deny by their doctrine the necessity of prayer, when they assert that man can perform and merit all things by his freewill. For when a person hath an ability to effect and merit all virtuous good, what need hath he to pray to God for his grace, and his Spirit? Therefore when the Jesuits, Socinians and Remonstrants pray with a Pelagian spirit, they only flatter.

But what think ye, hearers, do ye also pray? Perhaps ye will wonder, and be displeased, if I tell you that the most of you do not yet pray, and have never yet prayed: it is nevertheless true, and it appears very evidently. For, (a) many know neither the Triune God, nor themselves, as desparately miserable, so as to be concerned, and they have not the least desire to God, nor to fellowship with him, nor to his blessed benefits. Is not this true? hath any active desire to enjoy the Lord ever possessed your minds? doth your misery affect you so, that it afflicts you, and causes you to cry to God? Hath it ever been your earnest endeavour to embrace the Son of God for grace and salvation, and thus to attain to a condition, that is acceptable to God, in order to have a right and an ability to pray to him? (b) It is true, ye pray also after your manner: but what and how do ye pray? ye say your ordinary forms and lessons, like a schoolboy to his master, ye have done this, and nought besides from your youth up hitherto. But I pray you, consider whether this be praying. Ye surely do not understand the things which ye express with those good and suitable words and forms: do ye not merely present God with a certain number of words without matter and without heart, as the Papists offer a certain number of mumbled prayers to God and the saints? Do not your souls remain far from the Lord, while ye pray thus? do ye express your desires to God, and entreat Mis favour by such praying? doth that ordinary prayer exhibit your particular need, desire and request? have ye always the same need and request, contrary to the temper and experience of sincere Christians? Friends, consider whether ye do by these ordinary lessons humble yousselves, acquire faith and boldness, draw near in the name of the Son of God, obtain a ground of confidence, that God will hear you, and whether ye be influenced to hearty thanksgivings, and to an intense earnestness? your prayers are certainly words only, without matter and without heart. And how detestably do many conduct, that they dare call upon God on their beds, although they are in health, like the careless Israelites, "who cried unto God, but not with their hearts, and howled upon their beds," Hosea vii. 14. (c) Perhaps some among us will detest such a conduct, and think that they quit themselves well, because they pray

from their heads, and either standing or kneeling. But is it only from your heads, and not from your hearts, how can such a fabricated speech be acceptable to God? for it is not then an address of your soul to God, it is not a making of your desire known to him, nor a request that he would fulfil it, but merely words concerning necessary and desirable things, and your souls do not draw near to God with ardent desires, but remain cold and estranged from him. For thus ye draw near to him with your mouths and honour him with your lips, but remove your hearts far from him," Isaiah xxix. 13,

If this be your case, how wretched are ye! ye have never yet prayed: at least your praying hath not been in spirit and in truth. Ye cannot indeed pray, ye are not qualified for it: your prayer is sin, and abominable, it displeaseth the Lord; ye often lie in your playing, when ye thank him with your prayers, that he hath redeemed you by Jesus Christ, since by speaking only words, and always without heart in praying, ye yourselves show that ye neither know your misery, nor have ever earnestly desired, nor sought the Redeemer. He will also not hear you: for "he heareth not sinners," John ix 31. Doth he give you that which is good, it is not in his favour with and in Christ.

Say not, this is a hard saying, who can bear it? if this be so, why should we pray any longer? must we then forbear to pray? We speak thus only from love to you, that we may bring you to yourselves, and that ye may learn how to pray aright and acceptably to God. Ye cannot pray acceptably to God, and ye may nevertheless not forbear to pray: "God pours out his wrath upon them, who call not upon his name," Psalm lxxix. 10. Jer. x. 25. And therefore only know your wretched and miserable condition, that your danger may urge you to pray; it is our ordinary saying, that danger teaches a person to pray. When Paul was discouraged on account of his misery, he learned how to pray acceptably to God, so that the Lord testified of him, "Behold he prayeth," Acts. ix. 11. What think ye, if ye once saw your deplorable condition, that none of your sins were yet forgiven, that God did yet behold you in anger, that ye were unable to do what is necesary for you to do, in order to be saved, that ye had never yet prayed aright, that ye cannot pray so, and that therefore if ye die as ye are at present, ye must perish: would ye not be urged by your danger to retire, and enter into secret, to fall upon your knees, and cry to God for grace? doth not a stammering child, when he is hungry, and suffers pain, know how to complain of such matters to his parents, and to call upon them for help, and is not that stammering language of the child accepta

ble to his parents? would not ye then, if ye were spiritually hungry, and had a painful sense of your misery, be able to complain, and to call upon God for his grace, and would not he be pleased with such addresses, though ye prayed ever so meanly and stammeringly? I believe he would. And therefore pause, and attend a while to your woful misery, contemplate it, and be concerned on account of it, that ye may with fervent prayers, "seek to God, and direct your speech unto him," as Eliphas adviseth, Job v. 8.

But, believers and redeemed, ye who know how to pray through the Spirit of the Lord, let your souls engage often in hearty prayer. It is a difficult work, the flesh is unwilling to exercise itself in it. I consider it therefore proper to exhort you to attend to it with earnestness. For (a) your God, your Father, your Redeemer and Sanctifier hath enjoined it on you in his word, Psalm 1. 15. Jer. xxxiii. 3. Matt. vii. 7. He often stirs your souls up to it. Your heart saith not less than David's in the Lord's stead, "Seek my face," Psalm xxvii. 8; will ye not then echo with him, "Thy face will I seek?" Dare ye be disobedient to that universal and great command? (b) It was foretold of you: the Lord foretold in ancient days concerning our times and people, that "all flesh should come and worship before him," Isaiah lxvi. 23. He saith, Zeph, iii. 9, 10, "Surely I will then turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, my suppliants, even the daughter of my dispersed, shall bring mine offering," Is it indeed your desire to defeat the prophecies, which have been formerly uttered concerning you, and not rather to confirm them by earnest and hearty prayers? it is your duty to fulfil these prophecies by your conduct. Hear what Paul saith to his "son Timothy," 1 Tim. i. 18, "This charge I commit unto thee, according to the prophecies, which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare." (c) Have not all the saints prayed frequently and fervently? Abel's sacrifice, with which God was well pleased, was not unaccompanied with prayer. Enoch walked with God by constant prayer: in what other manner did Abraham manifest that he was a friend of God? Isacc went into the field to pray :* Jacob arose in the night, and sent his household from him, over the brook, that he might wrestle alone with God. The time would fail me, if I should speak of Joshua, of Samuel, of Jabez, of all the holy prophets and apostles. Wherefore seeing we are compassed about

This is agreeable to the Dutch translation.

with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also walk in the same way, and look especially to the chief Captain, and great leader of prayer Jesus, who, according to Luke xxi. 37, "was in the daytime teaching in the temple, and at night went out, and lodged in the mount," without doubt to pray. See Marki 25. (d) Ye have liberty, and that great privilege above others, that ye may come day by day to your Father, and speak familiarly to him. In ancient times the Jews only had liberty to call upon God, as near at hand, and other nations were, and remained strangers to the Lord, as Moses cries out with admiration of this. Deut. iv 7, "What nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for?" But believers of the Gentiles have now, as the Jews had then, an access through Christ by one Spirit to the Father," Eph. ii. 18. Formerly none but the Highpriest was permitted to appear solemnly once a year in the earthly holy of holies, before the face of the Lord, and the people of God through him; but, believers, ye have now all of you liberty; and indeed every day, yea, every hour, to go into a better holy place, through Jesus, the true Highpriest. Will ye not now make use of your liberty, and that great privilege? Hear what Paul saith, Heb. x. 19-22, “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having an Highpriest over the house of God: let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith." (e) Ye, believers, and true Christians, even ye have an ability to pray. The sinner, who is in a state of nature, is bound hand and foot, through his ignorance and inability with respect to prayer: but the Lord, according to his promise, Zech. xii. 10, hath "poured out the Spirit of grace and of supplication upon you;" and according to Rom. viii. 15. Gal. iv. 5, "he hath given you the Spirit of adoption, which crieth Abba Father: yea, which prayeth for and in you with groanings that cannot be uttered," Rom. viii. 26. Will ye then grieve and quench that Spirit of prayer by your sluggishness and listlessness? No, awake, and "stir up the gift of God, which is in you," as Paul admonisheth, 2 Tim. i. 6. (f) What a glorious, delightful and powerful work is prayer! the practice of it confers honour upon a person: "Jabez was more honourable than his brethren; for Jabez called upon the God of Israel," 1 Chron. iv. 9, 10. See this also of Samuel, Psalm, xcix. 6. Prayer is like Jacob's ladder, by which we climb up to heaven, and like the wings of an eagle, by which we mount up to heaven: by prayer we are with Paul caught up into the

paradise of God, the third heaven: we enter in through the inmost veil; we see him who is invisible; we speak to God as a man speaks to his friend, we walk with him, we cleave to him, and acquaint ourselves with him: by prayer we can shut and open heaven, with Elijah, overcome God, with Jacob, and with Moses, restrain his anger, so that he will not consume Israel. What think ye Christians, have ye not a desire to such a great work, and will ye not give yourselves wholly to it? (g) A Christian is in a good or evil state, according as he prays much or little, remissly or earnestly: his spiritual life must languish and decline when he is heartless in this duty; but when it is otherwise, he is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and grows like the calves of the stall. (h) Ye complain of corporal and spiritual afflictions; but whence do they proceed? do they not from your praying so seldom, and in such a heartless manner? the apostle James saith, "Ye have not, because ye ask not," James iv. 2. God suffers you, as it were, to dwell, like the rebellious, in a dry land, that ye may pray earnestly to him: "I will go, and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face; in their affliction they will seek me early," saith God, Hosea v. 14. "He would bring a third part" of his people "into the fire :" but What they should then also call upon his name," Zech. xiii. 9. think ye, if ye exercised yourselves much in prayer, would ye not obtain more than ye do? "He gives liberally to him who prays, and upbraideth not," James i. 6. "He heareth prayer," and therefore"all flesh must come to him," Psalm lxv. 2. See Isaiah xxx. 18, 19. Jer. xxix. 11-14. The Lord doth still give you much, and ye are pleased with it, though ye pray little but when he gives you that which is good upon your praying, it is then a double blessing, which causeth you to rejoice twice, once because he gives you that which is good, and once because he hears your prayer. Do ye see your duty and do ye delight in it, conduct your selves then well in it; and particularly,

1. Beware that ye do not become slothful with respect to it. Praying is a difficult work, we must encourage ourselves, and exert all our strength for it, and must be intent upon it. It is therefore a hateful conduct, and hurtful to the soul, to study sometimes from mere sluggishness to defer prayer, until this or that opportunity, and to be inwardly wellpleased, when we are hindered by some accident, or can pray only in a cursory manner. Conscience saith, it is time for you to seek the Lord, but your listlessness hinders you from setting about it, except in a slothful manner, and ye depart thus further and further from the Lord, who hides his face from the