To Search Ourselves

Grant, Almighty God, that as we are in this life subject to so many miseries and, in the meantime, grow insensible in our sins--O, grant that we may learn to search ourselves and consider our sins, that we may be really humbled before you, and ascribe to ourselves the blame of all our evils, that we may be thus led to a genuine feeling of repentance, and so strive to be reconciled to you in Christ, that we may wholly depend on your paternal love, and thus ever aspire to the fulness of eternal felicity, through your goodness and that immeasurable kindness which you testify is ready and offered to all those who with sincere heart worship you, call on you, and flee to you, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

(a prayer of John Calvin, in his Commentary on Hosea, translated into English in 1846 and updated by me into modern English)