Matthew Henry’s “Method For Prayer”

Confess and Bewail your Original Corruption

Confession 2.2 | NASB

I must therefore confess and bewail my original corruption in the first place: that I am the child of apostate and rebellious parents, and the nature of man is depraved and has wretchedly degenerated from its primitive purity and rectitude, and such is my nature.

Lord, You made men upright, but they have sought out many devices; Ecclesiastes 7:29(NASB) and being in honor, they did not understand, and therefore did not abide, but became like the beasts that perish. Psalm 49:20(NASB)

Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned: Romans 5:12(NASB) Through that one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, including me. Romans 5:19(NASB)

I am the offspring of evildoers; Isaiah 1:4(NASB) my father was an Amorite and my mother a Hittite, Ezekiel 16:3(NASB) and I myself was called (and not miscalled) a rebel from birth, and You knew I would deal very treacherously. Isaiah 48:8(NASB)

The nature of man was planted a choice and noble vine, a completely faithful seed, but it has become the degenerate shoot of a foreign vine, Jeremiah 2:21(NASB) producing the grapes of Sodom and the clusters of Gomorrah. Deuteronomy 32:32(NASB) How dark the gold has become, how the pure gold has changed! Lamentations 4:1(NASB)

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalm 51:5(NASB) For, who can make the clean out of the unclean? No one! Job 14:4(NASB) I am by nature a child of wrath, because a son of disobedience, even as the rest. Ephesians 2:2-3(NASB)

All flesh has corrupted their way; Genesis 6:12(NASB) we have all turned aside, together we have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. Psalm 14:3(NASB)

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