VI. THANKSGIVING TO GOD for withdrawing and ceasing the

plague.

The Psalm.

O praise the Lord, for it is a good thing to sing praises unto our God: yea, a joyful and pleasant thing it is to be thankful.

O give thanks unto the Lord, and call upon his name, and tell the people what he hath done.

For it is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most Highest:

To tell of thy loving kindness early in the morning, and of thy truth in the night season.

We will sing of the Lord, because he hath dealt so lovingly with us: yea, we will praise the name of the Lord most Highest.

We will magnify thee, O Lord: for thou hast set us up, and not made our foes to triumph over us.

For thou, Lord, hast made us glad through thy works: and we will rejoice in giving praise for the operation of thy hands.

For, O Lord our God, we cried unto thee, and thou hast healed us. Thou hast brought our souls out of hell: thou hast kept our life from them, that go down to the pit.

For great is thy mercy towards us, and thou hast delivered our souls from the nethermost hell.

Praised be the Lord daily, even the God which helpeth us, and poureth his benefits upon us.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, longsuffering, and of great goodness.

[ The present title is similarly circumstanced with that prefixed to the first of Sir John Mason's prayers, composed in 1568. See p. 516. The terms employed are not to be taken absolutely, but must be limited and explained in each by the obvious purport of the composition, to which they refer.]

[In Strype this is numbered 12, which makes the last verse the 28th. Perhaps it is a mere typographical error.]

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous: yea, our God is 13. merciful.

Psal. 116.

For his wrath endureth but the twinkling of an eye, and in his plea- 14. sure is life heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the Psal. 30. morning.

He will not alway be chiding, neither keepeth he his 15. for ever. anger

Psal. ciii.

He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according 16. to our wickedness.

For look, how wide the east is from the west, so far hath 17. he set our sins from us.

For like as a father pitieth his children, even so is the Lord merciful 18. to them that fear him.

For he knoweth whereof we be made: he remembereth 19. that we are but dust.

For thou, Lord, art good and gracious, and of great mercy unto all 20. them that call upon thee.

Psal. 86.

Thou hast forgotten the offence of thy people, and covered 21. all their sins.

Psal. 85.

Thou hast taken away all thy displeasure, and turned thyself from 22. thy wrathful indignation.

Thou hast turned our heaviness to joy: thou hast put off 23. our sackcloth, and girded us with gladness.

Psal. 30.

Turn thee, again, O Lord, at the last, and be gracious unto thy 24.

servants.

Psal. 90.

O satisfy us with thy mercy, and that soon: so shall we 25. rejoice and be glad all the days of our life.

Comfort us again, after the time that thou hast plagued us: and for 26. the year wherein we have suffered adversity.

Shew thy servants thy work, and their children thy 27. glory and the glorious majesty of the Lord our God be upon us. Prosper thou the work of our hands upon us, O prosper thou our handy work.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:

As it was in the beginning. &c.

[A Psalm1 compiled out of the Book of Psalms, and appointed by the Bishop to be used in public, upon the abatement of the Plague.

UNTO thee, O Lord, lift we up our eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.

Even as the eyes of servants look unto the hands of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hands of her mistress: even so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until he have mercy upon us.

In our trouble we have called upon the Lord: with our voice we complained unto our God, and our prayers entered into his ears, and he heard us out of his holy temple.

Many there were that did say of our souls, There is no help for them in their God.

But salvation belongeth unto thee, O Lord, and thy blessing is upon thy people.

We will tarry the Lord's leisure with patience, and put our trust in him, and he will comfort our hearts.

They that know thy name, O Lord, will put their trust in thee, for thou hast never failed them that seek thee.

Thou healest those that are broken in heart, and givest medicine to heal their sickness.

Finish, therefore, O Lord, the work of thy mercy, that thou hast begun in us: save the residue that are appointed to death.

Shew thy marvellous loving kindness to us, thou that art the saviour of them that put their trust in thee.

Quicken us, O Lord, for thy name's sake: for thy mercy's sake bring our souls out of trouble.

The glorious majesty of our God be upon us: prosper thou the work of thy hands upon us, O prosper thou the work of thy hands.

God is a righteous Judge, strong and patient, and God is provoked every day.

If a man will not turn, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready, and ordaineth his arrows against the wicked and ungodly.

[This Psalm, if Strype is correct, does not belong to the Service here given still, he clearly refers it to Grindal, and to the present period. See his Life, p. 82; and the Appendix, p. 6. Can it have constituted part of some similar Form, put forth on the same occasion by another bishop for his own diocese ?]

Psal. 4.

Let us therefore always set God before our eyes: Let us 15. stand in awe and sin not: Let us offer up the sacrifice of righteousness, and put our trust in the Lord.

Let us have an eye unto the laws of the Lord, and keep his ways, 16. and not forsake our God, as the wicked doth.

Psal. 18.

Let us live uncorrupt before him, and eschew our own 17. wickedness.

Let us come near unto his house, even in the multitude of his mercies, 18. and in his fear let us worship toward his holy temple.

Psal. 5.

Then he will lift up the light of his countenance upon us, 19. and bless us.

Psal. 4.

Then may we lay ourselves down in peace and take our rest: for it 20. is the Lord only that maketh us dwell in safety.

Psal. 5.

For thou, O Lord, wilt give thy blessing unto the righte- 21. ous, and with thy favourable kindness wilt thou defend him, as with a shield.

O how plentiful is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them 22. Psal. 3[1]. that fear thee, and that thou hast prepared for them that put their trust in thee, even before the sons of men.

Thanks be to the Lord: for he hath shewed us marvel- 23. lous great kindness in a mighty city.

Psal. 16.

We will thank the Lord, because he hath given us warning: we will 24. sing of the Lord, because he hath dealt lovingly with us: Yea, we will praise the name of the Lord most High.

Psal. 5.

Let all them that put their trust in the Lord rejoice: 25. they shall ever be giving of thanks, because thou defendest them they that love thy name shall be joyful in thy salvation.

Psal. 18.

The Lord liveth, and blessed be our gracious helper: and praised be 26. the God of our salvation, which hath delivered us from the snares of death.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever. &c.]

The Prayer or Collect.

WE yield thee hearty thanks, O most merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee in thy wrath to remember thy mercy, and partly to mitigate thy severe rod of this terrible plague, wherewith thou hast hitherto most justly scourged us for our wickedness, and most mercifully revoked us from the same:

calling us (who in health and prosperity had clean forgotten both thee and ourselves) by sickness and adversity to the remembrance both of thy justice1 and judgment, and of our miserable frailness and mortality; and now, lest we by the heaviness of thine indignation should have utterly despaired, comforting us again by the manifest declaration of thy fatherly inclination to all compassion and clemency. We beseech thee to perfect the work of thy mercy graciously begun in us: And forasmuch as true health is, to be sound and whole in that part, which in us is most excellent and like to thy Godhead, we pray thee thoroughly to cure and heal the wounds and diseases of our souls3, grievously wounded and poisoned, by the daily assaults and infections of the old serpent Satan, with the deadly plagues of sin and wickedness: by the which inward infection of our minds these outward diseases of our bodies have by the order of thy justice, O Lord, issued and followed, that we, by thy fatherly goodness and benefit, obtaining perfect health both of our minds and bodies, may render unto thee therefore continual and most hearty thanks, and that, by flying from sin, we may avoid thine anger and plagues, and ever hereafter, in innocency and godliness of life studying to serve and please thee, may both by our words and works always glorify thy holy name. Which we beseech thee to grant us, O Father of mercies and God of all consolation, for thy dear Son, our only Saviour and Mediator, Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

['terrible justice. These notes shew the original readings of the manuscript copy.]

[from.]

[the great murtherer and old serpent.]

[ minds, as it were out of a most corrupt sink, these.]

[ flowed.]

[ anger, and ever.]

[s of sin from henceforth.]