A Prayer of Surrender and Love
This is sweet language in prayer, when the soul is in a right frame.
‘Lord, I confirm all my former dedications of myself to thee; and may all my covenantings be forever ratified. Or if I did never yet sincerely give myself up to the Lord, I do it now with the greatest solemnity, and from the bottom of my heart. I commit my guilty soul into the hands of Jesus my Redeemer, that he may sprinkle it with his atoning blood, that he may clothe it with his justifying righteousness and make me, a vile sinner, accepted in the presence of a just and holy God. I appear, O Father, in the presence of thy justice and holiness, clothed in the garments of thine own Son, and I trust thou beholdest not iniquity in me to punish it. I give my soul, that has much corruption in it by nature, and much of the remaining power of sin, into the hands of my almighty Saviour, that by his grace he may form all my powers anew; that he may subdue every irregular appetite and root out every disorderly passion; that he may frame me after his own image, fill me with his own grace, and fit me for his own glory. I hope in thee, my God, for thou art my refuge, my strength, and my salvation. I love thee above all things, and I know I love thee. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee. I desire thee with my strongest affections, and I delight in thee above all delights. My soul stands in awe and fears before thee; and I rejoice to love such a God who is almighty and the object of my highest reverence.
Extract from A Guide to Prayer.
Notes
Latest Articles
Thomas Chalmers on the Evangelistic Power of a Visiting Minister 27 March 2025
Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) was a powerful advocate of pastoral visitation (as indeed he was of preaching, which, as the ‘proclamation of the Gospel’, he saw as the minister’s ‘main work’). In his tract On the Right Ecclesiastical Economy of a Large Town[mfn]The article is largely concerned to argue for the ‘parochial’ or parish system under […]
The Death-Bed of John Knox: A Poem, by Anne Ross Cousin 18 February 2025
Anne Ross Cousin is best known as the authoress of the hymn, The sands of time are sinking. Its nineteen verses (in its original form) are based on the death-bed sayings of a remarkable seventeenth century Scottish preacher, Samuel Rutherford. What is not so well known is that Anne Ross Cousin put into verse some […]