a manner as the Holy Ghost in Scripture either commands or allows of As for any other kind of Praying by the Spirit upon the best enquiry that I can make into these matters I can find none And if some say as I know they both impudently and blasphemously doe that to pray by the Spirit is to have the Spirit immediately inspiring them and by such Inspiration speaking within them and so dictating their prayers to them let them either produce plain Scripture or doe a Miracle to prove this by But till then he who shall consider what kind of prayers these pretenders to the Spirit have been notable for will find that they have as little Cause to father their Prayers as their Practices upon the Spirit of God These Two things are certain and I doe particularly recommend them to your Observation One that this way of Praying by the Spirit as they call it was begun and first brought into use here in England in Queen Elizabeth's days by a Popish Priest and Dominican Fryar one Faithfull Commin by Name who counterfeiting himself a Protestant and a Zealot of the highest form set up this new Spiritual way of Praying with a design to bring the People first to a Contempt and from thence to an utter Hatred and Disuse of our Common-prayer which he still reviled as only a Translation of the Mass thereby to distract men's Minds and to divide our Church And this he did with such success that we have lived to see the Effects of his Labours in the utter subversion of Church and State Which hellish Negotiation when this malicious Hypocrite came to Rome to give the Pope an account of he received of him as so notable a service well deserved besides a thousand Thanks two thousand Ducats for his pains So that now you see here the Original of this Extempore-way of praying by the Spirit The other thing that I would observe to you is That in the neighbour Nation of Scotland one of the greatest Monsters of Men that I believe ever lived and actually in league with the Devil was yet by the confession of all that heard him the most Excellent at this Extempore-way of Praying by the Spirit of any Man in his time none was able to come near him or to compare with him But surely now he who shall venture to ascribe the Prayers of such a Wretch made up of Adulteries Incest Witchcraft and other Villainies not to be named to the Spirit of God may as well strike in with the Pharisees and ascribe the Miracles of Christ to the Devil And thus having shewn both what ought to be meant by Praying by the Spirit and what ought not cannot be meant by it let us now see whether a Set-form or this Extemporary-way be the greater hinderer and stinter of it In order to which I shall lay down these three Assertions 1. That the Soul or Mind of Man is but of a limited Nature in all its Workings and consequently cannot supply two distinct Faculties at the same time to the same height of Operation 2 ly That the finding Words and Expressions for Prayer is the proper business of the Brain and the Invention and that the finding Devotion and Affection to accompany and go along with those Expressions is properly the Work and Business of the Heart 3 ly That this Devotion and Affection is indispensably required in Prayer as the principal and most Essential part of it and that in which the Spirituality of it does most properly consist Now from these three Things put together this must naturally and necessarily follow That as Spiritual Prayer or Praying by the Spirit taken in the right sense of the word consists properly in that Affection and Devotion that the Heart exercises and imploys in the Work of Prayer so whatsoever gives the Soul scope and liberty to exercise and imploy this Affection and Devotion that does most effectually help and enlarge the Spirit of Prayer and whatsoever diverts the Soul from employing such Affection and Devotion that does most directly stint and hinder it Accordingly let this now be our Rule whereby to judge of the Efficacy of a Set-form and of the Extempore-way in the present Business As for a Set-form in which the Words are ready prepared to our hands the Soul has nothing to doe but to attend to the work of raising the Affections and Devotions to go along with those words So that all the Powers of the Soul are took up in applying the Heart to this great Duty and it is the Exercise of the Heart as has been already shewn that is truly and properly a Praying by the Spirit On the contrary in all extempore-Extempore-prayer the Powers and Faculties of the Soul are called off from dealing with the Heart and the Affections and that both in the Speaker and in the Hearer both in him who makes and in him who is to joyn in such Prayers And first for the Minister who makes and utters such Extempore-prayers He is wholly imploying his Inventions both to conceive Matter and to find Words and Expressions to cloath it in This is certainly the work which takes up his Mind in this Exercise And since the Nature of man's Mind is such that it cannot with the same vigour at the same time attend the work of Invention and that of raising the Affections also nor measure out the same supply of Spirits and Intention for the carrying on the Operations of the Head and those of the Heart too it is certain that while the Head is so much imployed the Heart must be idle and very little imployed and perhaps not at all And consequently if to pray by the Spirit be to pray with the Heart and the Affections it is also as certain that while a Man prays Extempore he does not pray by the Spirit Nay the very truth of it is that while he is so doing he is not praying at all but he is studying He is beating his Brain while he should be drawing out his Affections And then for the People that are to hear and joyn with him in such Prayers it is manifest that they not knowing before-hand what the Minister will say must as soon as they do hear him presently busy and bestirr their Minds both to apprehend and understand the meaning of what they hear and withall to judge whether it be of such a Nature as to be fit for them to joyn and concur with him in So that the People also are by this Course put to study and to imploy their apprehending and judging Faculties while they should be exerting their Affections and Devotions and consequently by this means the Spirit of Prayer is stinted as well in the Congregation that follows as in the Minister who first conceives a Prayer after their Extempore-way Which is a Truth so clear and indeed self-evident that it is impossible that it should need any further Arguments to demonstrate or make it out The Sum of all is this
sufficiency in God to do it for him And what can be more agreeable to all Principles both of Reason and Religion than that a Creature endued with Understanding and Will should acknowledge that Dependance upon his Maker by a free act of Choice which other Creatures have upon him only by Necessity of Nature But still there is one Objection more against our foregoing Assertion viz. That Prayer obtains the things prayed for only as a Condition and not by way of Importunity or Perswasion For is not Prayer said to prevail by frequency Luke 18. 7. and by Fervency or Earnestness in Iames 5. v. 16. and is not this a fair proof that God is importuned and perswaded into a Grant of our petitions To this I answer two Things 1. That wheresoever God is said to answer Prayers either for their Frequency or Fervency it is spoken of him only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the manner of Men and consequently ought to be understood only of the effect or issue of such Prayers in the success certainly attending them and not of the manner of their efficiency that it is by perswading or working upon the Passions As if we should say frequent fervent and importunate Prayers are as certainly followed with God's grant of the Thing prayed for as Men use to grant that which being overcome by excessive Importunity and Perswasion they cannot find in their hearts to deny 2 ly I answer further That frequency and fervency of Prayer prove effectual to procure of God the Things prayed for upon no other account but as they are Acts of Dependance upon God which Dependance we have already proved to be that Thing essentially included in Prayer for which God has been pleased to make Prayer the Condition upon which he determines to grant Men such things as they need and duly apply to him for So that still there is nothing of Perswasion in the case And thus having shewn and I hope fully and clearly how Prayer operates towards the obtaining of the Divine Blessings namely as a Condition appointed by God for that purpose and no otherwise And withall for what Reason it is singled out of all other Acts of a Rational Nature to be this Condition namely because it is the grand Instance of such a Nature's dependance upon God We shall now from the same principle inferr also Upon what account the highest Reverence of God is so indispensably required of us in Prayer and all sort of Irreverence so diametrically opposite to and destructive of the very Nature of it And it will appear to be upon this Tha◠in what degree any one lays aside his Reverence of God in the same he also quits his Dependance upon Him Forasmuch as in every Irreverent Act a Man treats God as if he had indeed no need of Him and behaves himself as if he stood upon his own bottom Absolute and Self-sufficient This is the natural Language the true Signification and Import of all Irreverence Now in all Addresses either to God or Man by Speech our Reverence to them must consist of and shew it self in these Two things First A carefull Regulation of our Thoughts that are to dictate and to govern our Words which is done by Premeditation And Secondly a due ordering of our Words that are to proceed from and to express our Thoughts which is done by pertinence and brevity of Expression David directing his Prayer to God joyns these two together as the two great integral parts of it in Psalm 19. 14. Let the Words of my Mouth and the Meditations of my Heart be acceptable in thy sight O Lord. So that it seems his Prayer adequately and entirely consisted of those Two things Meditation and Expression as it were the Matter and Form of that noble Composure There being no mention at all of Distortion of Face sanctified Grimace solemn Wink or foaming at the Mouth and the like all which are Circumstances of Prayer of a later date and brought into request by those fantastick Zealots who had a way of praying as astonishing to the Eyes as to the Ears of those that heard them Well then the first Ingredient of a pious and reverential Prayer is a previous regulation of the Thoughts as the Text expresses it most emphatically Let not thy Heart be hasty to utter any thing before God that is in other words Let it not venture to throw out its crude extemporary suddain and mishapen Conceptions in the face of Infinite Perfection Let not thy Heart conceive and bring forth together This is monstrous and unnatural All Abortion is from Infirmity and Defect And time is required to form the Issue of the Mind as well as that of the Body The fitness or unfitness of the first Thoughts cannot be judged of but by reflexion of the second And be the Invention never so fruitfull yet in the Mind as in the Earth that which is cast into it must lie hid and covered for a while before it can be fit to shoot forth These are the Methods of Nature and it is seldom but the Acts of Religion conform to them He who is to pray would he seriously judge of the Work that is before him has more to consider of than either his Heart can hold or his Head well turn it self to Prayer is one of the greatest and the hardest Works that a man has to doe in this World and was ever any thing difficult or glorious atchieved by a suddain Cast of a Thought a flying Stricture of the Imagination Presence of Mind is indeed good but Hast is not so And therefore let this be concluded upon That in the Business of Prayer to pretend to Reverence when there is no Premeditation is both Impudence and Contradiction Now this Premeditation ought to respect these three Things 1. The Person whom we pray to 2. The Matter of our Prayers And 3 ly The Order and Disposition of them 1. And first for the Person whom we pray to The same is to imploy who must needs also non-plus and astonish thy Meditations and be made the Object of thy Thoughts who infinitely transcends them For all the knowing and reasoning Faculties of the Soul are utterly baffled and at a loss when they offer at any Idea of the great God Nevertheless since it is hard if not impossible to imprint an Awe upon the Affections without sutable Notions first formed in the Apprehensions We must in our Prayers endeavour at least to bring these as near to God as we can by considering such of his Divine perfections as have by their Effects in a great measure manifested themselves to our Senses and in a much greater to the Discourses of our Reason As first Consider with thy self how great and glorious a Being that must needs be that raised so vast and beautifull a Fabrick as this of the World out of Nothing with the breath of his Mouth and can and will with the same reduce it to Nothing again and
then consider that this is that high amazing incomprehensible Being whom thou addressest thy pitifull Self to in Prayer Consider next his Infinite All-searching Knowledge which looks through and through the most secret of our Thoughts ransacks every corner of the Heart ponders the most inward designs and ends of the Soul in all a man's Actions And then consider That this is the God whom thou hast to deal with in Prayer the God who observes the postures the frame and motion of thy Mind in all thy Approaches to Him and whose piercing Eye it is impossible to elude or escape by all the tricks and arts of the subtillest and most refined Hypocrisy And lastly Consider the great the fiery and the implacable Jealousy that he has for his Honour and that he has no other use of the whole Creation but to serve the Ends of it And above all that he will in a most peculiar manner be honoured of those who draw near to him and will by no means suffer himself to be mockt and affronted under a pretence of being worshipped nor endure that a wretched contemptible sinfull Creature who is but a piece of living Dirt at best should at the same time bend the Knee to him and spit in his face And now consider that this is the God whom thou prayest to and whom thou usest with such intolerable Indignity in every unworthy Prayer thou puttest up to Him every bold sawcy and familiar Word that upon confidence of being one of God's Elect thou presumest to debase so great a Majesty with And for an Instance of the dreadfull Curse that attends such a daring Irreverence consider how God used Nadab and Abihu for venturing to offer strange Fire before him and then know that every unhallowed unfitting Prayer is a strange Fire A Fire that will be sure to destroy the Offering though Mercy should spare the Offerer Consider these things seriously deeply and severely till the Consideration of them affects thy Heart and humbles thy Spirit with such awefull Apprehensions of thy Maker and such abject Reflections upon thy self as may lay thee in the Dust before Him And know that the lower thou fallest the higher will thy Prayer rebound And that thou art never so fit to pray to God as when a sense of thy own unworthiness makes thee ashamed even to speak to Him 2 ly The second Object of our Premeditation is the Matter of our Prayers For as we are to consider whom we are to pray to so are we to consider also what we are to pray for and this requires no ordinary Application of Thought to distinguish or judge of Men's prayers are generally dictated by their Desires and their Desires are the Issues of their Affections and their Affections are for the most part influenced by their Corruptions The first constituent principle of a well-conceived Prayer is to know What not to pray for which the Scripture assures us that some doe not while they pray for what they may spend upon their Lusts James 4. 3. Asking such things as it is a Contumely to God to hear and Damnation to themselves to receive No Man is to pray for any thing either sinfull or directly tending to Sin No Man is to pray for a Temptation and much less to desire God to be his Tempter which he would certainly be should he at the instance of any Man's prayer administer fuel to his sinfull or absurd Appetites Nor is any one to ask of God things mean and trivial and beneath the Majesty of Heaven to be concerned about or solemnly addressed to for Nor lastly is any one to admit into his Petitions things superfluous or extravagant such as Wealth Greatness and Honour Which we are so far from being warranted to beg of God that we are to beg his Grace to despise and undervalue them and it were much if the same things should be the proper Objects both of our Self-denial and of our Prayers too and that we should be allowed to sollicit the satisfaction and enjoyned to endeavour the mortification of the same Desires The Things that we are to pray for are either 1 st Things of absolute Necessity or 2 ly Things of unquestionable Charity Of the first sort are all spiritual Graces required in us as the indispensable Conditions of our Salvation Such as are Repentance Faith Hope Charity Temperance and all other Vertues that are either the parts or principles of a pious Life These are to be the prime subject matter of our Prayers and we shall find that nothing comes this way so easily from Heaven as those things that will assuredly bring us to it The Spirit dictates all such Petitions and God himself is first the Author and then the Fulfiller of them owning and accepting them both as our Duty and his own Production The other sort of things that may allowably be prayed for are things of manifest unquestionable Charity Such as are a competent measure of the innocent Comforts of Life as Health Peace Maintenance and a Success of our honest Labours And yet even these but Conditionally and with perfect Resignation to the Will and Wisdom of the Soveraign Disposer of all that belongs to us Who if he finds it more for his Honour to have us serve him with sick crazy languishing Bodies with poverty and extreme want of all things and lastly with our Country all in a Flame about our Ears ought in all this and much more to over-rule our Prayers and Desires into an absolute Acquiescence in his All-wise disposal of things and to convince us that our Prayers are sometimes best answered when our Desires are most opposed In fine to state the whole matter of our Prayers in one word Nothing can be fit for us to pray for but what is fit and honourable for our great Mediator and Master of Requests Iesus Christ himself to intercede for This is to be the unchangeable Rule and Measure of all our Petitions And then if Christ is to convey these our Petitions to his Father can any one dare to make him who was Holiness and Purity it self and Advocate and Sollicitor for his Lusts Him who was nothing but Meekness Lowliness and Humility his Providetore for such things as can only feed his Pride and flush his Ambition No certainly when we come as Suppliants to the Throne of Grace where Christ sits as Intercessor at God's right hand nothing can be fit to proceed out of our Mouth but what is fit to pass through His. 3 ly The Third and Last Thinng that calls for a previous Meditation to our Prayers is the Order and Disposition of them For though God does not command us to set off our Prayers with Dress and Artifice to flourish it in Trope and Metaphor to beg our daily Bread in blank Verse or to shew any thing of the Poet in our Devotions but Indigence and Want I say though God is far from requiring such things of us in our Prayers yet he requires
guide thee with his Counsel here and afterwards receive thee into Glory To which God of his Mercy vouchsafe to bring us all To whom be rendred and ascribed c. Amen A DISCOURSE AGAINST Long Extemporary PRAYERS IN A SERMON ON ECCLESIASTES V. 2. ECCLES V. 2. Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God for God is in Heaven and thou upon Earth therefore let thy words be few WE have here the Wisest of Men instructing us how to behave our selves before God in his own House and particularly when we address to him in the most important of all Duties which is Prayer Solomon had the honour to be spoken to by God himself and therefore in all likelihood none more fit to teach us how to speak to God A great Privilege certainly for Dust and Ashes to be admitted to and therefore it will concern us to manage it so that in these our Approaches to the King of Heaven his Goodness may not cause us to forget his Greatness nor as it is but too usual for Subjects to use Privilege against Prerogative his Honour suffer by his Condescension In the Words we have these three Things observable 1. That whosoever appears in the House of God and particularly in the Way of Prayer ought to reckon himself in a more especial manner placed in the sight and presence of God 2. That the vast and infinite distance between God and Him ought to create in him all imaginable Awe and Reverence in such his Addresses to God 3 ly and Lastly That this Reverence required of him is to consist in a serious preparation of his Thoughts and a sober government of his Expressions Neither is his Mouth to be rash nor his Heart to be hastly in uttering any thing before God These things are evidently contained in the Words and doe as evidently contain the whole sence of them But I shall gather them all into this one Proposition Namely That Premeditation of Thought and Brevity of Expression are the great Ingredients of that Reverence that is required to a pious acceptable and devout Prayer For the better handling of which we will in the first place consider how and by what way it is that Prayer works upon or prevails with God for the obtaining of the things we pray for Concerning which I shall lay down this General Rule That the Way by which Prayer prevails with God is wholly different from that by which it prevails with Men. And to give you this more particularly 1. First of all It prevails not with God by way of Information or Notification of the Thing to Him which we desire of Him With Men indeed this is the common and with Wise men the chief and should be the only way of obtaining what we ask of them We represent and lay before them our Wants and Indigences and the misery of our Condition Which being made known to them the Quality and Condition of the Thing asked for and of the Persons who ask it induces them to give that to us and to doe that for us which we desire and petition for But it is not so in our Addresses to God for he knows our Wants and our Condition better than we our selves He is before-hand with all our Prayers Matth. 6. 8. Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him And in Psal. 139. 2. Thou understandest my thought afar off God knows our Thoughts before the very Heart that conceives them And how then can he who is but of yesterday suggest any thing new to that Eternal mind how can Ignorance inform Omniscience 2 ly Neither does Prayer prevail with God by way of perswasion or working upon the Affections so as thereby to move him to pity or compassion This indeed is the most usual and most effectual way to prevail with Men who for the generality are one part Reason and nine parts Affection So that one of a voluble Tongue and a dextrous Insinuation may doe what he will with vulgar Minds and with Wise men too at their weak times But God who is as void of Passion or Affection as he is of Quantity or Corporeity is not to be dealt with this way He values not our Rhetorick nor our pathetical Harangues He who applies to God applies to an Infinite Almighty Reason a pure Act all Intellect The first Mover and therefore not to be moved or wrought upon Himself In all Passion the Mind suffers as the very signification of the Word imports but absolute entire perfection cannot suffer it is and must be Immoveable and by consequence Impassible And therefore in the Third and Last place much less is God to be prevailed upon by Importunity and as it were wearying him into a Concession of what we beg of him Though with Men we know this also is not unusual A Notable Instance of which we have in Luke 18. v. 4 5. where the unjust Judge being with a restless Vehemence sued to for Justice says thus within himself Though I fear not God nor regard Man yet because this Widow troubleth me I will avenge her lest by her continual Coming she weary me In like manner how often are Beggars relieved only for their eager and rude Importunity not that the person who relieves them is thereby informed or satisfied of their real Want nor yet moved to pity them by all their Cry and Cant but to rid himself from their vexatious Noise and Din so that to purchase his Quiet by a little Alms he gratifies the Beggar but indeed relieves himself But now this way is further from prevailing with God than either of the former For as Omniscience is not to be informed so neither is Omnipotence to be wearied We may much more easily think to clamour the Sun and Stars out of their Courses than to word the great Creator of them out of the steady purposes of his own Will by all the vehemence and loudness of our Petitions Men may tire themselves with their own Prayers but God is not to be tired The rapid motion and whirl of things here below interrupts not the inviolable Rest and Calmness of the Nobler Beings above While the Winds roar and bluster here in the First and Second Regions of the Air there is a perfect serenity in the Third Men's Desires cannot controll God's Decrees And thus I have shewn that the Three ways by which Men prevail with Men in their Prayers and Applications to them have no place at all in giving any efficacy to their Addresses to God But you will ask then Upon what account is it that Prayer becomes prevalent and efficacious with God so as to procure us the good things we pray for I answer upon this That it is the fulfilling of that Condition upon which God has freely promised to convey his Blessings to Men. God of his own absolute unaccountable good will and pleasure has thought fit to appoint and fix upon
this as the means by which he will supply and answer the Wants of Mankind As for instance Suppose a Prince should declare to any one of his Subjects that if he shall appear before him every morning in his Bed-chamber shall receive of him a thousand Talents We must not here imagine that the Subject by making this appearance does either move or perswade his Prince to give him such a Summ of Money No he only performs the Condition of the promise and thereby acquires a Right to the thing promised He does indeed hereby engage his Prince to give him this Summ though he does by no means perswade him Or rather to speak more strictly and properly the Prince's own Justice and Veracity is an Engagement upon the Prince himself to make good his promise to him who fulfills the Conditions of it But you will say That upon this Ground it will follow that when we obtain any thing of God by Prayer we have it upon Claim of Justice and not by Way of Gift as a free Result of his Bounty I answer that both these are very well consistent for though he who makes a Promise upon a certain Condition is bound in Justice upon the fulfilling of that Condition to perform his promise yet it was perfectly Grace and Goodness Bounty and free Mercy that first induced him to make the Promise and particularly to state the Tenour of it upon such a Condition If we confess our Sins says the Apostle I Iohn 1. 9. God is faithfull and just to forgive us our Sins Can any thing be freer and more the Effect of meer Grace than the Forgiveness of Sins And yet it is certain from this Scripture and many more that it is firmly promised us upon Condition of a penitent hearty Confession of them and consequently as certain it is that God stands oblig'd here even by his Faithfulness and Iustice to make good this his Promise of Forgiveness to those who come up to the Terms of it by such a Confession In like manner for Prayer in reference to the good Things prayed for He who prays for a thing as God has appointed him gets thereby a right to the thing prayed for But it is a Right not springing from any Merit or Condignity either in the Prayer it self or the Person who makes it to the Blessing which he prays for but from God's Veracity Truth and Justice who having appointed Prayer as the Condition of that Blessing cannot but stand to what he himself had appointed Though that he did appoint it was the free Result and Determination of his own Will We have a full Account of this whole Matter from God's own Mouth in Psalm 50. Call upon me says God in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee These are evidently the Terms upon which God answers Prayers In which Case there is no doubt but the Deliverance is still of more Worth than the Prayer and there is as little doubt also that without such a previous declaration made on God's part a person so in Trouble or Distress might pray his Heart out and yet God not be in the least obliged by all his Prayers either in Justice or Honour or indeed so much as in Mercy to deliver him for Mercy is free and Misery cannot oblige it In a word Prayer procures deliverance from Trouble just as Naaman's dipping himself seven times in Iordan procured him a Deliverance from his Leprosie not by any Vertue in it self adequate to so great an Effect you may be sure but from this That it was appointed by God as the Condition of his Recovery and so obliged the Power of him who appointed it to give force and vertue to his own Institution beyond what the Nature of the Thing it self could otherwise have raised it to Let this therefore be fix'd upon as the Ground-work of what we are to say upon this Subject That Prayer prevails with God for the Blessing that we pray for neither by Way of Information nor yet of Persuasion and much less by the Importunity of him who prays and least of all by any Worth in the Prayer it self equal to the Thing prayed for but it prevails solely and intirely upon this Account that it is freely appointed by God as the stated allowed Condition upon which he will dispence his Blessings to Mankind But before I dismiss this Consideration it may be enquired Whence it is that Prayer rather than any other thing comes to be appointed by God for this Condition In answer to which Tho' God's Soveraign Will be a sufficient Reason of its own Counsels and Determinations and consequently a more than sufficient Answer to all our Enquiries yet since God in his Infinite Wisdom still adapts means to Ends and never appoints a Thing to any use but what it has a particular and a natural Fitness for I shall therefore presume to assign a Reason why Prayer before all other things should be appointed to this Noble use of being the Condition and glorious Conduit whereby to derive the Bounties of Heaven upon the Sons of Men. And it is this because Prayer of all other Acts of a Rational Nature does most peculiarly qualify a Man to be a fit Object of the Divine Favour by being most eminently and properly an Act of Dependance upon God Since to pray or beg a thing of another in the very Nature and Notion of it imports these two Things 1. That the Person praying stands in need of some Good which he is not able by any Power of his own to procure for himself And 2. That he acknowledges it in the power and pleasure of the Person whom he prays to to conferr it upon him And this is properly that which Men call to depend But some may reply There is an Universal Dependance of all things upon God for as much as He being the great Fountain and Source of Being first Created and since supports them by the word of his Power and consequently that this Dependance belongs indifferently to the Wicked as well as to the Iust whose Prayer nevertheless is declared an Abomination to God But to this the Answer is obvious That the Dependance here spoken of is meant not of a Natural but of a Moral Dependance The first is Necessary the other Voluntary The first Common to all the other proper to the Pious The first respects God barely as a Creator the other addresses to him also as a Father Now such a Dependance upon God it is that is properly seen in Prayer And being so if we should in all humble Reverence set our selves to examine the Wisdom of the Divine proceeding in this Matter even by the Measures of our own Reason what could be more Rationally thought of for the properest Instrument to bring down God's Blessings upon the World than such a Temper of Mind as makes a Man disown all Ability in himself to supply his own Wants and at the same time own a Transcendent Fulness and
That since a Set-form of Prayer leaves the Soul wholly free to imploy its Affections and Devotions in which the Spirit of Prayer does most properly consist it follows that the Spirit of Prayer is thereby in a singular manner helped promoted and enlarged And since on the other hand the Extempore-way withdraws and takes off the Soul from imploying its Affections and engages it chiefly if not wholly about the use of its Invention it as plainly follows that the Spirit of Prayer is by this means unavoidably cramp'd and hindred and to use their own word stinted Which was the Proposition that I undertook to prove But there are two Things I confess that are extreamly hindred and stinted by a Set-form of Prayer and equally furthered and enlarged by the Extempore-way which without all doubt is the true Cause why the former is so much decried and the latter so much extolled by the Men whom we are now pleading with The first of which is Pride and Ostentation the other Faction and Sedition 1. And first for Pride I do not in the least question but the chief Designs of such as use the Extempore-way is to amuse the unthinking Rabble with an Admiration of their Gifts their whole Devotion proceeding from no other principle but only a Love to hear themselves talk And I believe it would put Lucifer himself hard to it to out-vye the Pride of one of those fellows pouring out his Extempore-stuff amongst his ignorant whining factious Followers listning to and applauding his copious Flow and Cant with the ridiculous Accents of their impertinent Groans And the truth is Extempore-prayer even when best and most dextrously performed is nothing else but a business of Invention and Wit such as it is and requires no more to it but a teeming Imagination a bold Front and a ready Expression and deserves much the same Commendation were it not in a matter too serious to be suddain upon which is due to Extempore Verses only with this difference That there is necessary to these latter a competent measure of Wit and Learning whereas the former may be done with very little Wit and no Learning at all And now can any sober person think it reasonable that the publick Devotions of a whole Congregation should be under the Conduct and at the Mercy of a pert empty conceited Holder-forth whose chief if not sole intent is to Vaunt his spiritual Clack and as I may so speak to pray Prizes whereas Prayer is a Duty that recommends it self to the Acceptance of Almighty God by no other Qualification so much as by the profoundest Humility and the lowest Esteem that a man can possibly have of himself Certainly the Extemporizing faculty is never more out of its Element than in the Pulpit Though even here it is much more excusable in a Sermon than in a Prayer For as much as in that a Man addresses himself but to Men Men like himself whom he may therefore make bold with as no doubt for so doing they will also make bold with him Besides the peculiar advantage attending all such suddain Conceptions that as they are quickly Born so they quickly Die It being seldom known where the Speaker has so very fluent an Invention but the Hearer also has the Gift of as fluent a Memory 2 ly The other thing that has been hitherto so little befriended by a Set-form of Prayer and so very much by the Extempore-way is Faction and Sedition It has been always found an Excellent way of girding at the Government in Scripture-phrase And we all know the Common Dialect in which the great Masters of this Art used to pray for the King and which may justly pass for only a cleanlier and more refined kind of Libelling him in the Lord. As that God would turn his Heart and open his Eyes As if he were a Pagan yet to be converted to Christianity with many other sly virulent and malicious Insinuations which we may every day hear of from those Mints of Treason and Rebellion their Conventicles and for which and a great deal less some Princes and Governments would make them not only eat their Words but the Tongue that spoke them too In fine let all their Extempore Harangues be considered and duly weighed and you shall find a Spirit of Pride Faction and Sedition predominant in them all The only Spirit which those Impostors do really and indeed pray by I have been so much the longer and the earnester against this intoxicating bewitching Cheat of Extempore-prayer being fully satisfied in my Conscience that it has been all along the Devil's Master-piece and prime Engine to overthrow our Church by For I look upon this as a most unanswerable Truth That whatsoever renders the publick Worship of God contemptible amongst us must in the same degree weaken and discredit our whole Religion And I hope I have also proved it to be a Truth altogether as clear That this Extempore-way naturally brings all the Contempt upon the Worship of God that both the Folly and Faction of Men can possibly expose it to And therefore as a thing neither subservient to the true Purposes of Religion nor grounded upon Principles of Reason nor lastly sutable to the Practice of Antiquity ought by all means to be exploded and cast out of every sober and well-ordered Church or that will be sure to throw the Church it self out of Doors And thus I have at length finished what I had to say of the first Ingredient of a Pious and Reverential Prayer which was Premeditation of Thought prescribed to us in these words Let not thy mouth be rash nor thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God Which excellent Words and most wise Advice of Solomon whosoever can reconcile to the Expediency Decency or Usefulness of extempore-Extempore-prayer I shall acknowledge him a Man of greater Ability and Parts of Mind than Solomon Himself The other Ingredient of a Reverential and duly qualified Prayer is a pertinent Brevity of Expression mentioned and recommended in that part of the Text Therefore let thy Words be few But this I cannot dispatch now and therefore shall not enter upon at this time Now to God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost Three Persons and One God be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen A DISCOURSE AGAINST Long and Extempore-Prayers In Behalf of the LITURGY OF THE Church of ENGLAND Upon the same Text. ECCLES V. 2. Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God for God is in Heaven and thou upon Earth therefore let thy words be few I Formerly began a Discourse upon these Words and observed in them these three Things 1. That whosoever appears in the House of God and particularly in the way of Prayer ought to reckon himself in a more especial manner placed in the sight and presence of God And 2 ly
acting while those Principles of Activity flag No man begins and ends a long Journey with the same pace But now when Prayer has lost its due fervour and attention which indeed are the very Vitals of it it is but the Carkase of a Prayer and consequently must needs be loathsome and offensive to God Nay though the greatest part of it should be enlivened and carried on with an actual Attention yet if that Attention fails to enliven any one part of it the whole is but a joyning of the Living and the Dead together for which Conjunction the Dead is not at all the better but the Living very much the worse It is not length nor copiousness of Language that is Devotion any more than Bulk and Bigness is Valour or Flesh the measure of the Spirit A short Sentence may be oftentimes a large and a mighty Prayer Devotion so managed being like Water in a Well where you have fullness in a little compass which surely is much nobler than the same carried out into many petit creeping Rivulets with length and shallowness together Let him who prays bestow all that strength fervour and attention upon Shortness and Significance that would otherwise run out and lose it self in Length and Luxuriancy of Speech to no purpose Let not his Tongue out-strip his Heart nor presume to carry a Message to the Throne of Grace while that stays behind Let him not think to support so hard and weighty a Duty with a tired languishing and be-jaded Devotion To avoid which let a Man contract his Expression where he cannot enlarge his Affection still remembring that nothing can be more absurd in it self nor more unacceptable to God than for one engaged in the great Work of Prayer to hold on speaking after he has left off praying and to keep the lips at work when the spirit can do no more 4 ly The fourth Argument for shortness or conciseness of Speech in Prayer shall be drawn from this That it is the most natural and lively way of expressing the utmost Agonies and Out-cries of the Soul to God upon a quick pungent sense either of a pressing Necessity or an approaching Calamity which we know are generally the chief Occasions of Prayer and the most effectual Motives to bring Men upon their Knees in a vigorous Application of themselves to this great Duty A person ready to sink under his Wants has neither time nor heart to Rhetoricate or make Flourishes No Man begins a long Grace when he is ready to starve Such an one's Prayers are like the Relief he needs quick and suddain short and immediate He is like a Man in Torture upon the Rack whose Pains are too acute to let his Words be many and whose Desires of Deliverance too impatient to delay the things he begs for by the manner of his begging it It is a Common Saying If a Man does not know how to Pray let him go to Sea and that will teach him And we have a notable Instance of what kind of prayers Men are taught in that School even in the Disciples themselves when a Storm arose and the Sea raged and the Ship was ready to be cast away in the 8 th of Matthew In which Case we doe not find that they fell presently to harangue it about Seas and Winds and that dismal face of things that must needs appear all over the devouring Element at such a time All which and the like might no doubt have been very plentifull Topicks of Eloquence to a Man who should have lookt upon these things from the Shoar or discoursed of Wrecks and Tempests safe and warm in his Parlour But these poor Wretches who were now entring as they thought into the very Jaws of Death and struggling with the last Efforts of Nature upon the Sense of a departing Life and consequently could neither speak nor think any thing low or ordinary in such a Condition presently rallied up and discharged the whole Concern of their desponding Souls in that short Prayer of but three words though much fuller and more forcible than one of three thousand in the 25th Verse of the fore-mentioned Chapter Save us Lord or we perish Death makes short work when it comes and will teach him who would prevent it to make shorter For surely no Man who thinks himself just a perishing can be at leisure to be Eloquent or judge it either Sense or Devotion to begin a long Prayer when in all likelihood he shall conclude his Life before it 5 ly The fifth and last Argument that I shall produce for Brevity of Speech or Fewness of Words in Prayer shall be taken from the Examples which we find in Scripture of such as have been remarkable for Brevity and of such as have been noted for Prolixity of Speech in the discharge of this Duty 1. And first for Brevity To omit all those notable Examples which the Old Testament affords us of it and to confine our selves only to the New in which we are undoubtedly most concerned Was not this way of Praying not only Warranted but Sanctified and set above all that the Will of Man could possibly except against it by that infinitely exact Form of Prayer prescribed by the Greatest the Holiest and the Wisest Man that ever lived even Christ himself the Son of God and Saviour of the World Was it not an instance both of the truest Devotion and the fullest and most comprehensive Reason that ever proceeded from the Mouth of Man And yet withall the shortest and most succinct Model that ever grasped all the Needs and Occasions of Mankind both Spiritual and Temporal into so small a compass Doubtless had our Saviour thought fit to amplifie or be prolix He in whom were hid all the Treasures of Wisdom could not want Matter nor he who was himself the Word want Variety of the fittest to have expressed his Mind by But He chose rather to contract the whole Concern of both Worlds into a few Lines and to unite both Heaven and Earth in his Prayer as he had done before in his Person And indeed one was a kind of Copy or Representation of the other So then we see here Brevity in the Rule or Pattern let us see it next in the Practice and after that in the Success of Prayer And first we have the Practice as well as the Pattern of it in our Saviour himself and that in the most signal passage of his whole Life even his Preparation for his approaching Death In which dolorous Scene when his whole Soul was nothing but Sorrow that great moving Spring of Invention and Elocution and when Nature was put to its last and utmost stretch and so had no refuge or relief but in Prayer yet even then all this Horror Agony and Distress of Spirit delivers it self but in two very short Sentences in Matth. 26. 39. O my Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt And
again the second time with the like Brevity and the like Words O my Father if this Cup may not pass from me except I drink it thy Will be done And lastly the third time also he used the same short form again and yet in all this he was as we may say without a Metaphor even praying for Life so far as the great business he was then about to wit the Redemption of the World would suffer him to pray for it All which Prayers of our Saviour and others of like Brevity are properly such as we call Ejaculations an elegant Similitude from a Dart or Arrow shot or thrown out and such an one we know of a Yard long will fly farther and strike deeper than one of Twenty And then in the last place for the Success of such brief Prayers I shall give you but three Instances of this but they shall be of Persons praying under the Pressure of as great Miseries as humane Nature could well be afflicted with And the first shall be of the Leper Matth. 8. 2. or as St. Luke describes him a Man full of Leprosie who came to our Saviour and Worshipped him and as St. Luke again has it more particularly fell on his face before him which is the lowest and most devout of all Postures of Worship saying Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean This was all his Prayer And the Answer to it was That he was immediately cleansed The next Instance shall be of the poor blind Man in Luke 18. 28. following our Saviour with this earnest Prayer Iesus thou Son of David have Mercy upon me His whole Prayer was no more For it is said in the next verse that he went on repeating it again and again Iesus thou Son of David have Mercy upon me And the Answer he received was That his Eyes were opened and his Sight restored The third and last Instance shall be of the Publican in the same Chapter of St. Luke praying under a lively sense of as great a Leprosie and Blindness of Soul as the other two could have of Body in the 13th Verse He smote upon his Breast saying God be mercifull to me a sinner He spoke no more though 't is said in the 10th Verse that he went solemnly and purposely up to the Temple to pray The issue and success of which Prayer was That he went home justified before one of those whom all the Iewish Church revered as absolutely the highest and most heroick Examples of Piety and most beloved Favourites of Heaven in the whole World And now if the force and vertue of these short Prayers could rise so high as to cleanse a Leper to give sight to the Blind and to justify a Publican and if the Worth of a Prayer may at all be measured by the Success of it I suppose no Prayers whatsoever can do more and I never yet heard or read of any long Prayer that did so much Which brings on the other part of this our fifth and last Argument which was to be drawn from the Examples of such as have been noted in Scripture for Prolixity or Length of Prayer And of this there are only two mentioned The Heathens and the Pharisees The first the grand Instance of Idolatry the other of Hypocrisy But Christ forbids us the Imitation of both When ye pray says our Saviour in the 6th of Matthew be ye not like the Heathens But in what Why in this That they think they shall be heard for their much speaking in the 7th Verse It is not the Multitude that prevails in Armies and much less in Words And then for the Pharisees whom our Saviour represents as the very vilest of Men and the greatest of Cheats We have them amusing the World with pretences of a more refin'd Devotion while their Heart was all that time in their Neighbour's Coffers For does not our Saviour expressly tell us in Luke 20. and the two last Verses That the great Tools the Hooks or Engines by which they compass'd their worst their wickedest and most rapacious Designs were Long Prayers Prayers made only for a shew or colour and that to the basest and most degenerous sort of Villainy even the robbing the Spittle and devouring the Houses of poor helpless forlorn Widows Their Devotion serv'd all along but as an Instrument to their Avarice as a Factor or Under-Agent to their Extortion A Practice which duly seen into and stript of its Hypocritical Blinds could not but look very odiously and ill-favouredly and therefore in come their long Robes and their long Prayers together and cover all And the truth is neither the Length of one nor of the other is ever found so usefull as when there is something more than ordinary that would not be seen This was the gainfull Godliness of the Pharisees and I believe upon good Observation you will hardly find any like the Pharisees for their long Prayers who are not also extremely like them for something else And thus having given you five Arguments for Brevity and against Prolixity of Prayer let us now make this our other great Rule whereby to judge of the Prayers of our Church and the Prayers of those who Dissent and Divide from it And First For that excellent Body of Prayers contained in our Liturgy and both compiled and enjoyned by Publick Authority Have we not here a great Instance of Brevity and Fulness together cast into several short significant Collects each containing a distinct entire and well-managed Petition The whole Sett of them being like a string of Pearls exceeding rich in Conjunction and therefore of no small price or value even single and by themselves Nothing could have been composed with greater Judgment Every Prayer being so short that it is impossible it should weary and withall so pertinent that it is impossible it should cloy the Devotion And indeed so admirably fitted are they all to the common Concerns of a Christian Society that when the Rubrick enjoyns but the use of some of them our Worship is not imperfect and when we use them all there is none of them superfluous And the Reason assigned by some learned Men for the Preference of many short Prayers before a continued long one is unanswerable Namely That by the former there is a more frequently repeated mention made of the Name and some great Attribute of God as the encouraging Ground of our praying to Him and withall of the Merits and Mediation of Christ as the only thing that can promise us success in what we pray for Every distinct Petition beginning with the former and ending with the latter By thus annexing of which to each particular thing that we ask for we doe manifestly confess and declare That we cannot expect to obtain any one thing at the hands of God but with a particular renewed respect to the Merits of a Mediator and withall re-mind the Congregation of the same by making it their part to renew a distinct Amen to every
distinct Petition Add to this the Excellent contrivance of a great part of our Liturgy into Alternate Responses by which means the People are put to bear a considerable share in the whole Service which makes it almost impossible for them to be only idle Hearers or which is worse meer Lookers on As they are very often and may be always if they can but keep their Eyes open at the long tedious Prayers of the Nonconformists And this indeed is that which makes and denominates our Liturgy truly and properly a Book of Common-prayer For I think I may truly avouch how strange soever it may seem at first that there is no such thing as Common or Ioint-prayer any-where amongst the principal Dissenters from the Church of England For in the Romish Communion the Priest says over the appointed Prayers only to himself and the rest of the People not hearing a word of what he says repeat also their own particular Prayers to themselves and when they have done go their way Not all at once as neither doe they come at once but scatteringly one after another according as they have finished their Devotions And then for the Nonconformists their Prayers being all extempore it is as we have shewn before hardly possible for any and utterly impossible for all to joyn in them For surely People cannot joyn in a Prayer before they understand it nor can it be imagined that all Capacities should presently and immediately understand what they hear when possibly Holder-forth himself understands not what he says From all which we may venture to conclude That that excellent thing Common-prayer which is the joynt Address of an whole Congregation with united Voice as well as Heart sending up their Devotions to Almighty God is no-where to be found in these Kingdoms but in that best and nearest Copy of Primitive Christian Worship the Divine Service as it is performed according to the Orders of our Church As for those long Prayers so frequently used by some before their Sermons the Constitution and Canons of our Church are not at all responsible for them having provided us better things and with great Wisdom appointed a Form of Prayer to be used by all before their Sermons But as for this way of Praying now generally in use as it was first took up upon an humour of Novelty and Popularity and by the same carried on till it had passed into a Custom and so put the Rule of the Church first out of Use and then out of Countenance also so if it be rightly considered it will in the very nature of the thing it self be found a very senceless and absurd practice For can there be any Sense or Propriety in beginning a new tedious Prayer in the Pulpit just after the Church has for near an hour together with great variety of Offices sutable to all the Needs of the Congregation been praying for all that can possibly be fit for Christians to pray for Nothing certainly can be more irrational For which Cause amongst many more that old sober Form of Bidding Prayer which both against Law and Reason has been justled out of the Church by this Upstart Puritanical Encroachment ought with great Reason to be restored by Authority and both the use and Users of it by a strict and solemn Reinforcement of the Canon upon all without exception be rescued from that unjust Scorn of the Factious and Ignorant which the Tyranny of the contrary usurping Custom will otherwise expose them to For surely it can neither be Decency nor Order for our Clergy to Conform to the Fanaticks as many in their Prayers before Sermon now-a-days doe And thus having accounted for the Prayers of our Church according to the great Rule prescribed in the Text Let thy Words be few Let us now according to the same consider also the way of Praying so much used and applauded by such as have renounced the Communion and Liturgy of our Church and it is but reason that they should bring us something better in the room of what they have so disdainfully cast off But on the contrary are not all their Prayers exactly after the Heathenish and Pharisaical Copy always notable for those two Things Length and Tautology Two whole Hours for one Prayer at a Fast used to be reckoned but a moderate Dose and that for the most part fraught with such irreverent blasphemous Expressions that to repeat them would profane the place I am speaking in and indeed they seldom carried on the work of such a Day as their Phrase was but they left the Church in need of a new Consecration Add to this the Incoherence and Confusion the endless Repetitions and the unsufferable Nonsense that never failed to hold out even with their utmost Prolixity so that in all their long Fasts from first to last from seven in the Morning to seven in the Evening which was their measure the Pulpit was always the emptiest Thing in the Church And I never knew such a Fast kept by them but their Hearers had Cause to begin a Thanksgiving as soon as they had done And the truth is when I consider the Matter of their Prayers so full of Ramble and Inconsequence and in every respect so very like the language of a Dream and compare it with their Carriage of themselves in Prayer with their Eyes for the most part shut and their Arms stretched out in Yawning posture a Man that should hear any of them pray might by a very pardonable Error be induced to think that he was all the time hearing one talking in his sleep besides the strange Vertue which their Prayers had to procure sleep in others too So that he who should be present at all their long Cant would shew a greater Ability in Watching than ever they could pretend to in Praying if he could forbear sleeping having so strong a Provocation to it and so fair an Excuse for it In a word such were their Prayers both for Matter and Expression that could any one truly and exactly write them out it would be the shrewdest and most effectual way of Writing against them that could possibly be thought of I should not have thus troubled either you or my self by raking into the Dirt and Dunghill of these men's Devotions upon the account of any thing either done or said by them in the late times of Confusion for as they have the King 's so I wish them God's pardon also for both whom I am sure they have offended much more than they have both Kings put together But that which has provoked me thus to rip up and expose to you their nauseous and ridiculous way of addressing to God even upon the most solemn Occasions is that intolerably rude and unprovoked Insolence and Scurrility with which they are every day reproaching and scoffing at our Liturgy and the Users of it and thereby alienating the Minds of the People from it to such a degree that many Thousands are drawn by
Paradox in Practice and Men may sometimes doe as well as speak Contradictions There is a great Festival now drawing on a Festival designed chiefly for the Acts of a joyfull Piety but generally made only an occasion of Bravery I shall say no more of it at present but this That God expects from Men something more than ordinary at such times and that it were much to be wished for the Credit of their Religion as well as the Satisfaction of their Consciences that their Easter Devotions would in some measure come up to their Easter Dress Now that our Preparation may answer the important Work and Duty which we are to engage in these Two Conditions or Qualifications are required in it 1. That it be Habitual 2. That it be also Actual For it is certain that there may both be Acts which proceed not from any pre-existing Habits and on the other side Habits which lie for a time dormant and do not at all exert themselves in Action But in the Case now before us there must be a Conjunction of both and one without the other can never be effectual for that purpose for which both together are but sufficient And First For Habitual Preparation This consists in a standing permanent Habit or Principle of Holiness wrought chiefly by God's Spirit and instrumentally by his Word in the Heart or Soul of Man Such a Principle as is called both by our Saviour and his Apostles the New Birth the New Man the Immortal Seed and the like and by which a Man is so universally changed and transformed in the whole Frame and Temper of his Soul as to have a new Judgment and Sence of Things new Desires new Appetites and Inclinations And this is first produced in him by that mighty spiritual Change which we call Conversion Which being so rarely and seldom found in the Hearts of Men even where it is most pretended to is but too full and sad a Demonstration of the Truth of that terrible Saying That few are chosen and consequently but few save For who almost is there of whom we can with any Rational assurance or perhaps so much as likelihood affirm Here is a Man whose Nature is renewed whose Heart is changed and the stream of whose Appetites is so turned that he does with as high and quick a relish taste the ways of Duty Holiness and strict Living as others or as he himself before this grasped at the most enamouring Proposals of Sin Who almost I say is there who can reach and verifie the height of this Character and yet without which the Scripture absolutely affirms That a Man cannot see the Kingdom of God John 3. 3. For let Preachers say and suggest what they will Men will doe as they use to doe and Custom generally is too hard for Conscience in spight of all its Convictions Possibly sometimes in Hearing or Reading the Word the Conscience may be alarmed the Affections warmed good Desires begin to kindle and to form themselves into some degrees of Resolution but the Heart remaining all the time unchanged as soon as Men slide into the common Course and Converse of the World all those Resolutions and Convictions quickly cool and languish and after a few days are dismissed as troublesome Companions But assuredly no Man was ever made a true Convert or a new Creature at so easie a Rate Sin was never dispossessed nor Holiness introduced by such feeble vanishing Impressions Nothing under a total through Change will suffice neither Tears nor Trouble of Mind neither good Desires nor Intentions nor yet the Relinquishment of some Sins nor the Performance of some Good Works will avail any thing but a new Creature A Word that comprehends more in it than Words can well express and perhaps after all that can be said of it never throughly to be understood by what a Man hears from others but by what he must feel within himself And now that this is required as the Ground-work of all our Preparations for the Sacrament is evident from hence Because this Sacrament is not first designed to make us Holy but rather supposes us to be so it is not a converting but a confirming Ordinance It is properly our spiritual Food And as all Food pre-supposes a Principle of Life in him who receives it which Life is by this means to be continued and supported So the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is Originally intended to preserve and maintain that Spiritual Life which we doe or should receive in Baptism or at least by a through Conversion after it Upon which account according to the true Nature and Intent of this Sacrament Men should not expect Life but Growth from it And see that there be something to be fed before they seek out for provision For the Truth is for any one who is not passed from Death to Life and has not in him that New living Principle which we have been hitherto speaking of to come to this Spiritual Repast is upon the matter as absurd and preposterous as if he who makes a Feast should send to the Graves and the Church-yards for Guests or entertain and treat a Corps at a Banquet Let Men therefore consider before they come hither whether they have any thing besides the Name they received in Baptism to prove their Christianity by Let them consider whether as by their Baptism they formerly washed away their Original Guilt so they have not since by their Actual Sins washed away their Baptism And if so Whether the converting Grace of God has set them upon their Legs again by forming in them a New Nature And that such an one as exerts and shews it self by the sure infallible Effects of a Good life Such an one an enables them to reject and trample upon all the alluring Offers of the World the Flesh and the Devil so as not to be conquered or enslaved by them and to chuse the hard and rugged Paths of Duty rather than the easie and voluptuous Ways of Sin which every Christian by the very Nature of his Religion as well as by his Baptismal Vow is strictly obliged to doe And if upon an impartial survey of themselves Men find that no such Change has passed upon them either let them prove that they may be Christians upon easier terms or have a care how they intrude upon so great and holy an Ordinance in which God is so seldom mocked but it is to the Mocker's confusion And thus much for Habitual Preparation But 2 ly Over and above this there is required also an Actual Preparation which is as it were the furbishing or rubbing up of the former Habitual Principle We have both of them excellently described in Matth. 25. in the Parable of the Ten Virgins of which the Five Wise are said to have had Oil in their Lamps yet notwithstanding that Mid-night and Weariness was too hard for them and they all slumber'd and slept and their Lamps cast but a dim and a feeble Light
the fittest Engine to get into Power by which by the way when they are once possessed of they generally manage with as little Tenderness as they do with Conscience Of which we have had but too much Experience already and it would be but ill venturing upon more In a word Conscience not acting by and under a Law is a boundless daring and presumptuous thing and for any one by vertue thereof to challenge to himself a Privilege of doing what he will and of being unaccountable for what he does is in all Reason too much either for Man or Angel to pretend to 3 ly The third and last Property of Conscience which I shall mention and which makes the Verdict of it so Authentick is its great and rigorous Impartiality For as its wonderfull Apprehensiveness made that it could not easily be deceived so this makes that it will by no means deceive A Iudge you know may be skilfull in understanding a Cause and yet partial in giving Sentence But it is much otherwise with Conscience no Artifice can induce it to accuse the Innocent or to absolve the Guilty No we may as well bribe the Light and the Day to represent White things Black or Black White What pitifull things are Power Rhetorick or Riches when they would terrifie disswade or buy off Conscience from pronouncing Sentence according to the Merit of a Man's Actions For still as we have shewn Conscience is a Copy of the Divine Law and though Iudges may be bribed or frightened yet Laws cannot The Law is Impartial and Inflexible it has no Passions or Affections and consequently never accepts Persons nor dispenses with it self For let the most potent Sinner upon Earth speak out and tell us whether he can command down the Clamours and Revilings of a guilty Conscience and impose silence upon that bold Reprover He may perhaps for a while put on an high and a big Look but can he for all that look Conscience out of Countenance And he may also dissemble a little forced Jollity that is he may Court his Mistress and quaff his Cups and perhaps sprinkle them now and then with a few Dammees but who in the mean time besides his own wretched miserable self knows of those secret bitter Infusions which that terrible thing called Conscience makes into all his Draughts Believe it most of the appearing Mirth in the World is not Mirth but Art The wounded Spirit is not seen but walks under a disguise and still the less you see of it the better it looks On the contrary if we consider the vertuous Person let him declare freely whether ever his Conscience checked him for his Innocence or upbraided him for an Action of Duty did it ever bestow any of its hidden Lashes or concealed Bites on a mind severely Pure Chaste and Religious But when Conscience shall complain cry out and recoyl let a Man descend into himself with too just a Suspicion that all is not right within For surely that Hue and cry was not raised upon him for nothing The spoils of a rifled Innocence are born away and the Man has stoln something from his own Soul for which he ought to be pursued and will at last certainly be over-took Let every one therefore attend the Sentence of his Conscience For he may be sure it will not dawb nor flatter It is as severe as Law as impartial as Truth It will neither conceal nor pervert what it knows And thus I have done with the Third of those four Particulars at first proposed and shewn whence and upon what account it is that the Testimony of Conscience concerning our spiritual Estate comes to be so Authentick and so much to be relyed upon Namely For that it is fully empowered and commissioned to this great Office by God himself and withall that it is extremely Quick-sighted to apprehend and discern and moreover very Tender and Sensible of every thing that concerns the Soul And lastly That it is most exactly and severely Impartial in judging of whatsoever comes before it Every one of which Qualifications justly contributes to the Credit and Authority of the Sentence which shall be passed by it And so we are at length arrived at the Fourth and last Thing proposed from the words Which was to assign some particular Cases or Instances in which this Confidence towards God suggested by a rightly informed Conscience does most eminently shew and exert it self I shall mention Three 1. In our Addresses to God by Prayer When a Man shall presume to come and place himself in the Presence of the Great Searcher of Hearts and to ask something of him while his Conscience is all the while smiting him on the Face and telling him what a Rebel and a Traitour he is to the Majesty which he supplicates surely such an one should think with himself that the God whom he prays to is greater than his Conscience and pierces into all the filth and baseness of his Heart with a much clearer and more severe Inspection And if so will he not likewise resent the Provocation more deeply and revenge it upon him more terribly if Repentance does not divert the Blow Every such Prayer is big with Impiety and Contradiction and makes as odious a noise in the Ears of God as the Harangues of one of those Rebel Fasts or Humiliations in the year Forty One invoking the Blessings of Heaven upon such Actions and Designs as nothing but Hell could reward One of the most peculiar Qualifications of an Heart rightly disposed for Prayer is a well grounded Confidence of a Man's fitness for that Duty In Heb. 10. 22. Let us draw near with a true Heart in full assurance of faith says the Apostle But whence must this Assurance spring Why we are told in the very next Words of the same Verse Having our Hearts sprinkled from an evil Conscience Otherwise the voice of an impure Conscience will cry much louder than our Prayers and speak more effectually against us than these can intercede for us And now if Prayer be the great Conduit of mercy by which the Blessings of Heaven are derived upon the Creature and the noble Instrument of Converse between God and the Soul then surely that which renders it ineffectual and loathsome to God must needs be of the most mischievous and destructive Consequence to Mankind imaginable and consequently to be removed with all that Earnestness and Concern with which a Man would rid himself of a Plague or a moral Infection For it taints and pollutes every Prayer it turns an Oblation into an Affront and the Odours of a Sacrifice into the Exhalations of a Carcass And in a word makes the Heavens over us Brass denying all Passage either to descending Mercies or ascending Petitions But on the other side when a Man's Breast is clear and the same Heart which endites does also encourage his Prayer when his Innocence pushes on the Attempt and vouches the Success Such an one goes boldly to