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Certain Prayers fit for the time.

Set forth by authority.

Imprinted at London by ROBERT BARKER, Printer to the
Queen's most excellent Majesty.

Anno Dom. 1600.

Certain Prayers fit for the time.

ALMIGHTY God and most merciful Father, who of thy infinite goodness towards all Countries and Nations, for the avoiding of confusion, hast appointed Kings and Princes as thine Angels and Lieutenants, and the Seals of thy similitude, full of wisdom and beauty, to rule and govern in thy Name the people on the earth committed to their charge: commanding all their Subjects to honour, and in no sort to resist them, but to obey them in thy fear, even for conscience sake; and likewise to offer unto thee for them all Supplications, Prayers, Intercessions, and Thanksgiving, as being the Lights, the preservation, and the means under thy Divine Majesty of the Peace, the Health, Prosperity and Glory of all their Subjects and Kingdoms: We thy humble servants, bowing down the knees of our hearts, and prostrating ourselves before thy glorious Throne, do render unto thee all Praise, Power, Honour and Thanksgiving for thy most gracious favour and merciful deliverance of our most dread Sovereign Lady (thy Vicegerent in her Dominions) QUEEN ELIZABETH, as ever heretofore, so at this time, from the traitorous attempts and desperate designments of sundry most unkind and disloyal wicked persons; who, forgetting their duty both towards thee (O Lord) and towards thine Anointed, have in the height of their Pride, after a popular sort, with divers false pretences, and many slanderous calumniations, sought in open Rebellion not only the destruction and extinguishing of thy Servant, our Comfort, our Health, and our Glory; but the utter ruin also and tragical overthrow of this our native Country, her Majesty's (through thy manifold mercies) so worthy, so happy, and so renowned a Kingdom. This thy most mighty and Fatherly protection (O Lord God

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[LITURG. QU. ELIZ.]

XLIV.

of hosts) we entirely beseech thee, with penitent hearts for our former offences, to continue over us from age to age, by defending still the sacred person of our Sovereign Lady, from all such dangerous designments; her Kingdoms and Countries from all treacherous practices; and us her Subjects from the deceitful baits and crafty allurements of all popular and ambitious dissembling Absalons: that so our hearts being still replenished with the joy of thy Salvation, we may daily present in all thankfulness before thy Fatherly goodness the freewill offerings and sacrifices of our lips, always praising and magnifying thy blessed Name, through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost, three persons and one God, be all honour and glory from this time forth for evermore.

O ETERNAL and gracious GOD, Father of peace, and Protector of government; who with a special eye of providence watchest over the heads of Princes, upon whose safety the lives of many thousands do depend: We thy humble Servants do bow down the knees of our hearts, and pour forth our souls in thankfulness before thee, for thy so gracious and merciful deliverance of our dread Sovereign thy Handmaid from the traitorous intents and desperate Conspiracies of disloyal Subjects, who have risen up against thine Anointed, and like unnatural Children have rebelled against the Mother of their own lives, that took them up from their cradles, and cherished them in her own bosom, and laded them with honours and preferments; to the great dishonour of thy Name, to the slander of thy Gospel, to the danger of confusion to their own native Country. But thou, O Lord of Hosts, our deliverer, didst overthrow them in their own imaginations, and by thy judgments hast declared them enemies to thine own Majesty; Thou didst put thy obedience into the hearts of thy faithful people, and, without shedding of their innocent blood, didst miraculously beat down the swords of all that rose up against thine ordinance. For which thy unspeakable goodness towards us, vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to receive the freewill offerings of our hearts, and calves of our lips in praises to thy glorious Name; Who, notwithstanding our manifold sins and transgressions, hast not yet forgotten to be gracious, but heapest mercy upon mercy,

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causest blessing to follow and overtake blessing, as the waves of the Sea. To thee therefore, our Saviour and Defender, our Watch-tower, and our Rock, we will sing the Songs of thankfulness, and call upon thy blessed Name for evermore; Beseeching thee so to continue the favour of thy countenance towards thine own anointed Magistrate, and us her faithful people; that our Light may never go out, and our Song may never cease in this land: but that thy glorious acts may sound in every Congregation, ever praise and honour and glory to thee, that sittest upon the Throne for ever and ever. Amen.

Most mighty God, which art the author of order, and the hater of confusion, to which purpose thou hast generally shewed thy wisdom in advancing Princes to rule, whom it hath pleased thee to dignify with thine own name; and more particularly, in thy exceeding love to this our land, hast placed over us a most renowned Queen, religious to thee her God, kind to her Subjects, merciful even to her enemies: As we magnify thy glorious name for that unspeakable benefit, so at this time principally we yield thee in all humble duty most hearty thanks for this thy late protection, both of her sacred Royal person, and of her faithful people, from this mutiny thus rebelliously complotted, this rebellion so outrageously attempted, this outrage so dangerously continued, by defeating their popular hopes upon which they trusted, by uniting true subjects' hearts unto their Prince anointed, by appeasing this sudden uproar without much bloodshed, and in the end by quelling the enraged spirits of the chief Conspirators: who, if either their Sovereign's countenance and continuance of her gracious favours, or her magnificence in their extraordinary advancements, or her clemency in pardoning their manifold contempts, could have moderated them, would never have shewed themselves either causelessly discontented, or discontentedly disobedient. Lord, how often hath thy power and mercy been manifested in revealing Conspiracies devised, in preventing treasons intended, in terrifying hearts outraged, in scattering forces assembled! All which we ascribe not to any merit of ours, whose sins do daily provoke thy favour to wrath, but only to that love which thou bearest unto thy chosen Anointed, and to thy Gospel pro

fessed. The prosperous continuance of them both we humbly crave of thee, most gracious God, with assistance of thy grace to make us more thankful than heretofore we have been, that walking worthy of our vocation, and loyally to her Majesty, we may perform that due obedience to them both, which in thy sight is better than sacrifice, and adorneth those which profess the name of thy Son Christ Jesus; to whom, with thee and the Holy Spirit, we acknowledge all praise and glory for this late, and all other thy mercies extended now and for evermore. Amen.

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THE more thy providence (O Lord) doth even visibly from heaven still manifest itself by so many, so strange deliverances of thine Anointed our Queen, and in Her, of us all: the more and the more often are we bound to have our hearts bent to the considering, and our mouths opened to the magnifying, of thine uncessant goodness towards us, to no people of the earth ever the like. The more are we bound, and as we are bound (as is our duty), so is it our desire thus to do and though we have no thankfulness, wherewith to come near it, yet it is our desire in some sort to seek to express it: and the more our desires, the less our deserts have been, ever to see such and so many mercies, so often shewed upon us. For what are we, Lord? or what is there in our unworthy profession of thy holy Truth, that thou shouldst respect us at all? Yet how many, how marvellous have been those demonstrations, which heretofore thou hast vouchsafed us, in preserving thy chosen servant our Sovereign from a number of plots and practices, some foreign, some domestical, some deep and secret, some sudden and violent, all of them to the hazard of her Sacred person and life; on whose life dependeth the life and life's-joy of so many thousands! And this was yet a small thing in thy sight (O Lord): but even now again, even at this very instant, thou hast renewed thy mercy, in discovering and disappointing this late dangerous and desperate resolution. And what can we say more unto thee? For thou, Lord, knowest thy servants. For thy truth's sake, and according to thine abundant lovingkindness and compassion over us, hast thou done all these great things. O Lord our God, as they should, and as we would they should; so cause these,

all these thy mercies, first and last, to enter into our hearts, and keep them for ever in the minds and memories of this people, and prepare our hearts to be thankful unto thee. And, O Lord, (for it is thou that hast done this) let it please thee to confirm for ever thine own work: and as thou hast, by thus often delivering thine Handmaid our Queen, brought her hitherto, that she is now thy First-born, the most renowned and ancient1 Prince of all that profess thy Name; so let her be blessed for ever with thy blessing, that she may long enjoy this honour. And now and ever shew thou thy marvellous lovingkindness, that she may long enjoy it, remaining ever happy, happy in the love and loyalty of her people, happy in the folly and fall of her enemies, and thrice happy in the continual comfortable experience of thy favour, power, and care, still upon every occasion thus mightily, mercifully, miraculously preserving her, to the continuance of thy truth still among us, of the comfort and contentment of thy people, and of the everlasting remembrance of thy goodness, and praise of thy holy Name, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

MOST holy and everliving God, the inestimable riches of whose mercies toward us we are more willing to confess than able to comprehend, daily and hourly drawing from that infinite Treasury which we never can consume, from the deepest acknowledgement of our own wretchedness and highest admiration and adoration of thy glorious goodness, we bless thy sacred Majesty, and from the ground of our hearts ascribe honour to thy praiseworthy Name: that it hath pleased thee from time to time with the early and late showers of all sufficient blessings to water thine inheritance, this little Kingdom, and by infallible arguments of continual graces to make known to the whole world, that thou lovest the Gates of England more than all the Habitations of our neighbour Countries about us. Namely thou hast dwelt in the midst of us with the presence and protection of thy good will to keep us from the danger of those fires, which both abroad and at home men of unquiet spirits have kindled against us. Many mischiefs have the ungodly devised, which they were not able to bring to pass. The bottomless deep of [Elizabeth at this time was in her sixty-eighth year.]

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