But he who thinks that he shall get rid of the duty of prayer on account of his wickedness, does not only confess, but aggravate his guilt and his condemnation. You must not, indeed, come with the same wicked mind with which you committed your sins; but go grieved and penitent; and the sooner you go the better. The ploughing of the wicked, all they do, is sin: and yet even a worldly man would not therefore justify them in being idle. Your neglect of prayer is perhaps the very cause of your wickedness. Begin to seek the grace of prayer, and God will give you grace to amend. It is your duty, though unregenerate, to pray, and to pray especially for a new heart. When God had promised the new heart and the new spirit to the Jews, he adds, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them. Ezek. xxxvi, 26, 37. Who more wicked than Simon Magus? and yet the Apostle calls on him to repent and pray to God. Acts viii, 21. Your guilt should bring you to the Saviour, and not keep you from him. Will not the sick man desire to see the physician? Is keeping at a distance, and contemptuous and negligent conduct in the offender as likely to gain the favour of him that is offended, as a humble and meek confession of fault, and entreaty for pardon? All the practice and conduct of man, all your own experience, all the confessions of sin, and all the petitions for mercy which are recorded in the Bible, testify against such an idea. If your confession of wickedness be the real feeling of your heart, you see it is the very reason that you should immediately begin to meditate on your sad condition, to repent, and seek God's mercy in prayer. But if it be not the feeling of

your heart, this excuse for neglecting prayer

answer.

needs no

There are others who seem to think that all exhortations to prayer savour of LEGALITY. We are to be saved by believing, and not by working.-But how gross is the mistake of such. We press it not as a mere task or a meritorious labour, but as a plain duty. We state it to be a privilege and a blessing bestowed on all the children of God. We are not, it is true, saved by our prayers, but by Christ; yet we shall never be saved without prayer, for the spirit of prayer is a part of our salvation. Living in neglect of prayer, is a plain proof, whatever men's notions or fancies may be, whatever their doctrinal sentiments are, that they have none of the spirit of adoption, and so do not belong to Christ. Nay, a disregard of prayer shews that you have none of the real feelings of evangelical truth, which, working by love, ever influences the soul to seek the presence of him we love.

Is there not at the bottom of all these objections, a reason of this kind, I DISLIKE PRAYER--It puts a restraint upon all my ways--It compels me to think of that which I had rather forget?-But what are you thus owning yourself to be? It is the character of the wicked, God is not in all his thoughts; they dislike to retain God in their knowledge. Ah! remember, at one time or other all flesh must come before God; he now sits on a throne of grace, where you may obtain mercy; he will hereafter sit on a throne of judgment, where he will for ever condemn those who have not sought and found grace to help in time of need.

This neglect of prayer is the fault of many; but there is a generation who are righteous in their own eyes,

who TRUST IN THEIR PRAYERS.--They reason, little as they think it, on the supposition that for every prayer they make, God is, as it were, so much in debt to them, and thus that by the multitude of their prayers they deserve heaven. This is a common but a strange mistake. What merit can there be in begging and seeking that, which if we obtain, lays us under increased obligations? Israel of old followed after the law of righteousness, but did not attain it, because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. Is not this too much your case? Be not mistaken: though prayer is good in its proper place, it is not good in the way of meriting any thing from God. It is not good in the way even of disposing God to give. He is ever ready to give abundantly unto us, "more ready to hear than we are to pray, and wont to give more than either we desire or deserve.” But it is good as it is pursuing the plan which God has appointed for obtaining his blessings ;-it is good, as it is the way in which he bestows them. Renounce, then, your own righteousness; and thus humbly and believingly seek, you shall find.

and

If you did but know the true character of your fancied righteousness, you would say with Isaiah, all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, as a rejected garment. You would enter into the feelings of the excellent Bishop Beveridge, who declares,* "I know not how it is with others, but for my own part I do not remember, neither do I believe, that I ever prayed in my life-time with that reverence, or heard with that

*See Beveridge's Private Thoughts, a most useful practical Book for the young Christian.

attention, or did any other work, with that pure and single eye, as I ought to have done." Or, as he says in another place," "I do not only betray the inbred venom of my heart, by poisoning my common actions, but even my most religious performances also with sin. I cannot pray but I sin; I cannot hear or preach a sermon, but I sin; I cannot give an alms, or receive the sacrament, but I sin. Nay, I cannot so much as confess my sins, but my very confessions are still aggravations of them; my repentance needs to be repented of; my tears want washing; and the very washing of my tears needs still to be washed over again with the blood of my Redeemer. Thus not only the worst of my sins, but even the best of my duties speak me a child of Adam. Insomuch that whenever I reflect on my past actions, methinks I cannot but look on my whole life, from the time of my conception to this very moment, to be but as one continued act of sin."

With these feelings, you would be sensible at once, that Jesus Christ is the only and complete Saviour of sinners, and that it is only by his obedience many are made righteous. Instead of trusting in your prayers, you would mourn over their imperfections, and be led to trust simply, wholly, and entirely in Christ and him crucified. An old writer, Scudder, cbserves, "God uses, when he is overcome by prayer," (alluding to Jacob, Gen. xxxii, 28.) "to work in them that do overcome, some sense of weakness, to let them know that they prevail with him in prayer, not by any strength of their own, uot by any worthiness of their prayers, when they have prayed best, but from the goodness of God's free grace, from the worthiness of Christ's intercession, by whom they offer up their prayers, and

from the truth of his promise made unto them that pray. If it were not thus, many when they have their hearts' desire in prayer, would ascribe all to the goodness of their prayers, and not to the free grace of God; and would be proud of their own strength, which is in truth none at all."

I have thus endeavoured to shew you the nature and privilege of prayer; may you be so convinced that it is your duty, as to be desirous of further instruction on this subject.

CHAP. III.

The Assistance of the Holy Spirit in Prayer. SUPPOSE the case of a calm at sea. The ship in

the midst of the ocean is sometimes arrested in its progress by a dead calm. Every sail is spread to catch the dying breeze, but all in vain. The vessel continues almost motionless on the vast expanse, or only rocked to and fro by the swell of the sea. The mariners look out day after day, with longing eyes, for a favourable gale to carry them onward; and perhaps when they almost despair of attaining it, then, in this hour of need, the sea manifests in the distance a darker hue, some clouds are seen rising in the horizon, a ripple appears upon the water, the sails begin to fill, the wished-for breeze springs up, the sea parts and foams, and the ship darts along towards its destined port.

Thus it is sometimes with the Christian. He needs