Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God:

If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things 2.

Examine me, O Lord, and prove me: try my reins and my heart 3.

I will wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compass Thine altar, O Lord*.

Prayer for a faithful discharge of the duty of selfexamination.

O most holy, and most glorious God, Who hast declared that Thou wilt be sanctified in all them that come nigh Thee; and hast commanded us to examine ourselves before we presume to approach Thy table; grant me, I beseech Thee, so seriously to consider the transcendent dignity of this holy sacrament, and the great peril of the unworthy receiving thereof; and so to examine my conscience by the rule of Thy commandments, that I may never become obnoxious to the dreadful sentence which Thou hast denounced against those who eat and drink unworthily.

My heart, O Lord, is corrupt, and deceitful above all things; how can I know it? O Thou Who searchest the reins, and requirest truth in the inward parts, and dost also make us to understand wisdom secretly, discover to me all the evil and deceits of my own heart, and help me so impartially to judge and condemn myself, and so penitently to acknowledge and bewail my great sinfulness and wretchedness, that I may not be condemned in the last day, when I shall be summoned before Thine awful tribunal to give a strict account of all my thoughts, and words, and actions.

1 1 John iii. 21.

2 Ibid. ver. 20.

O let me not act partially or carelessly in a matter of such vast importance; but give me grace so diligently to search every secret of my heart, that I may leave no sin unrepented of; but may come holy and clean to this heavenly feast in the marriage garment required in Holy Scripture; and may be received by Thee as a worthy partaker of Thy holy table, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

2. True repentance for our former sins, and a stedfast purpose to lead a new life.

Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand '. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish 2. Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven3.

Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord*.

In that day, saith the Lord, I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon Me Whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born 5.

In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.

Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the

1 Matt. iii. 2.

2 Luke xiii. 3.

4 Acts iii. 19.

5 Zech. xii. 10.

3 Matt, xviii. 3.

6 Ibid. xiii. 1.

leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth'.

Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh, hath ceased from sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh, to the lusts of men, but to the will of God 2.

For how shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ, were baptised into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection : knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin 3.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God*.

Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness'?

What fruit had ye then in those things whereof are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of

1 1 Cor. v. 7, 8. 2 1 Pet. iv. 1, 2.

3 Rom. vi. 2-7.

sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord'.

A confession of our sinfulness, and prayer for sincere contrition.

O most holy Lord God, Who beholdest all our ways, and understandest the most secret imaginations of our heart, I desire to humble myself before Thee with shame and confusion of face, in a deep sense of my great wretchedness and unworthiness by reason of the original corruption of my nature, and the manifold sins and provocations of my life.

I confess, O Lord, that I was conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity; and while I have forgotten Thy laws, and neglected to seek to Thee as I ought for the assistance and guidance of Thy Holy Spirit, the corruptions of my heart have increased more and more, and drawn me into the commission of many great and shameful sins, and led me to the omission of many great and important duties 2.

These my transgressions, O Lord, which I now confess and bewail before Thee, and many more than I can recollect or number, have made me less than the least of Thy mercies, and utterly unworthy of Thy grace and favour. But, I beseech Thee, let the same infinite goodness, which amidst all my provocations hath spared me thus long, prevail with Thee to accept this confession and humiliation of a penitent sinner. Give me a deep sense of the evil of sin, and of my own vileness and wickedness in offending so holy and so gracious a God, against the clearest knowledge of Thy will, the checks of my own conscience, and the highest obligations both of duty and interest.

1 Rom. vi. 21-23.

2 Here make a particular confession of the sins of which upon examination you find yourself to have been guilty.

And grant, I humbly pray Thee, that the remembrance of my exceeding great folly, and perverseness, and ingratitude in my former offences, may work in me a hearty indignation against myself, and fill my soul with shane, and sorrow, and confusion; that when I come to Thy holy table I may offer unto Thee the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart, which is always acceptable in Thy sight, through the merits and mediation of Thy Son Jesus Christ my only Saviour and Redeemer. Amen.

Resolutions to live better for the future.

With this profession of my unfeigned sorrow and repentance for my past sins, I humbly offer up to Thy Divine Majesty my most earnest desire to be delivered from them for the time to come, and my sincerest resolutions to use my utmost endeavours to reform whatever has been amiss in the temper of my mind, or the course of my life; and especially to forsake all those sins that I know myself most apt to be betrayed into, and to labour after those virtues in which I have hitherto been most defective *.

And that I may never fall from these good purposes through the temptations of the world, or the deceitfulness of my own heart, I here solemnly purpose to set Thy laws always before mine eyes, and to keep a strict watch over all my thoughts and ways; to remember my own weakness and frailty, and to pray daily for the assistance and conduct of Thy blessed Spirit; to avoid as much as in me lies all occasions and incitements to sin, and by a religious use of Thy holy ordinances, both in public and private, to

* Here renounce the particular sins you find yourself in greatest danger of falling into, whether by nature or custom, or the course of your business and conversation; and pray that you may be enabled to