so frequently to inspire me with I falling from luke warme to be key-cold and thence unto totall neglect of what I was bound to doe But thou my mercifull Lord although thy great mercy hath thus long expected me with much patience for my amendment yet further presumption may justly draw upon me thy wrath and my endlesse punishment which he prevent who hath payd with his most precious blood soe deare a ransome to satisfy the justice of his Eternall Father with whom and the holy Ghost three divine persons and one living God be benediction and glory and wisdome and thankes-giving honour and power and strength for ever and ever Amen A Collection of some few holy maximes pronounced by the sacred mouth of Iesus Christ wherby the vertuous soule may see how different they
us the same instruction as the former and to avoyde hypocricy by vaine dissimulation Heape not up to your selves treasures on the earth where the rust Math. 6 19 and moth doe corrupt and where tho theeves doe digg through and steale The maxime which wordlings doe so generally practice is not only quite contrary unto this holy counsell of Jesus Christ but also even to reason it selfe they spending all their paine and industry for mere temporall wealth which they well know must be left unto others to spend and themselves only also charged with a very dangerous accompt for all and for which their eternall felicity may be greatly in danger Be not carefull therfore for the morrow Math. 6 34 for the morow shall be carefull for it selfe After our humane usuall industry employd then for the rest we must wholly place our confidence in God But the wordly maxime is with restlesse solicitude to make it the whole employment of their mind which should give also place to better thoughts Seek therfore first the kingdome of God Math. 6 33 and his justice and all these things shall be giving you The wordly irreligious maxime as contrary vnto this perswads us first and principally to labour for our temporals which argues the putting much more confidence in our owne humane industry then in the divine providence of God which is sinfull and great impiety All things therfore what soever you will that men doe Math. 7 12. doe you also to them for this is to you the lawe and the Prophets By this holy maxime we are taught by Jesus Christ the Commandement of loving our neighbour as our selfes But experience makes it too manifest how greatly contrary the worldly maxime is there unto which having interest for its guide must needs be defective in this holy rule of charity Broade is the gate and large the way that leadeth to perdition maâ— 12 and many there be that enter by it How narrow is the gate and straite is the way that leadeth to life and few there be that finde it The great truth of this divine maxime is plainly confessed by all and experience makes it manifest Yet such is the besotted follie of men with the present deluding follies of this world that they neglect as well to again the eternall felicity of Heaven as also to avoyde the never ending flames of Hell Feare yee not them that kill the body and are not able to kill the soule math 10 38 but rather feare him that can destroy both soule and body in Hell This maxime is given to deterr us from sin wherby God is offended and our soule put in danger to be lost But sensuall people are so bwitched with their temporall affaires and their affection so fastned to the transitory contents of this world as they neither feare the offending of God nor the exposing their soules unto endlesse perdition therby He that taketh not up his crosse and followeth me math 10 38. is not worthey of me This holy maxime teacheth us that Heaven is not purchased but by bearing the crosse of tribulation contrary to the maxime of this world which perswads us here to seeke our paradise of pleasure and content But Paradise being only one it cannot be found both in this world and in the other The kingdome of Heaven suffers violence and the violent benre it away math 11.13 The violence ment here by this holy maxime is in curbing and ruling our passion and disordered affections to which the maxime of this world allowes full scope and liberty accompting that but an effect of magnanimity which is the guilt of sin He who seekes to exalt himselfe math 23 shall be humbled and who humbleth himselfe shall be exalted Jesus Christ hereby doth teach us that to seeke vaine glory and the praise of Men is but to loose the same and that flying and contemning it is the true meanes to obtayne it But the maxime of this world is to seeke and earnestly to runn after it and therefore we see by experience that they are like those who runn but after a shadow which as fast as we runn after it to catch it so fast it flyes from us although it followes them who fly away from it Where is your treasure math 6 there is your hart This divine maxime doth advertise us to labour for and as S. Paul exhorts us to gust and relish what is above where Christ sits at the right hand of God and not what is upon the Earth But worldly people have their harts so fast fixed upon the transitory affaires and vaine contents of this present life that their thoughts and industry are least of all upon what is eternall Many are cal'd but few are chosen math 20 1. This holy maxime is given us by our divine Redeemer to prevent our bould presumption who being cal'd unto the profession of his holy faith neglect to animate the same with the life of good workes without which faith it selfe is but dead and of no effect for our election unto beatitude as well appeares by that most dreadfull sentence at the day of doome against the reprobate who are not condemned for their want of true faith but for their not having accompanied it with good workes for which with a woefull goe yee cursed into internall fire c. they are excluded everlastingly from Beatitude He who persevers to the end math 10 shall be saved It is only perseverance which gayneth the crowne of victory and we must give this moment of our life to get it but the pernicious worldlings maxime prefers the enjoyment of this uncertaine moment in their vaine deluding pleasures and contents before the purchace of heavenly blisse which they might have gain'd at so easy a rate yea and with lesse torment both to their body and minde then they take to be condemned to the eternall flames of hell Devout prayers to be said some daily and others at convenient oportunity as each one shall best make choyce IT is most certaine that prayer is absolutely necessary for our salvation it being so that God will never bestow on us his graces requisit there unto but by the meanes of holy prayer Wherby we demande the same by this he preserves us also humble and acknowledging that of our selves we are able neither to resist our enemies nor to fly sin nor practise vertue wherby to worke our salvation but that from him must proceed all needfull succour to obtayne that Blisse No we neither are able to begin to doe well nor to persever without the speciall grace of God which is obtayn'd by holy prayer Yea like as the body cannot liue without respiration and ayre so neyther can the soule long continue in the life of Gods grace without the needfull exercise of prayer which is as necessary for the soule as is water for plants without which as they could produce no fruit soe neither can the soule
without prayer be able to bring fourth the fruit of true vertue and piety The necessity of this holy vertue of prayer is such as our divine Redeemer tells us that it behoveth alvayes to pray Luke 18.1 1. Thess 5. and not to be weary Yea without intermission pray saith S. Paul which is not to be understood by continuall vocall prayer for that is impossible but that with a pure intention we alwayes praise God and direct all our actions to his glory whatsoever we doe Finally to pray fruitfully and as it may be most gratefull to God we must consider with whom we treate and who we are that treate with him and greatly to humble our selves thereat with feare Secondly consider that he is our Creator our Redeemer and our judge Now as he is our God adore him as he is infinitly good and bountifull love him as he is just feare him in regard of his benefits blesse and be thankfull to him And lastly as our Father let us recurr to him for all our necessities with much hope and humble confidence in all our wants and necessities Before prayer â—les 18 prepare thy soule and be not as a Man that tempteth God A prayer to the most sacred and Blessed Trinity OEternall Father by all Creatures to be adored I a most wretched sinner doe offer unto thee for my innumerable offences and for the sins of all the world the bitter death and passion of thy divine sonne our mercifull Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ I offer to thee his labours his fastings all his toylsome wearisomnesse his watchings his prayers his teares his humility his patience and his charity I offer to thee his suffered contumelies his paines his stripes and dolorous wounds I offer all the dropps of his most precious blood I offer also here the merits of his ever imaculate and pure Virgin-Mother and of all the holy Saints in Heaven O blessed Jesus my loving Saviour I render thee most humble thankes for thy innumerable benefits bestowed on me though most unworthey For thy miraculous incarnation and chastly pure Byrth for thy holy life and conversation for thy most ignominious death and passion Make me I beseech thee partaker of thy sacred merits and vouchsafe that by the imitation of thy vertues I may be found a living branch in thee who art the true vine of everlasting life O Holy Ghost my comforter I commende to thee my soule and body the beginning and ending of my life grant me grace and true repentance for all my sins wherby and by thy infinit mercy to be purifi'd from them all before I depart from my mortall body To thee O Lord I wholy commit my soule and body my life and death my tyme and my Eternity defend and keepe me thy unworthey servant from all evill illuminate my understanding guide my will strengthen my spirit against pusillanimity and keepe in me an humble hart that it fall not into pride or presumption give me true faith firme hope with sincere and perfect charity that I may wholy delight in thee that with my whole hart and soule I may love thee and every way fulfill thy most blessed will and pleasure O holy and blessed Trinity God omnipotent to thee I most humbly commende all my affaires both Spirituall and corporall I commend unto thee my benefactors my kindred friends and enemies and all for whome I ought to pray or who have desired me to pray for them I commend unto thee the whole Catholick Church renewe in it I beseech thee purity of life Nourish and keepe amongst the true members therof mutuall charity that with their whole harts and soules they may love thee Such as doe erre call backe to the way of truth extinguish all heresics confort and releeve all troubled minds and consciences as also such as are oppressed either with internall temptations or corporall calamities Amen A devout forme of thankes giving with an humble craving of all requisite vertues BE mercifull unto me O God according to they great mercy and according to the multitude of thy mercies blot out all my offences I a most wretched sinner doe hartely desire in all humility to adove and worship thee to render unto thee immortall praise and tankes-giving for all thy blessings especially for that unspeakable charity wherin thou didst send downe thy only begotten sonne into this vale of teares for the worke of our redemption O mercifull Father I the least of all thy servants doe magnify and praise thy ever glorious name for his holy Incarnation and Nativity for his pouerty and familiar conversation for his heavenly doctrine and miracles for his death and Passion for his Resurrection and Ascention I yeald unto thee all possible thanks for that divine mystery of his precious body and blood in the venetable Sacrament of the Eucharist wherewith we are spiritually and strongly nourished we are cleansed and sanctifi'd and our soules made partakers of all heavenly grace and benedictions I give thee harty thanks that me a handfull of dust of no value thou hast vouchsafed first to wash with the laver of baptisine to remission of my original sin and after convenient tyme thou brought me by the light of thy holy grace to the profession of the only true saving faith I humbly thanke thee that from my cradle thou hast nourisht cloathed and cherished me supplying all things necessary for the reliefe and maintenance of this my present life I evermore extoll and magnify thy holy name that in great mercy thou hast hitherto spared me albeit from my youth I have wantonly ryoted in manifould excesses thou patiently expecting till by thy grace I might be awaked from the sleepe of sin and reclaimed from my vanities and wicked life For hadst thou dealt with me according to my demerits my soule long ere this oppressed with innumerable sins had been plunged into the bottomelesse gulfe of Hell In respect of all which thy mercies graces and blessings I desire that my hart may be enlarged to render thee a more ample tribute of praise and thankes-giving then hitherto I have done And now for those things wherof I stand in need and most desire to obtayne at thy hands First O my God never leave me I beseech thee unto my selfe but let the bit of thy chast feare be ever in my jawes to curbe and keepe me within the compase of thy obedience that I may dread nothing so much as in the least sort to offend and displease thee for which cause let thy holy love so temper all tryals and temptations which happen unto me that I may profit by them Thou my Creator knowest how fraile I am and that my strength of my felfe is nothing Moreouer O heavenly Father even for the venerable and profound humility of thine only sonne Jesus I beseech thee that thou wouldst keepe farr from thy servant all pride and hautinesse of mind all selfe-love and vaine glory all obstinacy and disobedience all craft and hurtfull
dissimulation that I may cast downe and tread under my feet the Spirit of gluttony and lechery the spirit of slouth and dulnesse the spirit of malice and enuy the spirit of hatred and disdayne that I may never dispise nor contemne any of thy creatures nor preferre my selfe before others but ever little in my owne eyes think the best of others and deeme and judge the worst of my selfe Invest me holy Father with the wedding garment of thy beloved sonne the supernaturall vertue of heavenly charity that I may love thee my Lord God with all my hart with all my soule and with all my strength that neither life nor death prosperity nor adversity nor any thing else may separate me from thy love Grant that all inordinate affection to the transitory things of this world may daily decay and dye in me that thou alone maist be tastfull pleasant and savoury to my soule O most gracious God give unto thy servant an humble contrite and obedient hart and understanding alwayes occupied in honest vertuous cogitations a will tractable and ever prone to the better affections alwayes calme and moderate a watchfull custody of my senses that by those windowes no sin may enter into my soule a perfect government of my tongue that no corrupt or unseemely language may proceed from my lipps that I may not busy my selfe in the faults and imperfections of others but rather attend to the amending of my owne And finally so long as I am detayned in this prison of my body and exiled from my heavenly country let this be my portion and the comfort of my banishement that free from all immoderate wordly cares and pensive sollicitude of this present life wholy devoted to thy service I may attend only to thee I may cleave unto thee I may rest my soule in thee and sitting in silence I may give way and entertainement to thy heavenly doctrine to the good motions and inspirations of thy holy spirit In these sweet exercicises let me passe the solitary houres of my teadious pilgrimage with patience expecting the shutting up of my dayes and a happy end of this my miserable life And grant O thou lover of mankind my lord and my God that when this my carthly tabernacle shall be dissolved being found free from all pollution of sin as after baptisme I may be numbered amongst those blessed soules who through the merits and passion of thy deare sonne are held worthey to raigne with thee and to enjoy the glorious presence of the blessed Trinity Father Sonne and holy Ghost to whome by all creatures in Heaven and Earth be rendred praise and thankes-giving world without end Amen A prayer to the blessed Virgin as also to the holy Saints and Angels O Blessed Virgin mother of my divine Redeemer have pitty on me a most wretched sinner I devoutly salute and honour thee O glorious Queene of heaven and powerfull advocate of all distressed soules obtayne for me I beseech thee of thy deare sonne Jesus the remission of all my great offences obtayne for me perfect charity and profound humility true mortificatiō and forsaking of my selfe obtayne for me constant patience refrayning and temperance of my tongue and senses obtayne for me purity simplicity and sincerity of mind and that I may be one according to the harts desire of thy divine sonne my loving Saviour All haile O immaculate Virgin of whom Christ Jesus the brightnesse of his Fathers glory would be borne and whome with thy precious milke thou didst feed and nourish O blessed mother of true compassion assist my weakenesse in all my temptations and necessities in all my perils of sin and in the houre of my death that by thy powerfull intercession I may be protected against the dangerous assaults of my ghostly enemies and obtayne the needfull help to dye in the happy perseverance of Gods holy grace O ye Angelical blessed spirits pray for me and thou especially my holy Angel the faithfull keeper of my soule and body have thou faithfull care over me O all ye holy faints of God who have passed over the troubles and vexations of this exile and attayned most happily the secure resting port of your celestial beatitude I most humbly crave your protection help me with your powerfull intercession both now and in the houre of my death Amen An other prayer to the B. Virgin REmember O most pious Virgin Marie Mother of all consolation never yet was it kowne that any who in tribulation made their recourse for succour by the happy assistance of thy gratefull prayers and powerfull credit with thy deare sonne Jesus was ever refused or forsaken by thee Wherefore in this assured and humble confidence I a most sinfull soule make my recourse unto thee O mother of true pitty with sighs and repentant teares from a devoted hart I doe earnestly cry and humbly crave thy help Refuse not therfore with wonted compassion to behould my weeping hart and to give eare to my instant cry that by thy celestial favour I may be forgiven by thy divine sonne Jesus my mercifull and only Redeemer Amen An other prayer to the same O Glorious and incomparable Virgin most truly mother of God and Queene both of heaven and Earth although thy glory exceeds without comparison what honour soever we are able to render thee yet that excellency which most excells in thee consists in true conformity unto the will of God who is thy Father thy spouse and thy only dearest sonne from whence it proceeds that nothing is refused thee for thou demandest nothing but what is pleasing unto him whom nothing can resist Be pleased therfore O Mother of pitty and after God my only hope to make powerfull intercession for me for my friends kindred benefactors and enemies and for all sinners whatsoever to the end that we may behould thee in that celestiall habitation there with thee to praise and glorify the most sacred Trinity for all Eternity Amen An other prayer to the same O Glorious Virgin Mother of God most pleasing temple of the Divinity the sacred vestry wherin the second person of the blessed Trinity was invested by the holy Ghost with our humanity the gate of Heaven and my second hope I beseech thee O glorious Virgin that in thankes-giving for the love which God hath sheud to thee as to his Mother daughter and beloved spouse thou wilst vouchsafe to take me this day and for the whole course of my life into thy singular protection procure that my actions words and intentions be alwayes pleasing to thy divine sonne Jesus that I may live to him and dye for him Amen A prayer to the Holy Ghost O holy Ghost our heavenly comforter we humbly beseech thee by that straite union or much rather unity which is betwixt thee and the two other divine persons unite so happily by thy celestial help my will in all things most perfectly unto thine that by this happy subordination I may obtayne that blessed end for
At the nostrills I also most humbly crave pardon O my God for the excessive pleasure I have sought and taken in perfumes and sweet odours and for my too much nicenesse and impatience in ill ones which I have so sensually avoyded To satisfy for this vouchsafe to apply to me the merit of those ill odours which thou didst daigne to smell in the Stable and upon mount Calvary At the Mouth O My Saviour Jesus Christ pardon me the infinit number of fins which I have committed both in words and in excesse of eating and drinking expiate them O my God by applying to me the merit of thy divine prayers preaching and holy fastings At the hands Pardon me my divine Jesus so many evill and unprofitable actions which I have done and all the pleasure and delight I have sought to satisfy my sense of feeling and to this end apply to me the merit of those holy actions and divine miracles which thou hast wrought with those sacred hands which were nayld to the hard wood of the Crosse At the feete O My God from the bottome of my hart I beseech thee to pardon all the stepps I have employ'd either unpromably or with evill intentions apply to me in satisfaction for these faults the merit of those sacred stepps which thou hast trodden barefoot with so much wearinesse especially in carrying the Crosse After Extreame unction we may make these following acts in a spirit of penance 1. O my God to the end to satisfy thy divine justice as farre as I am able and with my whole being to make reparation for my faults I accept death with all my hart and rejoyce that my soule shall be separated from my body in punishment of the sins I have committed in preferring my corrupt inclinations before thy holy will 2. And that this body in punishment for its pride and ambition shall be hidden in the earth and trodden under foote 3. And that in satisfaction for the inordinate love I have borne it and the excessive care I have had to give it ease and pleasure it shall returne to corruption and become the nourishment of wormes 4. And for the inordinate affection I have borne to the Creatures and the abuse I have made of them I am glad to be depriu'd and separated from them 5. And for my forgetfulnesse of thee O my God during my life I accept that which will be had of me after my death 6. And for having used all my senses to offend thee I accept and effer thee the privation I must now suffer of the use of them 7. And in punishment for all the vaine complacence I have had for the creatures I submit my selfe by death to be the object of their hatred and horrour The approach of death LEt us heare our Good Angel saying to us Math. 15 as to the Virgins in the Gospel Behould the Bridegroome is comming goe fourth to meete him Preparing our selves comming with the burning lampe of charity in our hands we may say with David I Was glad when it was said to me we will goe into the house of our Lord. O my Lord God of Hosts how amiable are thy tabernacles my soule longs after them My soule thirsts after the fountaine of life when shall I come and appeare before thy face As the thirsty hart longs after the fountains of water so ô my God my soule longs after thee O how ardent is my desire to be delivered from this body to the end to be with Jesus Christ Vnion to Iesus Christ dying O my divine Jesus grant that my paines may be united to thyne that my agony and death may be sanctifi'd by thyne and that I may partake of those holy dispositions wherein thy sacred soule was in the last moment of thy life to which with my whole hart I unite my selfe to supply those which are wanting in me I abandon my selfe to thee to the end to suffer for thy love the paines of death even as great and as long as thou shalst please And I disavow all the imperfections which the violence of my sicknesse may cause me to commit Recourse to the B. Virgin and the Saintes O Holy Virgin Mother of my Lord and Saviour refuge of sinners be now my Advocate employ thy power for me to the most holy Trinity O Mary Mother of grace Mother of mercy receive me at the houre of my death and defend me from the enemy Shew thy selfe to be a mother and obtayne that he who for my salvation would vouchsafe to be thy sonne and be borne of thee may also receive me by thee O all yee Saints and Blessod spirits intercede now for my soule and assist me in this extremity to the end I may obtayne victory over my enemies Great S. Joseph and my holy Patrons and Protectors assist me Blessed S. Michael fight for me O glorious Angel my deare gardian defend me from the ambushes of my enemies and forsake me not in this last passadge Then addressing our sselves to God we may say FTernall Father looke upon me in the face of thy deere sonne Jesus Christ who has spilt his blood for my salvation Have pitty on me according to thy great mercy and pardon my sins for the glory of thy name O my God enter not into judgment with thy servant for in thy sight no Man living can be justifi'd O my divine Jesus interpose thy Crosse and Passion betwixt thy iudgment and my soule My God my Lot is in thy hands save me O my Lord I have hoped in thee I shall not be confounded for ever An act of Adoration to the most holy Trinity O Most holy and individed Trinity I adore thee with my whole hart and now and for all Eternity unite my selfe to all those adorations and praises which the most holy humanity of my Saviour Jesus christ his most glorious Mother and all the Saints and blessed spirits render thee and shall render thee eternally in Heaven I offer thee all the sacrifices of this most sacred humanity which are already offerd and which shall be offerd even to the day of judgment upon all the Altars in the world in satisfaction for my sins and in gratitude for all thy divine benefits Those who make use of the Recommendation of the soule may remember to make this conclusion after it And then may be said Subvenite Sancti Conclusion of this exercise An act of entire resignation or abandon of our selves to God O My God I abandon my soule entirely and without reservation to thy divine judgments I submit my selfe to them from the bottome of my hart I adore and reverence them now and in all Eternity as most just and equitable Spirituall expiration Houlding the Crucifix in our hand we may say these words MY God my Creator and my Redeemer behould I come to thee because thou callest me receive me into the bosome of thy mercy And kissing with tender affection the wounds of the Crucifix we may at
of hart simplicity of spirit and sincere purity of body and soule O sweet and most mercifull Jesu mortify in me all vices and disordered motions and unruly passions take away from me whatsoever is unlawfull inordinate or unpleasing in thy sight and give me a hart according to thyne owne right simple pure and godly and deliver and keepe me from all sin O most loving Jesu I offer unto thee my body my senses and all the powers of my soule and whatsoever I am to be moderated kept governed and possest by thee O good Jesu preserve me from all vicious vaine and proud cogitations unchast affections grant that I may sincerely seeke thee alone and that in thee only I may take my rest Amen A Prayer to our good Angel O Blessed Angel who art my keeper deefnd aide and guard me from all invasions and assaults of the devil wheresoever I be either wakeing or sleeping drive away from me all the temptations of Sathan and thou by thy prayers obtayne at the hands of the Almighty that he may have no place in me Amen A briefe examen of Conscience before going to bed FIrst place your selfe in the presence of God Crave his grace that you may call to minde such sins as you have committed that day 2. Examen wherin you have offended God from whom you have received so many gracious benefits 3. Detest your sin and be hartely sorry for having offended so good and so loving a God 4. Make a full and firme purpose to sin so no more with hope in Gods mercy and Christs merits to obtayne pardon resolving to confesse and to doe your pennance for the same Finally we must endeavour to put our selves in that state wherein we would gladly be found at the houre of our death by producing the holy acts of Faith of Hope of Charity and of true Contrition for all our sins by this or some such like act of true harty Contrition as followeth An Act of Contrition MY God my Saviour and my Judge I repent with my whole hart and soule for having offended thee who art infinitly good and souverainly loving and amiable therefore hencefourth I will love and honour thee above all things whatsoever and most firmely purpose thy holy grace assisting me never mortally to offend thee but to confesse and performe my imposed penance confiding in thy infinit mercy and in the sacred merits of the bitter death and Passion of thy dearely beloved sonne Jesus my divine Redeemer that thou wilst graciously forgive me These 7. Penitential Psalmes of David are not placed here as part of the evening prayer before bed But that after the act of contrition you may take one or more of them most moveing you to repentance for sin according to each ones leasure and devotion Antiph Remember not Lord our or our parents sins neither take vengence of our offences King David his seaven penitentiall Psalmes shewing his great griefe and sorrow after he had sinned with Bersabee Psal 6. LOrd rebuke me not in thy fury nor chastise me in thy wrath Have mercy on me O Lord because I am weake heale me Lord because my bones be troubled And my soule is disquieted exceedingly but thou O Lord how long Turne thee O Lord and deliver my soule save me for thy mercy Because there is not in death that is mindfull of thee and in hell who shall confesse to thee I have labored in my mourning I will every night wash my bed I will water my couch with teares Myne eye is troubled for fury I have waxen old among all myne enemies Depart from me allyee that worke iniquities because our Lord hath hard the voyce of my weeping Our Lord hath hard my petition our Lord hath received my prayer Let all my enemies be asshamed and very sore troubled let them be converted and asshamed very speedily Glory be to the Father and to the Sonne c. Psalme 31. BLessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins be covered Blessed is the man to whom our Lord hath not imputed sin neither is there guile in his spirit Because I held my peace my bones are inveterated whilst I cryed all the day Because day and night thy hand is made heavy upon me I am turned in my anguish while the thorne is fastned I have made my sin knowne to thee and my injustice I have not hid I said I will confesse against me my injustice to our Lord and thou hast forgiven the impiety of my sin For this shall every holy one pray to thee in tyme convenient But yet in the overflow of many waters they shall not approach to him Thou art my refuge from tribulation which hath compassed me my joy deliver me from them that compasse me I will give thee understanding and will instruct thee in the way that thou shalst goe I will fasten myne eyes upon thee Doe not become as a horse and mule which have no understanding In bit and bridle bind fast their jawes that approch not to thee Many are the scourges of a sinner but mercy shal compasse him that hopeth in our Lord. Be joyfull in our Lord and rejoyce yee just and glory all yee right of hart Glory be to the Father c. Psalme 37. LOrd rebuke me not in thy fury nor chastise me in thy wrath Because thy arrowes are fastned in me and thou hast confirmed thy hand upon me There is no health in my flesh in respect of thy wrath my bones have no peace in respect of my sins Because myne iniquities are gone over my head and as a heavy burden are become heavy upon me My scarres are putrid and corrupted because of my foolishnesse I am become miserable and made crooked even to the end I went sorrowfull all the day Because my loynes are filled with illusions and there is no health in my flesh I am afflicted and am humbled exceedingly I rored for the groning of my hart Lord before thee is all my desire and my groning is not hid from thee My hart is troubled my stength hath forsaken me and the light of mine eyes and the same is not with me My friends and my neighbours have approached and stood against me And they that were neere me stood farr of and they did violence who sought my soule And they that sought me evils spake vanities and meditated guiles all the day But I as deafe did not heare as one dumbe not opening his mouth And I became as a man not hearing and not having reprehension in his mouth Because in thee O Lord have I hoped thou shalst heare me O Lord my God For I have said least sometymes my ennemies rejoyce over me and whilst my feete are moved they speake great things upon me Because I am ready for scourges and my sorrow is in my sight alwayes Because I will declare my iniquity and wil thinke for my sin But mine enemies live and are confirmed over me and they are multipli'd that hate me vnjustly
Ceremonies of the Church be neither the substance nor the perfection of Religion yet they preserve and doe also begett and stirr up in us the reverance and gratefull memory of the holy mysteries of our faith and are an excellent and needfull ornament to religion Yea S. Aug. against Faustus the Manichean heretick li. 19. saith that without externall Ceremonies it is impossible to preserve Religion This supposed and as I hope you will find truly verifi'd by what doth follow that now which in the next place I am to recommend to you is that you having payed due honour and homage to God by your morning prayer then apply your selfe to such employments as the obligation of your present calling and condition may require of you But if afterward good leasure and oportunity be permitted you to heare the divine sacrifice of the Masse omitt not to be present at that supreame act of our Christian religion wherby we give to God the highest honour of sacrifice which is proper to him alone there being offered to him that most gratefull Host of the law of grace which is the sacred body and blood of Jesus Christ that most pure and immaculate lambe of God which though but once only offered in a visible and bloody manner for us upon the Crosse as a sacrifice of Redemption for all the sins of the world yet that very self same sacred Host and victime now daily is offered upon the holy Altar by the hands of the Priest in an unbloody and invisible forme not as a new price or payment for our sins that being here only applyed in the Masse which was already payed upon the Crosse Like as it is also applyd unto our soules both by faith by Baptisme and the other Sacraments and therefore is here in the Masse but only as the reall true sacrifice of application of the very selfsame victime not in a bloody and visible manner but in an unbloody and invisible under the sacramentall formes of bread and wyne And how avayleable now it is to all who devoutly assist at this holy sacrifice much and vith great authority might here be said but my designe ayming at brevity take only what that divinely devout Thomas a Kempis tells us in his imitation of Christ chap. 7. lib. 4. There is no oblation more worthy saith he no satisfaction greater for the washing away of sin then to offer up our selves to God purely with the oblation of the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Masse and holy communion Now that this holy sacrifice of the Masse is a most true and lively representation of the life and death of Jesus Christ he who shall observe either the ornaments of the Priest or the ceremonies and holy mysteries in the Masse will be forced to confesse that to be most true as it will manifestly appeare to any who reade but our Catholick Authors that explicate the primitive institution of the same And to begin with the holy Altar of the Altar and vvhat it signifies he shall finde that it hath relation to sacrifice which must necessarily be offered to God in the Church where his true faith is professd And therfore this name of Altar is given to us by S. Paul Hebr. 13.10 we have an Altar whereof they have not power to cate whoserve the Tabernacle And 1. cor 9.24 and S. Math. 5.24 all which is abundantly sufficient warrant for us to use this name of Altar Which represents the table wheron our divine Redeemer did celebrate the last supper with his Disciples 〈…〉 the night before his bitter death and passion The linning for the altar or the altar cloathes are to bee very pure and white they representing the purity of our blessed Saviours humanity from all stayne of sin or disordered passion That linning is also to be blest to signify the great sanctity of Jesus Christ his life which we must endeavour of the lighted candles upon the altar the best we can to imitate The lighted candles upon the altar admonish us according to S. Luke to be ready in imitation of the wise Virgins with the oyle of good workes in our lampe of true faith and to expect at the pronouncing those sacred and operative words of consecration the reall and true substantiall presence of that our divine and heavenly spouse who requires the light of our good workes so to shine before men as therby they may be mooved to glorify their Father who is in Heaven The two candels signify the two testaments of holy scripture the old and new They also signify the light of fatih revealed to the Jew and Gentill And they advertise us of the great splendor both of faith of good life and workes required in the celebrating of so heigh and dreadfull a mystery of the Crosse and Crucifix The Crosse or Crucifix is the principall ornament upon the Altar which ought never to be wanting at the celebration of the Masse It betokens our B Redemers victory over death and is placed at the midst of the altar most in view to represent to our minde the death and passion of Jesus Christ which is there chiefly to be considered and piously meditated in that holy sacrifice The Chalice doth represent the cup wherin our B. saviour did consecrate his most precious blood Math. 26. of the chalice And it puts us in minde of his sacred passion our B. saviour himselfe so calling it the Chalice of his passion The Paten serveth for the use of the consecrated body of our Lord of the Paten as the Chalice doth for his most precious blood And as it doth cover the topp of the Chalice it represents the stone which was rouled against the dore of the holy sepulcher Mark 15. The white linnen corporall upon which is consecrated the most precious body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ of the corporall doth represent to us that white and pure syndon wherein Joseph ab Aremathia involued his most sacred corps before it was buried The cleane and bright purity wherof doth aptly admonish all such as by the holy communion receive and harbour within their breasts this sacred and most precious body of Jesus Christ to be chast and cleane both of body and soule and endued with true purity of intention The Vaile doth cover both Paten and Chalice all round about of the vaile And it represents to us the handkercher wherwith our saviour's most sacred head was covered when he was layd in the sepulcher Wherof mention is made Luke 24. S. Peter having discovered it in the sepulcher and he there beheld the linnen lying apart and the handkercher which had been wrapped about his head Of the severall colours which the Church useth for her ornaments and the meaning of them THe Propht Ezechiel in his 6. chap. speaking of the splendor of the Church seemes to place a great part of her glory in the various colours of her beutifull robes Which
tyme to heare Masse represent to your selfe that you are called to accompany the B. Virgin S. Jo. Evangelist and holy Magdalen to mount Calvary there to assist at that dreadfull sacrifice which this doth so truly represent and that togeather with the Priest you now are going to offer it upon the Altar to the Eternall Father for the whole cath Church as also for your owne necessities and for all others both living and dead for whom you are bound to pray The Priest ascending up to the Altar with that great crosse upon the back of the vestment may renew in us a lively memory of that heavie Crosse which Jesus Christ did beare upon his wounded shoulders to mount Calvary there to pay that deare and painfull ransome for our sin And the crowne or tonsure of the Priest may represent to us that crowne of sharp thornes which was beaten upon our Saviours head Admire here his infinit love and mercy to ungratefull Man The exteriour and interiour disposition required to assist at the holy sacrifice of the Masse THe Priest now approaching to the Altar we must procure a right interiour disposition by stirring up in our harts an actuall sorrow and contrition for our sins and renouncing all affection to them therby to purify our soules from that foule blemish which might render our devotion unpleasing to God 2. We ought there to behave our selves with all exteriour reverence and very carrefully to avoyde all needlesse words and lookes still keeping the eyes of our soule firmely fixed upon the Altar and our minds wholy busied with devout attention upon those holy mysteries of the life and death of Jesus Christ which in this sacrifice of the Masse is so truly represented unto us A forme of directing our intention before Masse in forme of prayer O Sacred Trinity accept this holy sacrifice of the most precious body and blood of our Lord Jes Chr. in union of that most holy sacrifice which our divine Redeemer offered in his last supper and upon the Crosse I offer it to thee by the hands of the Priest First to the honour and eternall glory of thy divine Majesty In acknowledgment of thy supreame excellency and dominion over us and our subjection and dependance upon thee as also in perpetuall commemoration of the death and passion of our most mercifull Redeemer Jesus Christ 2. in honour and increase of glory to all the B. spirits in the Church triumphant And for the suffering soules in Purgatory And in particular for the soules of N. N. 3. In eternal gratitude for all thy gracious benefits bestow'd on me thy ungratefull creature and in satisfaction for my sins and for those of all the faithfull as well living as dead And finally for the obtayning of such or such a grace And in particular for N. N. And for all those for whom I am wont and bound to pray To obtayne rest to the dead and to the living grace to know to love and to glorify thee perfectly in this world and happily to enioy thee in the other for all Eternity Amen An advertisment WHat finally I doe here recommend to all is that with devout attention they religiously accompany the Priest and make serious reflection upon each my stery in order yet very briefly endevoring to stirr up some fervent and pious affection or holy aspiration wherby to move their harts to a divine and ardent love of so mercifull a God and to detest all sin which so very highly offends him A DEVOUT EXERCISE FOR HEARING MASSE BOTH WITH TRUE PIETY AND MUCH INSTRUCTION From the rising of the sunne leven to the going downe in every place there is sacrificing and there is offered in my name a cleane oblation Malach. 1. cap. ver 11. A prayer before Masse O Most clement Father of mercy who hast bestowd not only once thy dearly beloved sonne to dye upon a Crosse for Mans Redemption but wouldest that his oblation so infinitly acceptable unto thee should daily be renued in thy Church to increace in us the fruit therof Grant us we beseech thee so attentively and reverently to be present at this so adorable a mystery of thy piety that we may be able to ataine the participation therof through Christ Jesus our Lord and only Redeemer Amen At the Priest's ascending to the Altar and there opening the booke THe Priest ascending to the Altar and having placed the Chalice he openeth the booke To signify that the mysteries of our faith lay shutt up in dark shadowes and obscure figures in the old law till Jesus Christ there represented by the Priest layd them open to us in their true substance and verity Rejoyce with gratitude for our enjoying the law of grace and stirr up a firme beleefe of all those holy mysteries of Mans Redemption by Christs bitter death and Passion which are here to be represented to us in the holy Masse At the Priests descending to the lowest stepp and beginning with the signe of the Crosse and saying the Confiteor c. THe Priest descends to the lowest stepp and there begins in making the signe of the Crosse To shew that we had no other hope nor remedy for our reconciliation to God but by the merits and sacred passion of Jesus Christ who died for us upon the Crosse At the Confiteor stirr up true sorrow and detestation for your sins as a preparation to appeare with more purity and profound humility in Gods divine presence at all those sacred mysteries represented there to us at the holy sacrifice of the Masse At the Priests ascending and kissing the Altar THe Priest ascending he kisseth the Altar as a symbole of reconciliation and peace made betwixt God and Man by the precious blood and bitter passion of Jesus Christ For which indevour to stirr up due love and gratitude At the Introite and Kyrie elysons THe Introite is so called because at high Masse it is sung whilst the Priest is comming to the Altar It represents the sighs and longing desires of the Patriarckes for the Messias comming As also doe the Kyrie and Christe elysons At which let us humbly crave the needfull visit of Gods grace for our soules as also his mercy and gracious pardon of all our sins Of Gloria in excelsis Dominus vobiscum and the prayer JOy here at our divine Redeemers birth and at his choyce of so poore so meane and so suffering a manner We must learne to contemne all worldly pompe and vanity and that the only true way to beatitude is that of mortification humility and proper abjection The Priest salutes the people with Dominus vobiscum to stirr up their attention before he begins the prayer to the end that their petitions therin may be more gratefull to God And he saith Oremus before the prayer to desire the people to joyne their prayers and intentions with his to obtayne those necessities which our holy mother the Church recommends to be prayd for therby At the Epistle and
remooving the booke THe Epistle is reade on the right hand of the Altar to shew that the jewes were the elect people of God and to whom the Gospel first was preached But they repelling the same were justly abandon'd by God and that blessing was transferd to the Gentils as is represented to us by carrying the booke to the other side of the altar where the Gospell is reade Crave here humbly a true docil and humble spirit to admitt good counsell and Gods divine inspirations and to be strengthned by his holy grace to put them in execution At the Graduel and Tract IN the Graduel by the Alleluyas we give praise and joyfull thanksgiving to God for his so happily calling us in the incredulous jewes place But in the penitentiall dayes of lent advent c. in stead of Alleluya is said the Tract in a more mournfull tune as craving pardon for our sins For which we are here to stirr up harty sorrow and contrition At the Gospel THe Priest saying Dominus vobiscum doth advertise the people to raise up their harts and to harken with good attention and devotiō to those sacred words which were uttered by the divine mouth of Jesus Christ and recorded by his holy Evangelists Crave divine grace to illuminate your understanding and to inflame your will wherby the better to put in execution what we are either taught or commanded to doe At the Creed HEre we must make a firme act to beleeve whatsoever hath been revealed to Christs true Catholick Church and is by her so proposed to us to be beleeved And chiefly those blessed Mysteries which are represented in the holy sacrifice of the Masse Humbly beseeching Gods grace that we may never yeald to any temptation against the same And to detest all cursed Schisme and Heresy At the Offertory AT this oblation of the bread and wyne admyre the infinit humility and goodnesse of Jesus Christ who for our sakes vouchsafed to place his precious body and blood under the consecrated species of so contemptible meane creatures bread and wyne The mingling wyne with a little water doth shew the intimate union of Gods divinity represented by the wyne with our humanity signifid by that little water and simple element Crave humbly here so united a hart to Gods divine will as that with S. Paul you may truly say I live now not I but Iesus Christ doth live in me At the Lavatory PIlate washt his hands to testify before the people his not being guilty of Christs innocent blood But our consciences stayned with many crymes have need to be washed by the water of true compunction for our sins And for that end we must indevour to frame a holy act of Contrition that so we may appeare with greater innocency at the consecration before this our souveraine judge At Orate fratres THe Priest makes here a second oblation of that sacrifice to the B. Trinity in memory of the principall mysteries of Jesus Christ as also in honour of his chiefest Saints And for the better obtayning grace to performe that holy function he turnes to the people desiring them to ioyne their prayers with his therby to render the oblation of that their common sacrifice more gratefull to God both for him and themselves Which with a fervent ejaculation we must humbly crave At the ensving secret BY the ensving private prayer or secret as the Church doth call it we must humbly beseech Almighty God to produce in our soules the effect of all those good thoughts which he hath given us for our better preparation to appeare more worthily in his divine presence at that neere approaching consecration At the Preface THe Preface is so called as being the entrance to the Canon of the Masse and a generall preparation to that holy sacrifice The Priest there exhorting the people to raise up their harts to God with thanks-giving for all his benefits accompaniing the Angels Cherubins and Seraphins in adoring and praising him incessantly with that Angelicall himne of holy holy holy Lord God of Sabaoth For in loving adoring and Praising the B. Trinity consists the Saints Beatitude and endlesse felicity At Te igitur c. where the Canon of the Masse begins HEre begins the Canon and chiefe part of the Masse pronounced with a low voyce to shew the greater reverence and veneration to that most sacred and neere approaching act of consecration Which ceremony beares resemblance with that of the Priests of the ancient law who entring into the Sancta Sanctorum were covered with a vaile and were neither to be heard nor seene Wherby we are advertised that by private recollection with-drawing our harts from all worldly cogitations we should unite our selves closely to God with pious contemplation upon those divine and holy mysteries At the first Memento IN this Memento we must pray for the catholike Church For its chiefe Pastor For our king and Prelate For peace amongst Christian Princes For our kindred friends benefactors enemies and for all for whom we are oblidged to pray That we being thus united to the living by Charity and by craving likewise the intercession of those powerfull Advocates Gods chiefe Saints in Heaven we may testify our communion both with the Militant and Triumphant Church At Hanc igitur oblationem THese five crosses renew in us the memory of those cruell torments which our divine Redeemer did suffer in all his five senses As also the memory of his five precious wounds By the merits where of we must humbly crave his grace that we never willfully offend him grievously by any of our five senses hereafter At the consecration and elevation THe Priest here according to the command and example of Jesus Christ blesseth and consecrateth the bread and wyne in the self same manner as he performed it in the institution of this divine mystery and commanded his Apostles and their successors to doe the same He elevateth those consecrated species offering Jesus Christ to his Eternall Father as he once did offer himselfe upon mount Calvary for all the sins of the world Here making an act of firme faith of the reall presence of Jesus Christ we must humbly crave his grace that as he vouchsafed to dye upon the crosse for us so that we for his sake may cheerefully endure all crosses and afflictions whatsoever as from the loving correction of his fatherly hand for our innumerable sins At the second Memento HEre according to the continuall custome of the Church we must offer this holy sacrifice for the faithfull soules departed this mortall life yet remayning in Purgatory And for such in particular as we finde our selves to be obliged Concluding as before with a devout addresse to Gods blessed Saints to pray for them and us Humbly beseeching his divine Majesty to receive us into their glorious society by the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord and loving Saviour At Nobis quoque Peccatoribus THe good thiefe by his happy repentance applying the sacred
merits of Christs holy passion for the healing of his sinfull soule found therby his perfect and speedy cure let us by the gratefull sacrifice of a contrite and humble hart dispose our soules to true repentance and knock our breast as did that humble Publican with vnfeined sorrow for all our sins saying with him God be mercifull to me a wretched sinner That at the houre of our death we may happily heare pronounced by our Saviour that joyfull sentence this day thou shalst be with me in Paradise At the severall Crosses made upon the holy Host and Chalice THe frequent making of this holy signe as wel after as before the consecration doth repre sent to us the severall sorts of cruell torments which Jesus Christ endured in his bitter passion by his flagellation coronation bearing his heavy Crosse his crucifixion derisions scornes blasphemies and the like The three Crosses which the Priest makes saying Per ipsum c put us in minde of the three houres which he suffered upon the Crosse The other two which he makes saying Deo Patri omnipotenti c. represent to us the water and blood which camefourth of that sacred wound of his side And that elevation of the Host and Chalice and immediately deposing them againe upon the corporall represents the taking downe of his blessed body from the Crosse All which are strong motives to draw from us a feeling compassion of those his great sufferings for our sake and to offer to him a resigned hart with true conformity to his blessed will for what soever his heavenly providence hath desined for us living or dying for tyme or Eternity At the Pater noster WE may make here our humble supplication unto the Eternall Father with great confidence to obtayne what we shall justly and rightly demaunde by this petition taught us by his divine ad beloved sōne And there fore with much confidence we may here make our humble petition to him for that in partilar for which we principally intended to offer up that holy and impetratory sacrifice of the Masse At the division of the Host into 3. parts wherof one is put into the Chalice THis division of the holy Host signifies the separation of the body and soule of Jesus Christ And the particle put into the Chalice mingling therby together the consecrated species of bread and wyne represents to us the reunion of his body and soule at his glorious resurrection By which is also represented to us the horrour of à mortall sin which separating Gods grace from our soule doth kill the same never more to be revived but by the merits of Jesus Christ applyed by true repentance for our sins which therfore we ought carefully to fly and most hartely to detest At Agnus Dei c. WHat greater comfort can mans hart conceive then to heare this joyfull repetition that it is the lambe of God which taketh away the sins of the world for should not he be engaged for this great debt which we owe for sin our case would be desperate since that all creatures joyned together could never make satisfaction to his divine justice for the least venial sin Isalae c. 53. v 5. but the was wounded for our iniquities and with his stripes we are healed Agnus Dei is thrice repeated to put us in mind to make 3. acts of Contrition answerable to our 3. usuall sorts of sin by thought word and deed against God against our neighbour and our selves At Domine non sum dignus and the holy Communion THe Priest thus disposed and producing fervent acts of faith and love of humility and true contrition he takes the holy Communion protesting with the humble Publican his great unwor thinesse and Knocking thrice his breast at Domine non sum dignus he makes the signe of the Crosse with the holy Host as if taking Christs heavenly benediction he beseecheth him to consecrate his hart a cleane and pure sepulcher fitt to receive his most precious body and that it may never be made unpleasing to him by any grievous sin At the Ablution WE are put in mind by this Ablution which the Priest takes to purify his fingars and Chalice that we must cleanse our soules from the remainder of all vicious habits from all ill affections and disordinate passions or inclinations to sin which defile our soule that ought to be the pure and undefiled temple of God Craue here humbly such vertues as may adorne and make it a pleasing habitation for the holy Ghost At remooving the book againe to the other side of the Altar HEre adore the great goodenesse of God and his infinit patience who not withstanding the Jewes long obstinate contempt of all his graces profered them wil yet vouchsafe finally and towards the end of the world to receive thē to his mercy and heavenly blesse by their true profession of his holy faith Let us be carefull not to neglect the grace of his divine inspirations wher-upon our endlesse felicity doth soe greatly depende At the Postcommunion THe great benefit received by this holy sacrifice as likewise the innumerable other gracious favours which are so continually communicated unto us from the bountifull and loving hand of God doe justly oblidge us to this due gratefull thankfulnesse which the Priest here makes to his divine Majesty aswell in his own behalfe as for the people in saying the Postcommunion as also the ensuing prayer for the selfe same end At the next Dominus vobiscum THis Dominus vobiscum is to put us in minde of our Saviours appearing to his Disciples and conforting them with his blessed presence after his glorious resurrection But now as this apparition only was so great à comfort to the Disciples o how much more may it well be to us not only to behould him really and truly in the Masse but so frequently also to receive him personnaly into our breasts Where he remaines with us in person so long as the Sacramentall species shall continew and with his grace till he be most ungratefully expelled by mortal sin At the last Collect or prayer BY this prayer we make gratefull acknowledgment of all Gods innumerable benefits and to stirr up much sorrow for having so greatly abused them by the small amendment of our habituall vices Which may justly render us unworthy of his future graces unlesse we be more constant to our good purposes and pious resolutions Of the last Dominus vobiscum THe Priest saluting the people with this Dominus vobiscum doth represent to us our B. Saviours Ascention in the sight of all his Apostles and Disciples Drawing doubtlesse all their harts with him Upon whom both their loue thoughts and whole desires were firmely fixed Wheras our unhappy engagement to vaine worldly contents doe so depresse our soules as we are rendred uncapable of celestiall thougths and remayne euen as buried in meere humane and transitory affaires And wholly made captives to flesh and blood Of Ite Missa est and
25 cast out the idle servant And the barren figtree was commanded to be cut downe and cast into the fire For wherefore hath God given us a body with all its members and senses and a soule with all its noble faculties but that we should employ them as a talent lent us for his glory Let us therefore be more carefull not to loose our precious tyme which is but lent us here to labour for eternity for the night of death will suddainly surprise us in our sinfull floath and then no more tyme will be afforded us to repaire our former idlenesse and neglect of tyme. Of the sin of scandal MOst justly hath our blissed Saviour given so dreadfull a curse against this wicked sin Math. 18 which so truly represents the sin of Lucifer who by the scandal of his ambitious pride did draw with him à third part of those unhappy Angels unto the low pit of Hell Yea like to the pestiferous plague one scandalous person is capable by his ill example to communicate the infection of his sin to a whole towne and country But finally be we most certainly assured that alle such as by our scandal were brought to their endlesse perdition they at the dreadfull day of judgment will cry vengence against us and will require that wee be eternally punished for that their irreparable harme which by scandall we caused to them by our provocation to sin Of Choller and Anger THe holy Ghost disswads us from harboring anger in our breasts Eccles 7 least it place us in the ranke of fooles assuring us also that who is soone mooved to anger is much inclined to sin Prov. 25. The usuall attendants of this pernicious vice is Pride Contumely Indignation Oathes Blasphemies Quarrels Murthers and the like This vice is not only hurtfull to the Author but soe insupportable to others Prou. 22 as the holy Ghost peaswads us to fly their company who are subject unto it and well it is to be observed that whilst we strive by anger to maister our enemy we are most shamfully overcome by our selves This pernicious vice obscures reason and precipitats the will into dangerous actions sur future repentance for who is blinded with the fumes of this passion is neither capable of right reason nor counsell Wherfore seeing that it is a vice so prejudiciall to our selves so injurious to our neighbour and so greatly detested by God let us resolve to resist the first motions of this unruly passion and by craving Gods grace and imitating the mildnesse and meeknesse of Jesus Christ to over come the same Of Rash judgment THe holy Church though particularly assisted by the holy Ghost yet shee judgeth not of inward things and shall a particular ignorant Man vicious and passionate take the liberty to judge what only lyeth open to God O unsupportable pride and presumption We must therfore judge ever the best of the intention of others it being a secret which belongs only to God the true scarcher of the harts of men Yea it is a sacrilegious usurpation to trench upon that which is Gods owne due and it makes us truly to resemble those hypocrits of the Gospel who espying a moate in their brothers eye perceive not the beame which remaynes in their owne S. Bernards advise herein is singularly good exhorting us that when we perceive in an other some fault which displeaseth us amend it saith he in thy selfe but behoulding in him what is vertuous and good examenwhither thoupossessest the same and if not then labour to obtayne for thds doing thou wilt make prosit of all Of the vertue of mildnesse and meekenesse THe reason wherefore this vertue is often recommended by Jesus Christ and that they are called blessed who are gentle and milde is for that God being the God of peace he loves to rest in a mild and gentle hart factus est in pace locus eius Psal â—6 2. it makes us to enjoy true solid content of minde they shall be delighted in abundance of peace It is the motive which our Saviour gives us to practice the same learne of me who am mild c. and you shall finde rest to your soules for as no quarrel can be fixt upon a cheerefull minde and plesant countenance so also courteous and frendly language will conquer the greatest enemy The conversation of such a man is grattefull and welcome to all company nor is any more offensive and displeasing then is a froward angry and impatient person We must therefore as S. Paul doth admonish us shew mildnesse and meekenesse to all Tit. 32 which is the true meanes to gaine love both of God and and Man Eccl 3 19 Sonne doe thy workes in meeknes and thou shalt be belovod above the glory of Men. Of true humility of hart THere are two sortes of humility The one of spirit and understanding and the other of the hart and will That of the spirit makes us to know and to acknowlege that of our selves we are pure nothing nor can doe any thing but meerely from God Tat we are borne in sin and inclind to all evil All which but well considered how can we be proud or vaine glorious But this humility of spirit will little availle us without the humility of hart and of wil for the devils know well their owne great abjection and indignity but they have not humility of hart and of will which consists in being glad and willing to be despised and in flying the praise of men wherin consists true Christian humility of hart and of will For it consists not in certaine little ceremonies or composed humble termes or actions but in reall deeds acknowledging that all the good which we either enjoy or doe is from God to whom we are to render all glory and gratitude and nothing but contempt and all abjection to our selves for our great and grievious sins A 2. Reflection upon holy patience NO vertue is more necessary then this we being almost continually in occasion for the practife of it and by the helpe therof we surmount the greatest difficulties nor doth any thing more edify our neighbour or confund yea caven conquer an enemy as doth holy patience wheras impatience doth all quite to the contrary 2. the impatient man refuseth sinfully to submit to Gods decree who is the Author of all our sufferings which in that they cannot be resisted the impatient Man is most unreasonable and by that meanes he begins his Hell even in this world And as that man is of all others the most happy who is of all others the most patient so on the contrary he is most miserable who is most impatien Nowe the best meanes to obtayne this so necessary a vertue is to reflect upon Gods great patience in suffering all our perverse greate sins and most enormious offences done aginst him 2. That this life is but very short and uncertaine our peine cannot be long 3. to reflect how
who approacheth to this divine banquet First that he examen well himselfe as S. Paul doth exhort that he come prepared and fittingly disposed on his part For which purpose these fowre dispositions are principally required The first a firme faith to beleeve Christs owne word and his Churches doctrine teaching that the words of consecration being pronounced what was bread before is changed by divine vertue into the true reall and substantiall body and blood of Jesus Christ and that although the colour figure taste and other accidents of breade remayne yet the substance is converted into the body of Jesus Christ which being now living glorious and immortall it can receive no division nor indignity but is united to his blood soule and divinity The second disposition required is a great purity principally from all mortall sin as also from all voluntary and deliberate affection to either mortall or venial And besides this purity of conscience purity also of intention is requisit for he would be greatly blamable who should approach to this divine table for vaine humaine respect to be esteemed devout or to gaine the good opinion of Men. But his intention must be purely to please God to be more closely united to him and to be made more capable therby to glorify to love and to serve his heavenly Majesty The third disposition is profound humility to which the Christian may strongly be mooved he well considering on the one side Gods greatnesse and infinit sanctity and his owne origen from nothing brought by sin to so despicable a state on the other Which very thought ought to give great confusion to a penitent sinner now ready to approach to this God of all glory and Majesty before whom the Angels Seraphins and Cherubins doe tremble with respect and feare Finally the fourth disposition is love and ardent charity towards this our divine Redeemer who gives himselfe to us with so excessive good nesse with graces and benedictions from the superabundant fountaine of this divine Sacrament flowing copiously into an open and loving hart And therfore undoubtedly the most excellent disposition which a Christian can bring to the holy Communion is to excite himselfe interiorly to the fervent acts of love towards Jesus Christ with strong resolutions wholy to consecrate himselfe to please and love him to serve and glorify him by his whole life and actions But although these dispositions regarding our soule be both the principall and most necessary yet such as concerne the body must not be neglected As first that the communicant present himselfe to this divine banquet with fitting decency in apparell With modest and reverent comportment yet all within the bounds of decent modesty and without all superfluous affectation He must also be fasting and have swallowed nothing from the midnight before his communion Who being now to approach to this heavenly table it must be with great modesty and devout humility saying the Confiteor with true harty sorrow for having offended so great and so good a God And the Priest saying Domine non sum dignus c. Let him humble his hart before God acknowledging his great unworthinesse to receive so divine a guifte The sacred Host being presented unto him he must receive it with all humble respect his eyes bending downwards and opning moderately his mouth without stirring his head or body or moving his lipps with words Let the tongue touch the side of the lipp not too much put fourth that it may conveniently receive the holy Host which there moistned with decent motion may be let downe into the stomack for it is not to be chewed with the teeth nor to be brought to the rouse of the mouth Let the whole body be erected and quiet without any motion sighing groning knocking of the breast exclamations vocall prayers or the like which would be unfitting and inconvenient Having communicated he must be carefull for one quarter of an houre not to spit but if forced to it be carefull it be with respect and where it be not trod upon or more decently to take it with his handkercher Let him retyre to some convenient place where for the space of a quarter of an houre at the least he ought to recollect his soule in thankes giving considering whom he hath received and with the eys of fervent faith there to behould within his breast his loving Saviour and God of all Majesty and with great attention and devout acknowledgment of humble thankes for that inestimable benefit received there offering sacrificing and intirely consecrating himselfe his soule his body and all the powers and actions of them both to his divine honour and glory for all Eternity When you actually receiue the sacred Hoste conceive your selfe as S. Theresia did as if behoulding with her corporal eyes Jesus Christ to enter into your poore habitation and stirr up thor at your faith laying aside all mortall objects whatsoever and as if entring in with him procure there to recollect all the powers of your soule to attend upon that so divine a guest to doe him all adoration and homage so that they neyther distract nor hinder your soule from a quiet and entire enjoyment of him There represent your selfe as at his feet deploring with repentant Magdalen your many sins And although we should have no other devotion but this alone yet faith would perswade us that we were both well and very happy there to speake with our divine and loving Saviour so present to give care to the propositions of all our necessities at least whilst the sacramentall species remaine uncorrupted with us And therfore we must not loose one moment of this so precious tyme of his true reall and substantiall presence with us but to spend it in all true fervent devotion with so mercifull and powerfull a Lord and guest For this is a most profitable practise after communion which that seraphical 8. Theresa did usually excercise with great comfort and profit to her soule And now finally that the vertuous soule may the better comply with her duty in this divine action as well before the holy communion as also after the same let her reade much rather with hart then with mouth these following prayers shee framing in her soule the interiour acts which are but exteriorly framed in words A prayer to be said before the holy Communion O MOST benigne Lord Jesus I a sinner presuming nothing on my owne merits but wholy trusting on thy mercy and goodnesse doe feare and tremble to have accesse unto the table of thy most sweet banquet For I have a hart and bodie spotted with many crymes a minde and tongue not warily gwarded Therefore o benigne Deity o dreadfull Majesty I a wretch holden in these streights have recourse unto thee the fountaine of mercy I hasten to thee to be healed I fly under thy protection and he whom I cannot endure a Judge I hope to have a Saviour To thee o Lord I shew my wounds to thee I
which I was created and be therby united with thee here by grace and by glory in Eternity Amen A prayer before the B. Sacrament or before Communion I Adore thee O true bread of Angels the God of life the eternal Fathers spendor and Heavens beauty Behould one here present before thee full both of feare and confidence I approach by thy command in true simplicity of hart and firme beleefe truly confessing that thou art both God and Man here present in this most holy sacrament to which I approach O lord as an infirme to the phisition of life as one defiled to the fountaine of mercy as one blind unto eternal light and as in great want and needs to the Monarch of heaven and earth O my hope my only health my glory and all my content vouchsafe to rejoyce the hart of thy poore servant which burnes with desire to receive thee into my poore and unworthey habitation yet please to blisse it as thou didst that of little Zachee Alas my Lord it is most unworthy as being so very uncleane yet thou comming for the salvation of sinners into this world disdaynedst not to be borne in a stable amongst brute beasts vouch safe now likewise I beseech thee and for my salvation sake dispise not the uncleane manger of my soule full of brutall and vnbridled passions returne once more to foule leapers and converse againe with Publicans as thou didst in this world or rather O my omnipotent God descend once more into Hell for so alas I ought to call my darke my miserable and tormented soule But seeing that such is thy mercy as whersoever thou vouchsafest to enter thou never failest there to leave markes of thy grace and much benediction I confide my loving Lord that thou wilst doe the like to me Enter therfore vnder this my poore roofe and render it worthy of thy presence purge it of all impurities discipate the obscurity of its darkenesse replenish it with thy divine light and adorne it with the guifts of the holy Ghost Thou knowst well deare Lord my want as one poore and naked before thee much press'd with great hungar and misery but thou being the bread of life comfort my sighing sobbs dismisse me not fasting from thy delicious table least I faint in this my pilgrimage but rather graunt that fortifi'd by thee I may with holy Elias arrive to the mountaine of eternal felicity I most humbly beseech thee my mercifull and clement God and by this thy incomparable charity wherof thou givest so great a testimony by thy loving institution of this most blessed Sacrament I beseech thee to grant me grace to receive it with true contrition and sorrow for all my sins with feare and due reverence with devotion and faith fervour love and convenient purity to so sublime a mystery and grant also I beseech thee that I may receive not only the Sacrament of this thy precious body but therewithal the grace and vertue of the Sacrament for the supporting my weakenesse for the healing my infirmities for the confirming my hope for the suppressing my passions for the fortifying my faith for the inflaming my love to enlighten my understanding to be my companie in banishment and spirituall nourishment to my soule and finally to the end that by the help of this celestiall food of my soule I may be united transformed and made all one in will and desire with thee who livest and raignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost for ever and ever Amen A prayer to obtayne a fervent love towards God our neighbour and our enemies O Mercifull and divine Redeemer Jesus who hast washt us with thy precious blood and given thy selfe to death for us thou hast been reputed with the wicked and most cruelly wounded for our iniquities breused and abused for our offences and by thy stripes hast made us whole I beseech thee O Lord for this thy ineffable mercy and charity to powre into my hart the unquenchable heate of thy heavenly grace so that the fire of thy charity may perpetually burne and worke within me and that there may alwayes grow in me such a continuall chast and nover failing affection of pitty benevolence and piety as extendeth it self to all creatures through the love and contemplation of thee Fill O Lord I beseech thee my soule my senses and desires with fervent and perpetuall charity that in all things and above all I may most hartely love thee and that according to thy good will and pleasure I may love my neighbour in thee and for thee Grant me grace I humbly beseech thee that with all my hart I may to thy glory love search and advance the salvation profit and commodity of every one Grant me O Lord to love mine enemies with sincerity both in word and truth take from me all bitternesse of mind wrath anger disdayne envie and whatsoever is against or contrary to pure and sincere charity so that in all sincere simplicity of hart I may have a good opinion of all may judge no Man rashly but love every one in thee with holy and harty affection and that I may shew them both in words and workes all sweetnesse all clemency and true love A prayer that we may receive the B. Sacrament before our death O Almighty and most merciful Lord I praise and give thee most humble thankes for having so graciously made me severall tymes partaker of that divinly great mistery of thy holy Sacrament and therby to be fortifi'd and greatly comforted with thy blessed presence O heavenly Father let every tongue blesse thee let every creature laud thee for this souveraine guift of thy divine bounty for which with them I also offer and present to thee my God all the praises of the Angels and of all the Elect which alreadie doe or ever shall enjoy thee in Eternity And I beseech the Ordeare Jesu the gracious Redeemer of my soule that at the houre of my death thou wilst vouchsafe to visit me with this thy gracious presence in this most blessed Sacrament and by thy grance prepare my soule I beseech thee by a faithfull and contrite confession wherby to make it a pleasing habitation for thee true God and Man my loving Saviour Forgive my former many trespasses by the sacred merits of thy bitter death and passion and that I may end this my mortall life in the finall perseverance of thy grace O God omnipotent have mercy on me for the love of thy deare sonne Jesus the life of all that shall be saved O Jesu equal God with the Father and the holy Ghost conserve and keepe me in thy grace suffer me not to be drawne from thee through any subtile persuasion of my ghostly enemy O Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Sonne the comforter of the elect and inspirer of all good guifts replenish my hart with all charitable desires and heavenly inspirations necessary for my salvation Grant this O holy Trinity for the bitter
passion of our divine Redeemer Jesus and by the merits and intercession of the glorious Virgin Mary and of all the blessed Saints and Angels Amen A prayer to demand heavenly vertues and good life GRant vnto me O mercifull God ardently to desire such things as are pleasing unto thee prudently to accomplish them to the praise and glory of thy namne Grant me O Lord my God that I taâ—le not betwixt prosperity and adversity that in the former I be not too much puffed up nor in the latter too much dejected that I may joy or sorrow at nothing but at what leadeth unto thee or draweth away from thee that I covet to please none nor feare to displease any but only thee Let all transitory things O Lord become vile unto me and let all that is pleasing to thee be for thy sake most deare into me Let that joy be but teadious to me which is without thee and let me desire nothing out of thee Let that labour delight me O Lord which is for thee and let all ease be unpleasing to me which is without thee Make me O Lord obedient without contradiction poore without murmuring chast without corruption patient without repining humble without basenesse merry without dissolution sad without dejection quick without levity fearefull without despaire true without presumption to correct with discretion to edify without dissimulation Grant me O Lord my God an understanding knowing thee a diligence seeking thee a wisdome that may finde thee out a conversation pleasing to thee a perseverance faithfully expecting thee and a confidence finally embracing thee to be pearced with thy paines through penance to make use of thy benefits to thy glory and my owne souls good and at length by thy grace to enjoy thy glory there to praise and magnify thee for ever and ever Amen A prayer of praise of thankesgiving and of magnifying God ALmighty and most mercifull Father unto thee all the heavenly company of the celestial citty doe incessanty with due reverence sing continually glory and everlasting praise Thee O Lord al Saints and holy soules doe laud and magnify with condigne honour and as to whom all praise and glory is most due nor is there any creature that can sufficiently according to thy worthlinesse give sufficient praise to thee For thou art that unspeakable incomprehensible and everlasting goodnesse Thou O Lord hast made me and by the merits of the bitter passion of thy most blessed sonne which he vouchsafed to suffer for mans salvation restored me to grace and favour To thee only is due all laud and honour O souveraine Lord I miserable wretch a creature of thy making a silly worme of the earth have a good will to praise and magnify thee with all my hart and soule but without thy speciall grace I am but faint and wonderfull weak Wherfore I come to thee my God my life my strength my hope and only comfort to crave thy mercy and grace to give me power to praise and honour thee and that all I doe may be pleasing and acceptable unto thee Grant me the light of thy grace that my mouth may speake and my hart studie thy glory and my tongue may only be employd in the song of land and praise to thee But because all praise in a sinners mouth is base and vile and that I manifouldly have offended with my lips thou therfore cleanse ô divine Jesu my hart from the foule silth of sin sanctify me most powerfull Lord and Saviour and make me worthy to magnify thee Let thy divine sweetnesse wholy possesse my mind and feed my soule with the delight of relestiall cogitations Separate it O Lord from the love of all visible things and incline it to the studie and meditation of invisible O Almighty God inspire thou my hart that I may continually give thankes and honour unto thee Grant me grace that in this pilgrimage and vale of misery I may so praise thee that through thy grace and mercy I may be associated to their blessed Fellowship who see thee everlastingly and singe praises to thee world without end Amen A prayer of thankes-giving and of craving divine favour O Most mercifull Lord Jesus in remembrance of thy blessed Jncarnation death passion wounds sorrowes griefes teares and drops of thy most precious blood and in remembrance of thy infinit love to Man and in the union of that oblation and holy sacrifice by which thou didst offer thy selfe on the Altar of the Crosse I doe offer my selfe to thy praise and glory humbly beseeching thee to give to the living grace to the deceased mercy and rest and to us all the true spirit of repentance and life everlasting And I commend unto thee O Lord my souleand body most humbly beseeching thee to have mercy on me and upon all those for whom either by nature friendship or by gratitude I am bound to pray and in particular for N. N. c. I most humbly render to thee due thankes O my Lord God and mercifull Father for that thou didst vouchsafe to send thy only deare soune Jesus into this world to dye for Man the reproachfull death of the Crosse to the end that he might offer himselfe to thee a most pure holy and acceptable sacrifice of our sins and purge therby our conscience fro all its foule staynes of impiety By this thy excessive and infinit love and by those most cruell torments of thy owne sonne our Saviour we most humbly beseech thee to preserve in us continually those divine fruits of our Redemption and make us also daily to die with him to the world and to be crucifid to the lusts and desires of the flesh and to live to thee only all our life so that finally we may raigne with him eternally where thou with the Holy Gost livest one true and eternal God for ever and ever Amen A prayer to all the Saints ALI haile yee holy and most glorious Saints of God who now have past the dangerous sea of this mortality and have attaind to the secure haven of everlasting rest and security and deserved to be made now fellowes and partakers of the heavenly joyes being now without care for your selves be yee carefull for us Whouchsafe to be our advocats and governours Pray unto God for us that by your intercession and merits we may in this life obtayne grace and at the houre of death our soules departing in the happy state of grace may arrive at the safe port of eternall glory where you with the glorious Trinity doe raigne world without end Amen A prayer to all the Angels Al haile yee blessed Angelical spirits who with celestial melody doe praise and glorify our omnipotent Lord and in his glorious presence doe continually rejoyce have compassion on me a poore wretch And tho especially O holy Angel the keeper and guardien of my soule and body unto whom by Gods special commandement I am committed I beseech thee to discharge that office towards me with
faithful diligence and to keep defend and protect me this day from all evil visible and invisible Amen A Prayer in sicknesse LEt my request enter into thy fight O Lord and let thy hand stretch forth to make me whole Behould I am the Man that comming downe from Jerico was forely wounded by theeves and left halfe dead Doe thou assist me O merciful Samaritan I have grievously sinned in thy sight and so full is my soule of those deadly wounds as hadst thou not died for me my soule would have dwelt in Hell I am sweet Jesus a part of that deare purchace for me tho didst shed thy precious blood cast me not away I am the sheep that went astray seeke me O good shiphard and put me in thy flock that thou maist be justified in thy word for thou didst make me a promise that at what houre soever a sinner should repent him of his sins and turne to thee he should he pardoned I repent O Lord and bewaile my sins I acknowledge my iniquities I am not worthy to be cal'd thy sonne for I have sinned against Heaven and before thee But turne away O Lord thy face from my offences blot out my iniquities according to thy great mercy cast me not away from thy sight deale not with me according to my sins nor reward me after the desert of my iniquities but help me O Lord my God and Saviour and for the glory of thy name deliver me that I may prayse thee for ever more with all thy glorious elect in thy celestial kingdome of Beatitude for all Eternit A Prayer to obtayne a blessed ending O Blessed Jesu wel-spring of pitty and fountaine of endlesse mercy I humbly beseech thee to give me grace so to spend this my transitory life in vertuous and godly exercises that when the day of my death shall come though I feele paine in my body yet I may finde comfort in my soule and with faithful hope of thy mercy in due love towards thee and charity towards all others I may through thy grace depart hence out of this vaile of misery and hasten me to that glorious country wherin thou hast bought us an inheritance for ever with thy most precious blood there to praise and glorify thee with the Father and the holy Ghost three persons and one living God world without end Amen A Prayer when we begin our actions PRevent we beseech thee O Lord our actions by thy spirit assisting us and in helping forward prosecute them that all our prayers and workes may begin alwayes from thee and begun by thee may be ended through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen An Evening Prayer ALmighty and everlasting God I yeald thee most harty thankes for that thou hast vouchafed of thy great mercy and goodnes to preserve me this day from all evil and I doe also beseech thee for thy bitter death and passion most mercifully to forgive me wretched sinner all my offences that this day I have committed by thought word and deed and hereafter to preserve and keepe me from all danger both of body and soule to the end I may rise againe in health to praise thy glorious name and joyfully to serve thee in thankes giving with a chast body and a cleane hart and so for ever after behave my selfe according to thy blessed will by casting away the workes of darknesse and putting on the armour of light which Men behoulding may be provoked to glorify thee my heavenly Father who with thy only begotten sonne our only Saviour and the Holy Ghost livest and raygnest one true and everlasting God A Prayer for the sicke O Almighty and everlasting God the eternal health of them that beleeve in thee heare us for thy sicke servant for whom we humbly crave the help of thy mercy that health being restored unto him he may yeald thankes giving to thee in thy Church through our Lord Jesus Christ Amen Prayers to obtayne the grace of the Holy Ghost O God to whom each hart is open and each will doth speake and from whom no fecret lyeth hid purify by the inspiration of the holy Ghost the agitations of our hart that we may deserve perfectly to love thee and worthily to praise thee through our Lord true God Amen To obtayne the same grace for our friends O God who hast powred the guifs of charity by the grace of the holy Ghost into the harts of thy faithfull grant unto thy servants for whom we crave thy clemency health of minde and body that they may love thee with all their strength and accomplish with all love what things are pleasing unto thee through Christ our Lord. Amen To obtayne the same grace for our enemies O God the lover and keeper of peace and charity give unto all our enemies peace and true charity and grant uto them remission of all their sins and powerfully deliver us from all their deceipts through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen A Prayer to repel wicked thoughts O Almighty and mild God mercifully regard our Prayers and deliver our harts from the temptations of evil thoughts that we may deserve to be made a worthy dwelling for the holy Ghost through the same Lord Jesus Amen A Prayer to require charity O God who maketh all things to profit them that love thee grant unto our harts an inviolable desire of thy charity that the desires conceived by thy inspirations may by no temptation be altered through the same Lord Jesus Amen A Prayer to begg Patience O God who hast broken the pride of the old enemy by the patience of thy only begotten Sonne grant unto us we beseech thee worthely to call to mind what he so meekely suffered for us and by his example quietly to endure the adverse changes falling upon us through Christ our Lord. Amen A Prayer to require the suffrages of Saints WE beseech the O Lord defend us from all perils of body and mind and the glorious Virgin Mary mother of God praying for us togeather with the blessed Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul blessed S. Joseph Saint c. and all the glorious Saints and Angels thou being benigne grant unto us salvation and peace that adversities and all errours being destroyd thy Church may serve thee in secure liberty through Christ our Lord. Amen A Prayer to require continency KIndle with the fire of the holy Ghost our raines and our harts O Lord that with chast bodies we may serve thee and with pure harts please thee through our Lord and only Saviour Jesus Amen A Prayer in tyme of warre O God who dissolveth warres and by the power of thy protection dost vanquish the impugners of them that trust in thee help thy servants earnestly craving thy mercy that the cruelty of all their enemies being depressed we may praise thee with incessant thankes-giving through our Lord Jesus Amen A Prayer for peace O God from whom are all holy desires rightfull counselles and just workes give unto thy servants that peace
which the world cannot give that our harts being disposed to keepe thy Commandements and the feare of enemies being taken away the tymes through thy protection may be peacible by the merits of thy deare sonne Jesus Amen A Prayer in tyme of famine and Pestilence GRant unto us we beseech thee O Lord the effect of our prayers and by thy mercie turne away from us pestilence and famine that the harts of Men may know that such scourges proceed from thy indignation and cease by thy mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ Amen A Prayer for raine O God in whom we live are mooved and have our beeing grant unto us competent raine that sufficiently releeved by thy present aide we may more confidently desire things everlasting through our Lord Jesus Amen A prayer for faire weather HEare us O Lord crying unto thee and grant unto us making humble supplications faire weather that we who justly are afflicted for our sins may by thy grace preventing find mercy through our Lord Amen A prayer in any tribulation A Lmighty God despise not thy people crying unto thee in affliction but for the glory of thy name thou being pacifi'd succour the afflicted through our Lord Amen A Prayer for forgivenes of sins O God who rejecteth none but art pacifi'd by mercifull pitty through penance even towards the greatest sinners thou being merciful respect the prayers of our humility enlighten our harts that we may be able to fulfill thy commandements through our Lord Jesus Christ Amen A Prayer for such as are in a journey HArken to our supplication O Lord and dispose the way of thy safegard that among all varieties of this passage and life they may ever be protected by thy ayde through our Lord Jesus Christ Amen A Prayer to be said at the conclusion of our usvall prayers ACcept O most clement God by the prayers and merits of the blessed and ever Virgin Mary and of all thy glorious Saints the office of our service and if we have done any thing worthy of praise thou being mercifull regard it and what is donne negligently mercifully pardon it who livest and raignest one God in perfect Trinity world without end Amen A blessing to be used at the end of all our daily prayers The Imperiall Majesty of God blesse me The Regal Divinity protect me The everlasting Deity keepe me The glorious unity comfort me The incomprehensible Trinity defend me The inestimable goodnesse direct me The power of the Father governe me The wisdome of the sonne quicken me The vertue of the holy Ghost illuminate me and be with me Amen O souveraine and my most mercifull God let this blessing be unto me all health and safty both of body and soule against all myne enemies visible and invisible now and for ever more Amen Of Aspirations and jaculatory Prayers A jaculatory prayer is a briefe elevation of our mind and hart to God as meditation is the same at large They are a speciall great meanes to all spiritual progresse and vertue yea they are as the vital spirits and the very nerves of prayer and are to be used both in tyme of prayer and also very often at other tymes They are a great support a cherishing and a very powerfull invitation to the soule in the tyme of drynesse and desolation to raise her affection unto God This kind of prayer is very briefe easie and very fruitfull It is to be made with fervent affection devotion and true tendernes of hart as king David usually did practise it and by this holy exercise we may be enabled to obtayne that guift commended to us by our blessed Saviour Luke 18.1 Thest 5. it behooves continually to praye and never to give over pray without ceasing saith S. Paul These jaculatory prayers are often in the day to be repeated according to the diversity of occasions and oportunities either vocally or only mentally What fruit they bring and how efficacious they are to gaine perfection and to transport the mind from earthly cogitation unto celestial the experience of innumerable vertuous soules have made good proofe and wil better teach then words can expresse They are called jaculatory as darting prayers because in a moment they pierce the heavens and present our requests to Almighty God testifying the ardent desires and holy affections of a soule seeking and thirsting after the fountaine of all perfection goodnesse and sanctity Say with S. Austin O my Lord and God that I but knew thee and knew my selfe O grant me perseverance in thy graces and true contrition for all my offences Forgive me Lord the multitude of my sins and have mercy on me O my great and loving God o that I had never offended thee O that I could obtaine the right practise of true humility and patice Grant me O Lord the grace that I may hate nothing but sin and my selfe and love nothing but thee and my neighbour in thee and for thee O that thou my deare Lord may be the beginning the progresse and the end of all my actions Not my will O Lord but thyne be donne Thy will be done in earth as it is in Heaven Let al transitory things O Lord become vile unto me and let all things that are thine be deare unto me and thou O God above all Forsake me not O Lord my God depart not from me attend unto my help Psal 37. O Lord the God of my salvation To thee O Lord Psal 24. I have raised my soule my God in thee is all my confidence Create a cleane hart in me O God and renew a right spirit in my bowels Psal 50. The practise of Aspirations upon the affection of the imitation of our divine Redeemer Iesus Christ AMongst all sortes of Affections that above all others is most profitable which mouveth us to imitate that most perfect example of all divine vertues our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ stirring up our affection and desire to embrace and to imitate his holy vertues by the practise of these or the like holy and fervent aspirations Most mild most loving and patient Jesus the perfect example to be imitated grant me the grace to imitate thy mildnesse meekness patience and thy profound humility Ah grant me O most powerfull Lord in all things to be conformable unto thy heavenly will and pleasure O the true owner of my soule endowe me with thy love for which thou hat created me and nothing else can give it true rest and satisfaction but that alone O most profound humility correct my pride O invincible patience when shall I by thy example be truly patient bestow on me thy benignity to correct my cholerick passion and great impatience I beseech thee O my benigne and powerfull Lord when wilt thou bestow on me the grace to make me humble patient devout and conformable to thy holy will The practise of Aspirations upon the affection of admiration of our divine Redeemers love to Man O my God who art thou
into an ocean of infinit joyes Let us therfore resolue to shake off this stupid dulnesse in neglecting our so happy land of promisse Resolutions for the love of which we ought to dispise all earthly pleasures and vaine contents as too base and abject for our higher and more noble thoughts and hopes which we expect in Heaven An advertisment THis following exercise made by a pious and approoved Author whose humility would not permit himselfe to be knowne I have judged both usefull and very necessary for all who desire to gaine their heavenly blisse by the happy art of dying wel which must be learnt by frequent practise of holy acts in tyme of health like as they are to be used at the tyme of death for who neglects them in health will diyng hardly performe them well weaknesse paine feare trouble and many impediments very hardly then permitting a dying Man to produce those acts wherof a former habit was not gain'd Which now notwithstanding by the practise of this holy exercise being made familiar in tyme of health may also produce both happy acts and such as are not soe hard to be exercisd in that extremity of sicknesse A most profitable exercise conteyning a preparation to death Togeither with the acts necessary to dispose the soule to this last passadge As also the Recommendations of the soule in English Blessed are the servants whom when our Lord comes he shall find watching To our blessed Lord Iesus Christ SAviour of the world word Incarnate thou who art the life of those who dye and the death of those who live the life I say of those who dye by the glory which thou givest them and which thou hast purchast for them with thy most precious blood the death of those who live by the grace thou givest them to dye to the flesh and live in Spirit quicken this exercise with thy divine love to the end that by the practise of it thou maist find us so well prepared for death that we may live eternally with thee in Heaven there to blesse prayse and love thee with the Father and the Holy Ghost Amen Advise for the due practise of this exercise SInce it is a most constant truth verifid by daily experience which neverthelesse we easily forget that we must dye and that peradventure we may either be surprised by a suddaine death as we see it happen to many when they least thinke of it or that the extreame paines or other accidents of our sicknesse may deprive us of the liberty and capacity to performe acts requisit in that last houre that houre I say which is the most important of all houres that houre after which we shall have no more houres that houre which must decide our happinesse or misery for all Eternity It will be most profitable to sett aside one day in every month wherin to prepare our selves by the exercises of a spirituall death to those we should really make when we come to dye actually Watch and keepe your selves prepared sayes our Lord for the sonne of Man Mark 13 will come when you expect him not and the wise man sayes wheresoever the tree falls there it shall remayne Eccles 11 If opportunity present it selfe we ought either upon the eve or the day which we designe for this exercise to make our Sacramental Confession to the Priest notwithstanding which for greater purity and more vest preparation we may make our spirituall Consession to Jeins Christ before or after the Sacramentall each one according to his devotion After Consession we are to communicate really or spiritually in forme of viaticum and to consider it as the last Communion of out life Vpon the day we perferme this exercise if we have convenienty we ought to heare Masse to the end that in his sacrifice which is a reall representation of that of the Crosse we may more neerely and particulary unite our selves to Jesus Christ dying offring as well this as all other sacrifices which shall be offred to the end of the world for obtayning the grace of a good and holy death It will be most profitable to fix one day in every month each one according to his leasure and devotion for this exercise and they who cannot performe it all at once may take the first point in the morning and the second at some other houre of the same day or make it in two dayes But in that case the acts of contrition saith hope and charity contayned in the first point must be repeted And besides that our Meditations and lectures of that day ought to be upon the subject of death We ought further to employ our selves more particularly in good workes and practises of mortification and vertue And it is to be noted that although there be many acts prescrib'd in this exercie neverthelesse it is not intended therby to oblidge any one precisely to those acts but only to facilitate the practise of them to such as have not yet attayned to a habit of such acts for the best are those which love produces At the end of this exercise are added the Recommandations of the foule in English for the consolation of such as for a boly prevention of their death having devotion to joyne them to this exercise may not peradventure understand them in latin And in this the termes which relate to an other must be changed and applyed to our selves as in steed of saying pray for him receive his sonic we must say pray for me recove my soule and so of the rest reserving the contlusion of this exercise till after the last prayer Now the principall fruits we ought to gather from this exercise as shall besaid in the following meditation are contempt of the world disesteeme of the creatures abnegation of our selves and amendment of our faults which are the true meanes to obtayne the grace of such a death as shall be the beginning of a happy life for ever Meditation to enter into the dispositions of making a good death Place your selfe in the presence of Gods beseech him to inspire you FOr a foundation of this Meditation we must well and throughly conceive and be fully satisfied of this truth that God hath given us our life only in trust from whence it followes that if we be not alwayes prepared and dispos'd to render it to him we deny him his right of Souverainety over our beeing It is ordayned that all Men shall dye once Heb. 9. and after death followes jndgment sayes the great Apostle Considering this truth that we can dye but once and that an ill death can never be repared in the whole extent of Eternity we see how necessary it is for prevention of a surprise to watch al wayes and to live like the servant mentioned in the Gospel Duke 12. who attends the comming of his Master The first point NOw since we must necessarily dye it highly concerns us throughly to comprchend this truth that death being most
certaine and the houre of it most uncertaine all Christian wisdome consists in a good and holy preparation for that moment to the end we neglect not a businesse which is in truth to us the businesse of businesses and the sole and only businesse we have to doe in this world since we are here only to save our soule and loosing it we loose all for what shall it prefit a Man to gaine the whole world Mar. 2. if he loose his owne soule sayes our souveraine Master Jesus Christ O God how great is the blindnesse of the most part of Men who never reflecting upon this so divine and important a truth lead only an earthly sensual and animal life and never elevating their spirit to heavenly things settle their affections so firmely upon this mortal life as to preferre it before that which is eternal Iohn 10. Whosoever loves his life saies our B. Lord shall loose it and whosoever hates it in this world shall gaine it in Eternity O my God we doe not then love our life as we ought when we adhere too close to it since this adherence to our temporal life proceeding from an inordinate love of our selves putts us in danger to loose that which is eternall Since also thou thy selfe asseurest us Luke 14 that whosoever comes to thee and hateth not his owne life can not be thy disciple Grant me such a holy hatred of this mortal life as may cause me continually to aspire and pretend to that which is eternal there to live with thee world without end 2. Point PRecious in the sight of our Lord is the death of his Saints saies the Psalmist Psal 15. If we will dye their life keeping alwayes our affections alienated from the creatures as if we were to dye every moment since there is no moment wherein we may not be surprised by death and wherein we ought not to be prepared to receive it if we will not hazard our salvation We ought to surmont the natural feare we have of it by faith and by a confidence we should have that Jesus Christ who keepes the keyes of life and death and who loves us infinitly more then we love our selves will send it us in such a tyme and manner as in his divine providence he has forseene to be most convenient for us Has he not created us for life eternal Doe we not beleeve that life to be more happy then this which is mortal if we live not in this beleefe we have no faith and consequently no hope since we cannot arrive at this happy life which he has promissed us but by the way of death But what charity can that interessed soule have who loves her owne life more then the will of God and whose feare of dying exceeds her desire of seeing and uniting herselfe to him Ioh. 4. Perfect charity sayes the holy Evangelist drives fourth feare And if we ought to testify our love to God by our hatred of sin where is the hatred we beare it since knowing that we cannot live without daily relapsing into it we have neverthelesse an extreame apprehension of death O if we truly lou'd God with what joy would we embrace death to the end we might be in a state never more to be able to offend his infinite goodnesse since the least sin as the Doctors say is more to be dreaded thendeath if selfe 3. Point IF God should leave the tyme houre and manner of our death to our choyse could we make a better then he himselfe who ordaynes it by his infinite wisedome power and goodnesse and who having made us for himselfe and redeemed us with his blood desires nothing so much as to save us and conduct us to our last end Since our faith teaches us this truth why doe we not entirely abandon the care of our life and death to him What can be more advantageous to us in Heaven in Earth in life and in death then to accomplish his most just and holy will And since we must necessarily undergoe the ordees of his divine will were it not better to doe it meritoriously by an humble submission and filial confidence in his divine goodnesse then to execute it by force like the divels and by our resistance to render this action more worthy of punishment then reward If the feare of our sins cause us to apprchand death and desire prolongation of life to the end to doe penance for them what penance can be more efficacious and acceptable to God then our perfect conformity to his holy will and our entyre submission to the sentence of our death to the end to render him the obedience due from a creature to its Creator and to testify to him that we preferre the honour of pleasing him before our owne life if the merit of our acts beare proportion with the difficulty we find in their execution what can be more difficult then to renounce our life and what better penance can we performe then to give it with a good hart to God since in makeing him this present we not only give him all we are able to give but also all which is most deare and precious to us no Man hath greater charity then he who layes downe his life sayes our divine Saviour and if a God would vouchsafe for us to dye so painfull and grievous a death and loose his life upon a crosse for our salvation shall we dare to refuse him ours shall we esteeme our life more precious or more necessary then his O my soule if we lou'd God ifwe had a true sense and acknowledgment of this soveraine benefit would we not desire to have a thousand lives to give him O my God since I am nothing but by thee I will be nothing but for thee and so as I be what thou desirest I should be it imports me very little whither I live or dye Affections and Resolutions SInce that upon the moment of my death depends my eternall salvation grant me grace O my God to keepe my selfe prepared for this last houre by a true hatred of sin by a perfect contempt of the world with its vaine honours pleasures and riches and by a perfect abnegation of my selfe suffer me not to sleepe in the forgetfulnesse of death least the lampe of chrity being extinguisht and the oyle of good workes spent thou surprise me in this state and pronounce against me as heretofore against those foolish Virgins that dreadfull word I know you not but keeping my selfe alwayes in expection of thy com̄ing grant that I may merit to enter with thee to that eternall marriage where neyther eye has seene nor care hath heard nor the hart of Man comprehended what thou hast prepared for those who love thee Give me O Lord the light of thy holy spirit to the end I suffer not my selfe to be deceived and seduced by my senses in mistaking falshood for truth nor esteeme the things of this mortall life good or evill but
to this end hast thou impos'd upon him the most holy name of Jesus O divine Jesus be to me Jesus Remember what thou hast said that thou camest not for the just but for sinners O my God thou desirest not the death of a sinner but that he should be converted and live Convert me then to thee that I may live eternally Come O divine Spirit repose in my soule with thy seaven guifts to the end to purify quicken and sanctify her Consume with the fire of thy holy love all earthly inclinations yet remayning in her and strengthen her in the last passage against all the temptations of her enemies An act of Faith I Protest O my God before Heaven and Earth that I will dye in the faith and union of the holy Catholique Apostolique and Roman Church I firmely beleeve what shee beleeves and teaches because thou O God who art the eternall truth hast said and revealed it Thou art that infinit goodnesse and sanctity which cannot deceive that infinit wisedome which cannot erre From hencefourth I renounce all temptations which the enemy may suggest to me in the last moments of my life contrary to this my protestation and I render thee thankes from the bottome of my hart for the immense favour thou hast done me in placing me amongst the children of thy holy Church Recite here the Apostles Creed and make reflection upon every Article of it protest to beleeve them all An act of Hope O My God although for the multitude and enormity of my sins I most justly deserve Hel neverthelesse confiding entirely in the merits of my Saviour Jesus Christ and in the greatnesse of thy mercy which can pardon more then I can effend I will hope for remission of all my transgressions and grace to persevere in thy holy love to which I especially consecrate the last moment of my life An act of Charity O My God when shall the tyme come that my soule being separated from this mortal body and from all Creatures it shall be perfectly united to thee to live thee with that pure and invariable love wherwith the Saints in Heaven love the What doe I desire in Heaven or in Earth besids thee the God of my hart my God and my eternal portion I esseeme al things as dung and silthynesse to gayne Jesus Christ An act of Charity towards our neighbour O My Lord I begg grace and salvation for all the Creatures whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood especially for the children of thy holy Church and more particularly for those who have any way offended me I pardon them O my God from the bottome of my hart as I desire thou shouldst pardon me Desire to receive Iesus Christ O My God my Creator and my Redeemer my beginning and my end my only satiety and Beatitude I ardently desire to receive thee to the end to unite my selfe to thee Come then into my soule sanctify and replenish all her faculties come into my body and purify all its senses come into my hart and possesse all its affections to the end that every moment in the remainder of my life my be entirely consecrated to thy love A spirituall Communion by way of Viaticum I Et us heare our good Angel who invites us to eate of this bread of life and who speakes to us as heretofore to the Prophet Elias rise and eate for thou hast yet a great way to goe We may represent to our selves Jesus Christ accompanied by the B. Virgin our good Angel and holy Patrons entring into our Chamber to the end to administer to us with his owne divine hands his most sacred body as he did heretofore to his Apostles in the last supper and saying to us take and eate this is my body which shal be delivered to death to the end to give thee life Having adored him with all our hart we may say to him these words O my God since thou hast said that he who eates thee shall live eternally grant me this grace that by receiving thy holy body I may never more live but in thee by thee and for thee and that when I shal leave this mortall life I may by the force and vertue of this divine bread attaine to an union and sight of thy divine Majesty in Heaven O whence comes this happinesse to me that my God should vouchsafe to visit me O Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst come unto my soule but say onely the word and it shall be heald Having receivd him we must discourse lovingly with him calling before him all our senses and faculties to the end to sweare fidelity to him let us renew all our vowes and promisses to him and conjure him never to forsake us saying with the Disciples who were going to Emaus stay with us O Lord for it is late the evening of my life is come And with S. Simeon O Lord let now my soule depart in peace since shee hath seene thy salvation And with David ALthough I walke in the midst of the shadow of death I will feare no evill because thou art with me O God put thy selfe as a divine seale upon my hart to the end that no earthly thing may find entrance there Let us unit our Communion to that which our divine Saviour made before his death and to all other which the B. Virgin and all the Saintes have made to all those also which shall be made even to the end of the world therby to supply the defects we have committed in receiving this divine Sacrament Let us render thankes as well for the grace of the Communion as for all others which he has so liberally bestow'd upon us inviting all creaturs to blesse praise and magnify him with us by the psalme Laudate Dominum omnes gerues or the Canticle Benedicite omnia apera c. 2. Point Spirituall Extreame unction WE may represent to our sselves Jesus Christ emering into our Chamber accompanied as before in the article of Communion bringing with him the holy only compos'd of his precious blood to the end to apply to us these sacred unctions with his owne divine hands and in receiving them we may make these acts of Contrition for our sins committed by each of our senses At the unction of the eyes O Jesus my Saviour and my God I most humbly begg pardon for all my sins committed by so many inordinate lookes and teares unprofitably shed for the effacing of which vouchsafe to apply to me the merit of those amorous lookes which from the Crosse thou wert pleased to cast upon those who crucisi'd thee and of the teares thou hast shed for my salvation Of the Eares PArdon me also the sins I have committed in hearing with pleasure so many evill discourses and in satisfaction for them vouchsafe to apply to me the merit of that patience and humility wherewith thou wert pleased to heare all their blasphemies iniuries and calumnies which have been uttered against thee
each of them pronounce the holy names of Jesus and Marie and then having repeted these last words of our Saviour Into thy hands O Lord I commend my spirit We may expire in the sacred wound of the side of sweet Jesus and chusing that for our toumbe we may hide our selves in his divine hart Then after a little recollection we may say the prayers which are to be rehears'd after death Subvenite SUecour spedily o yee Saintes of God c. The rest of these prayers are plac'd at the end of the Recommendations of the soule After this exercise we ought to consider our selves as dead to the world and our selves In consequence wherof we ought often to say with S. Paul I live new no more J but Iesus Christ lives in me my life is hidden with Jesus Christ in God The recommendation of the soule which ought to begin with the little Litanies and the following prayers are to be said during the agony LOrd have mercy upon us Christ have mercy upon us Lord have mercy upon us Holy Marie pray for him All yee holy Angels and Archangels pray for Holy Abel pray for All yee quires of the just pray ye Holy Abraham S. John Baptist S. Peter S. Paul pray S. Andrew S. John Al yee holy Apostles and Evangelists Al yee holy Disciples of our Lord. Al yee holy Innocents S. Steven S. Laurence pray Al yee holy Martyrs pray ye S. Silvester S. Gregory pray S. Augustin Al yee holy Bishops and Confessors pray ye S. Benet S. Francis pray All yee holy Monkes and Heremits pray ye S. Mary Magdalen S Lucy pray All yee holy Virgins and Widowes pray ye All ye Saintes of God Intercede for us O Lord be favorable to him and pardon him his sins O Lord be gracious to him and deliver him From thy wrath O Lord deliver him From the danger of death O Lord deliver him From the paines of Hel. O Lord deliver him From the power of the devil O Lord deliver him By thy holy Nativity O Lord deliver him By thy Crosse and Passion O Lord deliver him By thy death and burial O Lord deliver him By thy glorious Resurrection O Lord deliver him By thy admirable Ascention O Lord deliver him By the grace of the holy Ghost our souveraine Comforter O Lord deliver him In the day of judgment O Lord deliver him O Lord we miscrable sinners pray thee to heare us That thou maist spare him O Lord heare us Lord have mercy upon us Christ have mercy upon us Lord have mercy upon us The Prayers Proficiscere anima Christiana GOe fourth of this world O Christian soule in the name of the Father almighty who created thee in the name of his son̄e Jesus Ch. who redeemed thee in the name of the holy Ghost who infus'd himselfe into thee in the name of the holy Angels and Archangels in the names of the Thrones and Dominations in the names of the Principalites and Powers in the name of the Cherubins and Seraphins in the name of the Patriarches and Prophets in the name of the holy Apostles and Evangelists in the name of the holy Martyrs and Confessors in the name of the holy Monkes and Herimits in the name of the holy Virgins and of all Gods Saintes let thy dwelling be this day in peace and thy habitation in holy Syon by the Merits of our Lord Jesus Christ Amen Deus misericors Deus clemens O God of mercy and clemency who according to the multitude of thy mercies forgettest the sins of such as are penitent and by pardon abolishest the guilt of their past crymes looke graciously upon thy servant N. who with a sincere confession of his hart implores remission of all his sins and mercifully heare him Repaire in him o most indulgent Fasher whatsoever is corrupted by earthly fraitly or ruind by the malice of the devil and unite this member of thy Redemption to the body of thy Church Let his sighes O Lord moove thee to pitty let his teares excite thee to compassion and receive him into the favour of thy reconciliation who confides in nothing but thy pure mercy through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen Commendo te I Commend thee deare brother to God almighty and remitt thee into the hands of him whose creature thou art to the end that when by death thou shalt have payd the debt of humane nature thou maist returne to thy Creator who form'd thee of the slyme of the earth Let the splendid quires of Angels come fourth to receive thee let the maiestical senat of the Apostles meete thee let the tryumphant Host of Martyrs accompany thee Let the glorious assembly of bright Confessors encompasse thee let the shining troupe of reioycing Virgins congratulate thee Let the embraces of a happy repose transport thee into the bosome of the Patriaches let the mild and gracious countenance of sweet Jesus appeare to thee and ordayne thee place amongst those who never cease to serve him Maist thou never know the horror of Hell the tortures of its flames nor the cruelty of its eternal torments let not wicked Sathan with his hydeous band presume to touch thee let him tremble to see thee arrive in company of the Blessed Angels and let him fly into the dreadfull confusion of eternall darknesse let God arise and let his enemies be scattered let those who hate him fly before him let them vanish like smoake and as wax melts before the fire so let sinners perish before the face of God and let the iust feast and reioyce in his sight let then all the infernall legions blush and be confounded and let not the ministers of Sathan dare to hinder thy passage let Christ who was orncifi'd for thee deliver thee from torments let Christ who vouchsafed to dye for thee save thee from eternal death let Christ the sonne of the living God place thee in the florishing pleasures of his paradise and let that true Pastor acknowledge thee for one of his flock and having absolud thee from all thy sins let him fett the at his right hand amongst his elect Maist thou see thy Redeemer face to face and being alwayes present before him lett thy happy eyes behold the manifest truth and having finally received thy place amongst the troupes of the blessed spirits mayst thou enjoy the sweetnesse of divine contemplation world without end Amen Suscipe Domine O Lord receive thy servant into that happy place where he hopes for salvation from thy mercy Amen O Lord deliver the soule of thy servant from all the dangers of Hell from the snares of torments and all paines and sufferings Amen O Lord deliver the soule of thy servant as thou hast delivered Enoch and Elias from the ordinary death of Men Amen O Lord deliver the soule of thy servant as thou hast delivered Noe from the floud Amen O Lord deliver the soule of thy servant as thou hast delivered Abraham from the Chaldeans Amen O Lord deliver the soule of
thy servant as thou hast delivered holy Job from his sufferings Amen O Lord deliver the soule of thy servant as thou hast delivered Isaac from being immolated by the hand of his Father Abraham Amen O Lord deliver the soule of thy servant as thou hast delivered Lot from Sodome and from the flames which burnt it Amen O Lord deliver the soule of thy servant as thou hast deliveeed Moyses from the hand of Pharao king of Egipt Amen O Lord deliver the soule of thy servant as thou hast delivered Daniel from the denne of Lyons Amen O Lord deliver the soule of thy servant as thou hast delivered the three children from the fiery furnace and from the hand of the wicked king Amen O Lord deliver the soule of thy servant as thou hast delivered Susanna from the false accusations of the Elders Amen O Lord deliver the soule of thy servant as thou hast delivered David from the hands of king Saul and Golias Amen O Lord deliver the soule of thy servant as thou hast delivered S. Peter and S. Paul out of prison Amen And as thou hast delivered the most holy Virgin and Martyr S. Tecle from three cruell torments so vouchsafe to deliver the soule of this thy servant and make him rejoyce with thee in the eternall possession of heavenly riches Amen Commendamus tibi WE commend to thee o Lord the soule of thy servant N. and beseech thee O Lord Jesus Christ Saviour of the world that as thou hast vouchsafed most mercifully to descend from heaven for it so thou wilt not refuse to place it in the bosome of the Patriarches Acknowledge O Lord thy creature who was not created by any strange Gods but by thee the only true and living God For as there is no God like thee so there are no workes like thyne O Lorde make his soule rejoyce in thy presence and remember not his old sinnes and excesses which the heate or fury of his inordenate desires have caused him to committ for although he hath transgressed yet he hath not denyed the Father sonne and holy ghost but beleeud and reteynd a zeale for thy glory and faithfully adord thee the God and Creator of all things Delicta iuventutis REmember not O Lord we beseech thee the offences of his youth and his ignorances but according to thy great mercy be mindfull of him in the brightnesse of thy glory open heaven to him and lett the Angels rejoyce at his entrance O Lord receive thy servant into thy kingdome Let S. Michael the Archangel who has merited to be prince of the heavenly host receive him let the Angels of God come fourth to meete him and conduct him to the holy citty of the heavenly Hicrusalem let the B. Apostle S. Peter to whom thou hast committed the keyes of the kingdome of Heaven admitt him let S. Paul the Apostle who was found worthy to be a vessel of election assist him let S. John the shaft and beloved Apostle of God to whom the secret of Heaven were reveald intercede for him let all the Apostles to whom God has givē a power of binding and loosing pray for him let all Gods Saints and elect who have suffered torments in this world for the name of Christ intercede for him to the end that being freed from the bonds of the flesh he may arrive at the glory of the heavenly kingdome by the merits of the same Jesus Christ our Lord who with the Father and the Holy ghost lives and raynes for ever and ever Amen If the soule continue in her agony the psalme 117 Confitemini here for sett downe may be reheared and also the 188. Psalme beati immaculati which is omitted here because of its length The soule going out of the body the subvenite is to be recited SUccour speedily O Saintes of God hasten yee Angels of our Lord receive this soule and offer it up in the sight of the most high Jesus Christ who has cal'd thee receive thee and let the Angels carry thee into Abraham bosome eternall rest give her O Lord and let perpetuall light shine upon her Lord have mercy upon us Christ have mercy upon us Lord have mercy upon us Our Father c. From the gate of Hell O Lord deliver this soule Let her rest in peace Amen O Lord heare my prayer And let my cry come to thee We commend to thee O Lord the soule of thy servant N. that being dead to the world he may live to thee and those sins which through frailty of humaine conversation he has committed lett them be pardned by thy infinit goodnesse and mercy and by the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ Amen Confitemini Psalme 117. PRaise our Lord for he is good for his mercy endures for ever Let Israel now say that he is good for his mercy endures for ever Let the house of Aaron now say that his mercy endures for ever Let those who feare our Lotd now say that his mercy endures for ever In my tribulation I called upon our Lord and our Lord heard me at large Our Lord is my helper I will not feare what Man can doe to me Our Lord is my Protector therfore will I despise my enemies It is better to trust in our Lord then to trust in Men. It is better to hope in our Lord then to hope in Princes All nations compased me about but in the name of our Lord I have taken vengance upon them They have girt and environd me round but in the name of our Lord I have taken vengance upon them They have surrounded me like Bees but in the name of our Lord I have taken vengance upon them They pusht and thrust me so as I staggerd and had almost falen but our Lord sustaynd me our Lord is my force and my prayer and he is become my salvation The voyce of joy and health in the tabernacles of the just The right hand of our Lord has wrought mighty things the right hand of our Lord hath exalted me the right hand of our Lord has shewd strength I will not dye but live and declare the workes of our Lord. Our Lord by correction hath chastised me but he has not given me over to death Open me the gates of righteousnesse that entring into them I may blesse our Lord this is the gate of our Lord the just shall enter into it I will praise thee because thou hast heard me and art become my salvation The stone which the builders rejected the same is become the head of the corner This our Lord hath done and it is admirable in our eyes This is the day which our Lord has made let us rejoyce and be glad in it O Lord save me O Lord prosper me blessed is he who comes in the name of our Lord. We have wisht you happinesse who are of the house of our Lord God is our Lord he has shind upon us Ordayne a festivall day in triumph let it extend even to the hornes of
passions and therfore we must not rest only in our prayer as in the end of our work for perfection consists not in much consolation or sweetnesse or sensible gust in our prayer but in that perfect victory over our selfe over our passions and unruly affections as is said nor in the sublimest prayer but in that which with a pure intention doth syncerely seeke the encreace in Gods divine love our owne aduanement in vertu with true resignation to the wil of God and a perfect contempt and abnegation of our selves renouncing all curiosity of Spirit and self satisfaction by it for otherwise we seeke not God so much as our selves and our owne interest and therfore no marvaile if we doe not finde him The certaine markes and most evident signes of false and meere counterfeit prayer THe first marke If our manners and conversation be nothing amended 2. If there be great levity and vanity in our actions 3. If great remisnesse in obligations of piety 4. If our care and diligence be small to avoyde evill occasions and the causes of our most habituall sin 5. If we presume to be now arrived to a high degree of prayer or aspire to visions revelations or extaces c. Or to the like favours in the passive way 6. If passions beare sway in vs. 7. If mortification seeme harsh and vnpleasant 8. If our senses be petulant and wanton 9. If to temptations we make but a weake and carelesse resistance 10. If labour and employment be ircksome to vs. 11. If the yoake of Gods law seemes heavy and his counsels unsupportable 12. If we finde our selves lasie and listlesse to all spirituall affaires 13. If worldly puntillios of honour and temporall respects goe nearest to our hart and affection 14. If holy Crosses patience and obedience seeme bitter and unpleasing 15. If we neglect and misregard or not respect nor esteeme the advise of our superiour and ghostly Fathers 16. If finally we carry our selves carelesly and negligently in the amendment and correction of such faults as apparently are knowne to us for such These are all evident markes and most assured signes of evill counterfeit and false devotion and naughty prayer which we ought with all speed and industry resolutely to amende and change The Litany of our Lord and divine Saviour Iesus LOrd have merecy upon us Christ have mercy upon us Lord have mercy upon us Jesus heare us Lord Jesus graciously heare us God the Father of Heaven Have mercy upon us God the sonne Redemer of the world Have mercy c. God the holy ghost proceeding from the Father and the sonne Have Holy and glorious Trinity three persons and one God Have mercy Jesus sonne of the living God have Jesus splendor of the Father Jesus brightnesse of Eternal light Jesus king of glory Have mercy Jesus the sunne of justice Jesus sonne of the Virgin Mary Jesus whose name is called wonderfull Have mercy upon us Jesus the mighty God Jesus the Father of the world to come Have mercy upon us Jesus the Angel of the great counsel Jesus most powerfull Jesus most patient Jesus most obdient Have mercy Jesus milde and humble of hart Jesus lover of chastity Jesus our Love Jesus the God of peace Jesus the Author of life Jesus the example of vertues Jesus the zealous seeker of soules Jesus our God Have mercy upon us Jesus our Refuge Jesus the Father of the poore Jesus the Treasore of the faithfull Jesus the good shiphard Jesus the true light Jesus the Eternall wisdome Jesus all-infinite goodnesse Jesus the way the truth and the life Jesus the ioy of Angels Have c. Jesus Maister of the Apostles Jesus the teacher of the Evangelists Jesus the strength of Martyrs Jesus the light of Confessors Jesus the purity of Virgins Jesus the Crowne of all Saints Have mercy upon us Be propitious unto us Speare us Lord Jesu Be propitious unto us Spare c From all sinne Lord Jesu deliver us From thy anger From the deceipts and snaires of the Divel From the spirit of fornication From perpetuall death From all neglect of thy holy inspirations Lord Jesus deliver us By the mystery of thy most holy incarnation By thy Nativity Lord Jes deliv us By thy Infancy By thy divine life By thy labours and trauells By thy Agony and Passion By thy Crosse and dereliction By thy unspeackable paines and languishings Lord Jesus c. By thy death and buriall By thy glorious Resurrection By thy Assention into Heaven By thy incomparable joyes By thy Eternall glory Lambe of God that taketh away the sins of the world Spare us Lord Jesu Lambe of God that taketh away the sins of the world Lambe of God that taketh away the sins of the world Haue mercy c. Jesu heare us Lord Jesu graciously heare us Let us pray O Lord Jesus Christ who hast said unto us aske and you shall receive seeke and you shall find knock and it shall be opned unto you grant we beseech thee upon this our most humble petition the effect of thy divine love that we may love thee with our whole hart and never cease from thy praises nor from glorifying thy holy name O most loving and our divine Redeemer Jesus worke in us the perpetuall love to geather with the feare of thy sacred Humanity which thou hast annointed and sanctifi'd by the vnion of thy Deity that we may be evermore subiect and obedient to thee since thou doest never leave those destitute of thy grace whom thou hast establisht in the solidity of thy love who with the Father and the Holy ghost liveth and rayneth God world without end Amen The Litany of our B. Lady of Loretto LOrd have mercy upon us Christ have mercy upon us Lord have mercy upon us Christ heare us Christ graciously heare us God the Father of Heaven Have mercy upon us God the sonne Redeemer of the world Haue mercy upon us God the Holy ghost Holy Trinity one God Have mercy upon us Holy Mary Pray for us Holy Mother of God Holy Virgin of Virgins Mother of Christ Mother of Divine grace Most pure Mother Most chast Mother Undefiled Mother Untouched Mother Lovely Mother Pray Glorious Mother Mother of our Creatour Mother of our Saviour Most prudent Virgin Venerable Virgin Renowned Virgin Powerfull Virgin Mild and meeke Virgin Faithfull Virgin Pray Myrrour of Justice Seate of Wisdome Cause of our joy Spirituall vessel Honorable Vessel Vessel of devotion Pray Mysticall Rose Strong Tower of David Solid Tower of ivory Goulden habitation Arke of Covenant Gate of Heaven Morning starr Pray Health of the sick Refuge of Sinners Confortresse of the afflicted The Helpe of Christians Queene of Angels Queene of Patriarkes Queene of Prophets Queene of Apostles Queene of Martyrs pray Queene of Confessors Queene of Virgins Queene of all Saints Lambe of God who taketh away the sins of the world Spare us o Lord. Lambe of God who taketh away the sins of the world Heare us o