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THE

CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR,

CONDUCTED

BY AN ASSOCIATION OF GENTLEMEN.

FOR THE YEAR

1820.

VOLUME II.

NEW-HAVEN:

PUBLISHED BY HOWE & SPALDING.

S. CONVERSE. PRINTER.


TEEN

118526

N

TILLEN

THE

CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR.

No. I.]

JANUARY, 1820.

Keligious Communications.

For the Christian Spectator.

On wandering thoughts in Prayer.
It is a characteristic of hypocrites,
that they draw nigh to God with their
mouth, and honour him with their
lips, while their heart is far from him.
Their religious services are all formal.
In these they may perhaps be abun-
dant. This was the fact with respect
to the hypocritical Jews in the days
of Isaiah, and with respect to the
Pharisees in the days of our Saviour.
The former were not deficient in the
multitude of their sacrifices, in the
celebration of their sabbaths and ap-
pointed feasts, nor in any of the
forms of worship prescribed in their
ritual: and the latter were scrupulous-
ly exact in the external performance
of religious duties. They fasted
much, prayed often and made long
prayers, paid tithes of all that they
possessed, and were very strict in
their observance of the Sabbath.-
But all their religion was hypocritical.
It consisted in a routine of mere ex-
ternal services, which being perform-
ed without any love to God, resemble
a body without the soul, and are with
great propriety denominated dead
works. But "God is a Spirit, and
he seeketh such to worship him, as
worship him in spirit and in truth."
"Man looketh on the outward ap-
pearance, but the Lord looketh on the
heart" Those who draw nigh to
him with their mouth while their
heart is on other objects, not only
fail to secure his approbation, but
are guilty of great provocation; and
where this is so uniformly the case,
as to form the habitual character of

[VOL. II.

those who profess to be the worship-
pers of God, it is an indubitable mark
of hypocrisy.

But there is a degree of this evil,
to which real christians are subject.
They often complain of wandering
thoughts in prayer. Owing to their
sinful imperfection, when they would
do good, evil is present with them;
and probably in no case, do they find
this declaration more frequently veri-
fied, than in their addresses to the
throne of grace. Often in their clos-
ets, vain thoughts intrude upon their
devotions; and oftener, in the sanctu-
ary and in the social circle, when
they join in the prayers of others,
they find their heart wandering from
its object. This to the christian is a
source of grief and lamentation, while
by the hypocrite it is disregarded,
and rarely, if ever, made the subject
of complaint.

It is to be feared, however, that
even the christian, has but a faint
sense of the nature and magnitude of
the

il, and should the following re-
marks serve to stimulate any one to
greater diligence in keeping his own
heart, they will not utterly fail of
their object. It may be useful to
contemplate, the sinfulness; the cau-
ses, and the remedies of the evil in
question. That it is highly sinful
to suffer our thoughts to wander upon
the world while engaged in the duty
of prayer, is apparent from many con-
siderations.

It is utterly inconsistent with the
divine requirements. "My son give
me thine heart," is a command which
runs through all the preceptive part
of the Bible, and is implied in every

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