Confession of sin

Almight Lord, we have been willing to listen to sin's deceptive talk.

We have walked in the counsel of its arrogance.

We treat with contempt Your gifts of kindness, thinking ourselves to be entitled to what we have.

We believe we are righteous whithout You, when our righteousness is from You.

We make ourselves judges, when we ourselves are under judement.

We glory in our successes, when our very breath comes from You.

We have turned away from forgiveness and mercy to grudges and bitterness.

We justify our wrongs, excuse our lack of goodness and smile at sin's presence.

Strengthen our hearts in Christ. Invigorate us to do Your will, that we might honor the precious name of Jesus, our Lord. Amen!

Puritan Prayer - Confession and Petition

Holy Lord, I have sinned times without number, and been guilty of pride and unbelief, of failure to find Thy mind in Thy Word, of neglect to seek Thee in my daily life. My transgressions and short-comings present me with a list of accusations, but I bless Thee that they will not stand against me, for all have been laid on Christ. Go on to subdue my corruptions, and grant me grace to live above them. Let not the passions of the flesh nor lustings of the mind bring my spirit into subjection, but do Thou rule over me in liberty and power.

I thank Thee that many of my prayers have been refused. I have asked amiss and do not have, I have prayed from lusts and been rejected, I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness. Go on with Thy patient work, answering 'no' to my wrongful prayers, and fitting me to accept it. Purge me from every false desire, every base aspiration, everything contrary to Thy rule. I thank Thee for Thy wisdom and Thy love, for all the acts of discipline to which I am subject, for sometimes putting me into the furnace to refine my gold and remove my dross.

No trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin. If Thou shouldst give me choice to live in pleasure and keep my sins, or to have them burnt away with trial, give me sanctified affliction. Deliver me from every evil habit, every accretion of former sins, everything that dims the brightness of Thy grace in me, everything that prevents me taking delight in Thee. Then I shall bless Thee, God of jeshurun, for helping me to be upright.

Puritan Prayer - Sin!

Merciful Lord,
Pardon all my sins of this day, week, year, all the sins of my life, sins of early, middle, and advanced years, of omission and commission, of morose, peevish and angry tempers, of lip, life and walk, of hard-heartness, unbelief, presumption, pride, of unfaithfulness to the souls of men, of want of bold decision in the cause of Christ, of deficiency in outspoken zeal for His glory, of bringing dishonor upon Thy great name, of deception, injustice, untruthfulness, in my dealings with others, of impurity in thought, word and deed, of covetousness, which is idolatry, of substance unduly hoarded, improvidently squandered, not consecrated to the glory of Thee, the Great Giver; sins in private and in the family, in study and recreation, in the busy haunts of men, in the study of Thy Word and in the neglect of it, in prayer irreverently offered and coldly withheld, in time misspent, in yielding to Satan’s wiles in opening my heart to his temptations, in being unwatchful when I know him nigh, in quenching the Holy Spirit; sins against light and knowledge, against conscience and restraints of Thy Spirit, against the law of eternal love.

Pardon all my sins, known and unknown, felt and unfelt, confessed and not confessed, remembered or forgotten. Good Lord, hear; and hearing, forgive.

From Valley of Vision -a Collection of Puritan Prayers