Meditation on the Twenty-fifth Psalm: The Twenty-fifth Psalm Explained

The Complete Works of Menno Simons in Modern English

Part I

Meditation on the Twenty-fifth Psalm: The Twenty-fifth Psalm Explained

14. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear him, and he will show them his covenant. O Lord, Lord, the thoughts of my heart terrify me, and my heart trembles within me, because, with Ezra, I perceive that so many are born in vain. What shall I say, dear Lord? Shall I say that you have ordained the wicked to wickedness, as some have said? Far be that from me. I know, O Lord, that you are eternally good, and that nothing wicked can be found in you. We are the works of your hand, created in Christ Jesus for good works, that we should walk in them. Water, fire, life and death you have left to our choice. You do not will the death of the sinner, but that he should repent and live. You are the eternal light; therefore you hate all darkness. You do not desire that any should perish, but that all should repent, come to the knowledge of your truth, and be happy. O dear Lord, so grievously have they blasphemed your unspeakably great goodness, eternal mercy and almighty Majesty that they, O gracious God, Creator of all things, have made you out to be like a cruel devil, by saying that you are the source of all evil, you who are the Father of days and of lights. It is plain that evil cannot flow from good, light from darkness, nor life from death; yet their stubborn hearts and carnal minds must be attributed to your will, so that they may continue on the broad way and have a cover for their sins; and this because they do not acknowledge your divine goodness, nor their own inbred wickedness. O Lord God, you have loved us with an eternal love; you have chosen us before the foundation of the world, that we should be blameless and holy before you in love, not regarding what we find written by the faithful Paul concerning Esau, Pharaoh and Israel; he has done all for us, for the best, so that we should give the honor to your name and not to ourselves. What do we miserable sinners have to boast of? What do we have that we have not received from you? All that we have is of your fullness. For this all who know your word thank you. O dear Lord, the mystery of your holy word is not revealed to the rich, the honorable or the wise, but to the poor, simple children. Yes, Father, said Christ, such was your good pleasure. Isaiah says, You will look on the miserable, and on those who are of a broken spirit and who fear your word. Therefore, dear Lord, we miserable sinners pray you to lead us in your truth, to teach us your mysteries, and to enable us rightly to know the power of your covenant, that you are ours and we are yours, that covenant which you have made with us in Christ, without any merit on our part. For your mystery will be found with those who fear you and with those to whom you have made known your covenant.

15. My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he shall pluck my feet out of the net. O Lord! you who bear rule! I say with the prophet, If you should mark iniquity, who could stand? I, a miserable, great sinner, have with the full lust of my heart turned to all folly, to gold, silver, pride, haughtiness, to strange and forbidden flesh. I have turned my eyes to open idolatry, to wood and stone, and have served them many years, on high mountains and under green trees, as the prophet said, My idolatry was according to the number of my days. I have bowed my knee before the graven and molten images and said, Save me, for you are my God. I sought sight from the blind, life from the dead, and help from those who could not preserve themselves from dust, corruption, thieves and worms. Yes, I have said to a weak, perishable creature that grew out of the earth, was broken in a mill, baked by the fire, chewed with my teeth and consumed by my stomach, to a mouthful of bread: You have released me; as Israel said to the golden calf, “These are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt,” Exodus 22, verse 4. O God! so I, a miserable sinner, courted the whore of Babylon for many years, for I supposed that she was modest, honest and chaste, a queen of righteousness, glorious, holy and acceptable in your eyes; for I saw her adorned with purple and scarlet, with gold and precious stones and pearls, a golden cup in her hand, powerful over all kings on earth. Therefore I did not know that she was so very loathsome and polluted; that in such a splendid cup there was so much abomination; that she was such a shameless, impudent whore and murderess, who deceived the world, persecuted the chosen, and drank the blood of the saints. But now I have seen her abominations, and I quake, because I left you, the living Well, so long, and comforted myself with useless pools that can give no water; because I gave your honor to images and other creatures, and worshiped the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. This happened in part through the deceitfulness of my eyes, because I was bewitched in my heart by the goodly appearance of the woman. But now, dear Lord, my eyes are constantly directed to you until you hear me; they are directed to your mercy seat until I obtain grace and mercy from you; for you alone are he who can help me in the time of my temptation and pluck my feet out of the net of sin.

16. Turn to me, and have mercy on me; for I am desolate and afflicted. O Lord of hosts, my sins and transgressions I do not hide from you, but I openly acknowledge that I spent my former days after the will of the heathen and walked with them in all kinds of ungodly lusts, pride, wantonness, in eating and drinking, and in abominable, blind idolatry. I did all that pleased my wicked flesh; I was a child of wrath, even as others; your holy name I held in derision; your word was like a fable to me; relying on your grace, I did all kinds of evil. I was like a whitewashed sepulcher: outwardly, in behavior, I was moral, chaste and mild, and there was no one who reproved my conduct; but inwardly I was full of dead men’s bones, stench and worms; my platter was clean on the outside, but within it was full of plunder and lust. What I did in private is a scandal to mention; all my thoughts were unclean, vain, proud, ambitious and ungodly; my heart was full of ill will, hatred, envy, vengeance and dislike; my thoughts were bent on every kind of wickedness; I sinned without limit; I feared neither God, devil, law, gospel, heaven nor hell; there was nothing that could hold me back; I regarded neither you nor your word; my course was onward to all wickedness; I sought nothing but the friendship and love of this world. I did not commit adultery, fornication and other such abominable sins before men only because I feared to lose their favor and my reputation, and not because I feared you; yet my vanity, merriment, drunkenness, sinful lusts, open sins, weakness, pride and idolatry were called the true worship; indeed, all my dealings, private and public, were not hidden from your eyes. So I, a grieved sinner, spent my days, and did not, O God of grace, acknowledge you as my God, Creator and Redeemer, until your Holy Spirit taught me through your word, made known to me your will, and gave me a partial knowledge of your mysteries. Now I know how dishonorably I have walked before you, no differently than if I had spat in your face, treated you with indignity, and derided you as foolish. O Lord, have mercy on me; for I am desolate and afflicted; my sins are great and many; my conscience troubles me; my thoughts make me quake; my heart laments and sighs because I sin so heinously before you; my sins have separated me from you, hidden your face from me, and stirred up your wrath. I have become a prey and a brand of the burning pool; although the longer, the more I was grieved, the more I was consoled by your word, for it teaches me of your mercy, grace and favor, and the remission of my sins through Christ, your beloved Son, our Lord, not regarding that I neither knew nor feared you. This promise calms and gladdens me; it leads me, with the sinful woman, to your blessed feet, with full confidence and a clear conscience, knowing well that you will not cast off your returning son, although I have spent your fatherly inheritance and possessions dishonorably, with harlots and rogues, in a strange country, and devoured it in my unrighteousness. My God, turn the pleasing face of your peace toward me; I have sinned before heaven and in your sight; lay your hand of grace on me; have mercy on me, a poor sinner; for I am desolate and afflicted.

17. The troubles of my heart are enlarged; O bring me out of my distresses. O Lord, Lord, my heart weeps and sighs; my conscience quakes and trembles; my soul is like a grieving mother deprived of her only child, who cannot be comforted, since I, an ungodly sinner, neither sincerely sought, acknowledged nor valued your godly love and fatherly kindness. I have lived more disgracefully than the irrational creatures; for they, in eating, drinking and other things, do not go beyond their instinct and do not transgress the laws of nature; but I have lived more uselessly, sinfully, intemperately and unrighteously against the laws of nature than my ungodly flesh naturally desired. I was conscious that the desires of my flesh were death; your Spirit warned me of my evildoing; yet my flesh suppressed all warning. I was in all things a servant of sin, and sworn to unrighteousness. I drank down sin like water; my delight was in every kind of folly; the outstretched arm of your grace I did not see; your calling voice I did not hear; your inviting love I did not regard. In short, I hated your knowledge, and your fear I cast behind me. And this is not all, dear Lord, that I acted so lamentably in my ignorance; but I daily find that my righteousness is like filthy rags; when I think I am going, I am falling; when I stand, I am down; and when I am something, I am nothing. Therefore, O Lord, preserve me, for the fear of my heart is very great, indeed greater than I can express; I am often like a woman in labor; my face has turned pale; my hands are on my loins because of the trouble of my heart; the dangers of hell surround me; the fatness and marrow of my bones are dried up. For here neither money nor possessions, neither flesh nor blood avail; my soul is at stake; eternal life or eternal death is the issue. I therefore pray, Do not forsake me, dear Lord, but open the eyes of your mercy and see my great burden; stand by me and deliver me from all my distress.

18. Look on my affliction and my pain, and forgive all my sins. O Lord, you who bear rule, if the righteous call on you, you receive them; you are near to those who are of a broken heart; you comfort those who are of a contrite spirit; the offering acceptable to you is a contrite spirit; a broken heart you do not despise. You sent your beloved Son, anointed with your Holy Spirit, to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, Luke 4, verse 18; to comfort all who mourn; to appoint for those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. He preached ransom to all who are heavy laden and come to him with faithful hearts; he invites all the thirsty to the waters of life; he bore all our sins in his own body on the cross, and blotted out our debt by his blood, even as Moses did before through types and shadows, when he sprinkled unclean Israel with the blood of oxen and rams and with the ashes of the heifer; under the law nearly all things were purified by the shedding of blood, Numbers, chapter 19; Hebrews, chapter 9. If the figurative blood had such power that it could purify the flesh to sanctification, how much more shall the blood of the beloved Son, who offered himself without spot through the eternal Spirit, purify our consciences from dead works! O ever-living God, through the merits of your Son and through the riches of your grace we receive the remission of our sins; indeed, through his blood you reconciled all on earth and in heaven above. I therefore, dear Lord, confess that I have or know of no remedy for my sins; for neither works nor merits, neither baptism nor the Lord’s Supper can avail, although all sincere Christians use both as signs of your word and hold them in respect; but only the precious blood of your beloved Son, which is bestowed on me, and who has graciously redeemed me, a poor sinner, through mere grace and love, from my former walk. Therefore, O God of truth, with whom there is no lie, remember the words of your prophet which he spoke in your name, namely, “If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he has committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die; all his transgressions that he has committed, they shall not be mentioned to him,” Ezekiel 18, verses 21 and 22. O my God, do not look on me, but on the eternal Melchisedec, Christ Jesus, whom you have appointed high priest over your house; on the blessed King of your righteousness, who has neither beginning nor end of days and is a high priest forever; who did not honor himself, but is ordained by you, as Aaron was; who in the days of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared. For his sake hear me; for his sake accept me; for his sake be merciful to me; console your afflicted servant. I have no comfort, neither in heaven above nor on earth, but in you alone; have mercy on me in my great distress. My unclean, sinful flesh afflicts me; my wicked nature wages war against me; and besides, for your word’s sake I have become an abomination, an outcast and a fable to all men. All who hear of me shake their heads at me; without and within I have no peace. I say again, my sins fight against me; my soul is in tribulation and pain. Therefore, dear Lord, I do not pray to you for gold and silver, for they can profit me nothing in the day of vengeance, nor for long life, for they are always perverse; but this alone I desire of you with my whole heart, that you would look on me, a miserable sinner, with the gracious eyes of your mercy, comfort me in my affliction and pain with your Holy Spirit, and forgive all my sins.

19. Consider my enemies, for they are many, and they hate me with cruel hatred. O Lord of hosts, when I was of the world, I spoke and did as the world, and the world did not hate me; but as soon as I had eaten the book that was shown to me, although it was sweet as honey in my mouth, yet it made my belly bitter; for there was written in it lamentations, and mourning, and woe, Ezekiel 2, verse 10. While I served the world I received my reward; all men spoke well of me, even as the fathers did of the false prophets. But now that I love the world with a godly love, have sought their welfare and happiness from my heart, and rebuked, admonished and instructed them with your word, pointing them to Jesus Christ and him crucified, they have become to me a grievous cross and the gall of bitterness. So fiendish is their hatred that not only I myself, but all who love me and show me favor and mercy, must in some places look for imprisonment and death. O blessed Lord! I am more despicable in their eyes than a notorious thief and murderer; I am like a lost sheep in the wilderness of the world, chased, tormented and pursued to death by ravenous wolves. Am I not like a person without hope, forsaken and comfortless, like a ship in the depth of the ocean, without mast, sail and helm, tossed about by every wave and every tempest? My flesh had almost said, I am betrayed; because I find the unrighteous, perverse nation enjoying riches, honor and prosperity, and resting in quiet and peace, while the godly must endure so much hunger, thirst, affliction and violence; their dwelling is insecure; they must toil and labor for their bread; they are cursed, defamed, persecuted and hated by all men, as the filth of the world and as an abomination. O blessed Lord! my enemies are many and great; their heart roars like the furious lion; their words are like deadly arrows; their tongues are always against me. At one time they revile me as a false seducer, at another they reproach me as an accursed heretic, although by your grace I possess nothing but unyielding truth. So I am their mortal enemy because I instruct them in the way of righteousness. O Lord! I am not ashamed of my doctrine before you and your angels, much less before this rebellious world; for I know assuredly that I teach your word. I have taught throughout a true repentance, a dying to our sinful flesh, and the new life that comes from God. I have taught a true, sincere faith in you and in your beloved Son, that it might be made powerful through love. I have taught Jesus Christ and him crucified, very God and very man, who in an incomprehensible, inexpressible and indescribable manner was born of you from all eternity, your eternal Word and Wisdom, the brightness of your glory, and the express image of your person; and that in the fullness of time, through the power of your Holy Spirit, he became, in the womb of the unspotted virgin Mary, real flesh and blood, a visible, tangible and mortal man, like Adam and his descendants in all things, yet without sin; born of the seed or lineage of Abraham and David; who was dead and buried, arose again, ascended into heaven, and so became before you our only and eternal Advocate, Mediator, Intercessor and Redeemer. If all the prophets, apostles and evangelists have not taught this with the greatest clearness from the beginning, I will gladly bear my shame and reproof. I have taught no other baptism, no other Supper, no other ordinance than that sanctioned by the unerring word of our Lord Jesus Christ and the declared example and practice of his holy apostles, to say nothing of the superabundant evidence of the historians and learned men of both the primitive and the present church. Since, then, I support my doctrine by the evidence of your plain, ineffable word and by the ordinance of your Son, who can reprove me and show with the argument of truth that I am an impostor? Does not the whole Scripture teach that Christ is the truth and shall abide forever? Is not the apostolic church the true Christian church? We know that all human doctrines are chaff and froth, and that antichrist has spoiled and corrupted the doctrine of Christ; why then do they hate me because, out of pure zeal, I teach and set forth the doctrine of Christ and his apostles unadulterated? No one, however, hates the opponents of antichrist except those who are his members. If I did not have the word of Christ, how gladly would I be taught it, for I seek it with fear and trembling; in this I cannot be deceived. By grace, through the influence of your Holy Spirit, I have believed and accepted your holy truth as the sure word of your pleasure; it will also never deceive me. Let them write and shout, threaten and dispute, boast, root out, persecute and destroy as they please; still your word will triumph, and the Lamb will gain the victory. Indeed, I rest assured that with this my doctrine, which is your word, I shall at the coming of Christ judge and condemn not only men but also angels. And though I and my beloved brothers were utterly rooted out and taken from the earth, yet your word would remain eternal truth. We are no better than our fellow workers who went before us. Yet the time will come when they shall exalt your power and look, perhaps too late, on him whom they have pierced. O Lord! with what cruel hatred they hate me! Whom have I slandered in a single word? Whom have I cheated of a penny’s worth? Whose gold, silver or cattle have I desired? I have loved them with a pure love, even to death; your word and will I have taught them, and by your grace I have shown them with earnest diligence the way that leads to felicity; therefore my enemies are many and hate me with cruel hatred.

20. O keep my soul, and deliver me; let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in you. O Lord, Lord! the word of Paul fills me with terror, where he says, “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall,” “For if a man thinks himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself”; for the flesh, without your Spirit, is utterly blind in divine things, ignorant, entirely false and unjust, indeed sin and death, as I have remarked publicly in speaking of David and Peter. For though David was a great prophet, a man after your own heart, faithful in all your ways, yet when your Spirit departed from him, where were his chastity, love, humility and the fear of his God? Did he not become an open adulterer, murderer and boaster of his own glory, until your Spirit again enlightened him by the word of the prophet, and he acknowledged the deadly sin he had committed and how foolishly he had acted before you? So also with Peter: he acknowledged Christ, your beloved Son, not by flesh and blood but by the Spirit of your grace; he was called by Christ a stone and a rock; he was ready to go with Christ into prison and to death. The trial came; your Spirit forsook him for a season; he could not bear the trifling words of a maid; he denied Christ and swore that he did not know him. But as soon as Christ looked on him and your Spirit returned, he acknowledged his fall, wept bitterly, and afterward publicly preached the name of Jesus among all nations, paying no regard to his having been strictly forbidden to do so by imprisonment, stripes and threatening words. He answered frankly, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” I beseech you, therefore, blessed Lord, that you will keep my soul, which is bought with so dear a price, lest I turn from your truth; for though I may now think with Peter that I could give my life for you, and with Paul that neither tribulation, nor distress, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor peril, nor sword, nor life, nor death, nor any other creature shall be able to separate me from your love, yet I do not know myself well enough. All my trust is in you. I have not yet resisted to blood; although I have drunk a little of the cup of your affliction, yet I have not tasted the dregs; for when prisons and bonds are suffered, when life and death, fire and sword are threatened, then the gold will be separated from the wood, silver from the straw, and pearls from the stubble. Do not forsake me, therefore, gracious Lord; for trees of the deepest root are torn up from the earth by the violence of the storm, and the lofty, firm mountains are torn apart by the force of the earthquake. Did not Job and Jeremiah, men of your love, very nearly lose all patience in temptation and murmur against your will? Do not let me, therefore, gracious Lord, be tempted above what I am able to bear, for you are true and faithful, lest my soul be ashamed. I do not pray for my flesh, being well aware that I must one day suffer and die; but this alone I desire, that you strengthen me in my warfare, help and preserve me, make a way for me to escape in temptation, deliver me, and let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in you.

21. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on you. O Lord of hosts! O God, when the husbandman had sown good seed in his field, his enemy came while he slept and sowed tares among the wheat; so that when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan came also among them, Job, chapter 1. Wherever Jesus is, there the devil will be found near at hand, as, alas, I have observed in my short time. Your saving word, your gracious gospel, which is the proper food of my soul and imparts to it the power of eternal life, and which has been trampled on for so many years by antichrist as an idle tale and a useless fabrication, is again received, believed and acknowledged in power by some, through the influence of your compassionate favor. The hellish lion or behemoth now roars in excessive rage; he walks about seeking to devour them; he has no rest or repose, knowing well that his kingdom and dominion must decline and be destroyed by it. He uses all his cunning and subtlety and transforms himself into an angel of light. Those whom he has lost through your word he has lured again by false doctrine into his snare and net, and by means of false prophets and unskillful teachers he has changed the pure, wholesome sense of the Scriptures into a meaning entirely carnal and wholly calculated to mislead; he has authorized the sword and destructive weapons, and stirred up a vengeful spirit against the whole world; moreover, he has instituted open adultery under cover of the custom of the Jewish fathers, and also set up a literal king and kingdom, together with many other abuses, at which a sincere Christian is astonished and confounded. But all that you have not planted shall come to nothing. O Lord! preserve me pure and upright in your truth, that I may neither believe nor teach anything that is not in conformity with your holy will and word: with true faith, sincere love, real baptism and Supper, a blameless life, and a scriptural separation from those who cause offense in doctrine and in life. Preserve me, gracious Lord, from all error and heresy; preserve me as you have done until now in your mercy; grant that I and my beloved brothers may seek, love and fear you with all our hearts, and render obedience to the magistracy in all things not contrary to the word of God; for this, says Paul, is good and acceptable in your sight. Preserve us from the wiles of the devil, who would gladly teach us of another king after the spirit besides the true King of Zion, Jesus Christ, who rules over your holy mountain with the iron scepter of your word, is King of kings and Lord of lords, is set at your own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come; under whose feet all things are put; who has all power in heaven and on earth; before whom every knee must bow, and every tongue confess that he is Lord, to the glory of your great name. O gracious Lord, let integrity and uprightness preserve me under your cross, that I may not deny you and your holy word in the time of temptation, nor conceal your divine truth and will under the mask of hypocrisy, lies and obscure, equivocal expressions; so that at the appearing of your dear Son, my Lord Jesus Christ, I may receive with all saints the promised kingdom, inheritance and reward which, with firm assurance and perfect confidence, we daily hope for and expect as the consequence of your gracious promise.

22. Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles. O Lord of hosts, now that I have confessed my sins before you, prayed for my transgressions, praised your mercy and desired your grace, I must, with David, beseech you on behalf of my brothers; for I see Israel scattered abroad and going astray like sheep without a shepherd, and the pleasant vineyard of the Lord laid waste and trodden down by all men. The chosen seed of Abraham, the house of Jacob, has again become a real slave or bondservant in the grievous service of Pharaoh in Egypt; the royal line of Judah is carried away into Babylon, together with the holy vessels, which are so lamentably abused by Belshazzar and his concubines. Jerusalem, the personification of peace, which was likened to a dove, is changed into a barbarous devourer of innocent blood and a rapacious lioness; she who was princess among the nations, the city of the great king, has become destitute of kings, citizens and walls, waste and solitary. The temple of the Lord, the house of prayer, in which the true worship ought to be performed, has become a notorious nest of robbers, a den of lions, bears, wolves, basilisks, dragons and serpents, a house of all idolaters; indeed, the unchaste bed of the adulteress Jezebel. The bride of Christ, the glorious church, who was clothed in variegated raiment and decked with divine ornaments in honor of the king, is changed completely into a disgraceful harlot. The ark of the Lord, the glory of Israel, is seized by the Philistines and taken into the temple of Dagon. Why make a long lament? Judea is changed to Babylon, Canaan to Egypt, and Palestine to Sodom; and the King of glory, Christ Jesus, blessed forever, is daily regarded as a simpleton and despised as a fool; his holy apostles, the beloved witnesses of your truth, must as liars give way with their doctrine to all men; his knit or woven garment, which the Scriptures would not have rent or divided, is torn into four or five pieces; antichrist exercises authority and dominion in all countries by the preaching of lies; and your word is banned and rejected with violence. If I travel east, west, north or south, I find in all places nothing but vain obstinacy, perversion, blindness, avarice, pride, wantonness, rioting, drunkenness, pomp and splendor, strife, envying and ungodliness. I find (I repeat) violence, false doctrine and an impure, deceptive use of your sacraments throughout the world; I find the influence of tyrants triumphing in the courts of all princes; I find that the learned speak like the beast, are ambitious, avaricious, gluttonous, earthly and carnally minded, and teach according to the lusts and desires of men; there are scarcely any who seek the truth, and if there are, they must bear your cross. Therefore my cheeks are wet with tears day and night; my soul finds no comfort; neither bread nor drink is sweet to my taste. Like the prophet Micah, I may well go naked, make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning like the owls; for the wound of Israel is incurable. In sorrow I may well lament with Esdras and say, “Our sanctuary is laid waste, our altar broken down, our temple destroyed; our psaltery is laid on the ground, our song is put to silence, our rejoicing is at an end; the light of our candlestick is put out, the ark of our covenant is spoiled, our holy things are defiled, and the name that is called upon us is almost profaned; our children are put to shame, our priests are burnt, our Levites are gone into captivity, our virgins are defiled, and our wives ravished; our righteous men carried away, our little ones destroyed, our young men are brought into bondage, and our strong men have become weak; and, which is the greatest of all, the seal of Sion has now lost her honor; for she is delivered into the hands of those who hate us,” Second Esdras 10, verses 21 to 23. Redeem Israel, O God, out of his troubles! Look with the eye of your mercy on our great misery and distress; release us from the iron furnace of Egypt; bring us out of the land of the Chaldees; let the holy city be built again on her own heap, with walls and gates; repair and rebuild your fallen temple, whose stones are trampled on in every street. Gather together your wandering sheep; receive your returning bride, who has behaved so perversely with strange lovers. O God of Israel, create in us a pure heart that longs for your blessed word and will. Send out faithful laborers into your harvest, who cut and gather the grain in due season; perfect the builders who lay a good foundation for us, that in the last days your house may be established and appear above all the hills, that many people may go there and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths,” Isaiah 2, verse 3; that we may walk before you in peace and liberty of conscience all the days of our lives, under a good government and blameless teachers, with a Christian baptism, true Supper, godly life and a just separation; that you may in power be eternally honored and praised in us, as in your beloved children, through your dear Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, to whom with you, O Father, and your Holy Spirit, be praise and everlasting dominion. Amen.