I'm beginning a thread where you can post your citations for the prayers in Arthur Bennett's The Valley of Vision. The sources are listed in the Bibliography at the end, and all of them are public domain, so feel free to copy straight out of Logos and paste it here.
Here's an example.
Chapter 1, page 8: The Mover, lines 11-25
What an astonishing thought it will be to think of the unmeasurable difference between our deservings and our receivings; between the state we should have been in, and the state we are in; to look down upon hell, and see the vast difference that free grace hath made betwixt us and them; to see the inheritance there, which we were born to, so different from that which we are adopted to! O, what pangs of love will it cause within us, to think, Yonder was my native right, my deserved portion; those should have been my hideous cries, my doleful groans, my easeless pains, my endless torment; those unquenchable flames I should have lain in; that never-dying worm should have fed upon me; yonder was the place that sin would have brought me to, but this is it that Christ hath brought me to; yonder death was the wages of my sin, but this eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ my Lord. Did not I neglect grace, and make light of the offers of life, and slight my Redeemer’s blood a long time, as well as yonder suffering souls? Did I not let pass my time, and forget my God and soul, as well as they; and was not I born in sin and wrath as well as they? O, who made me to differ? Was my heart naturally any readier for Christ than theirs, or any whit better affected to the Spirit’s persuasions? Should I ever have begun to love, if God had not begun to me; or ever be willing, if he had not made me willing; or ever differed, if he had not made me to differ? Had I not now been in those flames, if I had had mine own way, and been let alone to mine own will? Did I not resist as powerful means, and lose as fair advantages, as they? And should I not have lingered in Sodom till the flames had seized on me, if God had not in mercy carried me out? O, how free was all this love; and how free is this enjoyed glory! Doubtless this will be our everlasting admiration, that so rich a crown should fit the head of so vile a sinner; that such high advancement, and such long unfruitfulness and unkindness can be the state of the same persons; and that such vile rebellions can conclude in such most precious joys: but no thanks to us, nor to any of our duties and labours, much less to our neglects and laziness: we know to whom the praise is due, and must be given for ever; and, indeed, to this very end it was, that infinite wisdom did cast the whole design of man’s salvation into the mould of purchase and freeness, that the love and joy of man might be perfected, and the honour of grace most highly advanced, that the thought of merit might neither cloud the one nor obstruct the other, and that on these two hinges the gates of heaven might turn. So then, let “Deserved” be written on the door of hell, but on the door of heaven and life, “The free gift.”
Richard Baxter and William Orme, The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter: Volume XXII (London: James Duncan, 1830), 116–117.
