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serious meditation and earnest prayer it be us in a posture for duty. If we desert the moulded into submission. A habit of ac-duty because an immediate blessing does not quiescence in the will of God, will so operate visibly attend it, it shows that we do not on the faculties of his mind, that even his serve God out of conscience, but selfishness: judgment will embrace the conviction, that that we grudge expending on him that serwhat he once so ardently desired, would not vice which brings us in no immediate interhave been that good thing, which his blind-est. Though he grant not our petition, let ness had conspired with his wishes to make us never be tempted to withdraw our applihim believe it to be. He will recollect the cation." many instances in which if his importunity

Still lift for good the supplicating voice,

Our

Our reluctant devotions may remind us of had prevailed, the thing which ignorance the remark of a certain political wit, who requested, and wisdom denied, would have apologized for his late attendance in parliainsured his misery. Every fresh disappointment, by his being detained while a party ment will teach him to distrust himself, and of soldiers were dragging a volunteer to his to confide in God. Experience will instruct duty. How many excuses do we find for not him that there may be a better way of hear-being in time! How many apologies for ing our requests than that of granting them. brevity! How many evasions for neglect ! Happy for us that he to whom they are ad- How unwilling, too often, are we to come dressed knows which is best, and acts upon into the divine presence, how reluctant to that knowledge. remain in it! Those hours which are least valuable for business, which are least seasonable for pleasure, we commonly give to But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice; religion. Our energies which were so exImplore his aid, in his decisions rest, erted in the society we have just quitted, are Secure whate'er he gives, he gives the best. sunk as we approach the divine presence. We should endeavour to render our pri-Our hearts. which were all alacrity in some vate devotions effectual remedies for our own frivilous conversation, become cold and inparticular sins. Prayer against sin in ge-animate, as if it were the natural property neral is too indefinite to reach the individual of devotion to freeze the affections. case. We must bring it home to our own heart, else we may be confessing another man's sins and overlooking our own. If we have any predominant fault, we should pray more especially against that fault. If we pray for any virtue of which we particularly stand in need, we should dwell on our own deficiencies in that virtue, till our souls become deeply affected with our want of it. Our prayers should be circumstantial, not, as was before observed, for the information of infinite wisdom, but for the stirring up of When the heart is once sincerely turned our own dull affections. And as the reca- to religion, we need not, every time we pray, pitulation of our wants tends to keep up a examine into every truth, and seek for consense of our dependence, the enlarging on viction over and over again; but assume our especial mercies will tend to keep alive that those doctrines are true, the truth of a sense of gratitude. While indiscriminate which we have already proved. From a petitions, confessions, and thanksgivings general and fixed impression of these prinleave the mind to wander in indefinite devo- ciples, will result a taste, a disposedness, a tion and unaffecting generalities, without love, so intimate, that the convictions of the personality and without appropriation. It understanding will become the affections of must be obvious that we except those grand the heart. universal points in which all have an equal interest, and which must always form the essence of public prayer.

On the blessing attending importunity in prayer, the Gospel is abundantly explicit. God perhaps delays to give that we may persevere in asking. He may require importunity for our own sakes, that the frequency and urgency of the petition may bring our hearts into that frame to which he will be favourable.

animal spirits, which so readily performed their functions before, now slacken their vigour and lose their vivacity. The sluggish body sympathizes with the unwilling mind, and each promotes the deadness of the other; both are slow in listening to the call of duty; both are soon weary in performing it. As prayer requires all the energies of the compound being of man, so we too often feel as if there were a conspiracy of body,soul and spirit, to disincline and disqualify us for it.

To be deeply impressed with a few fundamental truths, to digest them thoroughly, to meditate on them seriously, to pray over them fervently, to get them deeply rooted in the heart, will be more productive of faith and holiness, than to labour after variety, ingenuity or elegance. The indulgence of imagination will rather distract than edify, Searching after ingenious thoughts will rather divert the attention from God to ourselves, than promote fixedness of thought, As we ought to live in a spirit of obedi-singleness of intention, and devotedness of ence to his commands, so we should live in spirit. Whatever is subtile and refined, is in a frame of waiting for his blessings on our danger of being unscriptural. If we do not prayers, and in a spirit of gratitude when guard the mind it will learn to wander in we have obtained it. This is that 'prepara- quest of novelties. It will learn to set more tion of the heart' which would always keep value on original thoughts than devout affec

tions. It is the business of prayer to cast with the fluency, but even with the fervendown imaginations which gratify the natu-cy of our prayers. Vanity may grow out of ral activity of the mind, while they leave the very act of renouncing it, and we may the heart unhumbled. begin to feel proud at having humbled our

We should confine ourselves to the pre-selves so eloquently. sent business of the present moment; we There is, however, a strain and spirit of should keep the mind in a state of perpetual prayer equally distinct from that facility and dependence; we should entertain no long copiousness for which we certainly are neviews. Now is the accepted time.-To-ver the better in the sight of God, and from day we must hear his voice.'-'Give us this that constraint and dryness for which we day our daily bread.' The manna will not may be never the worse. There is a simkeep till to-morrow: to-morrow will have ple, solid, pious strain of prayer, in which its own wants, and must have its own peti-the supplicant is so filled and occupied with a tions. To-morrow we must seek the bread sense of his own dependence, and of the imof heaven afresh. portance of the things for which he asks, We should, however, avoid coming to our and so persuaded of the power and grace of devotions with unfurnished minds. We God through Christ to give him those things, should be always laying in materials for that while he is engaged in it, he does not prayer, by a diligent course of serious read-merely imagine, but feels assured that God ing, by treasuring up in our minds the most is nigh to him as a reconciled Father, so important truths. If we rush into the divine that every burden and doubt are taken off presence with a vacant, or ignorant, or un-from his mind. He knows,' as Saint John prepared mind, with a heart full of the expresses it, that he has the petitions he world; as we shall feel no disposition or desired of God,' and feels the truth of that qualification for the work we are about to promise, while they are yet speaking I engage in, so we cannot expect that our pe- will hear.' This is the perfection of prayer. titions will be heard or granted. There must be some congruity between the heart and the object, some affinity between the state of our minds and the business in which they are employed, if we would expect success in the work.

We are often deceived, both as to the principle and the effect of our prayers. When from some external cause the heart is glad, the spirits light, the thoughts ready, the tongue voluble, a kind of spontaneous eloquence is the result; with this we are pleased, and this ready flow we are willing to impose on ourselves for piety.

CHAP. VI.

Cultivation of a Devotional Spirit.

never be hostile to it. We should avoid as much as in us lies all such society, all such amusements, as excite tempers which it is the daily business of a Christian to subdue, and all those feelings which it is his constant

To maintain a devotional spirit, two things are especially necessary-habitually to cultivate the disposition, and habitually to avoid whatever is unfavourable to it. Frequent retirement and recollection are indispensa ble, together with such a general course of reading, as if it do not actually promote the On the other hand when the mind is de-spirit we are endeavouring to maintain, shall jected; the animal spirits low; the thoughts confused; when apposite words do not readily present themselves, we are apt to accuse our hearts of want of fervour, to lament our weakness, and to mourn that because we have had no pleasure in praying, our pray-duty to suppress. ers have, therefore, not ascended to the throne of mercy. In both cases we perhaps judge ourselves unfairly. These unready accents, these faltering praises, these ill expressed petitions, may find more acceptance than the florid talk with which we were so well satisfied: the latter consisted, it may be, of shining thoughts floating on the fancy, eloquent words dwelling only on the lips the former was the sighing of a contrite heart, abased by the feeling of its own unworthiness, and awed by the perfections of a holy and heart-searching God. The heart is dissatisfied with its own dull and tasteless repetitions, which, with all their imperfections, infinite goodness may perhaps hear with favour. We may not only be clated

And here may we venture to observe, that if some things which are apparently innocent, and do not assume an alarming aspect, or bear a dangerous character; things which the generality of decorous people affirm, (how truly we know not) to be safe for them; yet if we find that these things stir up in us improper prosensities; if they awaken thoughts which ought not to be excited; if they abate our love for religious exercises, or infringe on our time for performing them; if they make spiritual concerns appear insi pid; if they wind our heart a little more

Where is the favoured being whose attention never wanders, whose heart accompanies his lips in every ser tence? Is there no absence of mind in the petitioner, n wandering of the thoughts, no inconstancy of the heart? which these repetitions are wisely calculated to correet, to rouse the dead attention, to bring back the stayed

Of this sort of repetitions, our admirable church liturgy has been accused as a fault; but this defect, if it be one, happily accommodates itself to our infirmities. affections.

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about the world: in short, if we have for-them; which while they elevate the desires, merly found them injurious to our own souls, purify them, which show us our own nature, then let no example or persuasion, no belief and lay open its corruptions. Such as show of their alleged innocence, no plea of their perfect safety, tempt us to indulge in them. It matters little to our security what they are to others. Our business is with ourselves. Our responsibility is on our own heads. Others cannot know the side on which we are assailable. Let our own unSiassed judgment determine our opinion; let our own experience decide for our own

conduct.

us the malignity of sin, the deceitfulness of our hearts, the feebleness of our best resolutions; such as teach us to pull off the mask from the fairest appearances, and discover every hiding place, where some lurking evil would conceal itself; such as show us not what we appear to others, but what we really are; such as co-operating with our interior feeling, and showing us our natural state, point out our absolute need of a Redeemer, lead us to seek to him for pardon

fuge, no other salvation. Let us be conversant with such writings as teach us that while we long to obtain the remission of our transgressions, we must not desire the remission of our duties. Let us seek for such a Saviour as will not only deliver us from the punishment of sin, but from its dominion also.

tion is over, we cannot, amid the distractions of company and business, always be thinking of heavenly things; yet the desire, the frame, the propensity, the willingness to return, to them we must, however difficult, endeavour to maintain.

In speaking of books, we cannot forbear noticing that very prevalent sort of reading. from a conviction that there is no other rewhich is little less productive of evil, little less prejudicial to moral and mental improvement, than that which carries a more formidable appearance. We cannot confine our censure to those more corrupt writings which deprave the heart, debauch the imagination, and poison the principles. Of these the turpitude is so obvious, that no caution on this head, it is presumed, can be necessa- And let us ever bear in mind that the end ry. But if justice forbids us to confound the of prayer is not answered when the prayer insipid with the mischievous, the idle with is finished. We should regard prayer as a the vicious, and the frivolous with the pro- means to a farther end. The act of prayer figate, still we can only admit of shades, is not sufficient, we must cultivate a spirit of deep shades we allow, of difference. These prayer. And though when the actual devoworks, if comparatively harmless, yet debase the taste, slacken the intellectual nerve, let down the understanding, set the fancy loose, and send it gadding among low and mean objects. They not only run away with the time which should be given to better things, but gradually destroy all taste for bet- The proper temper for prayer should ter things. They sink the mind to their precede the act. The disposition should be own standard, and give it a sluggish reluc-wrought in the mind before the exercise is tance, we had almost said, a moral incapa-begun. To bring a proud temper to an humcity for every thing above their level. The ble prayer, a luxurious habit to a self-denymind, by long habit of stooping, loses its ing prayer, or a worldly disposition to a erectness, and yields to its degradation. It spiritually-minded prayer, is a positive anobecomes so low and narrow by the littleness maly. A habit is more powerful than an act, of the things which engage it, that it re- and a previously indulged temper during the quires a painful effort to lift itself high day will not, it is to be feared, be fully counenough, or to open itself wide enough to em-teracted by the exercise of a few minutes brace great and noble objects. The appe- devotion at night. tite is vitiated. Excess, instead of producing a surfeit, by weakening the digestion, only induces a loathing for stronger nourishment. The faculties which might have been expanding in works of science, or soaring in the contemplation of genius, become satisfied with the impertinences of the most ordinary fiction, lose their relish for the severity of truth, the elegance of taste, and the soberness of religion. Lulled in the torpor of repose, the intellect doses, and enjoys in its waking dream,

All the wild trash of sleep, without the rest.

Prayer is designed for a perpetual renovation of the motives to virtue; if therefore the cause is not followed by its consequence, a consequence inevitable but for the impediments we bring to it, we rob our nature of its highest privilege, and run the danger of incurring a penalty where we are looking for a blessing.

That the habitual tendency of the life should be the preparation for the stated prayer, is naturally suggested to us by our blessed Redeemer in his sermon on the Mount. He announced the precepts of holiness, and their corresponding beatitudes; In avoiding books which excite the pas- he gave the spiritual exposition of the law, sions, it would seem strange to include even the direction for alms-giving, the exhortasome devotional works. Yet such as mere- tion to love our enemies, nay the essence and ly kindle warm feelings, are not always the spirit of the whole Decalogue, previous to his Safest. Let us rather prefer those, which, delivering his own divine prayer as a pattern while they tend to raise a devotional spirit, for ours. Let us learn from this that the awaken the affections without disordering preparation of prayer is therefore to live in VOL. I.

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all those pursuits which we may safely beg of God to bless, and in a conflict with all those temptations into which we pray not to be led.

cherish sensual ideas during the rest of the day, can they expect that none of these ima ges will intrude, that none of these impressions will be revived, but that the temple If God be the centre to which our hearts into which foul things' have been invited, are tending, every line in our lives must meet will be cleansed at a given moment; that in him. With this point in view there will worldly thoughts will recede and give place be a harmony between our prayers and our at once to pure and holy thoughts? Will that practice, a consistency between devotion Spirit grieved by impurity, or resisted by and conduct, which will make every part levity, return with his warm beams and turn to this one end, bear upon this one cheering influences, to the contaminated point. For the beauty of the Christian mansion from which he has been driven out? scheme consists not in parts (however good Is it wonderful if finding no entrance into a in themselves) which tend to separate views, heart filled with vanity he should withdraw and lead to different ends; but it arises from himself? We cannot, in retiring into our its being one entire, uniform, connected plan, closets, change our natures as we do our compacted of that which every joint, sup-clothes. The disposition we carry thither plieth,' and of which all the parts terminate in this one grand ultimate point.

will be likely to remain with us. We have no right to expect that a new temper will The design of prayer therefore as we be- meet us at the door. We can only hope fore observed, is not merely to make us de- that the spirit we bring thither will be chevout while we are engaged in it, but that its rished and improved. It is not easy, rather odour may be diffused through all the inter- it is not possible, to graft genuine devotica mediate spaces of the day, enter into all its on a life of an opposite tendency; nor can Occupations, duties and tempers. Nor must we delight ourselves regularly for a few staits results be partial, or limited to easy and ted moments, in that God whom we have pleasant duties, but extend to such as are not been serving during the day. We may less alluring. When we pray, for instance, indeed to quiet our conscience, take up the for our enemies, the prayer must be render-employment of prayer, but cannot take up ed practical, must be made a means of sof-the state of mind which will make the emtening our spirit, and cooling our resent-ployment beneficial to ourselves, or the ment toward them. If we deserve their en- prayer acceptable to God, if all the previous mity, the true spirit of prayer will put us day we have been careless of ourselves, and upon endeavouring to cure the fault which unmindful of our Maker. They will not has excited it. If we do not deserve it, it pray differently from the rest of the world, will put us on striving for a placable temper, who do not live differently. and we shall endeavour not to let slip so favourable an occasion of cultivating it. There is no such softener of animosity, no such Soother of resentment, no such allayer of hatred, as sincere, cordial prayer.

What a contradiction is it to lament the weakness, the misery, and the corruption of our nature, in our devotions, and then to rush into a life, though not perhaps of vice, yet of indulgence, calculated to increase that weakness, to inflame those corruptions, and to lead to that misery! There is either no meaning to our prayers, or no sense in our conduct. In the one we mock God, in the other we deceive ourselves.

It is obvious, that the precept to pray without ceasing can never mean to enjoin a continual course of actual prayer. But while it more directly enjoins us to embrace all proper occasions of performing this sacred duty, or rather of claiming this valua- Will not he who keeps up an habitual ir ble privilege, so it plainly implies that we tercourse with his Maker, who is vigilant is should try to keep up constantly that sense thought, self-denying in action, who strives of the divine presence which shall maintain to keep his heart from wrong desires, his the disposition. In order to this, we should mind from vain imaginations, and his lips inure our minds to reflection; we should en- from idle words, bring a more prepared spicourage serious thoughts. A good thought rit, a more collected mind, be more enbarely passing through the mind will make gaged, more penetrated, more present to little impression on it. We must arrest it, the occasion? Will he not feel more delight constrain it to remain with us, expand, am- in this devout exercise, reap more benet: plify, and as it were, take it to pieces. It from it, than he who lives at random, prays must be distinctly unfolded, and carefully from custom, and who, though he dares n examined, or it will leave no precise idea: intermit the form, is a stranger to its sp it must be fixed and incorporated, or it will rit? O God my heart is ready,' cannot be produce no practical effect. We must not lawfully uttered by him who is no more predismiss it till it has left some trace on the pared. mind, till it has made some impression on the heart.

On the other hand, if we give the reins to a loose ungoverned fancy, at other times; if we abandon our minds to frivolous thoughts; if we fill them with corrupt images; if we

We speak not here to the self-sufficient formalist, or the careless profligate. Among those whom we now take the liberty to address, are to be found, especially in the high er class of females, the amiable and the teresting, and in many respects the virtues

and correct; Characters so engaging, so labour after any grace, that of prayer for inevidently made for better things, so capable stance, without resisting whatever is oppoof reaching high degrees of excellence, so site to it. If then we lament, that it is so formed to give the tone to Christian practice, hard to serve God, let us not by our conduct as well as to fashion; so calculated to give a furnish arguments against ourselves; for, as beautiful impression on that religion which if the difficulty were not great enough in itthey profess without sufficiently adoring; self, we are continually heaping up mounwhich they believe without fairly exempli- tains in our way, by indulging in such purfying; that we cannot forbear taking a ten-suits and passions, as make a small labour der interest in their welfare; we cannot for- an insurmountable one.

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bear breathing a fervent prayer that they But we may often judge better of our may yet reach the elevation for which they state by the result, than by the act of praywere intended; that they may hold out a uni-er. Our very defects, our coldness, deadform and consistent pattern, of whatsoever ness, wanderings, may leave more contrition things are pure, honest, just, lovely, and of on the soul than the happiest turn of thought. good report!' This the Apostle goes on to The feeling of our wants, the confession of intimate can only be done by THINKING ON our sins, the acknowledgment of our depenTHESE THINGS. Things can only influence dence, the renunciation of ourselves, the supour practice as they engage our attention.plication for mercy, the application to the Would not then a confirmed habit of serious fountain opened for sin,' the cordial entreaty thought tend to correct that inconsideration, for the aid of the Spirit, the relinquishment which we are willing to hope, more than of our own will, resolutions of better obediwant of principle, lies at the bottom of the ence, petitions that these resolutions may be inconsistency we are lamenting. directed and sanctified; these are the sub

If, as is generally allowed, the great diffi-jects in which the suppliant should be engaculty of our spiritual life is to make the fu-ged, by which his thoughts should be absorture predominate over the present, do we bed. Can they be so absorbed, if many of not by the conduct we are regretting, ag- the intervening hours are passed in pursuits gravate what it is in our power to diminish? of a totally different complexion; pursuits Miscalculation of the relative value of things which raise the passions which we are seekis one of the greatest errors of our moral ing to allay? Will the cherished vanities go life. We estimate them in an inverse pro- at our bidding? Will the required disposiportion to their value, as well as to their du- tions come at our calling? Do we find our ration: we lavish earnest and durable tempers so obedient, our passions so obsequithoughts on things so triiling, that they de-ous in the other concerns of life? If not, serve little regard, so brief, that they perish what reason have we to expect their obsequiwith the using, while we bestow only slight attention on things of infinite worth, only transient thoughts on things of eternal dura

tion.

Those who are so far conscientious as not to intermit a regular course of devotion, and who yet allow themselves at the same time to go on in a course of amusements, which excite a directly opposite spirit, are inconceivably augmenting their own difficulties. -They are eagerly heaping up fuel in the day, on the fire which they intend to extinguish in the evening; they are voluntarily adding to the temptations, against which they mean to request grace to struggle. To acknowledge at the same time, that we find it hard to serve God as we ought, and yet to be systematically indulging habits, which must naturally increase the difficulty, makes our characters almost ridiculous, while it renders our duty almost impracticable.

While we make our way more difficult by those very indulgences with which we think to cheer and refresh it, the determined Christian becomes his own pioneer: he makes his path easy by voluntarily clearing it of the obstacles which impede his progress.

These habitual indulgences seem a contradiction to that obvious law, that one virtue always involves another; for we cannot

ousness in this grand concern. We should therefore endeavour to believe as we pray, to think as we pray, to feel as we pray, and to act as we pray. Prayer must not be a solitary, independent exercise; but an exercise interwoven with many, and inseparably connected with that golden chain of Christian duties, of which, when so connected, it forms one of the most important links.

Business however must have its period as well as devotion. We were sent into this world to act as well as to pray; active dutics must be performed as well as devout exercises. Even relaxation must have its interval, only let us be careful that the indulgence of the one do not destroy the effect of the other; that our pleasures do not encroach on the time or deaden the spirit of our devotions: let us be careful that our cares, occupations, and amusements may be always such that we may not be afraid to implore the divine blessing on them; this is the criterion of their safety and of our duty. Let us endeavour that in each, in all, one continually growing sentiment and feeling, of loving, serving, and pleasing God, maintain its predominant station in the heart.

An additional reason why we should live in the perpetual use of prayer, seems to be, that our blessed Redeemer after having given both the example and the command, while on earth, condescends still to be our

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