mind by its habitually disposing our thoughts nagement in company, by giving a better tors and actions, our devotions and our practice to a conformity to each other and to itself. Let us not consider a spirit of worldliness as a little infirmity, as a natural, and therefore a pardonable weakness; as a trifling error which will be overlooked for the sake of our many good qualities. It is in fact the essence of our other faults; the temper that stands between us and our salvation; the spirit which is in direct op. position to the Spirit of God. Individual sins may more easily be cured, but this is the principle of all spiritual disease. A worldly spirit where it is rooted and cherished, runs through the whole character, insinuates itself in all we say and think and do. It is this which makes us so dead in religion, so averse from spiritual things, so forgetful of God, so unmindful of eternity, so satisfied with ourselves, so impatient of serious discourse, and so alive to that vain and frivolous intercourse, which excludes intellect almost as much as picty from our general con versation. It is not therefore our more considerable actions alone which require watching, for they seldom occur. They do not form the habit of life in ourselves, nor the chief importance of our example to others. It is to our ordinary behaviour; it is to our deportment in common life; it is to our prevailing turn of mind in general intercourse, by which we shall profit or corrupt those with whom we associate. It is our conduct in social life which will help to diffuse a spirit of piety, or a distaste to it. If we have much influence, this is the place in which particularly to exert it. If we have little we have still enough to infect the temper and lower the tone of our narrow society. to conversation, then at once we grow wickedy modest-Such an insignificant creatures! am can do no good.'-' Had I higher rank brighter talents, then indeed my influence migh be exerted to some purpose.'-Thus under the mask of diflidence, we justify our incolence; and let slip those lesser occasions of promoting religion which if we all improved, how mic might the condition of society be raised. The hackneyed interrogation, What-t we be always talking about religion? as have the hackneyed answer-Far from it. T ing about religion is not being religious. Bu we may bring the spirit of religion into comp ny, and keep it in perpetual operation when do not professedly make it our subject. W: may be constantly advancing its interests, may without effort or affectation be giving an example of candour, of moderation, of humility, of forbearance. We may employ our influence by correcting falsehood, by checking levity, by discouraging calumny, by vindicating misrepresented merit, by countenancing every thing which has a good tendency-in short, by throwing our whole weight, be it great or small, into the right scale. CHAP. V. PRAYER is the application of want to him who only can relieve it; the voice of sin to him who alone can pardon it. It is the urgency of po verty, the prostration of humility, the fervency of penitence, the confidence of trust. It is not If we really believe that it is the design of eloquence, but earnestness: not the definition Christianity to raise us to a participation of the of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures divine nature, the slightest reflection on this of speech, but compunction of soul. It is the elevation of our character would lead us to main-Lord save us or we perish' of drowning Peter; tain its dignity in the ordinary intercourse of the cry of faith to the ear of mercy. life. We should not so much inquire whether we are transgressing any actual prohibition; whether any standing law is pointed against us; as whether we are supporting the dignity of the Christian character; whether we are acting Prayer is desire. It is not a conception of suitably to our profession; whether more exact- the mind nor a mere effort of the intellect, nor ness in the common occurrences of the day, an act of the memory; but an elevation of the more correctness in our conversation, would not soul towards its Maker; a pressing sense of be such evidences of our religion, as by being our own ignorance and infirmity, a consciousobvious and intelligible, might not almost insen-ness of the perfections of God, of his readiness sibly produce important effects. to hear, of his power to help, of his willingness to save. The most insignificant people must not through indolence and selfishness undervalue their own influence. Most persons have a little circle of which they are a sort of centre. Its smallness may lessen their quantity of good, but does not diminish the duty of using that little influence wisely. Where is the human being so inconsiderable but that he may in some shape benefit others, either by calling their virtues into exercise, or by setting them an example of virtue himself? But we are humble just in the wrong place. When the exhibition of our talents or splendid qualities is in question, we are not backward in the display. When a little self-denial is to be exercised, when a little good might be effected by our example, by our discreet ma Adoration is the noblest employment of created beings; confession the natural language of guilty creatures; gratitude the spontaneous expression of pardoned sinners. It is not an emotion produced in the senses; nor an effect wrought by the imagination; but a determination of the will, an effusion of the heart. Prayer is the guide to self-knowledge by prompting us to look after our sins in order to pray against them; a motive to vigilance, by teaching us to guard against those sins which, through self-examination, we have been enabled to detect. Prayer is an act both of the understanding and of the heart. The understanding must ap. ply itself to the knowledge of the divine perfec tions, or the heart will not be led to the adoration of them. It would not be a reasonable 1 1 service if the mind was excluded. It must be rational worship, or the human worshipper would not bring to the service the distinguished faculty of his nature, which is reason. It must be spiritual worship; or it would want the distinctive quality to make it acceptable to Him, who has declared that He will be worshipped in spirit and in truth.' Prayer is right in itself as the most powerful means of resisting sin and advancing in holiness. It is above all right, as every thing is, which has the authority of Scripture, the command of God, and the example of Christ. pray over it; they do not consider all its doctrines as of practical application; they do not cultivate that spiritual discernment which alone can enable them judiciously to appropriate its promises and its denunciations to their own actual case. They do not apply it as an unerring line to ascertain their own rectitude or obliquity. In our retirements, we too often fritter away our precious moments, moments rescued from the world, in trivial, sometimes it is to be feared, in corrupt thoughts. But if we must give the reins to our imagination, let us send this excurThere is a perfect consistency in all the or- sive faculty to range among great and noble obdinations of God; a perfect congruity in the jects. Let it stretch forward under the sanction whole scheme of his dispensations. If man of faith and the anticipation of prophecy, to the were not a corrupt creature, such prayer as the accomplishment of those glorious promises and gospel enjoins would not have been necessary. tremendous threatenings which will soon be reHad not prayer been an important means for alized in the eternal world. These are topics curing those corruptions, a God of perfect wis- which under the safe and sober guidance of dom would not have ordered it. He would not Scripture, will fix its largest speculations and have prohibited every thing which tends to in- sustain its loftiest flights. The same Scripture flame and promote them, had they not existed, while it expands and elevates the mind, will nor would he have commanded every thing that keep it subject to the dominion of truth; while has a tendency to diminish and remove them, at the same time it will teach it that its boldest had not their existence been fatal. Prayer, excursions must fall infinitely short of the astotherefore, is an indispensable part of his econo- nishing realities of a future state. my and of our obedience. It is a hackneyed objection to the use of prayer that it is offending the omniscience of God to suppose he requires information of our wants. But no objection can be more futile. We do not pray to inform God of our wants, but to express our sense of the wants which he already knows. As he has not so much made his promise to our necessities, as to our requests, it is reasonable that our requests should be made before we can hope that our necessities will be relieved. God does not promise to those who want that they shall have,' but to those who ask ;' nor to those who need that they shall find,' but to those who seek.' So far therefore from his previous knowledge of our wants being a ground of objection to prayer, it is in fact the true ground for our application. Were he not knowledge it. self, our information would be of as little use as our application would be, were he not goodness itself. We cannot attain to a just notion of prayer while we remain ignorant of our own nature, of the nature of God as revealed in Scripture, of our relation to him and dependence on him. If therefore we do not live in the daily study of the holy scriptures, we shall want the highest motives to this duty and the best helps for performing it; if we do, the cogency of these motives, and the inestimable value of these helps, will render argument unnecessary and exhortation superfluous. One cause therefore of the dulness of many Christians in prayer, is, their slight acquaintance with the sacred volume. They hear it periodically, they read it occasionally, they are contented to know it historically, to consider it superficially, but they do not endeavour to get their minds imbued with its spirit. If they store their memory with its facts, they do not impress their hearts with its truths. They do not regard it as the nutriment on which their spiritual life and growth depend. They do not VOL. I. 37 Though we cannot pray with a too deep sense of sin, we may make our sins too exclusively the object of our prayers. While we keep, with a self-abasing eye, our own corruptions in view, let us look with equal intenseness on that mercy, which cleanseth from all sin. Let our prayers be all humiliation, but let them not be all complaint. When men indulge no other thought but that they are rebels, the hopelessness of pardon hardens them into disloyalty. Let them look to the mercy of the king, as well as to the rebellion of the subject. If we contemplate his grace as displayed in the gospel, then, though our humility will increase, our despair will vanish. Gratitude in this as in human instances will create affection. We love him because he first loved us.' Let us then always keep our unworthiness in view as a reason why we stand in need of the mercy of God in Christ; but never plead it as a reason why we should not draw nigh to him to implore that mercy. The best men are unworthy for their own sakes; the worst on repentance will be accepted for his sake and through his merits. In prayer then, the perfections of God, and especially his mercy in our redemption, should occupy our thoughts as much as our sins; our obligation to him as much as our departures from him. We should keep up in our hearts a constant sense of our own weakness, not with a design to discourage the mind and depress the spirits; but with a view to drive us out of ourselves, in search of the divine assistance. We should contemplate our infirmity in order to draw us to look for his strength, and to seek that power from God which we vainly look for in ourselves. We do not tell a sick friend of his danger in order to grieve or terrify him, but to induce him to apply to his physician, and to have recourse to his remedy. Among the charges which have been brought against serious piety, one is, that it teaches men 3 I It has been justly observed, that the Scripture saints make this union the chief ground of their grateful exultation- My strength my rock' to despair. The charge is just in one sense as would be dissolving the connexion which he has to the fact, but false in the sense intended. It condescended to establish between himself and teaches us to despair indeed of ourselves, while his creatures. it inculcates that faith in a Redeemer, which is the true antidote to despair. Faith quickens the doubting spirit, while it humbles the presumptuous. The lowly Christian takes comfort in the blessed promise, that God will never forsake them that are his. The presumptuous man is equally right in the doctrine, but wrong in applying it. He takes that comfort to himself which was meant for another class of characters. The mal-appropriation of Scripture promises and threatenings, is the cause of much error and delusion. Though some devout enthusiasts have fallen into error by an unnatural and impracticable disinterestedness, asserting that God is to be loved exclusively for himself, with an absolute renunciation of any view of advantage to our selves; yet that prayer cannot be mercenary, which involves God's glory with our own happiness, and makes his will the law of our requests. Though we are to desire the glory of God supremely; though this ought to be our grand actuating principle, yet he has graciously permitted, commanded, invited us, to attach our own happiness to this primary object. The Bible exhibits not only a beautiful, but an inseparable combination of both, which delivers us from the danger of unnaturally renouncing our own benefit for the promotion of God's glory, on the one hand; and on the other, from seeking any happiness independent of him, and underived from him. In enjoining us to love him supremely, he has connected an unspeakable blessing with a paramount duty, the highest privilege with the most positive command. What a triumph for the humble Christian to be assured, that the high and lofty One which inhabiteth eternity,' condescends at the same time to dwell in the heart of the contrite ;-in his heart! To know that God is the God of his life, to know that he is even invited to take the Lord for his God. To close with God's offers, to accept his invitations, to receive God as his portion, must surely be more pleasing to our heavenly Father, than separating our happiness from his glory. To disconnect our interests from his goodness, is at once to detract from his perfections, and to obscure the brightness of our own hopes. The declarations of inspired writers are confirmed by the authority of the heavenly hosts. They proclaim that the glory of God and the happiness of his creatures, so far from interfering, are connected with each other. We know but of one anthem composed and sung by angels, and this most harmoniously combines 'the glory of God in the highest with peace on earth and good will to men.' The beauty of Scripture,' says the great Saxon reformer, 'consists in pronouns.' This God is our God-God, even our own God, shall bless us. How delightful the appropriation! To glorify him as being in himself consummate excellence, and to love him from the feeling that this excellence is directed to our felicity! Here modesty would be ingratitude; disinterestedness rebellion. It would be severing ourselves from Him, in whom we live, and move, and are; it my fortress' my deliverer! Again-Let the God of my salvation be exalted! Now take away the pronoun and substitute the article the, how comparatively cold is the impression! The consummation of the joy arises from the peculi. arity, the intimacy, the endearment of the relation. Nor to the liberal Christian is the grateful joy diminished, when he blesses his God as 'the God of all them that trust in him.' All general blessings, will he say, all providential mercies, are mine individually, are mine as completely as if no other shared in the enjoyment. Life, light, the earth and heavens, the sun and stars, whatever sustains the body, and recreates the spirits! My obligation is as great as if the mercy had been made purely for me. As great? nay, it is greater-it is augmented by a sense of the millions who participate in the blessing. The same enlargement of the personal obligation holds good, nay rises higher, in the mercies of redemption. The Lord is my Saviour as completely as if he had redeemed only me. That he has redeemed a great multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,' is diffusion without abatement; it is general participation without individual diminution-Each has all. In adoring the providence of God, we are apt to be struck with what is new and out of course, while we too much overlook long, habitual, and uninterrupted mercies. But common mercies, if less striking, are more valuable, both because we have them always, and for the reason above assigned, because others share them. The ordinary blessings of life are overlooked for the very reason that they ought to be most prizedbecause they are most uniformly bestowed. They are most essential to our support, and when once they are withdrawn we begin to find that they are also most essential to our comfort. Nothing raises the price of a blessing like its removal; whereas it was its continuance which should have taught us its value. We require novelties to awaken our gratitude, not consider. ing that it is the duration of mercies which enhances their value. We want fresh excitements. We consider mercies long enjoyed as things of course, as things to which we have a sort of presumptive claim; as if God had no right to withdraw what he had once bestowed; as if he were obliged to continue what he has once been pleased to confer. But that the sun has shone unremittingly from the day that God created him, is not a less stupendous exertion of power than that the hand which fixed him in the heavens, and marked out his progress through them, once said by his servant, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon.' That he has gone on in his strength, driving his uninterrupted career, and rejoicing as a giant to run his course,' for six thousand years, is a more astonishing exhibition of Omnipotence than that he should have been once suspended by the hand which set him in motion. That the ordinances of heaven, that the established laws of nature, should have been for one day interrupted to serve a particular occasion, is a less real wonder, and certainly a less substantial blessing, than that in such a multitude of ages they should have pursued their appointed course, for the comfort of the whole system: For ever singing as they shine The hand that made us is divine. As the affections of the Christian ought to be set on things above, so it is for them that his prayers will be chiefly addressed. God in promising to give those who delight in him the desire of their heart,' could never mean temporal things; for these they might desire improperly as to the object, and inordinately as to the degree. The promise relates principally to spiritual blessings. He not only gives us these mercies, but the very desire to obtain them is also his gift. Here our prayer requires no qualifying, no conditioning, no limitation. We cannot err in our choice, for God himself is the object of it; we cannot exceed in the degree, unless it were possible to love him too well, or to please him too much. · We should pray for worldly comforts, and for a blessing on our earthly plans, though lawful in themselves, conditionally, and with a reservation because after having been earnest in our requests for them, it may happen that when we come to the petition thy will be done,' we may in these very words be praying that our previous petitions may not be granted. In this brief request consists the vital principle, the essential spirit of prayer. God shows his munificence in encouraging us to ask most carnestly for the greatest things, by promising that the smaller shall be added unto us.' We therefore acknowledge his liberality most when we request the highest favours. He manifests his infinite superiority to earthly fathers by chiefly delighting to confer those spiritual gifts, which they less solicitously desire for their children than those worldly advantages on which God sets so little value. Nothing short of a sincere devotedness to God, can enable us to maintain an equality of mind, under unequal circumstances. We murmur that we have not the things we ask amiss, not knowing that they are withheld by the same mercy by which the things that are good for us are granted. Things good in themselves may not be good for us. A resigned spirit is the proper disposition to prepare us for receiving mercies, or for having them denied. Resignation of soul, like the allegiance of a good subject, is always in readiness, though not in action whereas an impatient mind is a spirit of disaffection always prepared to revolt, when the will of the sovereign is in opposition to that of the subject. This seditious principle is the infallible characteristic of an unrenewed mind. A sincere love of God will make us thankful when our supplications are granted, and patient and cheerful when they are denied. He who feels his heart rise against any divine dispensation, ought not to rest till by serious meditation and earnest prayer it be moulded into submis sion. A habit of acquiescence in the will of God, will so operate on the faculties of his mind, that even his judgment will embrace the conviction, that what he once so ardently desired, would not have been that good thing, which his blindness had conspired with his wishes to make him believe it to be. He will recollect the many instances in which if his importunity had prevailed, the thing which ignorance requested, and wisdom denied, would have insured his misery. Every fresh disappointment will teach him to distrust himself, and to confide in God. Experience will instruct him that there may be a better way of hearing our requests than that of granting them. Happy for us that he to whom they are addressed knows which is best, and acts upon that knowledge. Still lift for good the supplicating voice, We should endeavour to render our private devotions effectual remedies for our own particular sins. Prayer against sin in general is too indefinite to reach the individual case. We must bring it home to our own heart, else we may be confessing another man's sins and overlooking our own. If we have any predominant fault, we should pray more especially against that fault. If we pray for any virtue of which we particularly stand in need, we should dwell on our own deficiencies in that virtue, till our souls become deeply affected with our want of it. Our prayers should be circumstantial, not, as was before observed, for the information of infinite wisdom, but for the stirring up of our own dull affections. And as the recapitulation of our wants tends to keep up a sense of our dependence, the enlarging on our especial mercies will tend to keep alive a sense of gratitude. While indiscriminate petitions, confessions, and thanksgivings leave the mind to wander in indefinite devotion and unaffecting generalitics, without personality and without appropriation. It must be obvious that we except those grand universal points in which all have an equal interest, and which must always form the essence of public prayer. On the blessing attending importunity_in prayer, the Gospel is abundantly explicit. God perhaps delays to give that we may persevere in asking. He may require importunity for our own sakes, that the frequency and urgency of the petition may bring our hearts into that frame to which he will be favourable. As we ought to live in a spirit of obedience to his commands, so we should live in a frame of waiting for his blessings on our prayers, and in a spirit of gratitude when we have obtained it. This is that preparation of the heart' which would always keep us in a posture for duty. If we desert the duty because an immediate blessing does not visibly attend it, it shows that we do not serve God out of conscience, but selfishness: that we grudge expending on him that service which brings us in no immediate interest. Though he grant not our petition, let us never be tempted to withdraw our application. Our reluctant devotions may remind us of ing up in our minds the most important truths. If we rush into the divine presence with a vacant, or ignorant, or unprepared mind, with a heart full of the world; as we shall feel no disposition or qualification for the work we are about to engage in, so we cannot expect that our petitions will be heard or granted. There must be some congruity between the heart and the object, some affinity between the state of our minds and the business in which they are employed, if we would expect success in the work. We are often deceived, both as to the princisome external cause the heart is glad, the spirits light, the thoughts ready, the tongue voluable, a kind of spontaneous eloquence is the result; with this we are pleased, and this ready flow we are willing to impose on ourselves for piety. the remark of a certain political wit, who apolo- | be always laying in materials for prayer, by a gized for his late attendance in parliament, diligent course of serious reading, by treasur by his being detained while a party of soldiers were dragging a volunteer to his duty. How many excuses do we find for not being in time! How many apologies for brevity! How many evasions for neglect! How unwilling, too often, are we to come into the divine presence, how reluctant to remain in it! Those hours which are least valuable for business, which are least seasonable for pleasure, we commonly give to religion. Our energies which were so exerted in the society we have just quitted, are sunk as we approach the divine presence. Our hearts, which were all alacrity in some frivolous con-ple and the effect of our prayers. When from versation, become cold and inanimate, as if it were the natural property of devotion to freeze the affections. Our animal spirits, which so readily performed their functions before, now slacken their vigour and lose their vivacity. The sluggish body sympathizes with the unwilling mind, and each promotes the deadness of the other; both are slow in listening to the call of duty; both are soon weary in performing it. As prayer requires all the energies of the compound being of man, so we too often feel as if there were a conspiracy of body, soul and spirit, to disincline and disqualify us for it. On the other hand when the mind is dejected; the animal spirits low; the thoughts confused; when apposite words do not readily present themselves, we are apt to accuse our hearts of want of fervour, to lament our weakness, and to monrn that because we have had no pleasure in praying, our prayers have, therefore, not ascended to the throne of mercy. In both cases we perhaps judge ourselves unfairly. These unready accents, these faltering praises, these ill expressed petitions, may find more accept When the heart is once sincerely turned to religion, we need not, every time we pray, examine into every truth, and seek for conviction over and over again; but assume that those doc-ance than the florid talk with which we were trines are true, the truth of which we have already proved. From a general and fixed impression of these principles, will result a taste, a disposedness, a love, so intimate, that the convictions of the understanding will become the affections of the heart. To be deeply impressed with a few fundamental truths, to digest them thoroughly, to meditate on them seriously, to pray over them fervently, to get them deeply rooted in the heart, will be more productive of faith and holiness, than to labour after variety, ingenuity or elegance. The indulgence of imagination will rather distract than edify. Searching after ingenious thoughts will rather divert the attention from God to ourselves, than promote fixedness of thought, singleness of intention, and devotedness of spirit. Whatever is subtil and refined, is in danger of being unscriptural. If we do not guard the mind it will learn to wander in quest of novelties. It will learn to set more value on original thoughts than devout affections. It is the business of prayer to cast down imaginations which gratify the natural activity of the mind, while they leave the heart unhumbled. We should confine ourselves to the present business of the present moment; we should keep the mind in a state of perpetual dependence; we should entertain no long views. Now is the accepted time.'-' To day we must hear his voice.''Give us this day our daily bread.' The manna will not keep till to-morrow: to-morrow will have its own wants, and must have its own petitions. To-morrow we must seek the bread of heaven afresh. We should, however, avoid coming to our de. votions with unfurnished minds. We should so well satisfied: the latter consisted, it may be, of shining thoughts floating on the fancy, eloquent words dwelling only on the lips: the former was the sighing of a contrite heart, abased by the feeling of its own unworthiness, and awed by the perfections of a holy and heartsearching God. The heart is dissatisfied with its own dull and tasteless repetitions, which, with all their imperfections, infinite goodness may perhaps hear with favour. We may not only be elated with the fluency, but even with the fervency of our prayers. Vanity may grow out of the very act of renouncing it, and we may begin to feel proud at having humbled ourselves so eloquently. There is, however, a strain and spirit of prayer equally distinct from that facility and copiousness for which we certainly are never the better in the sight of God, and from that constraint and dryness for which we may be never the worse. There is a simple, solid, pious strain of prayer, in which the supplicant is so filled and occupied with a sense of his own dependence, and of the importance of the things for which he asks, and so persuaded of the power and grace of God through Christ to give him those things, that while he is engaged in it, he does not merely imagine, but feels assured that God is nigh to him as a reconciled Father, so that every burden and doubt are taken off Of this sort of repetitions, our admirable church liturgy has been accused as a fault; but this defect, if it be one, happily accommodates itself to our infirmities. Where is the favoured being whose attention never wanders, whose heart accompanies his lips in every sentence? Is there no absence of mind in the petitioner, no wandering of the thoughts, no inconstancy of the heart? which these repetitions are wisely calculated to correct, to rouse the dead attention, to bring back the strayed affections. |