[Satan strives to interrupt from prayer.]

Second Design. A second design Satan hath against the Christian is, to interrupt him in the act of prayer, when he can by no means keep him from it. It is hard to steal a prayer and the devil not know what thou art going about. He watches thy motions, Christian, and is at thy heels wherever thou turnest. If thou art about any evil action, he is at thy elbow to jog thee on, or before thee to remove every stone out of the way, that the bowl may go the more smoothly on, and thou mayest not be sick of the enterprise by the rubs thou meetest in the way. Ahab had but a plot hatching in his thoughts of going up to Ramoth-Gilead, and presently Satan hath his knights of the post whom he sends to bid him go up and prosper. David himself had but some proud thoughts stirring him up to number the people; Satan takes the advantage, and works with the humour now moving, whereby it soon ripened into that sore which God lanced with so sharp a judgement as the loss of seventy thousand men. Now he is as skilful and ready at hand to disturb a holy action as to promote a wicked.

When the sons of God some to present themselves before the Lord, Satan forgets not to be among them. He is no recusant, scruples not to be present when you worship God; indeed he is first there and last thence. Sometimes thou shalt find him injecting motions of his own, sometimes wire-drawing thy own. When he sees a vain thought, a sin sprung by thy wanton fancy, he will help thee to pursue the chase. To be sure, he will be at one end of every inordinate motion of thy heart; either the father to beget, or the nurse to bring them up. These are so many and diverse, that we may as well tell the atoms we see in a sunbeam, as number and sort this miscellaneous heap of roving thoughts which are incident to the Christian in prayer. Sometimes he will inject such as are sinful, proud, filthy, yea blasphemous thoughts. Not that he hopes to find entertainment in the Christian’s heart for such guests—much less to make a settlement of them there with the gracious soul’s consent; but to make a hurly-burly and confusion in his spirit, whereby—as upon some sudden scare in our assemblies—the holy exercise he is now about may be hindered. Sometimes he will prompt thoughts holy in themselves but impertinent, which, at another time, himself would oppose with all his might, but now presents them, because most likely to find welcome, and fit enough to serve his present purpose, being, though good fruit, yet brought forth in a bad season. I believe none that have any acquaintance with this duty, and their hearts in it, are altogether strangers to Satan’s slights of this nature. Now he hath a double plot; one levelled against God himself, another against the Christian thereby.

[The double plot of Satan in interrupting prayer.]

First Plot. In interrupting prayer Satan hath a plot against God. The devil knows very well that not the least part of his tribute of honour is paid by the Christian upon his knees in this solemn act of divine worship, to intercept which is both his great ambition and endeavour. Nay, he despairs not—if his design takes—to make the Christian dishonour him most, where God looks his name should be above all sanctified. Indeed, those have the unhappy opportunity of casting the greatest indignities on God who are admitted to stand nearest to him. Should he who hath the honour to set the crown on his prince’s head, bring it in a filthy case, and so clap it on—or, instead of the king’s own royal crown bring some ridiculous one of straw, or such like stuff contrived on purpose to make laughter—what greater scorn could such a one possibly invent to throw upon his prince? The attributes of God are his royal diadem, and it is no small honour that the great God puts upon the Christian, by admitting him as it were to set this crown upon his head, which he doth when in prayer he gives him the glory of his majesty and holiness, power and mercy, truth and faithfulness, &c., with such humble adoration, and holy ravishment of affection, as may comport with the indefinite perfections of his deity.

But if our present thoughts in prayer be not of God, or not suitable to God and these his glorious excellencies, we pollute his name, and not honour it. We mock him, not worship him. In a word, we pull off his crown as much as in us lies, rather than set it on. Now doth not thy heart tremble, Christian, in thy bosom, to think thou should be Satan’s instrument to offer such an indignity as this unto thy God and King? Thou art, if a saint, the temple of the Holy Ghost; prayer, the spiritual sacrifice which from the altar of a humble heart thou art to offer; wilt thou now suffer Satan to sit in this temple of God, and exalt himself there—by any vain, much less vile, thoughts—above God himself, whom thou art worshipping? Suppose, while a prince is at dinner, a company of impudent ruffians should rush into the room through the negligence of the prince’s servants that are waiting on him, and they should throw the dishes, one this way, another that way, would not these servants deserve a severe rebuke that looked no better to the door? Ordinances of worship are God’s table, the sacrifices under the law called God’s food and bread. When the saint is praying the King of heaven sits at his table, Song 1:12. The dishes served up are the graces of his Spirit in the saint. Now wandering thoughts, they come in and turn the table as it were upside down; they spill the spikenard which thou wouldst pour forth. How ill may thy God take it that thou lookest no better to the door of thy heart!

Second Plot. In interrupting prayer Satan hath a plot against thee, Christian.

1. If he can get thee to sport with these, or sluggishly yield to them without making any vigourous resistance, that prayer, he knows, will neither do him hurt nor thyself good. Dost [thou] think God will welcome that prayer to heaven which hath not thy heart to bear it company thither? And how can thy heart go with it when thou hast sent it another way? It were a vain thing to expect that ship should make a prosperous voyage which is set adrift to sea to be carried whither every wave it meets will drive it, without any pilot to steer it to a certain haven, or such a one that hath no skill or care to hold the helm with a steady hand. Such are the prayers that come from a roving heart. Will God hear thee when thou mockest him? And if this be not to mock him, what is? Like children that give a knock at a door and then run away to their play again, thus thou rearest up thy voice to God, and then art gone in thy roving thoughts to hold chat with the world or worse, forgetting whom thou spakest last to. Is not this to play bo‑peep with God? Magnam injuriam Deo facio, cum precor, ut meas preces exaudiat, quas ego qui fundo, non exaudio; deprecor illum, ut mihi intendat, ego vero, nec mihi, nec mihi, intendo. Thus the holy man complains of himself how injurious and unworthy of God his carriage was in prayer—‘I would have God,’ saith he, ‘hear my prayer which myself doth not, when I put it up; I would have God’s ear attentive to me, when I neither mind God nor myself when I pray.’

2. He disturbs thee in praying, that he may make thee weary of praying. Indeed, he is not likely to miss his mark if thou lettest these vermin go on to breed in thy heart; for these will rob thee of the sweetness of the duty; and when the marrow is once out, thou wilt easily be persuaded to throw the bone away. Omnis vita gustu ducitur—he is in danger to forsake his meat who hath lost his relish of it. Prayer is a tedious work to him that hath no pleasure in performing of it; and weariness in it stands next door to being weary of it.

3. Thou provokest the Spirit of God—that alone can carry you through the work—to withdraw his assistance. Who will help him that minds not what he does? You know what Joab said to David when he indulged his inordinate passion for the loss of Absalom, ‘If thou go not forth, there will not tarry one with thee this night: and that will be worse unto thee than all the evil that befell thee,’ II Sam. 19:7. Truly, either thou must speedily rouse thyself out of thy sloth and non-attendance, or else the Spirit will be gone; and he departed, it will be worse with thee than ever. Who hast thou then to help thee in thy work? And thou wilt find it harder to bring him back, than to keep him from going. The necessary infirmities which cleave to thy imperfect state, if protested against, shall not drive him away; but if thou lettest them nestle in thy heart, he takes it as thy giving him warning to be gone. An affront done to an ambassador by the baser sort of people as he walks in the street—while resident in a foreign state—may be passed over; but when such shall find countenance from the prince, it then makes a breach. Take heed, therefore, of showing favour to such disturbers of the league betwixt God and thy soul. Thy heart, which should be a house of prayer, Christ will not endure to have it a place of merchandise. Either thou must whip these buyers and sellers out, or the Spirit will go. We read of an ‘abomination of desolation standing in the holy place,’ Matt. 24:15, which some interpret to be the Roman ensigns there displayed when Jerusalem was taken. This abomination ushered desolation. What dost thou, by thy roving thoughts, but set up an abomination in the temple of thy heart? O! down with these, as thou wouldst not be left desolate, and wholly void of God’s gracious presence with thee.

Question. But, it may be, now you will ask, ‘What counsel can you give to arm us against both these incursions of Satan and bubblings of our own vain hearts in prayer? How can we keep either our hearts in, or these out?’

{Answer.} Impossible, indeed, it may be wholly to prevent them, they come so suddenly and secretly —even as lightning in at the window. We may as well keep the wind out of our house—which gets in at every crevice, though the doors be shut—as wholly free our hearts from their disturbance. Yet this will not disoblige us from our utmost care and endeavour to hinder the prevalency of them. Humours, while rouling here and there, do not endanger us so much as when they gather to a head, and settle in some joint and part of the body. I have read of some eastern parts of the world, where such multitudes of locusts and caterpillars are seen, that they almost darken the air as they fly, and devour every green thing where they light. The inhabitants, therefore, when they perceive this army hovering over them, by making fires in their fields, keep them from lighting with the smoke that ascends therefrom. Thou canst not hinder these roving thoughts from flying now and then over thy head, but surely thou mayest do something that may prevent their settling. Towards which good work take these directions, which I shall endeavour to suit to these several causes from whence they proceed. The wanderings in prayer may be referred to four causes. First. The natural vanity and levity of our minds. Second. A dead and inactive heart in him that prayeth. Third. Encumbrance of worldly cares. Fourth. Non‑observance of the heart in the act of prayer.

[Four causes of wandering thoughts in prayer.]

First Cause. The first cause, and indeed original of all other, is the natural vanity and levity of our minds, which are as inconsistent as quicksilver, that hath, they say, principium motus, sed non quietis —the principle of motion, but not of rest. They are as unstable as water, which fluid element—as we see in a little of it poured on the ground—diffuseth itself hither and thither, and so is soon drunk up and lost. Thus do our vain minds scatter themselves into impertinencies; but never so much as when we are conversant about spiritual duties. Then, above all, we discover the lightness of our spirits. And this is not the least part of that evil which followed man’s degeneracy, who by his fall wounded both head and heart. Now, though there be a cure in part made by the grace of God as to both these in a saint, yet there still remains a craze in his soul, whereby he is not able to dwell long upon spiritual things without some dissipation of his thoughts, as innocent Adam could —who, before his fall, might have walked through the whole world, and not have had one thought of his heart misplaced, or turned from its right point by the diversity of objects he met, they being all to the eye of his soul a clear medium, through which it passed to terminate itself in God, as the air is now to our bodily eye, through which it pierceth, and stays not till it comes at the body of the sun. But, alas! it is with us as with one that hath had his skull broke by some dangerous fall, who, when recovered, finds his brain so weakened that, when he goes about any serious business, he cannot intend much, or persist long, but is off and on, out and in. Such vagaries and cross steps do our hearts take in duty. And this gives Satan advantage enough to work upon. If the ship be light for want of ballast, and a strong gust of wind arises too, O how hard then is it to make it sail trim, or keep from toppling over! A vain heart, and a strong temptation together, makes sad work, when God stands by and gives Satan leave to practice upon it. Be therefore careful to take in thy ballast before thou puttest to sea. Labour to poise thy heart before thou goest to pray. Which, that thou mayest do, improve the following directions.

[Directions against levity in prayer.]

1. Direction. Innure thyself to holy thoughts in thy ordinary course. The best way to keep vessels from leaking—when we would use them for some special occasion—is to let them stand full. A vain heart out of prayer will be little better in prayer. The more familiar thou makest holy thoughts and savoury discourse to thee in thy constant walking, the more seasoned thou wilt find thy heart for this duty. A scholar, by often rubbing up his notions when alone, and talking of them with his colleagues, makes them his own; so that, when he is put upon any exercise, they are at hand, and come fresh into his head. Whereas another, for want of this filling, wants matter for his thoughts to feed on, which makes him straggle into many impertinencies before he can hit of that which suits his occasion. The carnal liberty which we give our hearts in our ordinary walking, makes our thoughts more unruly and unsuitable for duties of worship. For such thoughts and words leave a tincture upon the spirit, and so hinder the soul’s taking a better colour when it returns into the presence of God. Walk in the company of sinful thoughts all the day, and thou wilt hardly shut the door upon them when thou goest into thy closet. Thou hast taught them to be bold; they will now plead acquaintance with thee, and crowd in after thee; like little children, who, if you play with them, and carry them much in your arms, will cry after you when you would be rid of their company.

2. Direction. Possess thy heart with a reverential awe of God’s majesty and holiness. This, if anything, will ‘gird up the loins of thy mind’ strait, and make thee hoc agere —mind what thou art about. Darest thou toy and trifle with the divine majesty in a duty of his worship! carry thyself childishly before the living God! to look with one eye upon him, as it were, and with the other upon a lust! to speak one word to God, and chat two with the world! Does not thy heart tremble at this? Sic ora, saith Bernard, quasi assumptus et præsentatus ante faciem ejus in excelso throno, ubi millia millium ministrant ei—so pray as if thou wert taken up and presented before God sitting on his royal throne on high, with millions of millions of his glorious servitors ministering to him in heaven. Certainly the face of such a court would awe thee. If thou wert but at the bar before a judge, and hadst a glass of a quarter of an hour’s length turned up—being all the time thou hadst allowed thee to improve for the begging of thy life, now forfeited and condemned—wouldst thou spare any of this little time to gaze about the court, to see what clothes this man had on, and what lace another wears? God shame us for our folly in misspending our praying seasons. Is it not thy life thou art begging at God’s hand; and that a better, I trow, than the malefactor sues for of his mortal judge? And dost thou know whether thou shalt have so long as a quarter of an hour allowed thee when thou art kneeling down? And yet wilt thou scribble and dash it out to no purpose upon impertinencies? If thou dost, why no better? Why no closer and compact in thy thoughts? Will God judge us for ‘every idle word’ that is spoken in our shop and house, at our work, yea sport and recreation? And shall thy idle words in prayer not be accounted for? And are not those idle words that come from a lazy heart, a sleepy heart, that minds not what it says? What procured Nadab and Abihu so sudden and strange an death? Was it not their strange incense? And is not this strange praying, when thy mind is a stranger to what thy lips utter? Behave thyself thus to thy prince if thou darest. Let thy hand reach a petition to him, and thine eye look or thy tongue talk to another; would he not command this clown, or rather madman, to be taken from before him? ‘Have I need of mad men, that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad man in my presence?’ I Sam. 21:15, said Achish when David behaved himself discomposedly. O! could you but look through the keyhole, and see how glorious angels in heaven serve their Maker, who are said to ‘behold the face of God continually,’ surely thou wouldst tremble to think of thy slightly performing this duty.

3. Direction. Go not in thy own strength to this duty, but commit thyself by faith to the conduct of the Spirit of God. God hath promised to prepare, or establish, as the word is, the heart. Indeed, then the heart is prepared when established and fixed. A shaking hand may soon write a right line as our loose hearts keep themselves steady in duty. Shouldst thou, with Job, make a covenant with thine eye, and resolve to bung up thine ear from all by‑discourse, how long, thinkest thou, shouldst thou be true to thine own self, who hast so little command of thine own thoughts? Thy best way were to put thyself out of thine own hands, and lay thy weight on him that is able to bear thee better than thy own legs. Pray with David, ‘Uphold me with thy free spirit,’ Ps. 51:12. The vine leaning on a wall preserves itself and its fruit, whose own weight else, without this help, would soon lay it in the dirt.

Second Cause. A second cause of these wandering roving thoughts in prayer, is a dead and unactive heart in him that prayeth. If the affections be once down, then the Christian is as a city whose wall is broken down. No keeping then the thoughts in, or Satan out. The soul is an active creature. Either it must be employed by us, or it will employ us, though to little purpose. Like our poor, find them work and they keep at home. But let them want for it, and you have them roving and begging all the country over. The affections are as the master-workmen, which set our thoughts on work. Love entertains the soul with pleasant and delightful thoughts on its beloved object. Grief commands in the soul to muse with sorrowful thoughts on its ail and trouble. So that, Christian, as long as thy heart bleeds in the sense of sin, they will have no leisure, when thou art confessing sin, to rove and wander. If thy desires be lively, and flame forth in thy petitions, with a holy zeal for the graces and mercies prayed for, this will be as ‘a wall of fire’ to keep thy thoughts at home.

The lazy prayer is the roving prayer. When Israel talked of travelling three days’ journey in the wilderness, Pharaoh said, ‘Ye are idle, ye are idle; therefore ye say, Let us go.’ As if he had said, ‘Surely they have little to do, or else they would not think of gadding.’ And therefore, to cure them of this, he commanded more work to be given, Ex. 5. We may truly say thus of our wandering hearts, ‘They are idle.’ We pray, but our affections are dead and dull. The heart hath little to do in the duty for the setting of its thoughts on work—only to speak or read a few words, which is so easy a task that a man may do it and spare whole troops of his thoughts to be employed elsewhere at the same time. But now, when the affections are up, melting into sorrow in the confession of sin, sallying forth with holy panting and breathing in its supplications, truly this fixeth the thoughts. The soul intended can no more be in two places together than the body. And as these holy affections will prevent the soul’s wandering disposition, so also make it more difficult for Satan to throw in his injections. Flies will not so readily light on a pot seething hot on the fire as when it stands cold in the window. Baalzebub is one of the devil’s names—that is, the god os a fly—an allusion to the idolatrous sacrifices, where flies were so busy. This fly will not so readily light on thy sacrifice when flaming from the altar of thy heart with zeal.

Now, to preserve thy affections in prayer warm and lively, let it be thy care to chase and stir up the natural heat that is undoubtedly in thee, if a Christian, by the serious consideration of thy sins, wants, and mercies. While thou art pondering on these, thine eye will affect thine heart. They will, as Abishag did to David, by laying them in thy bosom, bring thy soul to a kindly heat in those affections which thou art to act in the several parts of prayer. Thy sins reviewed, and heightened with their aggravations, will make the springs of godly sorrow to rise in thy heart. Canst thou choose but mourn when thou shalt read thy several indictments to thy guilty soul, now called to hold up its hand at the bar of thy conscience? Canst thou hear how the holy law of God hath been violated, his Spirit grieved, and his Son murdered by thy bloody hands, and this when he hath been treating thee mercifully, and not mourn? Surely, should a man walk over a field after a bloody battle hath been fought, and there see the bodies, though of his enemies, lying weltering in their blood, his heart could not but then relent, though in the heat of battle his fury shut out all thoughts of pity. But what if he should spy a father or a dear friend dead upon the place, of the wounds which his unnatural hand had given, would not his bowels turn? Yes, surely, if he carried the heart of a man in his bosom. Thou mayest guess, Christian, by this, what help such a mediation would afford toward the breaking of thy heart for thy sins. Certainly it would make thee throw away that unhappy dagger which was the instrument to give those deep stabs to the heart of Christ—and this is the best mourning of all. Again, thy wants well weighed would give wings to thy desires. If once thou wert possessed with the true state of thy affairs—how necessary it is for thee to have supplies from heaven, or to starve and die. And so in the rest, &c.

Third Cause. A third cause of roving thoughts, is encumbrance of worldly cares. It is no wonder that man can enjoy no privacy with God in a duty, who hath so many from the world rapping at his door to speak with him when he is speaking with God. Periclitatur pietas in negotiis—religion never goes in more danger than when in a crowd of worldly business. If such a one prays, it is not long before something comes in his head to take him off. ‘Isaac went out to meditate,…and behold the camels.’ The world is soon in such a one’s sight. He puts forth one hand to heaven in a spiritual thought, but soon pulls it back, and a worldly one steps before it, and so makes a breach upon his duty. ‘A dream,’ Solomon tells us, ‘cometh through a multitude of business.’ And so do dreaming prayers. They are made up of heterogeneous independent thoughts. The shop, barn, warehouse are unfit places for prayer—I mean the shop in the heart, and the barn in the heart. I have read of one who was said to be a walking library, because he left not his learning with his books in his study, but carried it about with him wherever he went, in his memory and judgment, that had digested all he read, and so made it his own. And have we not too many walking shops and barns, who carry them to bed and board, church and closet? And how can such pray with a united heart, who have so many sharers in their thoughts? O anima sancta sola esto, anne nescis verecundum habes Sponsum!—O, holy soul, get thee alone, if thou wouldst have Christ give thee his loves. Knowest thou not thou hast a modest husband? Indeed he gives the soul not his embraces in a crowd, nor the kisses of his lips in the market. Jacob sends away his company to the other side of the river, and then God gave him one of the sweetest meetings he had in all his life. Let him now pray even a whole night if he will, and welcome. Now, Christian, for thy help against these—

[Directions against the encumbrance of worldly cares in prayer.]

1. Direction. Labour to keep thy distance to the world, and that sovereignty which God hath given thee over in its profits and pleasures, or whatever else may prove a snare to thee. While the father and master know their place and keep their distance, so long will servants and children will keep theirs, by being dutiful and officious. But, when they forget this—the father grows fond of the one, and the master too familiar with the other—then they begin to lose their authority, and the other to grow saucy and under no command. Bid them go, and it may be they will not stir. Set them a task, and they will bid you do it yourself. Truly thus it fares with the Christian. All the creatures are his servants. And so long as he keeps his heart at a holy distance from them, and maintains his lordship over them, not laying them in his bosom which God hath put under his feet, Ps. 8, all is well. He marches to the duties of God’s worship in a goodly order. He can be private with God, and these not be bold to crowd in to disturb him. But when we grow fond of, and too familiar with, them, alas! how are we pestered with them! We read of no undutifulness of Hagar towards her mistress while a servant; but when Sarah gives her into Abraham’s bosom, and admits her to share with herself in conjugal privileges, truly then she begins to justle with her mistress, and carries herself saucily to her. Yea, and Abraham himself, who would not have stuck to have put her away before, yet now he hath taken her into his bed, can hardly persuade his heart to yield to it, till God joins with Sarah in the business, bidding him ‘hearken unto his wife.’

Thus, Christian, use the world as a servant —which it was made for—and you may go to prayer, as Abraham up the mount, leaving his servants below. Thou shalt find they will not have that power to disturb thee. But, let either profits or pleasures share with Christ in thy conjugal affection, and thou wilt find thy heart loath to send this Hagar away, though at the request of Christ himself, when he is calling thee into communion with himself. Either use the world as if thou usedst it not, or you will pray as if you prayed not. The smoke and sparks that rise from a furnace are carried that way the wind lies. If thy heart be to the world, thou canst not then keep thy thoughts from driving thither. Then, and not till then, will thy prayer ascend like a pillar of incense, when there is a holy calmness on thy spirit, and this boisterous wind of inordinate affections to the world be laid. I must not take thee off from diligence in thy worldly calling; this never spoils a good prayer, only watch thy heart that thou prostitute it not to the wanton embraces of it. That is the pure metalled sword or knife which bends this way and that way, but returns to its straightness again, and stands not bent. That heart is of the right make, and hath heaven’s stamp upon it, which can stoop and bend to the lowest action of his worldly calling, but then returns to his fitness for communion with God, and his heart stands not bent to the creature, but in a direct line to God and his worship.

2. Direction. Strengthen thy faith on the providence of God for the things of this life. A distrustful heart is ever thoughtful. Whatever he is doing, his thoughts will be on that he fears he shall lose. When the merchant’s adventure is insured—that whatever comes he cannot lose much—his heart then is at rest, he can eat his bread with quiet, and sleep without dreaming of shipwrecks and pirates. While another, whose estate is at sea, and fears what will become of it, O how is this poor man haunted wherever he is going, whatever he is doing, with disquieting thoughts! If he hears the wind but a little loud, he cannot sleep for fear of his ship at sea. Truly thus a soul by faith rolled on the promise will find a happy deliverance from that disturbance which another is pestered with in prayer. Wherefore God in particular directs us to lay this burden from our shoulders on his, when we go to pray, that no by‑thoughts arising from these our cares may disturb us. ‘Be careful for nothing, but…let your requests be made known unto God,’ Php. 4:6. As if he had said, ‘Leave me to take care of your work, and mind you to do mine. If things go amiss in your estates, names, families, I will take the blame, and give you leave to say God was not careful enough of you.’ When the males of Israel went to worship God at Jerusalem, that they might not carry distracted minds with them—from the fear of their families left naked behind without a man to fight for them if an enemy should come—God takes the special care of their families in their absence, Ex. 34:24. If we have but a faithful servant, who we believe will look to our business as carefully as our own selves, this makes us go forth with a free and quiet spirit, and not trouble ourselves what is done at home when we are abroad. O then, let us be ashamed if our faith on God’s providence be not much more able to ease us of the burden of distracting cares.

Fourth Cause. These wandering thoughts are occasioned by the Christian’s non‑observance of his heart in the act of prayer. Let him be at never so much cost of preparatory pains before duty, yet if he doth not watch himself narrowly in the duty itself, his heart will give him the slip, and run into a thousand vanities and impertinencies. The mind of man is a nimble creature; in one moment you shall have it in heaven, and in the very next you shall find it on the earth. Like Philip, who being joined to the eunuch’s chariot, on a sudden was carried out of his sight, and found at Azotus, a place far distant thence; thus our hearts are soon gone away from the duty in hand, and taken a vagary to the furthest part of the world in their wild imagination. Yea—which is worse—sometimes the mind is off and gadding, but the Christian goes on with his lip-labour and takes no notice that his thoughts are gone astray; as Joseph and Mary were gone a day’s journey before they missed their child, who stayed behind with other company. Thus the Christian loses his heart in duty, and goes on with a careless formality, that sometimes the prayer is almost done before he observes his heart’s seat to be empty, or considers that his soul and spirit hath not borne him company all the way; who, had he but at the first stepping aside of his thoughts been aware, might have recovered and rescued them out of the hands of those vanities which stole them, as David did his wives and children from the Amalekites, without any great trouble or loss. And therefore, Christian, keep thy heart with all diligence; observe whether it doth its part in the duty, or be as a string that sounds not in the concert. As you do with your children, so you had need do with your childish mind. Haply they wait on you to church, but when you are set, if not awed by your eye, they are gone, and may be playing all sermon time in the fields, and you miss them not; to prevent which, you set them before you that you may see their carriage and their behaviour. If thou didst thus pray, observing and watching thy thoughts, where, and what about, thou wouldst find more composure in thy spirit than thou dost.

Nay, do not only observe thy thoughts in duty, but call them to review after duty. Many go from prayer too much like boys from school, that think no more of their lesson till they return again—leave praying, and all thoughts how they behaved themselves in prayer, together. For shame do not thus. If thou neglectest to take account of thyself, consider that thou must give an account both of it and this thy neglect after it before thy betters. God himself will have the full hearing thereof. He sets not any about a work, of which he means not to take cognizance how it was done. And were it not better that the audit should be in thy more private court, than thou be called to give up thy account at his dreadful tribunal? Resolve therefore to commune with thy heart upon this point; and the sooner thou goest about it the better it is like to be done, because then the circumstances of the action will be freshest in thy memory. Go not then out of thy closet till thou hast examined thy heart. If thy thoughts in prayer shall be found to have been in any measure free and entire, thy affections warm and lively, matter of joy will arise to thee, and thanksgiving to God that thou hast escaped the hands of so many rovers and freebooters that lay in wait to make prize of thee. But, take heed thou applaudest not thyself for thine own care and circumspection. Alas! thou wert not thine own keeper. He that lent his ear to thy prayer gave thee thy heart to pray, and also keep it up in duty. Say rather with David, ‘Who am I, that I should be able to offer so willingly?’ If thy heart upon the review be found to have played the truant, take shame, that thou beest not put to shame before the Lord. O blush to think thou shouldst be so unfaithful to God and thine own soul, yea so foolish, to run up and down on every idle errand which Satan sends thee, and in the meanwhile neglect thy own work of so great an importance! The spouse’s complaint may fit thy mouth: ‘They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept.’

He is an unwise messenger who, being sent to market to provide food, is drawn by every idle companion to spend both his time and money in vain, and at night comes home without bread for the hungry family. O! Christian, was not thy errand to the throne of grace to get new supplies from heaven for thy poor soul? And doth it not grieve thee to think that now thy soul must pinch, for thy playing away thy praying time and talent, which, as market money, was put into thy hand to procure a new store? Yea, that thou hast been injurious to thy God by taking his name in vain? Thou appearedst in a praying posture; thy hand voice were lift up to heaven, as if thou meantest to pray; but—like him who said he would go into the vineyard, and did not—thou hast turned a contrary way, and set thy thoughts to work in another field. Will not this affect thy heart? Yes, surely, and afflict it also. And this affliction of thy spirit will be a sovereign means to excite thy care for the future. The faults which are unobserved are also uncorrected in the scholar’s exercise, and so not like to be mended in the next. Wandering thoughts in prayer are like vagrants. No such way to rid the country of one, and the heart of the other, as by giving both the law—the lash, I mean.

Question. O! but, saith the Christian, I have used this means, and yet, to the grief of my heart, I am still pestered with them.

Answer. Take a few consolatory words to ease thy aching heart, that groans under the burden of these thy wandering thoughts.

[Consolatory thoughts for the Christian too much downcast through wanderings in prayer.]

1. Thought. The affliction of thy spirit for them speaks more comfort to thee, than the presence of them discomfort. That thou art annoyed with such troublesome guests is no more than the best of saints have found and acknowledged. Wherefore did David pray that God would ‘unite his heart to fear his name,’ but that he found it gadding? What means Paul by his complaint, ‘When I would do good, evil is present with me,’ but that he had not yet got the full mastery of his unruly thoughts? Thou seest it is no new disease thou art troubled with, but such as is common, not only to the sons of men, but the children of God—a spot that may be seen on a saint’s coat. But thy being afflicted for them, speaks one of these two things—and both of them have comfort in their mouth for thee. It proves that they are either Satan’s injections, and not the birth of thine own heart; or, if they stream from thy own heart, yet the Spirit of God is the indweller, and these but intruders.

(1.) The moan thou makest for being yoked to such company is a sign they are rather sent in by Satan, than called in by thee—his injections, rather than the suggestions of thy own heart. Our own thoughts commonly are more taking with and pleasurable to us. The mother does not more love the fruit of her own body, than we do the product of our minds. Hence our ‘own ways,’ words, and thoughts are called our ‘pleasure,’ Isa. 58:13, and therefore they may be possibly shot from his bow—thy heart being so affrighted at them, and wounded for them. Or,

(2.) If they prove the offspring of thine own mind, yet thy afflicted soul shows that the Spirit and grace of God is the indweller, and these but intruders and involuntary motions, such as in thy deliberate thoughts thou abhorrest. Were they, as I may so say, of thy own house and family, thou wouldst not show this zeal to shut the door upon them, or shriek out when they come in upon thee. The wife does not cry out when husband, children, or servants come into the room, but when thieves and cutthroats, from whom she looks for nothing but cruelty. It seems they are neither of thine acquaintance, nor likest thou their company, by thy behaviour before them. Be not therefore over‑troubled; for Satan, if he can but disquiet thy mind with false fears, he hath one part of his errand done for which he sends them. These wicked thoughts are upon no other terms with thee than holy thoughts are in the wicked. As those profit not them, because not entertained; so, for the same reason, shall not these hurt thee.

2. Thought. Know these be the necessary infirmities of thy imperfect state; and, so long as thou art faithful to resist and mourn for them, they rather move God’s pity to thee than wrath against thee. It is one thing for a child, employed by his father, willingly or negligently to spoil the work he sets him about; and another, when through natural weakness he fails in the exact doing of it. Should a master bid his servant give him a cup of wine, and he should willingly throw both glass and wine on the ground, he might expect his master’s just displeasure. But if, through some unsteadiness—it may be palsy in his hand—he should, notwithstanding all his care, spill some of it in the bringing, an ingenuous master will rather pity him for his disease, than be angry for the wine that is lost. And did God ever give his servants occasion to think him a hard master? Hath he not promised, ‘that he will spare us as a father his child that serves him?’ From whence come all the apologies which he makes for his people’s failings if not from his merciful heart, interpreting them candidly to proceed rather from their want of skill than will, power, or desire? ‘Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?’ Zech. 3:2, is Christ’s answer in the behalf of Joshua, whom Satan accused for his filthy garments. ‘The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak,’ Matt. 26:41, was his favourable gloss for his disciples’ drowsiness in prayer.

3. Thought. Believers’ prayers pass a refining before they come into God’s hands. Did he indeed read them with their impertinences, and take our blotted copy out of our hand, we could not fear too much what the issue might be. But they come under the corrector’s hand. Our Lord Jesus hath the inspection of them, who sets right all our broken requests and misplaced petitions. He washes out our blots with his blood. His mediation is the fine searce² through which our prayers are bolted. All that is coarse and heterogeneous he severs from the pure. What is of his own Spirit’s breathing he presents, and what our fleshly part added he hides, that it shall not prejudice us or our prayers. This was the sweet gospel truth wrapped up in the priest’s bearing the sins of their holy offerings, Ex. 28:38.

4. Thought. Though the presence of these be a great affliction to thee, yet God will make them of singular use to thee. (1.) To humble thee, and take all glorying from thee, that thou shalt not pride thyself in thy other assistances, which thou wouldst be prone to do if thy prayer had not this lame foot to humble thee. (2.) To keep thee wakeful and circumspect in thy Christian course. By thy disturbance from these thou seest the war is not yet quite done. The Canaanite is yet in the land. Though not master of the field, he is yet skulking in his holes and fastnesses, out of which he comes like an adder in the path, that by these sudden surprises and nibbling at thy heel he may make thee, like the rider, fall backward, and so steal a victory unawares of thee, whom he despairs to overcome in a pitched battle by sins more deliberate. And truly, if he dare be so bold as to set upon thee when in communion with God—so nigh thy rock and castle—doth it not behoove thee, Christian, to look about thee, that he gets no greater advantage of thee when thou art at further distance from him in thy worldly employments? (3.) God will make thee by these more merciful to, and less censorious of, thy brethren of greater failings.

5. Thought. In thy faithful conflict with them thou mayest promise thyself, at last, victory over them. But expect this gradually to be done; not at once, nor hastily, to be delivered into thy hands, as God said of Israel’s enemies. Therefore, maintain the fight: faint not at their stubborn resistance; pray, and mourn that thou canst pray no better; mourn and fight again; fight and believe them down, though sometimes they get thee under their feet. God made a promise to Noah after the flood, in which he gave him a sovereignty over the creatures. ‘The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth,’ Gen. 9:2. But we see many beasts are fierce, savage, and cruel to mankind. Yet thus it is fulfilled —that none are so fierce and unruly but, by man’s art and industry, they have been and still are taken and tamed, as the apostle hath it, James 3:7. Thus God hath given his saints by promise, a sovereignty over sin and Satan; he will subdue both under your feet. The dread of the saints shall fall on the proudest devil, and his foot shall be set on the neck of the fiercest lust. Yet this will cost hot work before the one or other be effected.

[Satan strives to hinder the success of prayer.]

Third Design. The third and last design that Satan hath against the saint in this great undertaking of prayer, is to hinder his success therein. He will have thee, Christian, if he can, one way or other, outwards or homewards; and it comes all to one whether the ship be taken as it goes forth or as it returns home. Nay, of the two it is the greater loss to be defeated of our expectations when we look for our prayers to come richly fraught with mercies from heaven. Now, two ways he labours to hinder the success of prayer.

First. He endeavours to hinder the welcome of their prayers with God, that they may be cast as a petition out of court which God will not look on.

Second. If he cannot prevail in this, then he plays an after-game, and will so handle the matter, if possible, that though the prayers have a welcome with God, and find gracious reception in heaven, yet that this be not believed by the saint on earth, but that he gives them up for lost and looks no more after them. Now though this be not a total and final miscarriage of the prayer, yet the devil hath hereby a great advantage, depriving him of the present comfort and benefit which his fight might pay him in before a return is made of his prayer.

[Satan would hinder the success of the saints’ prayers, by getting them to be such as would be unwelcome with God.]

First way of Hinderance. Satan endeavours to hinder the welcome of the saints’ prayers with God, that they may be cast as a petition out of court which God will not look on. He labours to hinder even the entertainment of our prayers in heaven. Now our prayers may several ways be stopped at heaven’s door, and denied that gracious access which God useth to give. I speak now of saints’ prayers. As for the prayers of the wicked, there is one law for them all —to be cast over the bar and the door shut upon them. The tree must be good before the fruit it bears can be sweet on God’s palate. Now the stoppage which the saint’s prayer meets withal, springs not from any unwillingness in God to give out his mercy, or any dislike to have beggars at his door. Adeo placet Deo dare, ut propter hoc omnia creavit, volebat enim habere quæ et quibus dare—God is so delighted with acts of mercy, that therefore he made the world, and all in it, that he might have suitors to beg and alms to give those suitors. But from ourselves we put the stones into the lock, which hinders the turning of prayer’s key in it, and so indeed we shut the door of mercy upon ourselves. The devil himself could not immediately hinder a saint’s welcome. He hath not such command of God’s ear, did we not put words into his mouth, and help him to a charge against us. The lies which he, as a false accuser carries to God, shall not prejudice us in God’s thoughts or make our prayers less acceptable; but if the accusation be true, God will hear it, though he be a wicked spirit that tells the tale, and we his dear children of whom it is told. A father, when he hears of some wicked prank his child hath played, will chide and frown on him, though it be an enemy that told him of it. Now, to instance what miscarriages in a saint hinder their audience at the throne of grace. 1. When the thing prayed for is not according to the will of God. 2. When the end the saint aims at is not levelled right. 3. When with his prayer he joins not a diligent use of the means. 4. When some secret grudge is lodged in his heart against his brother. 5. When there is a want of faith.

[Miscarriages in a praying saint which hinder his audience in heaven.]

1. Miscarriage. When the thing prayed for is not according to the will of God. We have not a liberty to pray at random for what we will. The throne of grace is not set up that we may come and there vent our sudden distempered passions before God, or make any saucy motion to him that comes in our head. Truly then God would have work enough. If we had promised to sign all our petitions without any regard to the subject‑matter of them, he should too oft set his hand against himself, and pass that away which would be little for his glory to give. Herod was too lavish when he gave his minion leave to ask what she would, even to half of his kingdom. And he paid dearly for it; he gave her that head which was more worth than his whole kingdom—for the cutting off his head lost him his crown. No, we have to do with a wise God, who, to stop the mouth of all such bold beggars, that would ask what unbeseems us to desire, or him to give, hath given a law of prayer, and stinted us to the matter thereof: ‘When ye pray, say, Our Father,’ &c. That is, learn here what you may pray for in faith to receive. ‘And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us,’ I John 5:14.

Faith, without a promise, is like a foot without any firm ground to stand upon. It was well Luther interpreted himself, when he said, fiat voluntas mea —my will be done—mea, Domine, quia tua—my will, Lord, because thine. Now, the promise contains this will of God. Be sure thou gatherest all thy flowers of prayer out of this garden, and thou canst not do amiss. But take heed of mingling with them any wild gourd of thine own. Remember the check our Lord gave his disciples when venting their vindictive passion in their prayer: ‘Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them?…And he said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of,’ Luke 9:54, 55. They had here an example to countenance their act. But that heroicus impetus, and extraordinary spirit by which Elijah and other of the prophets were acted, is not our standing rule for prayer. That came in them from the Spirit of God, which in us may proceed from the spirit of the devil, which is implied in our Saviour’s question, ‘Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.’ As if he had said, ‘You little think who stirred you up. You had your coal, not from God’s altar, but from Satan’s furnace.’

O! let us beware that we be not the devil’s messengers in going to God upon his errand; which we do when we pray against the rule or without a warrant. Belch not out thy unruly passions of anger there, presently to have thine enemies confounded—the disciples’ case; nor vent thy intemperate sorrow through impatience—as Job in the paroxysm of his trouble begs of God to take away his life in all haste. Take counsel of the word, and ‘let not thy lip be hasty to utter a matter before the Lord.’ Daniel’s method was the right, Dan. 9:2. First, he goes to the Scripture and searches what the mind of God was concerning the time when he had promised his people a return out of their captivity, which having found, and learned thereby how to lay his plea, then away he goes to besiege the throne of grace. ‘And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer,’ &c., ver. 3. Art thou sick or poor?—in want of any temporal mercy? Go and inquire upon what terms these are promised, that thy faith may not jet beyond the foundation of the promise by a peremptory and absolute desire of them, for then thy building will fall, and thou be put to shame, because thou askest more than God ever promised.

2. Miscarriage. Though the subject‑matter of a saint’s prayer be bottomed on the word, yet if the end he aims at be not levelled right, this is a second door at which his prayer will be stopped, though it pass the former. ‘Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.’ Take, I confess, a Christian in his right temper, and he levels at the glory of God. Yet as a needle is touched with a lodestone may, being shaken, be removed from its beloved point, to which nature hath espoused it, though trembling till it again recovers it; so, a gracious soul may, in a particular act and request, vary from this end, being jogged by Satan, yea disturbed by an enemy nearer home, his own unmortified corruption. Truly he is a rare archer that ever hits the white. Do you not think it possible for a saint, in distress of body and spirit, to pray for health in the one, and comfort in the other, with too selfish a respect had to his own ease and quiet? Yes sure, and to pray for gifts and assistance in some eminent service, with an eye asquint to his own credit and applause, to pray for a child with too inordinate a desire that the honour of his house may be built up in him—I know none so seasoned with grace as not to be subject to such warpings of spirit. And this may be understood as the sense, in part, of that expression: ‘If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me, but verily the Lord hath heard me,’ Ps. 66:18. For, to desire our own health, peace, and reputation, be not an iniquity —when contained in the banks that God hath set —yet, when they overflow, and are to such a height lift up as to overtop the glory of God, yea to stand but in a level with it, they are a great abomination. That which in the first or second degree is wholesome food, would be rank poison in the fourth or fifth.

Therefore, Christian, catechise thyself before thou prayest, O my soul, what sends thee on this errand? Know but thy own mind, what thou prayest for, and thou mayest soon know God’s mind how thou shalt speed. Secure God his glory, and thou mayest carry away the mercy with thee. Had Adonijah asked Abishag out of love to her person, and not rather out of love to the crown, it is like Solomon would not have denied the banns between them; but this wise prince observed his drift, to make her but a step to his getting into the throne, which he ambitiously thirsted for, and therefore his request was denied with so much disdain. Look that, when thy petition is loyal, there be not treason in thy end and aim. If there be, he will find it out.

Question. When shall I know that I aim at God or self in prayer?

Answer. This will commonly appear by the posture of our heart when God delays or denies the thing we pray for. A soul that can acquiesce, and patiently bear a delay or denial—I speak now of such mercies as are of an inferior nature, not necessary to salvation, and so not absolutely promised—gives a hopeful testimony that the glory of God weighs more in his thoughts than his own private interest and accommodation. A selfish heart is both peremptory and hasty. It must have the thing it cries for, and that quickly too, or else it faints and chides, falls down in a swoon, or breaks out into murmuring complaints, not sparing to fall foul on the promises and attributes of God himself. ‘Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not?’ Isa. 58:3. Now, from whence come both these, but from an overvaluing of ourselves? —which makes us clash with God’s glory, that may be more advanced by these delays and denials, than if we had the thing we so earnestly desire. God was more glorified in denying Christ himself his life, than if he had let that bitter cup pass without his tasting of it, which Christ, understanding fully, resigned himself thereunto, saying, ‘Father, glorify thy name; not my will, but thy will be done,’ John 12:28³. As if he had said, I would not save my life to lose thee the least of thy glory. This is the copy we should all write after. Indeed, if our distempered hearts be so wilful and hasty as not to be content with what, and that when it pleaseth God also, he should not love us in gratifying such desires, for thereby he would but nourish such distemper, which is better cured by starving than feeding it.

3. Miscarriage. The Christian’s prayer may miscarry when, with his prayer, he joins not a diligent use of the means. We must not think to lie upon God, as some lazy people do on their rich kindred; to be always begging of him, but not putting forth our hand to work in the use of means. God hath appointed prayer as a help to our diligence, not as a cloak for our sloth. Idle beggars are welcome neither to God’s door nor man’s. What! wilt thou lift up thy hands to God in prayer, and then put them in thy pocket? Doth not God forbid our charity to him that worketh not? ‘We commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat,’ II Thes. 3:10. And will he encourage that idleness in thee which he would have punished by us? It is a good gloss of Bernard upon that of Jeremiah, ‘Let us lift up our hearts with our hands unto God in the heavens,’ Lam. 3:41—qui orat et laborat, ille cor levat ad Deum cum manibus—he that prayeth, and is diligent in the use of means, is the person that lifts up his heart with his hands to God. Look therefore, Christian, thou minglest thy sweat with thy tears, thy labour with thy prayers. If thy prayer doth not set thee on work, neither will it set thy God at work for thee. Is it a lust thou art praying against? And dost thou sit down idle to see whether it will now die alone? Will that prayer slay one lust that lets another—thy sloth, I mean —live under its nose? As God will not save thy soul, so neither will he destroy thy sin, unless thy hand also be put to the work. See how God raised Joshua from off the earth, where he lay praying and mourning for Israel’s defeat, Joshua 7:10, 11: ‘Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel hath sinned,’ &c.; ver. 12, ‘Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies,’ &c.; ver. 13, ‘Up, sanctify the people.’

O how oft may God rouse us up from our knees, and say, ‘Why lie ye here with your lazy prayers? You have sinned in not taking my counsel and obeying my orders. I bade you watch as well as pray; why do you not one as well as the other? My command obliges you to flee from the snare that Satan lays for you, as well as pray against it: therefore it is you cannot stand before your lusts.’ Moses durst not go to God with a prayer in behalf of sinning Israel till he had shown his zeal for God against their sin, and then he goes and speeds; see Ex. 32:25, compared with ver. 31. Dost thou think to walk loosely all day, yielding thyself, and betraying the glory of the God, into the hands of thy lust, and then mend all with a prayer at night? Alas! thy cowardice and sloth will get to heaven before thy prayer, and put thee to shame when thou comest on such an errand.

4. Miscarriage. The saint’s prayer may miscarry from some secret grudge that is lodged in his heart against his brother. Anger and wrath are strange fire to put to our incense. It is a law writ upon every gate of God’s house—every ordinance, I mean—at which we are to enter into communion with God, that we must ‘love our brethren.’ When we go to hear the word, what is the caveat, but that we should ‘lay aside all malice, envy, and evil‑speaking, and as new‑born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word?’ The gospel will not speak peace to a wrathful spirit. Anger and malice, like a salt corroding humour in the stomach, makes us puke and cast up the milk of the word, that it cannot stay with us for nourishment. Is it the gospel supper thou sittest at? This is a love-feast, and though it may be eaten with the bitter herbs of sin’s sorrow, yet not with the sour leaven of wrath and malice. ‘When ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you,’ &c., I Cor. 11:18. Now mark what follows, ‘this is not the Lord’s supper,’ ver. 20. Christ will not communicate with a wrangling jangling company. When such guests come, he riseth from his own table, as David’s children did from Absalom’s upon the murder of their brother Amnon, II Sam. 13:29. And for prayer, you know the law thereof, ‘Lift up holy hands, without wrath and doubting,’ I Tim. 2:8—implying, that it is impossible to pray in faith and wrath. Duobus modis oratio impeditur, si ad huc homo mala committit aut si committenti in se ex toto corde non dimittit—our prayer may be hindered two ways—by lying in any sin we commit against God; or, in wrath, by not forgiving our brother’s committed against us. Those two in our Lord’s prayer cannot be divorced—‘forgive us, as we forgive.’ This is that ferrum in vulnere—iron in the wound, as the same father hath it, which makes our prayers as ineffectual to us, as the plaster is to the wound in which the bullet still remains.

Now, the reason why God is so curious in this point, in because himself is so gracious; and being ‘love,’ can bid none welcome that are not ‘in love.’ The heathens had such a notion that the gods would not like the sacrifice and service of any but such as were like themselves. And therefore to the sacrifices of Hercules none were to be admitted that were dwarfs. To the sacrifice of Bacchus, a merry god, none that were sad and pensive, as not suiting their genius. An excellent truth may be drawn from this their folly. He that would like and please God must be like to God. Now our God is a God of peace, our heavenly Father merciful; and therefore to him none can have friendly access but those that are children of peace, and merciful as their Father is. O! watch then thy heart, that Satan’s fireballs—which upon every little occasion he will be throwing in at thy window —take not hold of thy spirit, to kindle any heart-burning in thee against thy brother. If at any time thou seest the least smoke, or smellest the least scent of this fire in thy bosom, sleep not till thou hast quenched it. Be more careful to lay this fire in thy heart aside, when thou goest to bed, than the other that is on thy hearth. How canst thou by prayer commit thyself into God’s hands that night wherein thou carriest a spark thereof smothered in thy breast? Irasci, hominis, iram non preficere, Christiani est (Jerome)—as a frail man thou canst not hinder but such a spark may light on thee, yet if thou wilt prove thyself a Christian, thou must quench it. Nay more, if thou wilt show thyself a Christian, and have thy prayer find God’s ear or heart open to it, thou must do thy utmost to quench it in thy brother’s heart as well as thy own. It is not enough that thou carriest peace in thy heart to him, except thou endeavourest that he may be at peace with thee also. ‘If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee,’ Matt. 5:23.

Hierome brings in the Christian here expostulating his cause with God, why he will not hear his prayer: Domine, quare nonvis susicpere munus meum? quid ad me attinet? non est in meâ potestate, si frater meus habet aliquid contra me—‘What is it to me, Lord, that my brother is offended with me? I cannot help that; wilt thou not receive my gift for his fault?’ To whom he brings God thus answering—Et quid dicis male serve? Intelligo animum tuum? Nihil habes? Amas eum? Quare ergo salvari eum nonvis? Vade, roga eum, ne ille contra te habeat ut salvari possit—‘What is it, naughty servant, that thou sayest? I understand thy meaning. What is it to thee? Hast thou nothing against him? Dost thou love him? Wherefore then wouldst not thou save his soul? Go and beg of him to be at peace with thee, that thy brother’s soul may be saved.’ I speak the more of this particular, being sensible of what an hour, or rather age, of temptation we live in, by reason of the sad differences of judgment among Christians, which have distilled upon their affections so great a distaste one to another as exulcerates them into wrath and bitterness; yea, a wonderful cure it will be, if it can be prevented from ending in an irrecoverable consumption of love among a great part of this generation —especially considering what malignity is dropped into these church‑contentions by those national divisions also that have fallen in with them, and which drew so sad a sword among us, as for many years could find no other sheath but the bowels of this then miserable nation. O what grudges, animosities, and heart‑burnings have these two produced! The sword, blessed be God! is at last got into its scabbard of peace; but have we not cause to wish it had been cleaner wiped when put up, and not such an implacable spirit of revenge and malice to be found remaining among many of us, as, alas! is too common to be met with everywhere? The storm without us is over, blessed be God! but is t not too high within some of our breasts? The flood of national calamities is assuaged; but now the tide is down and gone, is there not a deal of this filth—to name no other—uncharitable jealousies, bitterness, wrath, and revenge, left behind upon our hearts? Enough to breed another plague and judgment among us if a flood of national repentance does not wash away what the sea of war and other confusions have cast up! But, if this were all the mischief they are like to do us, our case is sad enough; they will hinder our prayers. For God will not accept such sacrifices as are kindled with the fire of wrath.

5. Miscarriage. The Christian’s prayer may miscarry for want of faith. Prayer is the bow, the promise is the arrow, and faith the hand which draws the bow, and sends this arrow with the heart’s message to heaven. The bow without the arrow is of no use, and the arrow without the bow as little worth; and both without the strength of the hand, to no purpose. Neither the promise without prayer, nor prayer without the promise, nor both without faith, avails the Christian anything. So that what was said of the Israelites, that they ‘could not enter Canaan because of unbelief;’ the same may be said of many of our prayers, they cannot enter heaven with acceptation, because they are not put up in faith. Now faith may be considered with a respect to the person praying, or to the prayer put up.

[What it is to pray in faith.]

First Requisite. The person must be a believer. But this is not enough.

Second Requisite. There must be an act of faith exerted in the prayer, as well as the habit of faith dwelling in the person. ‘What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them,’ Mark 11:24. If the thing be not to be found in the promise that we desire, it is a sin to pray for it; if it be, it is a sin not to believe, when we pray for it, and that no small one, because thereby we both profane and ordinance and asperse the name of the great God.

Question. But what is it to pray in faith?

Answer 1. Negatively. It is not to believe that the very thing in specie—or in its proper kind, that we pray for, shall be always given. Christ prayed in faith and was heard, Heb. 5. He believed not the thing in kind to be given neither was it; yet his prayer was answered. Therefore, be sure thou learnest the right method of acting thy faith in prayer, which must be taken from the nature of the promise thou puttest in suit. As water receives its figure—round or square —from the vessel it is poured into; so our faith is to be shaped by the promise. If that be absolute—as things necessary to salvation are—then thy faith may expect the very thing promised; if otherwise, then thou art not to limit thy faith to the thing itself, but expect money or moneyworth; health, or as good as health; deliverance, or better than deliverance. An absolute faith on a conditional promise—without an immediate revelation, which we must not look for—is fancy, not faith. To commit a sin, not act a grace, this is to be free on God’s purse without a grant; for we put more in the conclusion of our faith than is in the premises of the promise; and this is as bad divinity as logic.

Answer 2. Positively. To pray in faith is to ask of God, in the name of Christ, what he hath promised, relying on his power and truth for performance, without binding him up to time, manner, or means.

(1.) We must ask what God hath promised, or else we choose for ourselves and not beg; we subject God’s will to ours, and not ours to his; we forge a bond and then claim it as debt, which is a horrible presumption! He that is his own promiser must be his own paymaster.

(2.) To pray in faith is required that we pray in Christ’s name. As there can be no faith but on a promise, so no promise can be claimed but in his name, because they are all both made to him and performed for him. They are made to him, the covenant being struck with him: ‘In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began,’ Titus 1:2. And there was none then existing but Christ to whom the promise could be made. So that, as the child claims his estate in right of his father that purchased it; so we come to our right in the promise, as heirs of and co‑heirs with Christ. And as the promise was made to him, so it is performed for him, because his blood shed was the condition of the obligation upon which God acknowledged the debt to Christ, and bound himself to perform all the articles of the covenant to his heirs’ orderly claiming them at his hands in his name. It is not therefore enough boldly to urge God with a promise: ‘Pardon, Lord, for thou hast promised it; grace and glory, for thou hast promised them;’ but we must, if we mean to lay our plea legally—I mean according to the law of faith—plead for these under the protection of his name. Thus Daniel, that holy man, laid the stress of his prayer on Christ: ‘Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord’s sake,’ Dan. 9:17.

(3.) To this praying in faith is required a relying on God, through Christ, for a gracious answer. Let the former be done, and the creature fail in this, he prays not in faith, but takes the name of God and Christ in vain. This act of relying is the taking hold on God in prayer, Isa. 64. When mariners in a storm cast out their anchor, and it comes home again without taking hold on the firm ground, so as to stay the ship and bear it up against the violence of the waves, it gives them no help. So neither doth a handless prayer that takes no hold on God. Therefore you shall find that when a Christian speeds well in prayer, his happy success is attributed, not to naked prayer, but as clothed and empowered with this act of recumbency upon God. ‘They cried unto the Lord,’ II Chr. 13:14. Now see, ‘The children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the Lord God of their fathers,’ ver. 18. He doth but lie in prayer that doth not rely on God after praying. What he seems to give with one hand to God he takes from him with another, which is no better than a mocking of God. By praying we pretend to expect good from him; by not relying we blot this out and declare we look for no such matter.

Now this reliance of the soul hath a twofold way whereby it fastens on God like the anchor’s double hook.

(a.) It takes hold on the power of God. Thus Christ in his agony ‘offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death,’ Heb. 5:7. In prayer we open our case to God, declare how sinful, weak, shiftless creatures we are, and then we commit our cause to God. Now as none will put that to another’s keeping which he thinks safe in his own hands; so neither will any deliver it to another whose ability he is not first persuaded to effect that which himself is unable to do. See Eliphaz’s counsel to Job, ‘I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause,’ Job 5:8. As if he had said, ‘If I were in your case I will tell you what course I would take, I would not look this way or that, but speedily haste me to the throne of grace, and when once I had told God my very heart, I would trouble myself no more, but commit my cause to him, and discharge my heart of the burden of all its troublesome thoughts.’ But under what notion would he do all this? The next words will tell us, ‘Unto God would I commit my cause, which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number.’ First he would bottom his faith on God as able to do great things; and then, leaving his request lodged in the arms of such power, he doubted not but he should cast all care away and enjoy the serenity of his mind whatever his condition was. Indeed, this is the first stone faith lays in her building. And an error in the foundation will make the whole house stand weak. Be sure, therefore, thou layest this bottom stone with thy greatest care. O how unbecoming is it to have a great God, and a little faith on this great God!—a strong God, and a weak faith on his almighty power! Unbelief here ravisheth and offereth violence to the very light of nature, for ‘his eternal power and Godhead’ are known by ‘the visible things’ of the creation, Rom 1:20. What is not he able to do that could make so goodly a fabric without materials, tools, or workmen? Crucifige illud verbum potest ne?—obliterate that word ‘Is he able?’ Away with the question which so grates the ears of the Almighty: Can he pardon? Can he purge? What cannot he do that can do what he will?

(b.) It takes hold on the faithfulness of God to perform the promise. We are directed, in committing ourselves to him, to eye his faithfulness: ‘as unto a faithful Creator,’ I Peter 4:19. The saints’ faith hath been remarkable in staying themselves on this, while yet the mercy they prayed for lay asleep in its causes: ‘Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion: and unto thee shall the vow be performed,’ Ps. 65:1. See, he stands with his instrument strung and tuned, ready to strike up and bring God in with the music of his praise when he shall come with an answer to his prayer, not the least doubting but that he shall use it upon that joyful occasion; for he speaks without ifs and ands—‘Unto thee shall the vow be performed, O thou that hearest prayer!’ And yet that good day was not come; for even then he cries out, ‘Iniquities prevail against me!’ So, ‘I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and the right of the poor,’ Ps. 140:12. Why? how comes he so confident? ‘Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name,’ ver. 13. As if he had said, ‘Thou hast a name for a gracious and faithful God in thy promise, and this thou wilt never suffer to be blotted by failing thy word.’ Christian, thou mayest venture all thou art worth on the public faith of heaven. ‘His words are pure as silver tried seven times in a furnace.’ He that will not suffer a liar or covenant‑breaker to set foot on his holy hill, will much less suffer any one thought of falseness or unfaithfulness to enter into his own most holy heart.

Question. But how may I know when I thus act faith in prayer?

[Four rules whereby to know if we act faith in prayer or no.]

(1.) Rule. We may know if we have acted faith by the serenity and composure of our spirits after prayer. Faith may live in a storm, but it will not suffer a storm to live in it. As faith rises, so the blustering wind of discontented troublesome thoughts go down. In the same proportion that there is faith in the heart there is peace also. They are joined together, ‘quietness and confidence,’ Isa. 30:15: ‘In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.’ Therefore called ‘peace in believing,’ Rom. 15:13. Even where it is weakest it will not let the unquietness of the heart pass without a chiding. ‘Why art thou disquieted, O my soul! trust still in God,’ Ps. 42:5, 11. What! soul no sooner off thy knees, but clamorous! Hast not thou made thy moan to a God able to help thee, and will not that ease thee? Faith disburdens the soul in prayer of that which oppresses it; whereas the unbelieving soul still carries about it the cause of its trouble, because it had not strength to cast forth it sorrows, and roul its cares upon God in the duty. Christian, dost thou carry away the same burden on thy back from prayer which thou didst bring to it? surely thou didst want faith to lift it off thy shoulder. Had faith been there, and that been active and lively, it would have bestowed this elsewhere, and brought thee away with a light heart: as Hannah, who rose from praying ‘to eat, and her countenance was no more sad;’ and as Christ, who kneeled down with as sorrowful a heart as ever any, but comes off with a holy courage, to go and meet his approaching death, and his bloody enemies now on the way to attack him. ‘Rise,’ saith he to his disciples, ‘let us be going, behold he is at hand that doth betray me,’ Matt. 26:46. May it not put us to the blush to think that we could come less satisfied from God’s presence than we do sometimes from a sorry man’s? If you were poor, and had a rich friend that bids you send your children to him, and he will provide for them; would not this ease your mind of all your cares and distracting thoughts concerning their maintenance? And doth not God promise more that this comes to when he bids us ‘be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God?’

(2.) Rule. Dost thou continue praying even when God continues to deny? An unbelieving heart may have some mettle at hand, but will be sure to jade in a long journey. Faith will throw in the net of prayer again and again, as long as God commands and the promise encourageth. The greyhound hunts by sight, when he cannot see his game he gives over running; but the true hound by scent, he hunts over hedge and ditch though he sees not the hare he pursues all the day long. An unbelieving heart, may be, drawn out, upon some visible probabilities and sensible hopes of a mercy coming, to pray, but when these are out of sight his heart fails him; but faith keeps the scent of the promise and gives not over the chase.

(3.) Rule. Dost thou stint God, or canst thou trust him to answer thy prayer in his own way without thy prescription? When we deal with a man whose ability or faithfulness we have in doubt, then we labour to make sure of him by tying him up to our terms. But if we stand assured of their power and truth, we leave them to themselves. Thus the patient sends for the physician, desires his help, but leaves him to write his own bill. The merchant sends over his goods to his factor, and relies on him to make such returns as his wisdom tells him will come to the best market. Thus the believing soul, when he hath opened his heart to God in prayer, resigns himself to the goodness, wisdom, and faithfulness of God to return an answer: ‘Remember me, O my God,’ said Nehemiah, ‘concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of thy mercy,’ Neh. 13:22. See here, this good man makes bold to be God’s remembrancer, but dares not be his counsellor or prescriber. He remits the shaping of the answer to ‘the greatness of his mercy.’ Hence it follows, that whatever way God cometh in, the believing soul bids him welcome.

Doth he pray for health, and miss of that? yet he blesseth God for support under sickness. Doth he pray for his children, and they notwithstanding prove a cross? yet he finds an answer another way, and satisfies himself with it. After many a prayer that David had put up no doubt for his family, we find him entertaining an answer to those prayers with a composed spirit, though they came not in at the fore door, buy having mercy in the letter: ‘Though my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant,’ &c.; and this, he tells us, is ‘all his desire,’ II Sam. 23:5. Indeed, a believer cannot miss his desires, ‘He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him,’ Ps. 145:19. Because they disown those desires which clash with God’s will. Who could pray more fervently for their children than Job did for his? He was with God for them every day; but, after all his religious care of them, he meets with heavy tidings, and hears them to be made a sacrifice by death for whom he had offered up so many sacrifices to God; yet he doth not foolishly charge God, or say it was in vain that he prayed: no, that ointment was not lost the savour whereof was poured into his own soul, from the posture of which we might read a gracious answer, in the supporting grace that enabled him to love and bless God over the gravestone of his slain children.

(4.) Rule. By the soul’s comporting itself towards the means used for obtaining the mercy prayed for.

(a.) If thou prayedst in faith, it will set thee to use other means besides prayer. Mark how the apostle joins these together, ‘Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer,’ Rom. 12:11, 12. As faith useth her wings of prayer to fly to heaven; so she useth her feet of duty and obedience, with which she walks and bestirs herself on earth.

(b.) Faith will make thee, as use means, so to be choice of the means thou usest for the obtaining what thou bespeakest of God in prayer. Faith is a working grace, but it will be set on work by none but God. Am I in God’s way, saith faith? Is this the means he hath appointed? If it be not, away he turns from it, disdaining to work with any of the devil’s tools. God can never answer my prayer, saith the believer, without the help of my sin. If riches be good for me, I need not be at the cost to purchase them with a lie or a cheat. If health be a mercy, he can send me it, though I advise not with the devil’s doctors. If joy and comfort, there is no need to take down the devil’s music. If times be evil, he can hide me without running under the skirt of this great man and that by base flattery and dissimulation. When Ezra had committed himself and his company to God—now on their march towards Jerusalem—by a solemn day of fasting and prayer, and had made a holy boast of his God, what he would do for them that seek him, he thought it unbeseeming his professed faith, and also dishonourable to his God, whom he had so magnified in the hearing of the Persian king, to beg armed troops for a convoy to them in their way, lest his faith should be brought into suspicion for an empty bravado and groundless confidence: ‘I was ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way: because we had spoken unto the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him;’ Ezra 8:22.

(c.) If thou actest faith in prayer, thy faith will not only make thee choice of the means thou usest, but curious and careful in using the means that God chooseth for thee. Thou wilt be afraid lest it should stand in God’s light, by stealing thy confidence in him to trust in it. Faith will teach thee to use means as God’s ordinance, but rely on God to bless it. While faith’s hand is on the plow, her eye is to heaven. Annus non ager facit fructum—the influences of heaven, not the tillage of the husband, make it a fruitful year. Sometimes the physician appoints a powder to be taken in wine or beer. Now it is not the beer or wine that does the cure, but the powder, which they are only used to convey and carry into the stomach. Thus mercy is handed over to us by the blessing of God in the use of means, yet think not the means do it, but the blessing of God mingled with it and infused into it.

(d.) If thou actest faith in prayer, as thou wilt be careful to improve means when God provides them, so thou wilt not suspend thy faith when God denies them. The believing soul dares not trust to the means when he hath them, therefore he dares not distrust God when he wants them. Faith knows, though God useth means, yet he needs none. The sun and showers are the means he useth for the growth of the grass and herbs; yet he made these to grow out of the earth before there was sun or rain, Gen. 1:11. Ploughing and sowing are the ordinary means whereby man is provided with bread; but he fed Israel with bread without their pains and husbandry. Ships [are] the means to waft us over the seas; but God carried Israel through the Red Sea without ship or boat. May be times are hard, and thou art poor; thy charge is great, and thy comings in little; with the widow in the prophet, thou art making the last cake of the little meal that is left. To reason and sense thou must either beg, steal, or die. Canst thou now, upon praying to thy God, wait upon his promise which tells thee, ‘verily, thou shalt be fed,’ Ps. 37:3; and on his providence, which records his care of the sparrows on purpose to assure us he will much more provide for his children? Or, at least, dost thou chide thy heart for its distrustful fears after praying, charging it to hope in God, to whom thou hast made thy moan? Truly, if thy heart hath not some hold on God after duty to stay it, more than before in this thy strait; either thou hast no faith, or if thou hast faith, thou didst not act it in that prayer. True faith will either expel these dejections of heart, or at least protest against them.

[Satan would hinder the success of prayers, by preventing the saint’s belief that they were heard.]

Second Way of Hinderance. Now we come to the second stratagem that Satan useth to hinder the success of the Christian’s prayer, which I called a partial hinderance or miscarriage thereof, when the prayer itself is not lost—which comes to pass only when it finds not acceptance with God —but when the Christian doth not believe on earth that his prayer is heard in heaven, though indeed it is. By his questioning thereof, however, he loseth the revenue of that present peace which otherwise would be paid unto him from the expectation of its certain return with a joyful answer. As a merchant that gives his ship for castaway, when indeed it is safe and richly laden (only stays for a fair wind); he not knowing or believing this, puts himself to as much trouble and sorrow as if it were in truth as he feared. Fancy and imagination, even when without ground and reason, are able to produce real effects and sad consequences in the minds of men. The false news of Joseph’s death caused as much sorrow to old Jacob, yea more, than if he had seen him laid out, and had followed him to the grave. The jailer, from a fear his prisoners were gone, and he accountable for them, had foredone himself, by falling on his own sword, if Paul had not seasonably cried out, ‘Do thyself no harm, for we are all here.’

And truly our unbelieving fears have no less power upon our hearts. They rob the Christian of the joy of his life—and man is but a sour piece of clay when that is gone. It is not praying, but believing prayer heard, that will make a glad heart and a cheerful countenance. Hannah often prayed; she was acquainted with the work many years, yet never had the burden of her spirit taken off till she had faith she should speed. Yea, moreover, they [unbelieving fears] weaken the spirit of prayer. He that expects little from prayer, will not be much in prayer. That trade is best tended which it is hoped will pay a man best for his pains in it. ‘Who is there among you,’ saith God, ‘that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought,’ Mal. 1:10. The husbandman throws his seed freely, because he sows in hope; and his preciousest seed on his fattest soil, because there he looks to find it again with the greatest increase. This made David like praying work so well that he will never leave it: ‘I have prayed, and the Lord hath heard, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.’ As a merchant, finding his sweet gain come trouling in, converts his whole estate into stock; so David devotes himself wholly to prayer: ‘For my love they are my adversaries,’ %-/% *”!$, Ps. 109:4, ‘but I was prayer.’ This was the only weapon I lift up for my defence against all their darts. Whereas, unbelief betrays the soul unto many uncomely thoughts of God, which reflect sadly upon his name, so as to weaken his reputation in the creature’s thoughts, and bring him either to a disuse of this duty, or hopeless performance of it, and this Satan loves alife. When a merchant thinks his goods miscarry, he grows presently jealous of his factor, questioning his care, faithfulness, or ability to despatch his business. Such whisperings we shall hear, if we listen to our unbelieving hearts sometimes, when our prayers make not so short an quick a voyage as we desire. It was a high charge that Job brought against God—though he lived to see he had little reason to do it; yea, afterward charged himself for charging God—‘I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me not,’ Job 30:20. This holy man was now as deep in God’s books, and as great a favourite with him, as ever; yet so far had Satan wound into him, as to make him listen to those false reports which he brought unto him of God—taking the advantage of his present cloudy providence to colour his calumnies, insomuch that he began to give credit unto this liar. Now if this may become a stone of offence to Job, how much more mayest thou fear dashing thy foot against it? Let it be thy care to countermine Satan in this his spiteful plot against God and thee. Surely it should not be a little matter that makes thee throw up thy prayers, and give away so rich an adventure as thou hast swimming in this bottom. Esau hath the brand of a ‘profane person,’ for so cheaply parting with his inheritance. If thou beest a believer, thou art an heir of promise, and, amongst promises, this is not the least —that what thou askest in Christ’s name, believing, thou shalt receive. Now, it is too like Esau’s profaneness to part with this piece of thy heritage—which thou canst not do without impeaching the faithfulness of God that gave thee an estate in the promise.

We highly commend Job for his heroic resolution at another time: ‘God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me,’ Job 27:5. How much more shouldst thou say to Satan, ‘God forbid that I should justify thee, thou wicked fiend, or thy false charge against my God; I will hold fast his integrity and faithfulness till I die.’ Surely Daniel, who ventured his life rather than not pray, would have parted with a thousand lives rather than have given is prayers for lost, and thereby have blotted the good name of God, whose faithfulness stands bound to return every prayer of faith with a gracious answer into the saint’s bosom.

But, the more to fortify you against this design of Satan, let us inquire into a few of those arguments with which Satan—abusing the Christian’s credulity —leads him into this temptation, if not absolutely to conclude, yet unbelieving to dispute and question it in his heart, whether his prayer be heard or no. I shall reduce them to three heads. First. The first argument by which he scruples the Christian, and nourishes his unbelieving fears, is taken from those sinful infirmities that cleave to his person and prayer. Second. Another argument is taken from the deportment of God to him in and after prayer. Third. The last is taken from the common providence of God, that dispenseth the same things to the wicked without praying, which the saints receive praying.

[Satan’s arguments to make the believer doubt whether his prayer is heard.]

Argument 1. The first argument by which Satan would make the Christian out of love with himself and his duty, is taken from those sinful infirmities cleaving to both—his person and prayer alike. Thereby he would quash the saint’s hope of any favourable reception that his prayer hath found in heaven. What! thy stammering prayers make music in God’s ear! Will the Lord foul his fingers with thy besmeared duties? If thou wert a Samuel or Daniel, and couldst claim thy place among those worthies that are renowned for the eminent service they have done God in their generation, then thou mightest hope to have the ear of God to thy suit; but thou, alas! art a puny stripling, a froward child, in whom there is more sin than grace to be found, and dost thou think to be heard? Truly, though this argument weighs little, having no countenance from the tenor of the covenant, whose privileges are not impropriated to a few favourites, more eminent in grace than their brethren, but stand open to the whole family—it being ‘a common salvation,’ and ‘like precious faith,’ that all the saints partake of; yet it is the great bugbear with which many of them are scared.

A word or two therefore to arm thee against this argument. Only this premised—which I must take for granted—that these sinful infirmities are lamented and not cockered by thee—that indeed would turn infirmity into presumption; as also that thou neglectest not to apply the most effectual means for their cure—though, as in hereditary diseases, all the physic thou takest will not here perfectly rid thee of them: this granted, for thy comfort know thy prayers are not so offensive to God as to thyself. Thy prayers pass such a refining in Christ’s mediation, that their ill scent is taken away.

Doth thy scruple arise from the sinful failings of thy daily conversation and Christian course? To remove this, observe how the Spirit of God, when he instanceth in Elias as a person whose prayers are exceedingly prevalent with God, doth not describe him by the transcendency of his grace above others, but by his infirmities like unto them: ‘Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not,’ James 5:17. As if God should say, Were I so curious in my scrutiny, as you fear, Elias’s prayer would have been stopped, for he was not without his infirmities. How many failings do we find in David’s unseemly carriage before Achish, for which he was turned out of the king’s presence under the notion of a madman? Yet his prayer at that time, when he betrayed so many unbelieving fears, found favour with God. ‘I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears,’ Ps. 34:4. Read the title, and you shall find it, ‘A Psalm of David, when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech; who drove him away, and he departed.’

Are they the sinful infirmities which escape thee in the duty of prayer? Canst thou find more in any prayer thou puttest up, than were in the disciples’, for one so short?—where they exercised so little faith that Christ calls it ‘no faith,’ Mark 4:40. ‘Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?’ Yea, they pray to Christ, and chide him in the same breath, ‘Master, carest thou not that we perish?’ Yet Christ could find sincerity hid, like Saul, in this stuff of their infirmities, and granted their request. It is true he rebuked them, but it is as true that he rebuked the wind also. God’s promise for hearing of prayer shall not be made void by the saint’s weakness in prayer. Yea, for thy further comfort, know, that the less power these have to shake or disturb thy spirit in expecting a gracious answer, the more kindly God will take it at thy hand. ‘Abraham,’ it is said, ‘believed, not considering his own body, or the deadness of Sarah’s womb;’ and for this was highly commended, because he thereby did signally glorify the power of God, to which he believed their bodily indisposition should not be any obstacle. Truly thus it will be highly pleasing to God, if thou canst rely—staggering not at thy spiritual indispositions, and that deadness of thy heart which rises up as a great objection in thy thoughts against the success of thy prayer; for by this thou givest Christ both the honour of his death, by which he purchased this free access for thy weak prayers to the throne of grace, and also of his intercession, which clarifies them from all their sinful mixtures.

Argument 2. Satan draws his argument from God’s deportment to the soul in and after prayer. In this argument there are three things he commonly insists upon—by them to create trouble to the Christian’s thoughts. (1.) His silence, which he would have the Christian interpret to be God’s slighting or disregarding of him and his prayer. (2.) His frowns, from which he would have him conclude neither he nor his duty are accepted. (3.) His not giving the mercy in kind; and this he tells the Christian amounts to a denial.

[What in God’s deportment to a Christian after prayer Satan falsifies.]

(1.) His silence after prayer. As wicked men sometimes sin, and God keeps silence, which makes them bold to think God approves of them and their way; so, sometimes a gracious soul prays, and God holds his peace here also; and the poor soul begins to fear that neither his person nor his duty are approved of God. Now Satan, knowing what thoughts are like to rise in the Christian’s own heart, falls in and joins issue with the Christian’s bosom enemy, labouring to confirm him in these his unbelieving fears.

To disentangle and help thee out of this brier, take these directions:—

(a.) Learn to distinguish betwixt God’s hearing and his answering the saint’s prayer. Every faithful prayer is heard, and makes an acceptable report in God’s ear as soon as it is shot; but God doth not always speedily answer it. The father, at the reading of his son’s letter—which comes haply on some begging errand—likes the motion; his heart closeth with it, and a grant is there passed; but he takes his own time to send his despatch, and let his son know this. Princes have their books of remembrance, wherein they write the names of their favourites whom they intend to prefer, haply some years before their gracious purpose opens itself to them. Mordecai’s name stood in Ahasuerus’ book some while before his honour was conferred. Thus God records the names of his saints and their prayers. ‘The Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name,’ Mal. 3:16. But they hear not of God in his providential answer, haply, a long time after. Abraham prays for a child, and is heard, but how many years interpose before he hath him in his arms? Truly so many that he goes into Hagar—partly by his wife’s counsel and his own weakness—to obtain that with a by‑blow for which God himself had undertaken.

Take heed, Christian, thou beest not led into this temptation, to question whether God hears thee, because thou hearest not from him presently. Be patient, and thou shalt find, the longer a mercy goes before its delivery, the more perfect it will come forth at last. God gave a speedy answer to Abraham for his son Ishmael, ‘O that Ishmael might live!’ ‘I have heard thee,’ saith God concerning Ishmael, Gen. 17:20. Indeed he flourished and spread into a great nation before Isaac’s stem almost budded. What a small number was the family of Jacob at their going down into Egypt! but when the date of God’s bond was near expiring, and the time of the promise drew nigh, then God paid interest for his stay. None gain more at the throne of grace than those who trade for time, and can forbear the payment of a mercy longest.

(b.) Consider, when thou findest the deepest silence in God’s providence concerning the thing prayed for, then thou hast a loud answer in the promise. Say not therefore, ‘Who shall ascend to heaven, to bring thee intelligence whether thy prayer hath got safe thither, and had favourable audience in God’s ear?’ God himself hath saved thee this labour: the promise will satisfy thee, which assures thee that if it be duly qualified it cannot find the heart of God shut against it. ‘The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,’ James 5:16. So assured have the saints been of this, that they, before any inkling from providence hath been heard—to bring them the news of a mercy coming—have taken up joy upon the credit of the naked promise, and feasted themselves with the hopes of what they expected, but had not yet received at the cost and charge of God’s faithfulness, with which the promise is sealed, ‘In God I will praise his word,’ Ps. 56:4. Mark the phrase. He had not as yet the desired mercy, only a word of promise that it should come. Now, considering the power and truth of God the promiser, he is as merry as if he were put in possession of it, and pays his praises before God performs the promise.

(2.) The second thing which Satan gathers from God’s deportment towards the Christian, thereby to bring the hearing of his prayer into question in his anxious thoughts, is, his frowns against the Christian. It cannot be denied but sometimes a dear saint of God may go away from duty with an aching heart, by reason of the sad impressions of an angry God left upon his spirit. And when thus it fares with the Christian, Satan’s time is come, he thinks, to lead him into this temptation, by persuading him he may read what entertainment his prayer had at God’s hands in the language of his countenance and his carriage towards him. If God, saith he, had heard thy prayer, would he handle thee thus? No sure; he would rather have taken thee up into his arms, and kissed thee with the kisses of his mouth, than thus trample thee under is feet. Thou shouldst have had darts of love shot from his pitiful eye, to imitate the purposes of his grace, and not arrows headed with his wrath, to stick in thy soul, and thus drink up thy very spirits. Can these be the wounds of a friend?—this the deportment that means thee well? This was the temptation which ruffled Job’s thoughts, and embittered his spirit, Job 9:17. He could not believe God answered his prayer, ‘because he broke with his tempest.’ As if God’s mercy came always in the still voice, and never in the whirlwind! Now in this case take this double word of counsel.

Counsel (a). Inquire whether this tempest comes to find any Jonah in thy ship; whether it takes thee sinning, or soaking in any past sin unrepented; or whether thy conscience, diligently listened to, doth witness that thou art sincere in thy course, though compassed with many failings. If it overtakes thee in a runaway voyage, with Jonah, or rambling course with the prodigal from thy father’s house, then indeed thou hast reason to question, yea it is beyond all question, that an acceptable prayer in this posture cannot drop from thy lips. What! run from God, and then send to him thy prayers! This is to desire mercy to spend upon thy lust. But if, upon thy faithful search, thou findest this storm overtakes thee in the way of duty and exercise of thy sincerity, like the tempest that met the disciples at sea—when at Christ’s command they launched forth—then be not discouraged. For it is ordinary with God to put on the disguise of an angry countenance, and to use rough language, when his heart is resolved upon ways of mercy, and mediates love to his people. Jacob, you know, wrestled hard and long before victory inclined to his side. And the woman of Canaan was kicked away like a dog with harsh language, who at last was owned of Christ for a dear child, and sent away to her heart’s content. Sincerity needs fear no ill from God. This very consideration kept Job’s head as another time above water, Job 16:12. There we find God taking him by the neck, shaking him as it were to pieces, and setting him up for his mark. But, ver. 17, this upheld his troubled spirit—that all this befell him walking in obedience—‘Not for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure.’ Wherefore he rears up his confidence, ‘Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high. My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God,’ ver. 19, 20. The holy man was not, for all this, scared from the throne of grace, but still looked on God, though with tears in his eyes, expecting good news at last after so much bed. And we have warrant to do the same. ‘If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God,’ I John 3:21. And this brings me to the second word of counsel I have to give thee.

Counsel (b). Inquire whether under these frowns from God there be yet a spirit of prayer working in thee. Haply thou canst not deny but that thy heart is rather stirred up from these to lament after the Lord with more restless sighs and groans, to pray with more feeling and fervency, than driven away from duty. The spirit of prayer upheld in thee may assure of these two things:—

[1.] That the cloud of anger which seems to sit on God’s brow is not in his heart. It is but a thin veil, through which thy faith might see the working of his bowels towards thee. The presence of the Spirit of God at work thus in a soul cannot stand with his real anger. If his wrath were up, this in thee would be down. Thou shouldst have him soon calling back this his ambassador of peace, at least suspending and withdrawing his assistance. When that sad breach was made between God and David in the matter of Uriah, David’s heart was presently out of tune; his ‘right hand had forgot its cunning,’ and the spirit of prayer had received a sad damp in his heart. Where is the psalm to be found that was penned by David in that interregnum, as I may so say, of his grace? I do not say he did never pray all the time he lay soaking in that sin; but those prayers were not fit to be joined with the holy breathings of that spirit which acted him before his fall and after his recovery. And therefore, good man, when by repentance he came to himself, like one recovering out of a dangerous sickness —which had for a time taken away his senses—he begins to feel himself weak, and how much the Spirit of grace was by his sin enfeebled in him, which makes him so vehemently beg that God would ‘renew a right spirit in him,’ and ‘not take his Holy Spirit from him,’ Ps. 51:10, 11. The Spirit is so choice and peculiar a mercy, that if thou canst find lively actings of his grace in thee—and where are they more sensibly felt than in prayer, helping the soul to sighs and groans which cannot be uttered?—thou canst not in reason think God is not friends with thee, though it were at present as dark as midnight with thy soul.

[2.] It may assure thee that his ear is open to thy cry when his face is hid from thine eye. For, consider but who this Spirit is that thus helps thee in prayer, and furnisheth thee with all thy spiritual ammunition with which thou so pliest and batterest the throne of grace. Is he not one that knows the mind of God? and that would not have a hand in that petition which should not be welcome to heaven? Having therefore this assistance from the Spirit, doubt not thy acceptance with the Father. In a word, the Spirit that helps thee to thy groans and sighs in prayer is no other than that God thou prayest to; and will God deny himself? This I conceive part, if not the principal part, of the scripture’s meaning, ‘I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain,’ Isa. 45:19. That is, whenever I stir up a soul to pray, and empower him with my Spirit to perform it feelingly, fervently, and after a holy manner, it is always to purpose. God never said thus to any, ‘Seek ye me in vain.’

(3.) The third thing from which Satan takes his advantage to breed scruples in the Christian’s mind concerning the acceptance of his prayer, is the denial of mercy in kind which is prayed for. We are prone enough to have such thoughts ourselves, and Satan will not be wanting to feed any bad humour that is stirring in us. Or, if our hearts seem pacified with this dealing of God, he hath his ways and wiles to conjure up this evil spirit of discontent and unbelief. On this errand he sent Job’s wife, to make him think and speak evil of God: ‘Dost thou still retain thy integrity?’ As if she had said, ‘What! art thou at thy old work?—still praying and praising God? Dost thou not see how much he regards thee, or thy serving of him? What hast thou got by all thy devotion? Is not thy estate gone?—thy children slain and buried in one grave, and thyself left a poor loathsome cripple? —thy life serving for nothing but to make thee feel thy present misery and feed on thy past crosses?’

Indeed, it requires a good insight into the nature of the promises, and the divers ways God takes to fulfil them, to enable us to spell an answer out of a denial of the thing we pray for. Yet, such a ‘good understanding have all they that do his commandments,’ Ps. 111:10. They can clear God and justify his faithfulness in all his dealings, though, when he comes to answer their prayers, he chooseth not to enter in at that door which they set open in their own thoughts and hopes for him, nor treads in the very steps of their express desires. The whole psalm contains a testimony given to the faithfulness of God in his providential works, at which, though a carnal cursory eye—from the mysteries hid therein—is scandalized and takes offence, yet the gracious soul, by his more curious observance of and inquiry into them, finds a sweet harmony between them and the promise, and therefore concludes, ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.’ They, having a key to God’s character, can read the hand of his providence, and so are able to praise him —knowing him faithful—when others are ready to curse him.

But, to help thee out or keep thee from falling into this temptation, thou art in the first place to consider what mercy it is that God denies thee. Is it not of that sort of blessings which are not necessary unto thy happiness as a saint? Such all temporal mercies are. The kingdom of God consists not in meat and drink. Thou wilt find an absolute denial for no other; he hath bid us take no denial for his love and favour, grace and glory: ‘Seek the Lord, and his strength: seek his face evermore,’ Ps. 105:4—that is, be not put off for these, but live and die at God’s door till he brings this alms to thee. Well, we will take this for granted it is a temporal mercy thou art denied. Now, when thou art tempted to question the love of God, or acceptance of thy prayer, let me desire thee to weigh this threefold consideration.

Consideration (a). Consider how ill God may take this at thy hand; and that in a double respect. [1.] That thou dost suspect his love on so slight and trivial a matter as the temporal enjoyments of this life are, which he thinks are not worth enough to be put into the promise any otherwise than they are subservient to the spiritual and eternal blessings of the covenant: ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you,’ Matt. 6:33—that is, as you need them. He casts them into the other more grand blessings, as a tradesman would do thread or paper, or a skein of silk, into a parcel of rich commodities that a customer buys of him. Suppose a child should ask his father for money to buy some toy or trifle that pleaseth his green head, but the father denies him the thing. If, now, the child should go and make proclamation in the open street, to the disgrace of his father, that his father did neither love nor regard him—though he wants neither food nor raiment—would this be well taken at the child’s hand? This thou dost, Christian, in this case, though thou thinkest not so much; and hath not thy heavenly Father more reason to question thy love for taking away his good name, than thou to suspect his for his denial? But again, [2.] He may take it ill that thou hast aspersed his wisdom. Is there no way but this for the wise God to show his love and answer thy prayer? Cannot he deny health and give patience?—take away thy estate and turn it into contentation?—teaching thee to be abased, and to bless God thou art made low. He that will make thee so happy in heaven, where few of this world’s enjoyments shall be seen, cannot he make thy life comfortable on earth without some of them?

Consideration (b). Consider how thou prayedst when thou didst meet with this denial. Didst thou pray peremptorily and absolutely, or conditionally, with submission to the will of God? If peremptorily, thou wert beside the rule, and art the cause why thy prayer came back without its errand. God will not hear, or bear, commanding prayers. He that must have a temporal mercy, if he gets it, he may have a spiritual curse, but is sure to have a temporal cross. So Delilah proved to Samson, who would not take his parents’ counsel, but must have her whatever comes of it: ‘Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well,’ Judges 14:3. But he paid dearly for his choice. May be such an employment pleaseth thee well. Thy carnal heart is in love with it; and that sets the a praying inordinately for it. Alas! poor creature, if thou hadst it, what wouldst thou do with it? Thou wouldst fondly lay thy head in its lap and let it rock thy grace asleep, and then betray thee into the hand of some sin and judgment! But, if thou sayest that thou prayedst with a submissive spirit, on condition it liked God as well as thyself; if so, why then dost thou now recant thy prayer, seeing God hath declared his will that it is not good for thee to have thy desire? Wilt thou not be determined by him to whom thou didst refer thyself? Hast thou not reason to think that God takes the best way for thee? There is never a prayer put up but God doth, as it were, weigh and ponder it, and then his love sets his wisdom on work to make such a return as may be most for his own glory and his child’s good. Now, it being the product of such infinite wisdom and love, thou oughtest to acquiesce in it, yea to praise God for it. Thus did David in a great strait, ‘O my God, I cry in the daytime, and thou hearest not,’ Ps. 22:2. Well, what hears God from him now he hears nothing from God (as to the deliverance prayed for)? No murmuring nor cavilling at God’s proceedings —nay, he hears the quite contrary; for he justifies and praises God, ‘But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel,’ ver. 3.

Consideration (c). Observe whether thou canst not gather something from the manner of God’s denying the thing prayed for, which may sweeten it to thee. Haply thou shalt find he denies thee, but it is with a smiling countenance, and ushers it in with some expression of grace and favour that may assure thee his denial proceeds not from displeasure. As you would do with a dear friend, who, may be, comes to borrow a sum of money of you—lend it you dare not, because you see plainly it is not for his good. But, in giving him the denial, lest he should misinterpret it, as proceeding from want of love and respect, you therefore preface it in with some kind of language of you hearty affection to him, as that you love him, and therefore deny him, and shall be ready to do for him more than that comes too. Thus God sometimes wraps up his denials in such sweet sugared intimations of his love as prevent all jealousies from arising in the hearts of his people. When David was denied to build a temple for God, as was in his heart to do, God gave him a large testimony of his affection, how highly he accepted his good-will therein. Though he should not build a temple for him, yet his desire was so kindly taken that God would build a house for him that should last forever.

Thus, sometimes a faithful minister prays earnestly that God would bless his labours to the converting of his people, and is denied; yet intimations of God’s love to his person are dropped, with a promise that, however, ‘his reward is with the Lord.’ So that his prayer, though denied as to them, is returned with peace into his own bosom. Another prays passionately, ‘O that I might see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, and that truth and peace might flourish in his days!’ This, may be, is not granted, because his desire antedates the period which God hath fixed in his purpose for the fulfilling of his promise to his church: but he withal manifests his love to him, and expresseth how highly he resents⁴ his love to the church. Thus God did by Daniel, to whom an angel was sent to let him know what kind entertainment his prayer had, and that he was a man ‘greatly beloved of God,’ Dan. 9:21. So in temporal mercies. Haply thou art pleading with God for deliverance out of this trouble and that affliction, and it is denied thee, but a message [is] with the denial that recompenseth it double. May be some sweet illapses of his love he drops into thy bosom, or assurance of seasonable succours that shall be sent in to enable thee to charge through them with faith and victory. So God dealt by Paul, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee.’ I hope now thou wilt not say thy prayer is lost. When Saul sought his father’s asses, was he not shrewdly hurt to find a kingdom instead of them? The holy women that went to the sepulchre to anoint the body of Jesus with their spices, did not lose their labour though they found him risen. Were they, thinkest thou, sorry for that? What are all the enjoyments of the world to the spiritual mercies and comfort of the promises which thou findest in thy attendance on God? Not so much as the dead body of our risen Saviour. Thou findest not some dead creature-comfort, but thou meetest with embraces from a living God.

Argument 3. The third and last thing that Satan abuseth the Christian with, to make him doubtful of the acceptance of his prayer, and also to question, when a mercy is given in after prayer, whether it comes as a gracious answer to it or no, is taken from the common providence of God, that dispenseth the same things to the wicked without praying which the saints receive praying. Now, with Satan, how knowest thou that thy mercies come to thee as an answer to thy prayer, and not at the door of common providence with them? For the extricating thee out of this snare thou must know, that we are not to expect the extraordinary ways to determine this, but must satisfy ourselves with what light the word of God affords, which is able to resolve, not only this, but all our cases of conscience. It is true that God doth sometimes cast in some such circumstances as bring an evidence with them that the mercy flies to us on the wings of prayer. As when, upon Abraham’s servant’s praying at the well for God’s gracious conduct and help to despatch his master’s business prosperously, that Rebecca should presently come forth, and, by her kind carriage and invitation, so fitly answer the mould of his prayer, even as the lock doth the key made for it. Here heaven declared to his very sense, that his prayer found the right way to heaven. When, upon prayer, the mercy is thus cast in strangely and suddenly without the concurrence of second causes—yea, when they all lie under a visible sentence of death, and the thing is put beyond the activity of their sphere to work—here there is no rival to stand in competition with prayer. Thus, when the apostles healed the sick upon a short prayer darted up to heaven—not so much as a doctor’s advice asked in the cure. When Peter knocked at the door where the church was praying for him, what but prayer bound his keeper’s senses so fast in the chains of sleep, and made those with which Peter was bound to fall off without any kind hand to help, but heaven’s? What made the iron gate so officious to open to him that had no key in his hand to unlock it? Surely we must confess, prayer opened heaven door, and heaven, at the church’s prayer, opened the prison door.

Yet it is as true, that more commonly mercies that are won by prayer come not with this pomp and observation. But, as converting grace oft steals into the hearts of some with less terror and noise of humiliation than it doth into others; so, truly, do answers in prayer—and that more commonly—come with more silence, and in the ordinary road by the concurring help of second causes. As, the Christian praying for the temporal provisions of this life, God answers his prayer by blessing his diligence in his calling. The sick Christian praying, hath his food and physic thoroughly sanctified, and so recovers. Now, though God hath left himself at liberty, either to send his mercies by secondary hands, or, when he pleaseth, to be the messenger himself, and bring them in an extraordinary way with his immediate hand; yet hath he not left us at liberty to leave the ordinary road, and neglect the means, under a pretence of expecting extraordinary ways to have our desires. Now as to this ordinary way of giving in mercies in answer to prayer, these two things are to be inquired for:—

(1.) Inquire whether thou who didst put up the prayer beest in a covenant state. When God gives a mercy in answer to prayer, he is said to ‘remember his covenant,’ Ps. 105:34 compared with ver. 8, and to be ‘mindful of his covenant,’ Ps. 111:5. His eye is first on the person, taking notice who he is, whether his child or no, and then his ear is open to his cry: ‘The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry,’ Ps. 34:15. ‘Who art thou, my son?’ said Isaac to Jacob, before he gave him the blessing. If God sees thou art not his child—and his eyes are not dim, like old Isaac’s, that he can be deceived—thy prayer is not accepted. Indeed, neither canst thou, in that state, pray in a gospel sense, nor God graciously bid thy prayer welcome; for the spirit of prayer is a covenant grace, and interest in the mediation of Christ a covenant privilege, without both which no prayer is accepted. God hears not any that have not his Spirit to pray in them, and his Son to pray for them; and none have these but such as are in a covenant state.

(2.) Inquire what thy frame of heart was in the duty of prayer, and also after its performance. Thy not being in a covenant state will prove thy prayer was not heard, and consequently that the mercy received came not as a gracious answer to it; but thy being in a covenant state is an insufficient ground for thee to conclude that this particular prayer that now thou puttest up is accepted, because there may intervene something to hinder the present benefit of this privilege which is annexed to thy covenant state. For, though thy state be good, yet thy present frame and behaviour may be naught. Thou mayest, though a child of God, be under fresh guilt and defilement as yet unrepented of. Now in this case God can shut his door upon his own child. Thou hast indeed jus in re, but not aptitudinem ad rem—as a saint, thou hast a right to all the promises of the covenant, and to this, of having God’s ear open to thy prayers among the rest; but as thou art a saint under guilt, or the defilement of any sin that thou hast not yet repented of, thou art not fit to enjoy what thou hast a right to as a saint. God doth not disinherit thee indeed, but he sequesters the promise from thee, and the rents of it shall not be paid to thee, till thou renewest thy repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus for the pardon of it. Thy God will choose a fitter time than this is to signify his love to thee. The leper under the law was to stand off while purified; and so will thy God turn his back of thy prayer, till thou beest cleansed of thy sin.

Again, suppose thou art a saint, and hast not thus defiled thyself with any gross sin, yet thy graces might not be exercised in the duty of prayer; haply thou didst pray, but no faith or fervency were exerted in it. There may be grace in the heart, but none in the duty; and such a prayer shall not speed. The promise is to the saint acting his faith and fervency in prayer. ‘The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,’ James 5:16. ‘Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart,’ Jer. 29:13.

Lastly, Though thou wert stirred up in prayer, yet may be thy heart was not raised up to rely on God after prayer for the answer. Then we pray in faith when we so take hold of God by faith in prayer, as to wait and stay ourselves on God for a return of mercy from him. Now by putting all these together, thou mayest come to the resolution of the question in hand. If thou beest in a covenant state, and liest not in any known sin unrepented of—if thou prayest fervently, and actest faith on God, so as to stay thy soul upon God for an answer, though accompanied with many weaknesses and staggerings—truly thou mayest, without presumption, conclude the mercy which finds thee in this orderly manner waiting upon God comes in a gracious answer to thy prayer. We do not fear to break open a letter when we find our name in the superscription directing it to us. Search the promises, and thou shalt find them directed by name to thee who prayest thus.

Searce, n. sers. A sieve; a bolter. [Little used.]

— From Webster’s 1828 Dictionary.

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Footnotes

1. Supersedeas, — a legal document issued to halt or delay the action of some process of law. Webster’s. ↩

2. Searce, v. t. sers. To shift; to bolt; to separate the fine part of meal from the coarse. [Little used.] ↩

3. Note: The actual quotation in the text appears to be a blending of John 12:28, and Matt. 26:39, 42. — SDB ↩

4. Note: — Could it be that this is a typo here and that what was meant was the word respects? or, represents? or, presents? While that would not clear up the entire tenor of this paragraph, which seems fraught with problems, it would help to alleviate them to a certain extent. — SDB ↩