PREFACE.

THE author's design, in publishing this third edition of the following Prayers, is principally a wish to furnish the people amongst whom he has laboured for the period of eighteen years, with a manual, cheap and simple, that they may not be able to excuse themselves from the daily performance of so excellent, needful, and beneficial a duty as that of Family Worship. A duty which he has constantly urged upon their attention, and is glad to know that some have been induced to adopt it. In writing them, he has endeavoured to make them short, spiritual, and scriptural; and has been indebted in various places to sentences and ideas taken from formularies which he is accustomed to use in his own family. The Prayers have been preceded by five addresses, the substance of which had been delivered to them at different times, and published with an intention of stimulating them to the performance of a long-neglected duty. These are omitted

in this edition, with the exception of this paragraph:-" The solitary perfume of secret 66 prayer, the combined incense of family "worship, the mingled odours of public de"votion, the prayers of all saints, derive an

activity, a force, an elevation, from the "mediation of Jesus Christ the Redeemer, "which raise them to the Throne of God; "where, being accepted through the Be"loved, they descend again in showers of "let blessings on the believer's head;" .

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us never forget that prayer is the breath of "the soul, and the link between miserable "man and his merciful Creator. Prayer is "the prescribed channel by which all our "desires are conveyed to the Author and "the Giver of all our mercies; on this ac"count we are desired to pray in the true 66 spirit of real want to Him, Who out of "His fulness in Christ Jesus can give us 66 every thing we stand in need of."

God alone, through Jesus Christ, is the object of all prayer. All supplications, therefore, to saints or angels, are not only useless, but blasphemous. All worship of the creatures-however exalted that creature is-is

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idolatry and strictly prohibited in the law of God. Nor are we to pray to the Trinity, as three distinct Gods: for though the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, be addressed in various parts of the Scripture, yet never as three Gods; for that would lead us directly to the doctrine of Polytheism ; the more ordinary mode the Bible points out, is to address the Father through the Son, depending on the Spirit to help our infirmities. For Prayer is an offering up of our desires to Almighty God, for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, by the help of His Spirit, with confession of our sins, and grateful acknowledgment of His mercies. Nothing can be more rational or consistent than this duty. It is a Divine injunction, that men should "always pray, and not faint."

NORTH ROAD,
January 1st, 1851.

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FAMILY PRAYERS.

First Week.

SUNDAY MORNING.

O GOD, thou art good, and art continually doing good. Thou art good to all, and thy tender mercies are over all thy works.

We humbly approach thee this morning to ask thy blessing, and to thank thee for what thou hast done, and art continually doing, for us, miserable sin

ners.

Bow down thine ear, and hearken to the voice of our supplications. We

bless thy holy name for defending us through the dangers and uncertainties