O GOD,

It is amazing that men can talk so much about man’s creaturely power and goodness,
When, if thou didst not hold us back every moment, we should be devils incarnate.
This, by bitter experience, thou hast taught me concerning myself.
Heavenly Father, thou hast revealed to me myself as a mass of sin.
I have often loved darkness, observed lying vanities, forsaken thy given mercies,
Trampled underfoot thy beloved Son, mocked thy providences,
Flattered thee with my lips, broken thy covenant.
A fountain of pollution is deep within my nature.
There are chambers of foul images withing my being;
I have gone from one odious room to another,
Walked in a no-man’s-land of dangerous imaginations,
Pried into the secrets of my fallen nature.
I am utterly ashamed that I am what I am in myself
My heart is an unexhausted fountain of sin,
A river of corruption since childhood days,
Flowing on in every pattern of behaviour.
Sin is my malady, my monster, my foe, my viper,
Born in my birth,
Alive in my character,
Dominating my faculties,
Following me as a shadow,
Intermingling with my every thought,
My chain that holds me captive in the empire of my soul.
O wretched man that I am! O Lord, I have a wild heart, and cannot stand before thee.
O Lord, no day of my life has passed that has not proved me guilty in thy sight.
My offences have been countless and aggravated.
I am guilty of infinite evil that merits infinite punishment,
For sin is the violation of an infinite obligation.
It is of thy compassion that I am not consumed.
O Triune God, prayers and tears could not suffice to pardon my sins,
Nor anything less than atoning blood.
Mighty God, O bury my sins in the ocean of Jesus’ blood.
If ever I am saved it will be by goodness undeserved and astonishing,
Not by mercy alone but by abundant mercy,
Not by grace but by exceeding riches of grace.
No poor creature stands in need of divine grace more than I do,
And yet none abuses more than I have done, and still do. How heartless and dull I am!
Sovereign Lord, let me never forget that the heinousness of sin lies not so much in the nature of the sin committed, as in the greatness of the Person sinned against.
Grant me never to lose sight of the exceeding sinfulness of sin,
The exceeding righteousness of salvation,
The exceeding glory of Christ,
The exceeding beauty of holiness,
The exceeding wonder of grace.
Lord Jesus Christ, send thy Spirit as the searcher of my heart,
To show me more of my corruptions and helplessness that I may flee to thee,
Cling to thee, rest on thee, as the beginning and end of my salvation.
O Lord there is much ill about me – crucify it, much flesh within me – mortify it.
O God, Deliver me from the natural darkness of my own mind,
From the corruptions of my heart, from the temptations to which I am exposed,
From the daily snares that attend me.
O God the Holy Spirit, lead me to the cross and show me his [Christ] wounds,
The hateful nature of evil, the power of Satan;
May I there see my sins as the nails that transfixed him,
The cords that bound him, the thorns that tore him, the sword that pierced him.
O Merciful God, may all thy people know how little, mean, and vile I am,
That they may see I am nothing, less than nothing, to be accounted nothing,
That so they may pray for me aright, and have not the least dependence upon me.
It is sweet to be nothing and have nothing, and to be fed with crumbs from thy hands.

{Highlights collected from the Puritan prayers and devotions, “The Valley of Vision”}