Dearly beloved in the Lord!

You have been engaged this day in one of the most aweful and important transactions in which a created being can bear a part; the solemn renewal of your former covenant with your Maker, and the no less solemn claim of the stipulated mercies of that great Creator towards yourselves. In Christ's name you have drawn near to the Most High to tender to His service, in the terms of your baptismal engagement, the bodies which He has framed, the lives which He has given, the immortal souls which, through His Son, He has redeemed from misery unspeakable.

For God's acceptance of these offered services; for the spiritual strength which only can enable you to render them; for the merciful indulgence which, even when they are most diligently performed, they must still need at God's hand; and for the unbounded and eternal reward which His free bounty has promised to even the weakest efforts to please Him, when made in His Son's name, you have pleaded the merits of that blessed Son, by the confession of your faith in Him, and by the solemn prayer which we offered up together to the Throne of Grace, for the gift of the Holy Ghost the Comforter.

In reliance on these merits and on the precious promises of our Redeemer, I, lastly, as His servant and in His name, have prayed for you that your faith fail not.