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dantly fufficient for the exercising your Patience is the Evil and Trouble that happens to you every Day, and you need not encrease it by putting upon your Shoulders new Loads of that which is to come.

These are our Saviour's Reasonings upon this Argument; and admirable ones they are. I know nothing like them, nothing comparable to them, to be met with in the moft refin'd Writings of the Philofophers. I leave them with you, and I pray God they may ever have a due Effect both upon you and me.

SERMON

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SERMON II.

PHIL. IV. 6.

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by Prayer and Supplication, with Thanksgiving let your Requests be made known unto God.

Have done with the firft Part of this Text, which is a Caution against the Sin of worldly Carefulness, that I dispatched the last Time.

I now come to the other Branch of it, which is a Recommendation of the Duty of Prayer. In every thing (faith the Apostle) by Prayer and Supplication, &c.

Prayer then, you fee, is the Argument I have before me, and a very noble Argument it is, and withal a very useful one: For Prayer is, or ought to be, the continual

Exercife

Exercise of our Life, for it is to our Souls what Meat and Drink is to our Bodies, their Repaft, their Support, their Nourishment. Prayer is the great univerfal Inftrument by which we fetch down Bleffings from Above, and get our felves poffeffed of whatever we want. Prayer is our Defence and Prefervative against Sin and against Temptation, it is the Security of our Vertue, and the efpecial Means to advance it.

Prayer is the Wing of our Souls, whereby we raise up our felves above this lower World to the God above, and with whom while we therein converfe, we become more and more transformed into his Nature.

Laftly; Whatever Anticipations of Heaven there be here upon Earth, whatever Foretaftes we Chriftians have in these Bodies of the Happiness of Eternity, they are all brought about by the Means of Prayer.

Fit therefore and juft it is, that what is fo great a Duty and fo great a Privilege, fhould be much in our Mouths, that it may be more in our Hearts, that we should be often called upon and ftirr'd up to the Practice of it, and inftructed how fo to practise it as to obtain effectually all the great and glorious Benefits, which it is defigned by God to derive upon us.

I do not think there is need of spending Time in giving an Account of the Terms of my Text, for they are all plain enough. As for the Phrase here used, Let your Requests be

made

made known unto God. 'The Word is in the Original anμata, that is, all thofe Things αιτήματα, that you have need to ask of God, or to addrefs your selves to him about; it is the general Word to comprehend all Kind of Things to be prayed for or against.

Well, but are not all thefe Things known to God already? How then should we make them known to him? I answer, Yes certainly; our Heavenly Father knoweth what Things we have need of before we ask him, as our Saviour hath told us; all therefore that is meant by that Expreffion is, that we are to utter these Things, we are to exprefs them or present them to God by the way of Prayer and Supplication. Well, but what is the Sense of these Terms, Prayer and Supplication, here used? Are they the fame, or do they mean different Things? I anfwer, In our Language we commonly put them for the fame thing. In the Greek they are often diftinguish'd, especially when they are join'd together: But then the Difference is no more than this, that the Word we gorun, which we render Prayer, doth ufually fignify fuch a Kind of Prayer as is put up for the good Things we need but the Word Shoes, whcih we render Supplication, fignifies fuch a Prayer as is put up against the evil Things we fear. They both of them come under the Name and Notion of Prayer, but they have their different Objects; the one we properly call Petition,

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the other Deprecation: But thus much for the Critique on the Text.

I now come to my Bufinefs: In every thing, faith the Apoftle, by Prayer and Supplication, with Thanksgiving, let your Requests be made known unto God.

Thefe Words may be taken two Ways, either as commanding a Duty, or as propofing an Inftrument or Means for the obtaining what we defire or stand in need of.

Prayer certainly falls under these two Confiderations, and we cannot have a true Notion of it without taking in both of them, that is to fay, without confidering it both as it relates to God as due to him, and as it relates to us, as useful for the procuring of what we want. Under both thefe Notions therefore I fhall now difcourfe of Prayer: And accordingly thefe Three Things I propose to do.

First, I fhall difcourfe of the Nature and Obligation of Prayer, confider'd as a Religious Duty we owe to God.

Secondly, I fhall discourse of the Efficacy and Successfulness of Prayer confider'd as an Inftrument for the procuring Bleffings to our felves And,

Thirdly, I fhall difcourfe of the Requifites or Conditions of Prayer, which we must take care to obferve, if we would have our Prayers either acceptable to God, or bene'ficial to our felves.

The two firft of these Heads, I fhall dif patch at this Time.

First,

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