Though your person be as gracious as David or Job, and your desire as holy as the love of angels, and your necessities great as a new penitent, yet it pierces not the clouds, unless it be also as loud as thunder, passionate as the cries of women, and clamorous as necessity. For every prayer we make, is considered by God, and recorded in heaven; but cold prayers are not put into the account, in order to effect an acceptation; but are laid aside like the buds of roses, which a cold wind hath nipped into death, and the discolored tawny face of an Indian slave: and when in order to your hopes of obtaining a great blessing, you reckon up your prayers, with which you have solicited your suit in the court of heaven, you must reckon, not by the number of the collects, but by your sighs and passions, by the vehemence of your desires, and the fervor of your spirit, the apprehension of your need, and the consequent prosecution of your supply. Christ prayed with loud cryings," and St. Paul made mention of his scholars in his prayers "night and day." Fall upon your knees and grow there, and let not your desires cool nor your zeal remit, but renew it again and again; and let not your offices and the custom of praying put thee in mind of thy need, but let thy need draw thee to thy holy offices; and remem

ber, how great a God, how glorious a Majesty you speak to; therefore let not your devotions and addresses be little. Remember, how great a need thou hast; let not your desires be less. Remember, how great the thing is, you pray for; do not undervalue it with any indifferency. Remember, that prayer is an act of religion; let it, therefore, be made thy business: and, lastly, remember, that God hates a cold prayer, and, therefore, will never bless it, but it shall be always ineffectual.

No prayers can prevail upon an indisposed person. For the sun himself cannot enlighten a blind eye, nor the soul move a body whose silver cord is loosed, and whose joints are uptied by the rudeness and dissolutions of a pertinacious sickness. But then, suppose an eye quick and healthful, or apt to be refreshed with light and a friendly prospect; yet a glow-worm or a diamond, the shells of pearl, or a dead man's candle, are not enough to make him discern the beauties of the world, and to admire the glories of creation.

A man of an ordinary piety is like Gideon's fleece, wet in its own locks, but it could not water a poor man's garden. But so does a thirsty land drink all the dew of heaven that wets its face, and a greater shower makes no torrent, nor digs so much as a little furrow,

that the drills of the water might pass into rivers, or refresh their neighbour's weariness; but when the earth is full, and hath no strange consumptive needs, then at the next time when God blesses it with a gracious shower, it divides into portions, and sends it abroad in free and equal communications, that all that stand round about, may feel the shower. So is a good man's prayer; his own cup is full, it is crowned with health, and overflows with blessings, and all that drink of his cup and eat at his table, are refreshed with his joys, and divide with him in his holy portions.

The world itself is established and kept from dissolution by the prayers of saints; and the prayers of saints shall hasten the day of judgment; and we cannot easily find two effects greater. But there are many other very great ones; for the prayers of holy men appease God's wrath, drive away temptations, and resist and overcome the devil: holy prayer procures the ministry and service of angels, it rescinds the decrees of God, it cures sicknesses and obtains pardon, it arrests the sun in its course, and stays the wheels of the chariot of the moon; it rules over all God's creatures, and opens and shuts the storehouses of rain; it unlocks the cabinet of the womb, and quenches the violence of fire; it stops the mouths of lions, and reconciles our

sufferance and weak faculties with the violence of torment and sharpness of persecution; it pleases God and supplies all our needs.

Prayer can obtain every thing; it can open the windows of heaven, and shut the gates of hell; it can put a holy constraint upon God, and detain an angel till he leave a blessing; it can open the treasures of rain, and soften the iron ribs of rocks, till they melt into tears and a flowing river; prayer can unclasp the girdles of the north, saying to a mountain of ice, Be. thou removed hence, and cast into the bottom of the sea; it can arrest the sun in the midst of his course, and send the swift-winged winds upon our errand; and all those strange things, and secret decrees, and unrevealed transactions which are above the clouds, and far beyond the regions of the stars, shall combine in ministry and advantages for the praying man.

PARDON OF SIN.

If we consider, upon how trifling and inconsiderable grounds most men hope for pardon, (if at least that may be called hope, which is nothing but a careless boldness, and an unrea

sonable wilful confidence,) we shall see much cause to pity very many who are going merrily to a sad and intolerable death. Pardon of sins is a mercy which Christ purchased with his dearest blood, which he ministers to us upon conditions of an infinite kindness, but yet of great holiness and obedience, and an active living faith. It is a grace, that the most holy persons beg of God with mighty passion, and labor for with a great diligence, and expect with trembling fears, and concerning it many times suffer sadnesses with uncertain souls, and receive it by degrees, and it enters upon them by little portions, and it is broken as their sighs and sleeps. But so have I seen the returning sea enter upon the strand; and the waters rolling towards the shore, throw up little portions of the tide, and retire as if nature meant to play, and not to change the abode of waters; but still the flood crept by little steppings, and invaded more by his progressions than he lost by his retreat, and having told the number of its steps, it possesses its new portion till the angel calls it back, that it may leave its unfaithful dwelling of the sand. So is the pardon of our sin; it comes by slow motions, and first quits a present death, and turns, it may be, into a sharp sickness; and if that sickness prove not health to the soul, it washes off, and it may