O eternal and most gracious God, who, though thou beest ever infinite,
yet enlargest thyself by the number of our prayers, and takest our often
petitions to thee to be an addition to thy glory and thy greatness, as
ever upon all occasions, so now, O my God, I come to thy majesty with
two prayers, two supplications. I have meditated upon the jealousy which
thou hast of thine own honour, and considered that nothing comes nearer
a violating of that honour, nearer to the nature of a scorn to thee,
than to sue out thy pardon, and receive the seals of reconciliation to
thee, and then return to that sin for which I needed and had thy pardon
before. I know that this comes too near to a making thy holy ordinances,
thy word, thy sacraments, thy seals, thy grace, instruments of my
spiritual fornications. Since therefore thy correction hath brought me
to such a participation of thyself (thyself, O my God, cannot be
parted), to such an entire possession of thee, as that I durst deliver
myself over to thee this minute, if this minute thou wouldst accept my
dissolution, preserve me, O my God, the God of constancy and
perseverance, in this state, from all relapses into those sins which
have induced thy former judgments upon me. But because, by too
lamentable experience, I know how slippery my customs of sin have made
my ways of sin, I presume to add this petition too, that if my infirmity
overtake me, thou forsake me not. Say to my soul, _My son, thou hast
sinned, do so no more_;[344] but say also, that though I do, thy spirit
of remorse and compunction shall never depart from me. Thy holy apostle,
St. Paul, was shipwrecked thrice,[345] and yet still saved. Though the
rocks and the sands, the heights and the shallows, the prosperity and
the adversity of this world, do diversely threaten me, though mine own
leaks endanger me, yet, O God, let me never put myself aboard with
Hymenæus, nor _make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience_,[346] and
then thy long-lived, thy everlasting mercy, will visit me, though that
which I most earnestly pray against, should fall upon me, a relapse into
those sins which I have truly repented, and thou hast fully pardoned.