Composed by Sir Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam and Viscount St. Alban.1
The Student’s Prayer
To God the Father, God the Word, God the Spirit, we pour forth most humble and hearty supplications; that He, remembering the calamities of mankind and the pilgrimage of this our life, in which we wear out days few and evil, would please to open to us new refreshments out of the fountains of his goodness, for the alleviating of our miseries. This also we humbly and earnestly beg, that Human things may not prejudice such as are Divine; neither that from the unlocking of the gates of sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light, anything of incredulity or intellectual night may arise in our minds towards the Divine Mysteries. But rather that by our mind throughly cleansed and purged from fancy and vanities, and yet subject and perfectly given up to the Divine Oracles, there may be given unto Faith the things that are Faith’s. Amen.
The Writer’s Prayer
Thou, O Father! who gavest the Visible Light as the first-born of thy Creatures, and didst pour into man the Intellectual Light as the top and consummation of thy workmanship, be pleased to protect and govern this work, which coming from thy Goodness returneth to thy Glory. Thou, after thou hadst reviewed the works which thy hands had made, beheldest that everything was very good; and thou didst rest with complacency in them. But Man reflecting on the works which he had made, saw that all was vanity and vexation of Spirit, and could by no means acquiesce in them. Wherefore if we labour in thy works with the sweat of our brows, thou wilt make us partakers of thy Vision and thy Sabbath. We humbly beg that this mind may be steadfastly in us, and that thou, by our hands and also by the hands of others on whom thou shalt bestow the same spirit, wilt please to convey a largeness of new alms to thy family of Mankind. These things we commend to thy everlasting love, by our Jesus, thy Christ, God with us. Amen.
Footnotes
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Baconiana, p. 181. ↩