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PRAYER OF THOMAS BRADWARDINE,

Archbishop of Canterbury.

TH

`HYSELF, O my God, I love, Thyself for Thyself, above all things. For Thyself I long. Thyself I desire as a final end. Thyself for Thyself, not aught else, I always and in all things seek. With my whole heart and strength, with groaning and weeping, with continual labour and grief. What therefore wilt Thou give me as my final end? If Thou dost not bestow on me Thyself, Thou bestowest on me nothing. If Thou dost not give me Thyself Thou givest me nothing. If I find not Thyself, I find nothing. To no purpose dost Thou reward me, but Thou torturest me grievously. For even before that I sought Thee I hoped to find and hold Thee at last. And with this honeyed hope I was sweetly consoled in all my labours. But now, if Thou deniest me

Thyself, and that not for a season, but for ever, whatever else Thou shalt give me, being disappointed of so great a hope, shall I not always languish with love, mourn with languishing, grieve with mourning, weep with grieving, because I shall ever remain void and empty? Shall I not mourn mourn inconsolably? complain unceasingly? grieve interminably? This is not Thy wont, O God of goodness, of clemency, and love; it is in no wise fitting, in no point seemly. Grant, therefore, O my gracious God, that in the present life I may ever love Thyself for Thyself, above all things; and in the future world may find Thee, and hold Thee for ever. Amen.

OF PENITENCE.

CONTRITION.

ITTERNESS of soul; compunction of

BITTE

heart; a torn, a broken, a contrite soul; sorrow according to God: groaning: indignation.

CONFESSION.

Acknowledgment: prayer deprecating the

past and the future.

All have sinned;

If Thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it? No flesh shall be justified in Thy sight. He cannot answer one of a thousand. What then? hast Thou made all men for naught?

God hath granted repentance unto life. A place is left for repentance, if sin only lieth at the door.

Yet now there is hope concerning this thing.

This is the decree of the Most High, as it
were a city of refuge, the better covenant.
And God Himself beseeches us
by proclaiming, by complaining,
by swearing, by waiting;

by promising paradise to innocence,
the kingdom of heaven to penitence;
by threatening, unless men turn.

Prayer sacrificeth the mind, conquereth the devil, pleaseth God.

Fasting sacrificeth the body, conquereth the flesh, benefiteth ourselves.

Almsgiving sacrificeth the goods, conquereth the world, benefiteth our neighbour.

AN ACT OF CONFESSION

AND PLEADING.

I.

EHOLD me, O Lord, behold me;
the greatest, the worst, the most
wretched of sinners.

And what shall I now say, or in what shall I open my mouth?

What shall I answer, since myself have done it, have done it, have done it!

I will reckon my sins before Thee in the
bitterness of my soul;

O that it may be in its bitterest bitterness! Behold, for my peace I had great bitterness. O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt Thou recover me, and make me to live. Like a crane or a swallow, so will I lament; I will mourn as a dove.