New Directory for Public Worship (4)

CONFESSION OF SINS.

Editor’s comment: The New Directory is very full in detailing public confession. It does so by giving both seed thoughts and examples of prayers under three headings: our sins against God, against our fellow men, and against the Gospel and the Holy Spirit.

I will modernise as far as possible and conform scriptural quotations to the ESV.

Confession of Sins against God.

1. Our ignorance of God.

We have not truly desired you or cared to know you :

nor sought for you as for hidden treasures :

nor meditated on your truth.

2. Our unfaithfulness to God and his truth.

We have not acknowledged you to be our God

not worshipped you in sincerity and in faithfulness  :

not submitted to your will ;

not followed in your way.

We have said we knew you, and yet denied you in our deeds :

had unworthy thoughts of your ways :

had rebellious thoughts of your dealings with us.

3. Our living without God.

We have forgotten you in the hour of prosperity :

not trusted you in danger, need :

not brought our burdens and fears to you :

marred our lives with anxiety, as if we had no Father in heaven,

with needless fears, as if all things did not work for good to those who loved you :

trusted more in man's help than in your help:

more in wealth than in righteousness :

in talent than in holy living :

in anger than in meekness.

Sometimes when we obeyed your law, we disliked it in our heart.

We have never fully trusted to overcome evil with good, or been able to accept wrong and injury and mockery in patience.

We have believed more in self-assertion than in self-sacrifice,

more in boasting than in humility.

We have loved our own way more than yours ;

our own opinion more than the peace of your people.

We have sought the glory of our own name,

even when we said we were seeking Thine.

4. Our want of love.

We are too easily turned from you by mockery or fear of earthly loss :

too easily turned aside by hopes of gain or praise.

We have little time for you because we are so busy with the world.

We find it hard to love one another, but hardest of all to love you.

We care more for the friendship of your enemies than the friendship of your Son.

We find time for conversation with anyone but you ; to read any book but yours.

5. Our want of zeal for God and his Kingdom.

We do little for Christ's cause and yet are content,

We have little sorrow over our meanness : worldliness ;

little interest in the saving of the world.

We are seldom grieved by the thought of others' sins.

We do little for the unbelievers abroad or at our doors.

We have wronged good causes by our indifference, suspicions, and by our cold and critical words.

Even when our zeal in your cause is kindled, we are unwise, rash, self-willed, blind :

We use unlawful means to accomplish your purpose :

trust in worldly methods more than in gentleness, mercy, lpatient endurance, etc.

6. Our want of joy in God's service.

Your service has often been a weariness.

We have been slow to enter on it, anxious for it to be over.

We have felt it a relief when prayer was over, that we might return to work, play, book.

Glad when godly conversation ceased.

7. Our unthankfulness for God's mercies.

We have neglected you in times of joy, success,

and murmured against you in times of distress, trial.

When we failed, we complained of you,

and when we succeeded we took the credit for ourselves.

We ascribed your good gifts to our own efforts, skill.

Even when we thanked Thee we have been grudging in our thanks.

Your good gifts do notlead us not to repentance, but to

pride, vanity, boasting.

8. Our impatience.

We can hardly trust you where we must trust you alone — where there are no signs of success.

We have fretted under little trials, crosses, and worries.

We are impatient under the cares of home, the difficulties of daily work, discipline of daily life.

We cannot believe that the Cross is the way of Victory, that trials are our opportunity of conquering our hearts.

We can scarcely forgive once.

We do not try to forgive others as we ask you to forgive us, every morning and every evening.

Our impatience in time of sickness, pain, sorrow, great loss.

9. Insincere worship.

We have served you that we might be seen by others :

served you, but not in spirit and truth :

with our lips, when our heart was far away :

in word, while our heart was with the world :

with that which cost us nothing - what was taken by robbery and what is lame or sick.

We have found your service a weariness, because our hearts were far from you.

We are not always thinking of you, the living God, in our songs of praise.

Circumstance of trivial importance detains us from your worship,

We are easily distracted in it.

10. Sins in Prayer.

We pray too often that we may persuade you to accept our way, desire ; and not that we conform to to yourholy and loving will.

We do not desire to conform our will that which we hear from you, so much as to hear from you  what we will.

We have often neglected to pray at all.

We omit it on a trivial pretext — because of our work, tiredness, even Christian duties.

We acknowledge our lack of thought during prayer, lack of attention, reverence.

We confess sin, yet without sorrow or shame.

We confess sin and then turn to it again.

We ask forgiveness, and refuse to forgive others.

We wrestle in prayer only when we are seeking earthly blessings or fearing earthly loss.

We pray because we are afraid not to pray.

We pray, and yet live as if we never expected an answer.

11. Sins in connection with God's Word and His House.

We neglect your Word — the Bibles of some unopened since last Lord’s Day.

We too often come to Church without a thought of meeting you :

not hungering after righteousness :

not caring to be humbler, meeker, holier :

not even desiring a better life.

We have sometimes come not to worship you,

or be taught by you, or be strengthened to obey Thee ; but merely to be pleased or interested, or from custom.

We come with our minds full of business.

We have been tempted to change your Word into a the object of laughter.

We have forgot you as soon as the hour of the service was over.

We do not use the power of your fellowship with us in Church for the work of the week.

12. Irreverence.

We do not always speak of  you with godly fear.

We do not think of you as the Almighty God,

as the awe inspiring and righteous Judge,

as the Father of the Holy Jesus Christ.

We have often spoken lightly of divine things :

of noble things, pure, worthy, commendable :

of humble persons, gentle, brave, patient :

of persons deformed by your act, afflicted through no sin of their own, marred by your hand.

13. Sins in connection with Vows and Resolutions.

We have made vows that were unworthy, unchristian.

We have broken vows that were good.

We have pledged ourselves in frivolous mood.

We have taken oaths that were unlawful, and so have sinned :

we have fulfilled them, and have sinned the more.

14. Blasphemy.

We have mocked you ways in the lives of other men :

scorned your methods when they were hard :

reviled your people for deeds that were God-like, for their patience, meekness, self-sacrifice :

opposed yourway when taken by those we disliked, hated, were jealous of.

Editor’s Comment:  These are seed thoughts to guide us.  It would be a foolish man who sought to include them all in one prayer! They might, however, be used a few at a time each Lord’s Day to prompt our public prayer. They certainly go beyond the formulaic, “Lord we have sinned against you…”