Sermons & Devotionals by Lewis Bayly
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 61 - A Prayer before taking of Medicine.
O Merciful Father, who art the Lord of health and of sickness, of life and of death; who killest and makest alive; who bringest down to the grave and raisest up again; I come unto thee, as to the only physician, who canst cure my soul from sin, and my body from sickness. I desire neither life nor de... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 21 - Another short Morning Prayer.
O most gracious God, and merciful Father! I thine unworthy servant do here acknowledge that as I have been born in sin, so I have lived in iniquity, and broken every one of thy commandments, in thought, word, and deed; following the desires of mine own will, and lusts of my flesh, not caring to be g... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 41 - A private Evening Prayer for the Lord's day.
O holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabaoth! Suffer me, who am but dust and ashes, to speak unto thy most glorious majesty. I know that thou art a consuming fire; I acknowledge that I am but withered stubble: my sins are in thy sight, and Satan stands at my right hand to accuse me for them. I come not to... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 22 - Farther Meditations to stir up to Prayer in the Morning.
Think not any business or haste, though never so great, a sufficient excuse to omit prayer in the morning: But meditate- 1. That the greater thy business is, by so much the more need thou hast to pray for God's good speed and blessing upon it, seeing it is certain that nothing can prosper without hi... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 42 - Of the Practice of Piety in Fasting.
There are divers kinds of fasting-First, A constrained fast, as when men either have not food to eat, as in the famine of Samaria (2 Kings vi. 25;) or, having food, cannot eat it for heaviness or sickness, as it befel them who were in the ship with St. Paul (Acts xxvii. 33.) This is rather famine th... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 62 - Meditations for the Sick.
Whilst thy sickness remains, use often, for thy comfort, these few meditations, taken from the ends wherefore God sendeth afflictions to his children. Those are ten. 1. That by afflictions God may not only correct our sins past, but also work in us a deeper loathing of our natural corruptions, and s... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 23 - A brief Prayer for the Morning.
O merciful Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, I beseech thee forgive me all my known and secret sins which in thought, word, or deed, I have committed against thy Divine Majesty, and deliver me from all those judgments which are due to me for them, and sanctify my heart with thy Holy Spirit, that I ma... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 43 - Of the Public Fast.
A public fast is when, by the authority of the magistrate (Jonah iii. 7; 2 Chron. xx. 3; Ezra viii. 21), either the whole church within his dominion, or some special congregation, whom it concerneth, assemble themselves together, to perform the fore-mentioned duties of humiliation; either for the re... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 63 - Meditations for One That Is Like to Die.
If thy sickness be like to increase unto death, then meditate on three things:-First, How graciously God dealeth with thee. Secondly, From what evils death will free thee. Thirdly, What good death will bring unto thee. The first sort of Meditations are, to consider God's favourable dealing with thee... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 24 - Meditations Directing a Christian How To Walk All the Day with God
Having thus begun, keep all the day after as diligent a watch as thou canst over all thy thoughts, words, and actions, which thou mayest easily do, by craving the assistance of God's Holy Spirit, and observing these few rules:- First, For Thy Thoughts. 1. Be careful to suppress every sin in the firs... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 44 - Of the Practice of Piety in Holy Feasting.
Holy feasting is a solemn thanksgiving, appointed by authority, to be rendered to God on some special day, for some extraordinary blessings or deliverances received. Such among the Jews was the feast of the Passover (Exod. xii. 15), to remember to praise God for their deliverance out of Egypt's bond... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 64 - A Prayer to Be Said of One That Is Like to Die.
A Prayer for a sick Man, when he is told that he is not a man for this world, but must prepare himself to go unto God. O heavenly Father, who art the Lord God of the spirits of all flesh, and hast made us these souls, and hast appointed us the time, as to come into this world, so having finished our... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 25 - Secondly, for thy Words.
1. Remember, that thou must answer for every idle word, that in multiloquy, the wisest man shall overshoot himself. Avoid, therefore, all tedious and idle talk, from which seldom arises comfort, many times repentance: especially beware of rash answers, when the tongue outruns the mind. The word was ... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 45 - Of Preparation.
That a Christian ought necessarily to prepare himself before he presume to be a partaker of the holy communion, may evidently appear by five reasons:- First, Because it is God's commandment; for if he commanded, under the pain of death, that none uncircumcised should eat the paschal lamb (Exod. xii.... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 65 - Meditations against Despair, or doubting of God's Mercy.
It is found by continual experience, that near the time of death, when the children of God are weakest, then Satan makes the greatest nourish of his strength, and assails them with his strongest temptations. For he knows that either he must now or never prevail; for if their souls once go to heaven,... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 46 - Of the Worthiness of the Sacrament.
The worthiness of this sacrament is considered three ways: First, By the majesty of the author ordaining; Secondly, By the preciousness of the parts of which it consists; Thirdly, By the excellency of the ends for which it was ordained. (1.) Of the Author of the Sacrament. The author was not any sai... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 66 - An Admonition to them who come to visit the Sick.
They who come to visit ihe sick, must have a special care not to stand dumb and staring in the sick person's face to disquiet him, nor yet to speak idly and ask unprofitable questions, as most do. If they see, therefore, that the sick party is like to die, let them not dissemble, but lovingly and di... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 26 - Thirdly, for thy Actions.
1. Do no evil, though thou mightest; for God will not suffer the least sin, without bitter repentance, to escape unpunished. Leave not undone any good that thou canst. But do nothing without a calling, nor anything in thy calling, till thou hast first taken counsel at God's word (1 Sam. xxx. 8) of i... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 47 - Of the first End of the Lord's Supper.
1. To keep Christians in a continual remembrance of that propitiatory sacrifice which Christ, once for all, offered by his death upon the cross, to reconcile us to God (Matt. xxvi. 26.) "Do this," saith Christ, "in remembrance of me." (Luke xxii. 19.) And, saith the apostle, "As oft as ye shall eat ... Read More
Lewis Bayly
Practice of Piety 27 - Meditations for the Evening.
At evening, when thou preparest thyself to take thy rest, meditate on these few points:- 1. That seeing thy days are numbered (Psal. xc.; Job xiv. 5), there is one more of thy number spent, and thou art now the nearer to thy end by a day. 2. Sit down a while before thou goest to bed, and consider wi... Read More
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Lewis Bayly (born perhaps at Carmarthen, Wales, perhaps near Biggar, Scotland, year unknown; died at Bangor, Wales, October 26, 1631) was an Anglican bishop. He was educated at Oxford, became vicar of Evesham, Worcestershire, and probably in 1604 became rector of St. Matthew's Church, Friday street, London.
He was then chaplain to Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (died 1612), later chaplain to King James I, who, in 1616, appointed him bishop of Bangor. He was an ardent Puritan.
Bayly's fame rests on his book The Practice of Piety, directing a Christian how to walk that he may please God (date of first edition unknown; 3d edition, London, 1613). It reached its 74th edition in 1821 and has been translated into French, German, Italian, Polish, Romansh, Welsh, and into the language of the Massachusetts Indians. It was one of the two books which John Bunyan's wife brought with her and it was by reading it that Bunyan was first spiritually awakened.