If I would be a suitable companion to men of superior minds, I must have a proper education. So, if I am to be the associate of holy angels, I must be made as angels are.

Every new born soul has a holy taste given it, or it could not "hunger and thirst after righteousness."

I love to see all the sweet flowers and fruits, which God makes the earth bring forth to please us, and then I think, O that I could bear more fruits of righteousness to please him.

54

SECTION VI.

Prayer.

In all our devotions we should look solemnly to our hearts, as soon as our lips are opened before the Lord. It is an awful thing to deal carelessly with God.

Prayer, what is it? I know what it is—it is the Spirit speaking in me; and when God hears my prayer, he hears his own language in me.

I love to feel my wants, because I know how to go to Him who can supply them all.

persons,

Some who have no idea what prayer is, make a great merit of their prayers, and fancy they do God service, by going as beggars to his footstool.

They who truly renounce their own will, and rest purely on the teaching of the Holy Ghost,

find a solid, wise speaking vouchsafed to their minds, whereby they can ask aright for grace to live to God's glory.

The Pharisees were to receive the "greater damnation" for their prayers: so is our condemnation obvious, when we have nothing to bring before God but words.

Prayer is of no avail, unless the soul is in earnest with God. Observe that small but sweetly melodious bird the lark, which keeps longer on the wing than most others, how when he tires, he drops a little, and then rises with redoubled effort, determined to sing out his song. Thus the praying soul pursues its devotions before the Lord.

O the sublimity of fervent prayer! How it dignifies those who are continually found in it! It is indeed a wondrous grace, teaching us to address God in his own way. What I say he dictates! My words of prayer, though polluted by the breath I breathe, still, blessed be his name, go up an unpolluted sacrifice presented by Christ. I put my prayers into my Redeemer's hand; he pardons and purifies what is mine,

takes them spotless to his Father's throne, and they are answered by innumerable blessings.

Never was a spiritual good earnestly desired, which God did not vouchsafe to give.

The promises should be our manual of prayer. We pray best when we expect most, and I am sure we can never raise our expectations beyond God's assurances, who says that he will give "far more abundantly above all that we can ask or think."

It is a poor thing to have strong words and weak desires; but it is a blessing indeed when, though the words may be feeble, the desires are strong.

Sometimes a man may say, "I think God does not answer me, because my prayers are so unworthy." They are not so, if God has created the spirit of prayer within, and if they are offered through Christ the great atoning sacrifice, perfumed with his incense and cleansed by his blood. Though what comes from ourselves deserves no answer, yet through him we shall never pray in vain.

There is nothing like a broken and contrite heart to teach us our need of prayer. Let a man hold his peace if he can, when he has really felt his sin.

It is a great proof that our minds are fashioned according to the will of God, when there is a lovely correspondence between our prayers and his word-when the language of scripture is the language of our feelings. God loves to hear himself speak in the soul, and what he speaks in us, he will condescend to grant to our everlasting good.

Blessed is the man who knows how to whisper out to God, the inmost secrets of his soul.

There can be no true devotion where there is no true knowledge.

It is a sure sign that we pray aright, if we are enabled to desire nothing but what God has declared he delights in giving.

A very small degree of knowledge might teach us, that if we beg pardon for our sins, in the cold way, which evidences our knowing nothing of them, we only contract more sin.