patience, and gentleness of our Lord Jesus Christ, who endures far greater and harder things for his spouse's sake, than ever Jacob did for his Rachel's sake. After Christ had suffered much for her sake, and waited her leisure for a long while, she very unkindly, and very unmannerly, and unworthily turns her back upon all his sweet and comfortable intreaties and blessed and bleeding embracements, and turns him off to look for his lodging in some other place; so that he might well have said, Is this thy kindness to thy Friend, thy Husband, thy Lord, to suffer him to stand bareheaded, and that in bad weather, yea, in the night time, wooing, intreating, and beseeching admittance; and yet to turn him off as one in whom thy soul could take no pleasure.

Now, if you will but seriously weigh all these eircumstances in the balance of the sanctuary, you may run and read the fault, and folly, the weakness, and madness, the slightness, and laziness of the spouse; and by her you may judge of the sad and sinful distempers that may seize upon the best of saints, and see how ready the flesh is to frame excuses; and all to keep the soul off from duty, and the doors fast bolted against the Lord Jesus.

"Tis sad, that men are well enough to sit and chat, and trade in their shops; but are not well enough to pray in their closets. Certainly that man's heart is not right with God, (at least at this time) who under all his bodily distempers can maintain and keep up his public trade with men, but is not well enough to maintain his private trade with heaven. Our bodies are but clay handsomely tempered, and artificially

formed; we derive our pedigree from, and are akin to the clay. One calls the body, "the blot of nature;" another calls it, "the soul's beast, a sack of dung, worms meat;" another calls it, "a prison, a sepulchre ;" and Paul calls it," a body of vileness." Now for a man to make so much ado abont the distempers of the body, and to excuse the neglects of his soul, is an evil made up of many evils. But really, Sir, I am so ill, and my body is so distempered and indisposed, that I am not able to mind or to meddle with the least things of the world: Well, if this be so, then know that God hath on purpose knocked thee off from the things of this world, that thou mayest look the more effectually after the things of another world. The design of God in all the distempers that are upon thy body, is to wind thee more off from thy worldly trade, and to work thee to follow thy heavenly trade more close. Many a man had never found the way to his closet, if God by bodily distempers had not turned him out of his shop, his trade, his business, his all.

Well christians, remember this once for all, if your indisposition to closet prayer doth really arise from bodily distempers, then you may be confident the Lord will pity you, and bear with you, and kindly accept of a litile: You know how affectionately parents and kind masters carry it towards their children and servants, when they are under bodily distempers and indispositions; and you may be confident that God will never carry it worse towards you, than they do towards them. Ponder often upon Ezek. xxxiv. 4, 16, 21, 23. But,

6. And lastly, I shall answer this objection by way of distinction, thus:

1. There is a contracted indisposition to private prayer, and an involuntary indisposition to private prayer: a contracted indisposition is, when a man by wilful sinning against light, knowledge, conviction, &c. contracts that guilt that lies upon his conscience : Now guilt makes the soul shy of God; and the greater the guilt is, the more shy the soul is of drawing near to God in private. The child that is sensible under guilt hides himself (as Adam did) in the day from his father's eye, and at night he slips to bed, to avoid either a chiding, or a whipping from his father. Guilt makes a man fly from God, and fly from prayer: 'Tis a hard thing to look God in the face, when guilt stares a man in the face. Guilt makes a man a terror to himself, he is neither fit to live, nor fit to die, nor fit to pray: When poison gets into the body, it works upon the spirits, and it weakens the spirits, and it endangers life, and unfits and indisposes a man to all natural actions; 'tis so here, when guilt lies heavy on the conscience, it works upon the soul, it weakens and endangers the soul, and doth wonderfully unfit and indispose the soul to all holy actions. Guilt fights against our souls, our consciences, our comforts, our duties, yea, and our very graces also: There is nothing that wounds, weakens, and hinders the activity of our graces like guilt; and there is nothing that clouds our evidences of grace like guilt. Look what water is to the fire, that our sinnings are to our graces, evidences, and duties. Guilt is like Prometheus Vulture, that ever lies gnawing. 'Tis better with Evagrius to lie on a bed of straw with a good conscience, than to lie on a bed of down, with a

guilty conscience.

What the probationer disciple said to our Saviour, Mat, viii. 19. "Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest;" that a guilty conscience saith to the sinner, whithersoever thou goest I will follow thee.

It is storied of king Richard the Third, that after he had murdered his two nephews in the Tower, guilt lay so hard upon his conscience, that his sleep was very unquiet; for he would often leap out of his bed in the dark, and catching his sword in his hand which hung by his bed side, he would go distractedly about the chamber seeking for the traitor.

So Charles the ninth of France, after he had made the streets of Paris run down with the blood of the Protestants, he could seldom take any sound sleep, nor could he endure to be awakened out of his sleep without music..

Judge Morgan that passed the sentence of condemn ation upon Jane Grey, (a virtuous lady) shortly after fell mad, and in his raving cried out continually, Take away the lady Jane from me, Take away the lady Jane from me, and in that horror ended his wretched life.

James Abyes going to execution for Christ's sake, as he went along he gave his money and his clothes to one and another, till he had given all away but his shirt; whereupon one of the sheriff's men fell a scoffing and deriding him, and told that he was a mad'man and heretic, and not to be believed; but as soon as the good man was executed, this wretch was struck mad, and threw away his clothes, and cried out, that James Abyes was a good man and gone to heaven,

but he was a wicked man and was damned, and thus he continued crying out till his death: Certainly he that derides or smites a man for walking according to the word of the Lord, the Lord will first or last so smite and wound that man's conscience, that all the physicians in the world shall not heal it.

Now, if thy indisposition to private prayer springs from contracted guilt upon thy conscience, then thy best way is, speedily to renew thy repentance and humble thine own soul, and so to act faith afresh upon the blood of Christ, both for pardoning mercy, and for purging grace. When a man is stung with guilt 'tis his highest wisdom to look to the brazen serpent, and not to spend his time, or create, torments to his own soul by perpetual poring upon his guilt. When guilt upon the conscience works a man to water the earth with tears, and to make heaven ring with his groans, then it works kindly. When the sense of guilt drives a man to God, to duty, to the throne of grace, then it will not be long night with that man. He that thinks to shift off private prayer under the pretence of guilt, doth but in that, increase his own guilt. Neglect of duty will never get guilt off the conscience.

But then there is an involuntary indisposition to private prayer; as in a sick man, who would work and walk, but cannot, being hindered by his disease; or as it is with a man that hath a great chain on his leg, he would very fain walk or get away, but bis chain hinders him. Now if your indisposition to private prayer be an involuntary indisposition, then God. will in due time both pardon and remove it.

2. There is a total indisposition, and a partial indis