London: Thomas Mabb, 1660.

A Prayer for the Kings Birthday, May 29.

O Lord God, the great disposer of Kings and Kingdomes, and who in thy Mercy didst design thy servant our persecuted Soveraign Lord King Charls to be the Heir of these Kingdomes, though in thy secret Judgements towards this sinfull Nation thou hast suffered the sons of violence to keep him hitherto from inheriting his Fathers Throne.

We thy unworthy servants are here met together, upon the Anniversary Day of his Nativity to offer unto thee a gratefull commemoration & our humble thansgivings for thy great Blessing in bestowing upon us at first so hopefull a Prince; And withall, to bewail our unworthiness of having so good and gratious a Prince as yet to exercise his Raign over us; we bewail those many sins of ours, whereby we have helped to cut off the Royall Father, and whereby we still assist to the keeping our of his Royall Son.

However, we beseech thee, O Lord, to grant, that as thy hands did fashion him, and as he was fearfully and wonderfully made in his Mothers womb, so his heart may still be in those hands of thine, to preserve him from all danger, and to mould him to all Christian and Princely Graces.

Give him years of Happiness and Joy, for those years of bitterness and sorrow wherewith thou hast afflicted his soul.

Cause him to know, that the end for which he was born, was not so much to govern others, as to submit himself to thee; and to lay his Crown and Scepter at the Feet of the Lamb.

And grant Holy Father, that that as now he has finished twenty nine years of his life, and most of those years under the severity of thy Discipline; So he may spend the Remainder of his life, (and may have those years doubled and trebled to him,) in the successes of thy favour.

As thou dost add days to his years; so let it be thy good pleasure to add happiness to his days; exchanging his Banishment into restauration, and his Crown of thorns into a Crown of Majesty here, & of Glory hereafter.

This day didst thou take him out of his Mothers womb, to live here a little time. O mayst thou at the last day take both him and us out of our Mothers womb again, even the grave, and the womb of the Earth, to live with thee for ever, through Jesus Christ our Lord,

Amen, Amen.

Project Canterbury