“The Author of so many good things” by Peter Martyr Vermigli
FROM PSALM 19:
“The wondrous power, wisdom, and goodness with which Your nature is most abundantly endowed, O almighty God, everywhere strikes us in the things You have created. Heaven with all its jewels, the change of seasons, the brightness of the stars, and the mighty sun are so many voices and a lesson common to all peoples by which these heralds of Your majesty are celebrated.
Hence we confess that we cannot pretend to have any excuse for our feeble confidence and failing love toward You. The witness of these things really ought to have persuaded us that we should cling inseparably to You alone as the Author of so many good things.
But, alas, spurning these warnings we have followed the desires of our flesh and the unhealthy lucubrations and fantasies of our mind, deserting You, the Creator of all things. Thus have we rightly merited the sufferings that we are enduring.
We have spurned not only the works of nature that draw us to You, but Your Word as well, that is, we have listened to the Holy Scripture and the Gospel of Your Son with cold hearts and with no effect at all.
From the things we should have used to refresh our mind and take in wisdom, light, joy, and uprightness, we have provoked Your wrath against us.
But now, even though for these reasons we seem unworthy of Your mercy, we still pray urgently that You forgive us and that You be unwilling to afflict Your Church on account of our deeds.
Grant that henceforward that Your words may be for us sweeter, not just than honey, but than any human pleasure.
Keep sin far from us and show that You are truly both the protector and redeemer of Your people.
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”
–Peter Martyr Vermigli, Sacred Prayers Drawn from the Psalms of David, ed. John Patrick Donnelly and Joseph C. McLelland, trans. John Patrick Donnelly, 2nd Edition., vol. 3, The Peter Martyr Library (Kirksville, MO: The Thomas Jefferson University Press; Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, Inc., 1996), 3: 20–21.
