This prayer is included in our free booklet, Prayer and Devotions: Lancelot Andrewes and the Life of Prayer.
Thyself, O my God, Thyself for thine own sake, above all things else I love. Thyself I desire. Thyself as my last end I long for. Thyself for thine own sake, not aught else whatsoever, alway and in all things I seek, with all my heart and marrow, with groaning and weeping, with unbroken toil and grief. What wilt Thou render me therefore for my last end? If Thou render me not Thyself, Thou renderest nought: if Thou give me not Thyself, Thou givest nought: if I find not Thyself, I find nought. To no purpose Thou rewardest me, but dost wring me sore. For, or ever I sought Thee, I hoped to find Thee at the last and to keep Thee: and with this honeyed hope in all my toils was I sweetly comforted. But now, if Thou have denied me Thyself, what else soever Thou give me, frustrate of so high an hope, and that not for a little space but for ever, shall I not alway languish with love, mourn with languishing, grieve with mourning, bewail with grief, and weep for that alway I shall abide empty and void? Shall I not sorrow inconsolably, complain unceasingly, be wrung unendingly? This is not thy property, O best, most gracious, most loving God: in no sort is it congruous, no wise it sorteth. Make me therefore, O best my God, in the life present alway to love Thyself for Thyself before all things, to seek Thee in all things, and at the last in the life to come to find and to keep Thee for ever.
Image: Lancelot Andrewes by Wenceslaus Hollar (1643) (Source).
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