Guilty As Charged...But Forgiven.

I have always loved reading the prayers of those who have lived in previous centuries. The Valley of Vision, Piercing Heaven, and God's Minute are three collections of Puritan prayers which I return to again and again.

My new favorite pray-er is Jeremy Taylor who lived from 1613-1667. My Prayer Bible describes him as an "Anglican bishop who served as chaplain to King Charles I and was well known for his devotional writings, which stressed piety and were valued for their clear prose and vivid imagery." And according to Wikipedia, he has been called the "Shakespeare of the Pulpit."  Fine praise indeed!

I have chosen to share a prayer of repentance of Taylor's that is both lovely and awful at the same time; the language he uses is eloquent, but the particulars of sin caused me to wince. Please tell me what you think.

Taylor's prayer: "You have given me a whole life to serve you in, and to advance my hopes of heaven; and this precious time I have thrown away upon my sins and vanities, being improvident of my time and of my talent, and of your grace and my own advantages, resisting your Spirit and quenching him. I have been a great lover of myself, and yet used many ways to destroy myself. I have pursued my temporal ends with greediness and indirect means. I am revengeful and unthankful, forgetting benefits, but not so soon forgetting injuries; curious and murmuring, a great breaker of promises. I have not loved my neighbor's good, nor advanced it in all things, where I could. I have been unlike you in all things. I am unmerciful and unjust, a foolish admirer of things below, and careless of heaven and the ways that lead there. But for your name's sake, O Lord, be merciful unto my sin, for it is great."

Candy's thoughts: Now reread the prayer and count the number of times your soul says, "Ouch!" or "Guilty as Charged!" Yet with the Lord, there is forgiveness. What mercy!