John Armstrong

“ For the sick whom Thou chastenest in Thy love I offer up my prayers; heal their sickness if it be expedient for them. May it do Thy work in their souls, that they be not chastened in vain. May they look up to Thee, and turn to Thee with a new heart, and repent upon their beds, and in their patience shew forth the fruits of repentance. May their sickness be received as an angel into their house; may they entertain it as an angel and minister of grace; when it shall depart may they remember that they have had an angel, and consider the message wherewith it was sent unto their souls. ”

“ For the sinners of my flock,, the great sinners, who live wilfully in sin, who harden their hearts against Thee, I have need most earnestly to pray. Move them to repentance, good Lord; melt their impenitent hearts, that they may open their eyes and behold the peril of their souls. Draw them out of the mire, that they sink not; turn Thou them, and they shall be turned; convert them, and they shall live; though they have sinned desperately, forgive their sins; I pray Thee let not these poor souls, so blind, so dead in sin, perish in the everlasting fires. O shew forth Thy great mercy ”

“ For them I pour out my soul with an intensity of desire. By Thine own feeling of the pains of death, by Thine own experience of the mystery of death, by Thine own former pangs, have mercy upon them, both now and in the actual hour of death. ”

“ And all these souls must be judged at the last day by Thee, the Judge of all flesh, every one, each one, in his own order, singly, by himself, for his own deeds done in the body; they are now sowing to immortal life or immortal death, to true life or true death; to life immortal with Thee, if Thou acceptest them in Thy mercy, to death eternal, in the gulf of death, if Thou turnest Thy face away from them, and knowest them not in that day. ”

“ In the hour of temptation, when they are enticed into youthful sins, do Thou succour them with gifts of the Holy Ghost: enable them to resist temptation; give them boldness, the resolute mind, the fear of sin, the tenderness of science, stedfastness, that no persuasion of evil companions, nor the voice of any charmer, nor ridicule, nor false shame, nor any pleasure which sin promises, may draw them away towards the paths of hell. "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way, even by ruling himself after Thy Word." ”

“ Shew them for their souls' sake the vanity and deceitfulness of the world, its ill returns for hard service, uncertain payments for great labours, perishableness of its riches, changeableness of its praise, insincerity of its love, its forgetfulness of its own children, its utter unprofitableness, failing in time of trial, unstable as water, unsatisfying to an immortal soul. There are many whose callings are dangerous, subject to especial snares, like slippery places, wherein it is difficult to stand upright: these, Lord, either take from such callings, or enable them to walk unharmed. ”

“ As they have but the fragment of a span left, grant that all their thoughts may be turned heavenwards, that heaven may be begun in them before they go hence out of the world, and that the world may be dead in them before they die. May their last days be the holiest of all. May their light be burning so much the more in the inner man as their outward house wastes and decays. Prepare their souls, most holy Father, for the last judgment, through Jesus Christ. ”

“ Every face that I behold must be changed by the mighty working of Thy power into an eternal fashion, fit for the eternal light of Thine own kingdom, or for the place of devils; yea, not face only must be changed, but the whole body ”

“ Give the aged above all men a watchful spirit; preserve their senses; let not their minds grow dim and fail; let not darkness fall on them, nor a second childhood, till they have finished their course and fought their fight. ”

“ How fearful a thing it must be to be chastened without bearing any fruit of correction, to have Thy rod laid on us and yet to retain our sins! What remains to be done unto a soul that after chastening returns to its sins! ”

“ Do Thou visit them in their afflictions, give them "patience under their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions;" that best issue, increase in godliness, a more perfect surrender of themselves to Thee, a more deep desire to be wholly Thine, a more thorough deadness to the world. ”

“ Preserve also, good Lord, the middle-aged, that they be not choked with the cares of the world, for upon such do the cares of the world most thickly fall; warn them lest they become cold, worldly, drowned in worldly businesses, lovers of self, greedy of riches. ”

“ Tf there be among them any fatherless and orphans, on them bestow especial pity, and enable me, in the things belonging unto their souls, to be unto them in the stead of a father.
The young also, who have grown out of childhood, preserve from the sins and offences to which youth inclines; guard them in that most difficult season when they rejoice in their strength, and the pleasures of the world dance before them, and their blood is warm, and life opens upon them, and length of life seems to be before them. ”

“ Spare them a little, that they may recover their strength; that if they be moved to repentance, they may have time to perfect their resolves, and to walk in newness of life. Above all, save them from falling back ”