Ejaculations and short Meditations to be used in the night, when we awake.

Stand in awe and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still. I will lay me down in peace and sleep; for thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell in safety.⁵⁷⁵⁷Psalm iv. 4, 9.

O Father of spirits, and the God of all flesh, have mercy and pity upon all sick and dying Christians, and receive the souls which thou hast redeemed returning unto thee.

Blessed are they that dwell in the heavenly Jerusalem, where there is no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God does lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.⁵⁸⁵⁸Rev. xxi. 23. And there shall be no night there, and they need no candle; for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever.⁵⁹⁵⁹Rev. xxii. 5.

Meditate on Jacob’s wrestling with the angel all night: he thou also importunate with God for a blessing, and give not over till he hath blessed thee.

Meditate on the angel passing over the children of Israel, and destroying the Egyptians for disobedience and oppression. Pray for the grace of obedience and charity, and for the Divine protection.

Meditate on the angel who destroyed in a night the whole army of the Assyrians for fornication. Call to mind the sins of thy youth, the sins of thy bed; and say with David, ‘My reins chasten me in the night season, and my soul refuseth comfort.’ Pray for pardon and the grace of chastity.

Meditate on the agonies of Christ in the garden, his sadness and affliction all that night; and thank and adore him for his love, that made him suffer so much for thee; and hate thy sins which made it necessary for the Son to suffer so much.

Meditate on the last four things. 1. The certainty of death. 2. The terrors of the day of judgment. 3. The joys of heaven. 4. The pains of hell: and the eternity of both.

Think upon all thy friends who are gone before thee; and pray that God would grant to thee to meet them in a joyful resurrection.

“The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night;⁶⁰⁶⁰2 Pet. iii. 10. in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up. Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be, in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God?”

Lord, in mercy remember thy servant in the day of judgment.

Thou shalt answer for me, O Lord my God. In thee, O Lord, have I trusted: let me never be confounded. Amen.

I desire the Christian reader to observe, that all these offices or forms of prayer (if they should be used every day) would not spend above an hour and a half: but because some of them are double (and so but one of them to be used in one day) it is much less: and by affording to God one hour in twenty-four thou mayest have the comforts and rewards of devotion. But he that thinks this is too much, either is very busy in the world, or very careless of heaven. I have parted the prayers into smaller portions, that he may use which and how many he please in any one of the forms.

Ad. Sect. 2.