O God, whose days are without end, and whose mercies cannot be numbered: Make us, we pray, deeply aware of the shortness and uncertainty of human life; and let your Holy Spirit lead us in holiness and righteousness all our days; that, when we shall have served you in our generation, we may be gathered to our ancestors, having the testimony of a good conscience; in the communion of the Catholic Church; in the confidence of a certain faith; in the comfort of a reasonable, religious, and holy hope; in favor with you, our God; and in perfect charity with the world. All this we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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A prayer for holy dying whose familiar wording was adapted by Anglican revisers from Jeremy Taylor's devotional masterwork The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying (1651). It entered the American BCP by the 1892 revision and was gathered into the burial office, carrying Taylor's signature chain of consolations: communion, confidence, comfort, and charity.