Joseph Alleine: Piercing Heaven – Puritan’s Prayers

O Lord, how insufficient I am for this work. With what will I pierce the scales of Leviathan—or make my heart, hard as a millstone, feel what you desire it to feel?

Will I go and speak to the grave, and expect the dead to obey me and come forth?

Will I make a speech to the rocks, or lecture the mountains, and move them with arguments?

Will I make the blind see?

From the beginning of the world no one has ever heard of opening the eyes of a person born blind. But, Lord, you can pierce the heart of the sinner.

I can draw the bow at random, but you direct the arrow between the cracks of the armor.

I come in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel. I come forth, like David against Goliath, to wrestle, not with flesh and blood, but with rulers and cosmic powers, and spiritual forces of evil of this world.

This day let the Lord defeat the Philistines, take away the armor from the strong man, and give me the captives out of his hand.

Amen.