[Exhortation to those who by the rules of trial find the Spirit of God is in them.]

2. To the saints; the word I have for you is to beseech you not to grieve or quench the Holy Spirit in your bosoms. Thou canst not fadge to live long without prayer if a saint, nor art thou able to pray to purpose without him. When he withdraws, thy hand presently will forget its cunning. Such a chillness will invade thy soul, that thou wilt have little list to pray, for it is he that stirs thee up to the duty; and if thou creepest to it, thou wilt not be warm in the work, for it is his divine breath that must make thy green-wood burn, thy affections enkindle. Clothes do not warm the body, till the body warm them; and the body cannot warm them, except the soul, which is the principle of life, warm it. If there be no warmth in the heart, there can be no fervency in the prayer; and without the Spirit of God—who is the Christian’s soul and what his soul is to his body—no kindly heat can be in the soul. O take heed therefore thou dost not grieve him, lest being distasted he refuse to assist thee. Now three ways the Spirit of God may be distasted by a saint, so as to cause him to deny his wonted assistance in prayer.

(1.) By some sin secretly harboured in the heart. ‘If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me,’ Ps. 66:18. Now when God refuseth to hear, we may be sure the Spirit refuseth to assist, for God never rejects a prayer that his Spirit indites and his Son presents. Sin is so offensive to the Holy Spirit, that wherever it is bid welcome he will show his distaste. If you would have this pure dove stay with you, be sure you keep his lodging clean. Hast thou defiled thyself with any known sin? think not to have him help thee in prayer till he hath helped thee to repent of it. He will carry thee to the laver before he go with thee to the altar. The musician wipes his instrument that hath fallen into the dirt before he will set it to his mouth. If thou wouldst have the Spirit of God breathe in thy soul at prayer, present it not to him besmeared with any sin unrepented of.

(2.) By frequent resisting or putting off his motions. As the Spirit helps in prayer, so he stirs up to prayer; he is the saint’s remembrancer and monitor: ‘He shall bring all things,’ saith Christ of the Spirit, ‘to your remembrance,’ John 14:26. God called Jacob up to Bethel, so the Spirit prompts the saint to duty. Such a mercy thou hast received—up, Christian, praise thy God for it while it is fresh in thy memory and warm in thy heart. Such a temptation lies before thee—go pray thou mayest not be led into it. Thy God waits for thy company, and expects thy attendance; now is a fit time for thy withdrawing thyself to hold communion with him, and pay thy homage to him. Now, when the Christian shall shift off these motions and not take the hint he gives, but from time to time neglect his counsel, and discontinue his acquaintance with God, notwithstanding these his mementos, he is exceedingly distasted, and, taking himself to be slighted, he gives over calling upon him, and leaves the soul for a time, till his absence, and the sad consequences of it, bring him to see his folly, and prepare him to entertain his motions more kindly for the future. Thus Christ leaves the spouse in her bed, when she would not rise at his knock, and makes her trot after him with many a weary step before he will be seen of her. It is just that God should raise the price of his mercy, when we may have it at an easy rate and will not. Christ thrice calls up his drowsy disciples to ‘watch and pray,’ that they might not ‘enter into temptation,’ but finds them still asleep when he comes; what saith he then? Truly he bids them ‘sleep on,’ as if he had said, ‘Take your course and see what will become of it.’ Indeed they soon saw it to their sorrow, for they all presently fell into that very temptation which their master had so seasonably alarmed them by prayer to prevent, and this waked them to purpose.

(3.) By priding ourselves in and with the assistances he gives. Pride is a sin that God resists wherever he meets with it; for indeed it is a sin that justles with God himself for the wall. It is time for the Spirit to be gone when his house is left over his head. He takes it as a giving him warning to be gone, when the soul lifts up itself into his seat; if he may not have the honour of the work he will have no hand in it. Now the proud man makes the Spirit an underling to himself, he useth his gifts to set up himself with them. Three ways pride discovers itself in prayer, and all to be resisted if we mean to have the Spirit’s company.

(a) When the creature ascribes the Spirit’s work to himself, and sets his own name upon the duty, where he should write the Spirit’s; like Caligula, who set the figure of his own head on the statue of Jupiter. Instead of blessing God for assisting, he applauds himself, and hath a high opinion of his own abilities, pleasing himself with what expressions and enlargements of affection he had in the duty. This is plain felony, a sin which every gracious soul must needs tremble at. Church robbery is a great wickedness: O what then is spirit robbery! ‘I live,’ saith Paul, ‘yet not I,’ Gal. 2:20. ‘I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me,’ I Cor. 15:10. Thus shouldst thou, Christian, say, ‘I prayed, yet not I; I laboured and wrestled, yet not I, but the Spirit of God that was with me.’ Applaud not thyself, but humbly admire the grace and dignation of God, to help such a poor creature as thou art. Thus David did: ‘Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee,’ I Chr. 29:14. That steward deserves to be put out of his office, that brags of his master’s money as his own.

(b) When we go to duty in confidence of the gifts and grace we have already received, and do not acknowledge our dependence on the Spirit, by casting ourselves after all our preparations upon him for present assistance. As we must pray by the Spirit, so we must ask for him that we may pray by him: ‘How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him,’ Luke 11:13. And it is not once asking for all will serve the turn. Thou mayest have his help in the morning and want it at night, if thou dost not humbly ask again for his aid. You know how Samson was served when he thought to go out as he used to do. Alas! poor man, the case was altered, he was weak as water; the Spirit was gone and he had carried away his strength with him. God will have thee, O Christian, know the key to thy heart hangs at his girdle, and not thy own, that thou shouldst be able to open and enlarge it at thy pleasure. Acknowledge God, and his Spirit shall help thee; but ‘lean to thy own understanding,’ and thou art sure to catch a fall. When pride is in the saddle, shame is in the crupper; if pride be at the beginning of a duty, shame will be at the end of it.

(c) When we rely on our prayers, and not entirely on Christ’s mediation, for acceptance and audience; this is pride with a witness, and highly derogatory to the honour of Christ. God indeed accepts the saints in prayer, but not for their prayer, but for Christ’s sake. Now the Spirit, who is Christ’s messenger, will not, you may be sure, give his assistance to rob Christ of his glory. When he helps thee to pray, if thou wouldst harken to his voice, thou mayest hear him calling thee out of thyself, and confidence of thy prayers, to rely wholly on the mediation of Christ. Wrong Christ, and you are sure to grieve his Spirit.

Division Fourth.—The Guard of Prayer.

‘And watching thereunto.’

These words present us with the fourth branch in the apostle’s directory for prayer, which I called prayer’s guard. Prayer to the saints is as the great artillery to an army—of great use to defend them, and of as great force to do execution upon their enemies; it therefore needs the stronger guard to be set about it, lest it be taken from them, or turned against them by the enemy. Now the guard which the Spirit of God here appoints this great ordinance of prayer, is watching—‘watching thereunto.’ Watching is either or improper, literal or metaphorical. First. Watching, literally taken, is an affection of the body. But, Second. Watching is taken metaphorically for the vigilancy or watchfulness of the soul.

[The duty of watching unto prayer.]

First. Watching, literally taken, is an affection of the body. That only can properly be said to watch which is subject to sleep; and so the body is, but not the soul. Thus, to watch in a religious sense is a voluntary denying of our bodies sleep, that we may spend either the whole or part of the night in pious exercises. Thus the Jews kept the night of the passover holy, Ex. 12:42. Our Saviour oft spent the night in prayer, Matt. 14:23; 26:38. We find Paul treading in his Lord and Master’s steps, ‘In watchings, in fastings,’ II Cor. 6:5. Many a sweet spiritual junket holy David’s devout soul got in the night, when others lay in their bed: ‘My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness,…when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches,’ Ps. 63:5, 6. No doubt, for a devout soul, upon some extraordinary occasions—so superstition be avoided and health regarded—thus to watch unto prayer is not only laudable but delectable. Vigiliæ in quantum valetudinem non perturbant, si orando, psallendo, legendo sumantur, in delicias spirituales convertuntur —happy soul, that can thus steal in the dark into the arms of his beloved, and watch for devotion while others watch to do mischief or fill themselves with impure delights (Augustinus). This is the Christian, whose soul, like Gideon’s fleece, shall be filled with the dews and influences of heaven above others. But,

Second. Watching is taken metaphorically for the vigilancy or watchfulness of the soul. This is principally meant here, and in other scriptures, where we are commanded to watch, Mark 13:35; Rev. 16:15; I Thes. 5:6; I Peter 5:8; cum multis aliis—with many others. Now we shall the better understand what duty is imposed upon the Christian under this word [watching], if we consider what bodily watching is. Two things it imports—waking and working. When a man wakes in the night to attend some business then to be done, such a one only truly watcheth; a man that sleeps not in the night, but to no purpose, for no business he hath to despatch, he may be said to wake but not to watch, for this relates to some employment he hath in charge to look to. Thus the shepherds are said to ‘keep watch over their flock by night,’ Luke 2:8, and the disciples ‘watched’ with Christ while they sat up to wait on him the night before his passion, Matt. 26:40. So that, for a Christian to watch in a spiritual sense is to preserve his soul awake form sin in the height of this world, that he may keep the Lord’s charge and do the duty imposed upon him as a Christian. Now prayer being one principal duty he is to attend and intend with all his might, therefore watching is very often joined with it, Matt. 26:41; Mark 13:33; Luke 21:36; Col. 4:2; I Peter 4:7. In handling this duty of watching unto prayer, I shall show, First. Why the Christian is to watch unto prayer. Second. Wherein the duty of watchfulness, in reference to prayer, consists. Third. I shall set the Christian’s watch for him, by giving some little counsel and help towards his performing this duty of watchfulness; for it is not a temporary duty, but for his whole lifetime.

[Why the Christian is to watch unto prayer.]

First. I shall show why the Christian is to watch unto prayer.

1. Reason. Because of the importance of the duty of prayer. No one action doth a Christian meet with in his whole life of greater weight and moment than this of prayer is; and that in regard of God or himself.

(1.) In regard of God. Prayer is an act of religious worship; we have immediately to do with the great God, to whom we approach in prayer. Now religion is as tender as the eye; it is not a thing to be played with or handled without great care and heedfulness. Prayer is too sacred a duty to be performed between sleeping and waking, with a heavy eye or a drowsy heart. This God complained of, ‘There is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of me,’ Isa. 64:7. He counts it no prayer where the heart is not stirred up and awake. No way can we more honour or dishonour God than in prayer. O how then ought we to watch to this duty!

(2.) Again, in regard of ourselves; for our behaviour in prayer hath a universal influence into all the passages of our whole life. As a man is in this duty so he likely to be in all the rest. If careless in praying, then slighty in hearing, loose in his walking; he shall find that he miscarries in all his enterprises, is ensnared in all his enjoyments, baffled with every temptation, and discomposed at every affliction that meets him. And the reason of all this is—because our strength both to do and suffer comes from God. Now God communicates his assistance to his children in a way of communion with them. They ask, and they have; they seek, and find; knock, and the treasury of mercy is opened to them. Prayer is the channel in which the stream of divine grace, blessing, and comfort runs from God the fountain into the cistern of their hearts. Dam up the channel and the stream is stopped. If the stomach doth not its office all the members want their nourishment. If the trade fails in the shop there is but a poor house kept within.

2. Reason. Watchfulness is of as great importance to prayer as prayer is to all our other duties. No duty can be despatched well without prayer, nor prayer without watching; for it is not prayer, but prayer performed in a holy spiritual manner, that is effectual. Now, this cannot be done when the is off his watch. Take the Christian a napping, with his grace in a slumber, and he is no fitter to pray than a man is to work that is asleep. Whatever a man is doing, sleep, when it comes, puts an end to it. Sleep is the great leveller of the world, it makes all men alike. The strong man is as unable to defend himself from an enemy in his sleep as the child. The rich man asleep and the poor man are alike; he enjoys his estate no more than if he had none. Thus the Christian, while his graces are asleep, is even like another that hath no grace—as to the present use of them, I mean—he will pray as the carnal man doth, enjoy God no more in the duty than such a one would do. O how sad is this! and yet how prone are we to give way unto this drowsiness of spirit in prayer! It creeps insensibly upon the soul, as sleep doth upon the body; the heart is gone before the Christian is well aware. The more need therefore there is to watch against it.

3. Reason. Because Satan is so watchful against prayer, therefore it behoves the Christian to watch unto prayer. Where should the strongest guard be set but where the enemy maketh his fiercest assault? This is the fort he batters and labours with all his might to beat the Christian from, well knowing the shot which gall him most come out of it. What he doth otherwise against the Christian is on a design to hinder his prayers, I Peter 3:7, as an enemy falls upon one part of the city to draw their forces from another place which he chiefly desires to gain. Indeed the soul never falls fully into his hands till it throws up this duty. ‘Pray that ye enter not into temptation.’ Sometimes the city is taken, and the enemy is forced back again, by those in the castle which commands the city. Prayer is like such a castle. Sometimes the Christian hath nothing left him but a spirit of prayer, and with this he beats back the devil out of all his advantages, and wrings out of his hands his new-gotten victories.

[Wherein watchfulness unto prayer consists.]

Second. The second thing I promised was to show wherein the Christian is to express his watchfulness in reference to this duty of prayer. Take it in these three particulars. 1. He is to watch before prayer. 2. He is to watch in prayer. 3. He is to watch after prayer.

1. The Christian is to show his watchfulness before prayer; and that,

(1.) By watching for the fit season to pray in. We cannot be always on our knees. We may serve God all the day, but worship him we cannot; this is a duty that requires some set times for its exercises. Now it is our duty to watch for the season of prayer as the merchant watcheth for the exchange hour; he orders his other occasions so that by no means he may miss that. Thus the Christian should endeavour to dispose his occasions so that his devotions be not shut out or crowded up into straits of time by his improvidence; no, nor interfere with other necessary duties. Many a fair child is lost by an untimely birth, and good duty spoiled by being unseasonably performed.

(2.) By keeping a strict watch over himself in his whole course.

(a) By shunning all that may defile his conscience, and so render him unmeet for communion with God. Thus the priest was to watch himself that he touched no unclean thing, God thereby signifying that he will have them to be holy in their lives that approach near to him in the duties of his worship.

(b) By a holy care to observe and lay up the most remarkable passages of God’s providence to him, as also the frame and behaviour of his own heart to God all along the interval between prayer and prayer. The want of this part of watchfulness is the cause why we are so jejune and barren in the performance of this duty. It is no wonder that he should want matter for his prayer at night, and trifle in it with impertinences, who did not treasure up what passed in the day betwixt God and him. Though the minister be not making his sermon all the week, yet by observing in his other studies what may be useful for him in that work, he is furnished with many hints that help him when he goes about it. Such an advantage the Christian will find for prayer by laying up the remarkable instances of God’s providences to him and of his carriage to God again under them; these will furnish him with necessary materials for the performance. The bag is filling while the kine are feeding or chewing the cud, and accordingly yields more plentily when milked at night. Truly thus it is here. That Christian must needs be most fruitful and plentiful in his devotions, when he comes to pour out his heart to God in prayer, that hath been thus filling it all the day with meditations suitable and helpful to the duty. Would he praise God? He hath the preservations, deliverances, and assistances which God hath given into him at hand, in the commonplace‑book of his memory, which another hath lost for want of writing them down in this book of remembrance. Would he humbly confess the sins of the day? He presently recalls, ‘In this company I forgat myself and spake unadvisedly with my lips; in that enjoyment I observed my heart to be inordinate; this duty I omitted; that I was remiss and negligent in doing.’ Now what a wonderful help hath such a soul above another that walks at random to get his soul into a melting mournful frame? The eye affects the heart. The presence of the object actuates the affection. The sight of an enemy stirs up anger; the sight of a dear friend excites love, and puts a man into a sudden ravishment —whom, may be, he should not have thought on, if he had not seen him. How can they mourn for the sins of the day at night who remember them no more than Nebuchadnezzar his dream?

(c) By the frequent exercise of ejaculatory prayer. He doth not watch to pray that never thinks on God but when he is on his knees; for, by this long discontinuing his acquaintance with God, he indisposeth himself for the more solemn addresses of his soul to him. Long fasting takes away the stomach. The Christian will find that the oftener he is refreshing his spirit with those little sips and short gusts of heaven, the larger draught he will be able to take when he returns to his set meal of morning and evening prayer. For, by the means of these he will be secured from worldly affections, which exceedingly deaden the heart, and also be seasoned and prepared for further communion with God. These short walks often taken keep the soul in breath for a longer journey.

2. The Christian must watch in prayer. It is not enough to watch the child that he goes to school, but the master’s eye must watch him in school; to be idle at school is as bad as to truant from it. Thou dost well, Christian, to take care of thyself before prayer, and to see that the duty be not omitted; but wilt thou now leave it at the school-door? Truly then all thy former care is to little purpose.

(1.) Thou must watch thy outward man, and rouse that up from sleep and sloth. If the body be heavy-eyed in prayer the soul must needs be heavy-heeled; the pen drops out of the writer’s hand when he falls asleep. ‘Watch and pray,’ saith Christ to his disciples; he knew that they could not do that work nodding. And yet, how many do we see at the very time of prayer in our congregations so far from watching, in this sense, that they invite sleep to come upon them by laying themselves in a lazy posture? Certainly, friends, communion with God is worth keeping our eyes open. Little do these drones think what contempt they cast upon God and his ordinance. I wonder any can sleep at the worship of God and not dream of hell‑fire in their sleep. But it is not enough to keep thy awaked, if thou sufferest it to wander. ‘Turn away mine eyes,’ saith David, ‘from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way,’ Ps. 119:37.

(2.) Thou must watch thy soul in prayer. The soul is the man, and the soul in prayer is the very soul of prayer. Watch what its ends and aims are, that it shoots not beside the mark. Watch what strength and force thy soul puts to the work. Our prayers miscarry by shooting short as well as wide. In a word, thou must keep thy heart with all diligence from one end of the duty to the other, or else it will give thee the slip before thou art aware. How oft, alas! do our souls begin to speak with God in prayer, and on a sudden fall a chatting with the world! One while, our hearts are warm at the work, and we pursue hard after God with full cry of our affections; but instantly we are at a loss and hunt cold again. Holy David was sensible of this, and therefore we have him in the midst of this duty begging help from God to call in his gadding heart: ‘Unite my heart to fear thy name,’ Ps. 86:11.

3. The Christian is to watch after prayer.

(1.) By calling his soul to a review concerning the duty, how it was performed by him. God himself, when he had finished the works of creation, looks back upon them, ‘And God saw every thing that he had made,’ Gen. 1:31; that is, he viewed his work, as an artist would do a piece he had drawn. He hath given us all a faculty to reflect upon our actions, and looks we should use it, yea, complains of those that do not ‘consider their ways and doings.’ Many duties depend upon this. He that looks not back how he prayed, can he be humbled for the sins that cleaved to it? And will God pardon what he takes no care to know, that he may show his repentance for them? Or will he mend those faults in the next prayer which he found not out in the former? No, but rather increase them. We need not water weeds; let them but stand unplucked up and they will grow alone. This is the sluggard whose soul will soon run into a wilderness, and be overgrown with those sins in prayer, which at last may choke the very spirit of supplication in him.

(2.) By observing what is the issue and success of his prayer. As he is to look back and see how he prayed, so forward to observe what return he finds of his prayer. To pray, and not watch what becomes of our prayer, is a great folly and no little sin; like children that throw stones into a river, which they never look to see more. What is this but to take the name of God in vain, and play with an ordinance that is holy and sacred? Yet thus, alas! do many knock at God’s door—as idle children at ours—and then run away to the world, as they to their play, and think no more of their prayers. Or, like Pilate, who asked Christ, ‘What is truth?’ and, when he had said this, went out to the Jews, forgetting what he asked. Holy David did not think prayer such an idle errand. ‘My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up,’ Ps. 5:3. First, he is careful to take his aim right in delivering this arrow of prayer, which he sends with a message to heaven, ‘I will direct my prayer unto thee.’ Then he is as careful to observe where his arrow lights, and what answer is made to it, ‘and I will look up,’ which amounts to as much as that expression, ‘I will hear what God the Lord will speak,’ Ps. 85:8, that is, to me, concerning the prayer which in those words immediately foregoing he had made, ‘Show us thy mercy, O lord, and grant us thy salvation.’ When the merchant hath sent his ship to sea, he is inquiring at the exchange after her, to hear how she got to her port, whether on her return, and with what lading. When the husbandman hath cast his seed into the ground, then he comes every day almost to see how it comes up. This, Christian, is to watch unto prayer, to wait for answers to prayer. Mordecai, no doubt had put up many prayers for Esther, and therefore he waits at the kings gate, looking what answer God would in his providence give thereunto.

[The Christian’s guard or watch about prayer set for him.]

Third. The third thing I promised was to set the Christian’s watch for him, by giving some little counsel and help towards his constant performing this duty of watchfulness. In doing this, we take the following particulars.

1. Particular. Harbour not any known sin in thy bosom. Sin hath two contrary effects on the conscience, and both sad enough. Either it fills the conscience with horror, or benumbs and stupifies it; it breaks the soul’s rest, or takes away its sense. The latter is the more common. Suffer the devil to anoint thy temples with this opium, and thou art in danger to fall into the sleeping disease of a stupid conscience; little list then thou wilt have to pray. Or if it hath the other effect upon thee, thou wilt be as much afraid, as now thou dost little desire, to pray.

2. Particular. Beware of any excess in thy affections to the creature. A drunken man, of all other, is most unfitting to watch. Such a one will be asleep as soon as he is set in his chair. Now all inordinacy of affection is a spiritual drunkenness. Christ joins both together, ‘Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares,’ Luke 21:34. It is a preservative against drowsiness of spirit, that the day of the Lord might not take them napping. And of the two, the drunkenness of the affection is the worse. He that is bodily drunk over-night, is sober by the morning; but he that is overcharged with the cares or love of the world, rises as drunk as when he lay down; and how can he then watch unto prayer? We have therefore these two often joined together, ‘Let us watch and be sober,’ I Thes. 5:6; ‘Be ye therefore sober, and watch,’ I Peter 4:7. Whatever the affection is, the intemperance of it lays the soul under a distemper, and indisposeth it to prayer. Is it sorrow? Our Saviour finds his disciples ‘sleeping for sorrow,’ when they should have watched and prayed, Luke 22:45. Is it love? This laid Samson asleep in Delilah’s lap. The heart of man hath not room enough for God and the world too. Worldly affections do not befriend spiritual. The heart which spends itself in mourning for worldly crosses, will find the stream runs low when he should weep for his sins. If the cares of this life fill his head and heart he will have little list to wait on God for spiritual purposes. It is no wonder that the master finds his servant asleep in the day, when he should be at work for him, if he sat up revelling all the night.

3. Particular. Resist this spiritual drowsiness when it first creeps upon thee. Sleep is easier kept off when approaching, than shaken off when it hath got possession and bound the senses. This sleepy disease of the soul steals insensibly upon us, even as the night steps in by little and little. When, therefore, thou findest it coming, rouse up thyself; as a man who hath business to do would start up from his chair to shake off his drowsiness. Now thou mayst observe these few symptoms of this distemper invading thee.

(1.) An unwillingness and backwardness to duty. If thou findest this, it appears thou beginnest to be heavy‑eyed. When grace is wakeful, the Christian needs not many words to persuade him into God’s presence. ‘Thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said, Thy face, Lord will I seek.’ therefore, conclude thou mayest that some vapours have fumed up from thy corruptions, to dull and deaden thy heart to the work. He that would run to the door, when awake, at the first knock of his dear friend to let him in, may, when between sleeping and waking, let him stand too long. This was the spouse’s case, and it lost her the company of her beloved. It showed plainly she was in a sleepy distemper, in that she was so backward to duty; for that was the door that Christ would have met her at.

(2.) Formality in prayer is a certain symptom that a sleepy distemper hangs about thee. Grace awake is full of life and activity; at least it discovers itself by making the soul deeply sensible of its deadness and dulness. Vigilantis est somnium narrare. saith Seneca—it shows the man awake that tells his dream, what he did in his sleep; and it proves the soul awake that can feelingly and mournfully confess his deadness.

(3.) Prevalency of wandering thoughts. In sleep, fancy and imagination rules and ranges without any control. If thy thoughts range and scatter into impertinences in time of prayer, and meet with no check from thee, it shows thy grace, if thou hast any, is not well awake.

4. Particular. Express a conscientious diligence at thy particular calling in the intervals of prayer. They that sit up to watch had some need of work to keep them awake. Idleness is but one remove from sleep. I cannot believe that he who lazeth a day awake in idleness, should find his heart awake to pray at night; for he hath that day lived in the neglect of a duty as necessary as this, and it is bad going to one duty through the neglect of another. There is a generation of men indeed, that under a pretence of watching and praying always, betake themselves to their cloisters, and renounce all secular employments, as if it were easy to put off the world as to change their clothes, and get on a cowl or a religious habit; but the world hath found those places commonly to have proved, not so much houses to pray in, as dens to draw their prey into. It is more like that those who are pampered with sloth and fulness of bread should be eaten up with luxury and sensuality than with zeal and devotion. The air, when still, thickens and corrupts; the spirits in our body are choked with rest; and the soul needs motion and exercise as much as either. In spiritual offices it cannot hold out without intermmittings; therefore, God hath provided our particular callings as a relief to our spiritual devotions. Only, our care must be not to overdo. The same thing may quicken and weaken, wake us and lay us asleep. No greater help to our religious offices than a faithful discharge of our particular calling; no greater duller of the Spirit of prayer than the same when inordinately pursued. The same oil feeds the lamp and drowns it if excessively poured on. Hold the candle one way, and the wax nourishes the flame; turn the other end up, it puts it out.

5. Particular. Preserve a sense of thy spiritual wants. As fulness inclines the body to sleep, so doth a conceit of spiritual fulness the soul. When the belly is full then the bones would be at rest—the man hath more mind to sleep than work; whereas he that is pinched with hunger, his empty craving stomach keeps him awake. If once thou beginnest to have a high opinion of thyself, and thy spiritual hunger be a little stayed—from a conceit of thy present store, and sufficiency of thy grace—truly then thou wilt compose thyself to sleep, and sing the rich man’s lullaby to thy soul, ‘Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for may years; take thine ease.’ The Corinthians are a sad instance for this purpose. ‘Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us,’ I Cor. 4:8. Paul is now nobody with you. The time hath been you could not be without his pains. The hungry child did no more cry for the breast than you for the word preached by him. But now your stomach is stayed, you are full and can live without him. Whereas, God knows, it was a fulness of wind of pride, not of solid grace. It is the nature of grace to dilate the heart and make room for more, but of pride to cloy and glut the soul. God hath long kept open house in England; the wine-cellar door of his ordinances hath not been shut upon us; we have had free access to drink, and that abundantly, of their sweet wine. But, alas! may it not be for a lamentation to see how many are drunk with spiritual pride, rather than filled with grace, after so long an enjoyment of them!—insomuch that some have attempted to stave the very vessels from which they have drawn this wine! Such are they that decry all ordinances, and would down with ministers and ministry; yea, who can live without public preaching and private praying also. Others, not so mad drunk as the former, are yet fallen asleep under the tap; they have lost their first life in and love to ordinances; they sit with sleepy eyes and dead hearts under them. Well, Christian, if thou wouldst keep thy soul awake for this or any other ordinance, take heed thou losest not the sense of thy wants. Begging is the poor man’s trade. When thou beginnest to conceit thyself rich, then thou wilt be in danger to give it over, or be remiss in it.

6. Particular. Retire often to muse on some soul-awakening meditations. We seldom sleep when we are thoughtful, especially if the thoughts we muse on be of weight and importance enough to intend and occupy the mind. Indeed, idle trivial thoughts such as have nothing to invite attention, are given as a ready means to bring a man asleep—I mean bodily sleep. That Christian who neglects frequently to meditate on spiritual things, and lets his thoughts walk all day in the company of carnal worldly occasions, I should wonder if he finds his heart awake at night to pray in a spiritual manner. Give me therefore leave to present a few subjects for thy meditations to insist upon, and they will be as the brazen ball which some philosophers used to hold in their hand that they might not sleep too long, or as the alarm which men set overnight to call them up to their business early in the morning.

(1.) Meditate of Christ’s coming to judgment. Surely thou wilt not easily sleep while this trumpet, that shall call all mankind to judgment, shall sound in thy ear. The reason why men sleep so soundly in security is, because they either do not believe this, or at least do not think of it seriously so as to expect it. The servant that looks for his master will be loath to be found in bed, when he comes; no, sits up sits up to open the door for him when he knocks. Christ hath told us he ‘will come;’ but not when, that we might never put off our clothes or put out the candle. ‘Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come,’ Matt. 24:42. There are indeed negative signs concerning his coming to the general judgement of the world, by which we may know he will not yet come; as the fall of Babylon, the calling of the Jews, and other prophecies, that must be fulfilled; before which he will not come. But there are none such, from which we may conclude that his coming to any of us in particular, to take us away by death, and summon us to our particular judgment before his bar, shall not yet be. Thou art young; thou canst not therefore say thou shalt not die as yet. Alas! measure the coffins in the churchyard, and thou wilt find some of thy length. Young and old are within the reach of death’s scythe. Old men indeed go to death; their age calls for it. But, young men cannot hinder death’s coming unto them. Thou art rich, will this excuse thee? Rich men indeed can get others to serve in their arms here, when their prince calls them forth to war; but ‘there is no discharge in this war.’ Solomon tells us ‘Thou must personally do this. Thou art strong and lusty, thou canst not therefore say that death will be longer at work to fell thee down. Some indeed he cuts down by chips in consumptive diseases —they die by piecemeals; others he tears up in one night, as a tree by a tempest. O think of this, and thy sleep will depart from thee!

(2.) Consider the devil is always awake. Is it time for them in the city to sleep, when the enemy without watch, and may be are climbing the walls? Our Saviour takes it for granted, ‘If the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up,’ Matt. 24:43. Of all the nights in the year he would not then have slept. Would Saul have slept in his trench, if he had thought David had been so near? Or Sisera have lain down to rest, if he had seen the hammer and nail in Jael’s hand to drive through his temples? ‘Hannibal is at the gates!’ was enough to wake the whole city of Rome, and call them to their arms. And is not diabolus ad ostium—the devil is at thy door, enough to keep thee out of thy bed of sloth and negligence? What day in all the year is no term to Satan? What place or company art thou in, that he cannot make a snare to thy soul? What member of thy body, or faculty of thy soul, which is not in danger to be abused by him? Hast thou not an inmate in thy own bosom that watcheth to open the gate to him? and is there not a constant correspondence between them? O how oft doth he beat us—as Bernard saith—with our own staff; and as the thief sometimes serves the traveller, binds us with our own garters! Shall we not always watch to pray, when he watcheth to tempt? Shall not we keep our correspondence with God, and Christ, our allies in heaven, as he doth with our flesh that is his confederate?

Ut jugulent homines surgunt de nocte latrones; Ut t’ipsum serves non expergisceris;—

—shall thy enemy be awake to seek to cut thy throat, and wilt not thou rise to save it?

(3.) Consider wicked men are awake, and hard at work for Satan and their lusts. The philosopher blushed that the smith should be up and have his hammer in his hand before he had his book. O may it not put the Christian to shame! Consider how watchful the men of the world are to follow their worldly business. Do they not rise early, and go to bed late, grudging the very time that is spent to refresh nature in the night with sleep, so bent they are upon their carnal projects! The philosopher observed this, and shamed himself for suffering the smith to be at his anvil in the morning sooner than he was at his book. O Christian! should it not make thee blush much more to see the whole town up and as busy as bees about a garden, one flying this way, another that way—and all to bring a little more of this world’s perishing pelf into their hive, out of which death, ere long, will smoke them, and force them to leave what with so much pains they have gathered for others they know not who, possibly their greatest enemies—while thou, Christian, sleepest away thy precious time, though thou art sure to carry thy gettings into the other world with thee,, and there enjoy the fruit of thy short labour here with everlasting glory! Nay, consider how watchful the wicked are to take all opportunities to pursue their works of darkness. The adulterer watcheth for the twilight to meet his minion; and wilt not thou watch unto prayer, that thou mayest fill thy soul with spiritual loves in communion with thy God? The thief is up at midnight to get his prey; and wilt not thou break thy rest a little for to obtain a richer treasure than is to be found in the coffers of the richest princes that the world boasts of? Shall these be at so much pains to satisfy their lusts, and thou take none to honour and enjoy thy God? O what a shame was it to the heavy-eyed disciples that they could not watch to pray with their Master, when Judas that bold traitor was so wakeful to be up in the dead of the night to betray him into his murderers’ hands!

(4.) Consider how short the time is that thou art desired to watch. ‘Could you not watch with me one hour?’ saith Christ,’ Matt. 26:40. Ere long, Christian, thou shalt be called off thy guard, and then thou shalt have all rest, though no sleep. It is but for this short life thou art put to stand upon this hard duty; and is that so long? Others do not count it so. O how soon is a day, a year, yea a life, passed at play or sin? The great complaint that such make is, ‘Time is short.’ They wish they could clip its wings, and take off the weights from this clock that make it post away so fast. Is time so short and sweet to spend in sin, and can it be tedious to thee to bestow it in devotion? Why should an hour in the closet be thought by a saint long, when day and night spent in an ale-house is too short for the sinner? But, above all, consider whether it be not better to watch and pray here on earth for a few days than to wake and roar in hell under endless and easeless torments!

(5.) Consider seriously how great a loser thou hast been already in thy heavenly trade for want of watching. It is with the Christian as with some negligent merchant, who takes notice of some one loss of a round sum that befalls him—may be some hundreds at a clap. At this he cries he shall be undone; but regards not the pence and shillings that he idly spends, nor considers his loss which follows upon his daily negligence. Here his estate melts insensibly, and he is not aware of it; whereas, would he count what in this dribbling way is lost by retail, he might find it amounts to more than the other. Thus the Christian sometimes is troubled for one great sin into which he hath fallen—and that not without reason —but withal, he observes not how he neglects this duty to-day, and negligently performs that at another time; how he now prays coldly for want of due preparation, and what little fruit comes of another for want of watchfulness after it; whereby in time he falls low, though with an easy descent, step by step; whereas, if he could bring the several items of these his particular losses together, he would find them swell into a sad reckoning, except with these his losses he hath also lost—which is the greatest—the tenderness of his conscience. Now, Christian, hast thou not a mind to thrive at last? And shall a careless Christian add to his stock? Did you ever go by the sluggard’s field and not find it overgrown with thorns? Wouldst thou but be persuaded to make it thy business daily to watch thy heart—how thou prayest, and how thou walkest after thou hast been at prayer—thou shouldst find a blessed change in thy spiritual affairs. This strictness will at first be uneasy, like a new suit; but every day that will wear off, and a sweet facility follow when thou shalt see thy gains come trowling in by it. He that finds how well he is paid for his diligence by the increase of his estate, will not grudge the sluggard his ease when he shall see him walk by his door in rags. It was the saying once of a rich man, who, by God’s blessing on his diligence, had raised a vast estate, that at his first setting up in the world he got a little with much trouble, but afterwards he got his great gains with little trouble. And thou, Christian, wilt find the same in thy spiritual trade. Thy trouble will be most at first, but thy gains most at last; and the trouble less, because the way of godliness, by use and experience, will be naturalized to thee, and consequently become easy and delightful.

(6.) Consider what others lose by thy not watching. He that lives in a town wrongs his neighbour as well as himself by not looking to his fence: thus one Christian may injure many by not keeping his own watch.

(a) Thy very example is a wrong to others, for this sleepy disease is catching; thy loose conversation may make others so, as one learns to yawn of another. It s no small blessing to to live among active Christians, whose zeal and forwardness in the ways of God is exemplary; this puts mettle in those that follow them; the heavenly holy conversation of a master is a help to the whole family.

(b) Thou indisposest thyself for doing thy duty to them. We are commanded to watch over one another in love, as those that are concerned in our brethren’s welfare. Now, how unfit is he to watch over others that doth not watch himself? to ‘provoke to love and to good works,’ who needs himself the spur? Can one asleep wake another that is so?

(7.) Lastly, Consider Christ’s care over thee. Look upon him in his providence. That eye which neither sleeps by night nor slumbers by day is thy constant keeper. Consider him in his intercession. There he prays for thee, ‘watching thereunto with all perseverance.’ It is his trade and business in heaven, for he lives to make intercession for his saints. Consider him in his Spirit. What is he but Christ’s messenger sent as our guardian to take care of the saints in his absence? In a word, consider him in the gospel ministry, which is set up for this very purpose, to ‘watch for your souls.’ Yea, every private saint hath a charge to be his brother’s keeper. This well considered would make thee,

(a) Watchful to promote his glory that so carefully provides for thy safety. What put David into such a rage against Nabal but the disrespect that his servants found at his hands to whom he had been so serviceable? ‘In vain have I kept all that this fellow hath.’

(b) It would make thee the more watchful over thy own soul, if thou hast so much ingenuity as to fear grieving thy God, who expresseth this tender care over thee. What greater grief can the indulgent parent have than to see his child not mind his own good after all his care and cost laid out upon him? He joys to see the money he gives him improved and increased by his diligence; but it breaks his very heart with sorrow when it is all wasted and squandered away by ill husbandry.

Division Fifth.—the Constancy proper to Prayer.

‘With all perseverance.’

These words, ‘with all perseverance,’ contain the fifth branch in the apostle’s directory for prayer—the constancy proper to prayer—which I shall despatch briefly in these four heads. First. By giving the importance of this phrase, ‘all perseverance.’ Second. By giving the reason why we are to pray ‘with all perseverance.’ Third. I shall cast in some considerations to move us to the duty. Fourth. Wind up the discourse with a word of counsel and direction for the help of the weak Christian therein.

[Import of the phrase ‘with all perseverance.’]

First. Let us explain the importance of the phrase ‘with all perseverance.’ Here is perseverance, yea ‘all perseverance,’ required in prayer. First. Let us inquire what is meant by ‘perseverance.’ Second. What is meant by ‘all perseverance.’

First. What is meant by ‘perseverance.’ The word BD@F6”DJXD0F4H here used comes from 6”DJÎH, the same with 6D”JÎH—a letter only transposed to melt the sound. It signifies strength and victory; hence its compound BD@F6”DJ,D,Ã<, is to prosecute any business with an unwearied constancy till all difficulties be conquered and the thing at last be accomplished. It is used for the diligence and labour of hunting dogs that follow the chase till at last they get the game pursued; it is applied also to lackeys that with great labour run after their masters and are at their hand in a journey. In Scripture it is frequently applied to the duty of prayer, as Acts 6:4; Col. 4:2; Rom. 12:12, and signifies that invincible patience, courage, and constancy which a Christian is to show in upholding this duty of prayer.

Question. But are ‘praying always’ in the beginning of this verse, and this ‘praying with perseverance,’ the same? If not, wherein lies the difference?

Answer. It cannot be thought the apostle, being giving directions for prayer, would let them interfere one with another, and in so short a space repeat the same direction over again in other words; the rest are all distinct, so therefore will we take these. Calvin makes this to be the difference:—By ‘praying always,’ saith he, he exhorts us to pray in prosperity as well as adversity; and not then to intermit the practice of this duty because not driven to it by such outward pressing necessities. But, by ‘praying with perseverance,’ admomet ne defatigemur, instandum esse alacri animo; infracto studio continuandas esse preces, si non statim consequamur quod volumus—he admonisheth that we be not weary of the work; but continue instant and constant in its performance, though we have not presently what we pray for. By ‘praying always,’ we are exhorted to the daily constant exercise of the duty of prayer, not to neglect the seasons the seasons for prayers as they return upon us. By ‘praying with perseverance,’ we are pressed to bear up against discouragements as to any particular suit or request we make at the throne of grace, and not to give over though we have not a speedy answer to it. So that the former is opposed to a neglect of duty in its stated seasons, and the latter to a fainting in our spirits as to any particular suit we put up. We may keep our constant course of prayer, and yet not persevere in prayer for this or that mercy, which God withholds sometime for the exercise of our grace.

Second. I shall show what is meant by ‘all perseverance.’

1. By ‘all perseverance’ is meant such a perseverance as holds out to the end—till God doth give the thing we pray for, or takes away the subject of our prayer, as he did in David’s case for his sick child by his death. It is possible a soul may continue long, yet at last faint when it sees the time for answering still protracted. God still stays, and no news of his coming, after many a despatch sent to heaven upon that occasion. O it is hard to hold up our hands, with Moses, ‘to the going down of the sun!’ Christ complains how rare and scarce such a faith is to be found, when he bears long before he throws in the mercy prayed for. ‘Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?’ Luke 18:8. Shall he find so much faith as to keep his people at prayer in expectation of his coming to their relief?

2. By ‘all perseverance’ is meant a perseverance of the whole man in prayer. We must not only persevere to hold up the outward performance of the duty of prayer; but persevere to exert the inward powers of our souls and their graces in the duty. The duty may be kept up, and the heart be down in performing it. The faith, zeal, and other graces of the soul may be gone or act but feebly. Like an army that hath not yet quitted the field, but their powder and are even all spent; there they stand, and set a good face on it, but can do little or nothing to offend the enemy or defend themselves. Thus many in afflictions pray still. They have not yet given over the duty and run out of the field. But alas! their faith fails and their heart quails; there is little life and vigour to be seen in the performance. Here is some kind of perseverance, but not this ‘all perseverance,’ which above all requires the perseverance of grace in its actings at the duty. So we translate the word, Rom. 12:12. What is here ‘with perseverance,’ is there ‘continuing instant in prayer;’ the word is BD@F6”DJ,B@Ø<J,H. Some are ‘instant,’ but it lasts not. If they find the mercy comes, they draw hard; but if their chariot of prayer be set, and after a pull or two the mercy comes not, their faith jades, and they give over the work. Others are constant, but not instant; they continue to pray, but pray themselves cold; they grow lifeless and listless in the work, as if they looked for nothing to come of it. We must join both together, or expect benefit from neither.

[Why we are to pray ‘with all perseverance.’]

Second. I proceed to the second thing promised, viz. to show why we must pray ‘with all perseverance;’ which take in these particulars:—

First. It is strictly commanded. ‘Pray without ceasing,’ I Thes. 5:17; that is, without fainting. So our Saviour, Luke 18:1, ‘And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.’ Mark, not only that they might, but ‘ought.’ It is indeed a high privilege to us, and a low stoop in the high God, to give us leave thus to lie at his door, and to suffer the cry of our prayers to be ever sounding his ears. We, I ma sure, could not like to have beggars knocking day and night at our doors; but so infinitely good is God, that he doth not only allow us this boldness, but also commands it,that the fear of a sin might move us, if the loss of a privilege will not.

Second. This perseverance in prayer is highly recommended. Indeed perseverance crowns every grace and commends every duty. It is not our faith and hope, but to ‘hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end,’ that God looks at, Heb. 3:6. Not the seeming zeal and swiftness of our motion in the ways of God at our first start and setting forth, but the constancy of a well-breathed soul in holding on his course till the race be finished, that Christ commends: ‘If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed,’ John 8:31. So in prayer. Not the short spurts of an inconstant zeal, that begins to pray as they say the French do to fight —like thunder and lightning, but if the first charge carries it not, then they quail, and are quite cowed in their spirits. No; it is not this soft metal, whose edge is thus easily turned, that God likes in prayer, but a zeal tempered and hardened so with resolution that makes it cut through all delays and difficulties. This God highly commends. It got Jacob the name of a prince, so nobly he behaved himself in this duty, holding it out till break of day with God, and then would not let him go till he had blessed him.

Third. It is that which God intends by his delays and seeming denials. Why deals he thus with his people? Surely it is to put their graces to the trial, whether they will quit the siege for a few repulses or fall on with more courage. He holds his peace, to make them cry the louder; steps aside, to make them hunt more eagerly after him. He lays blocks before the wheel of their prayers, to try their mettle how well they will draw, when it seems a dead pull, and the mercy comes not at their prayer. Now two things God aims at by his people’s perseverance in prayer. 1. His own glory. 2. Their advantage. These two are never severed.

1. His own glory. What fairer occasion can the Christian have in his whole life to honour God, than by holding fast his integrity, and keeping his allegiance to God firm, when he seems to be neglected, yea, forsaken of him? Certainly God would never have put Job to so much trouble, nor have made him pray and stay so long for the gracious issues of his providence, but to glorify himself in the faith and patience of his faithful servant. ‘Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord,’ saith the apostle James, ch. 5:11. Truly, we could not have heard so much of his patience, if we had not heard so much of his troubles. Had God put an end sooner to them, he might have found more ease, but not God more honour. This was it that God was pleased with and counted himself highly honoured by —that Satan with all his wits and wiles could not make Job give over praying, much less fall of cursing God; no, not when God broke him with his tempest, and seemed not to regard him or his prayers. It pleaseth us most when our prayers make the shortest voyage—when they are at heaven and back again with and answer quickly; but it glorifies God most when he lays an embargo—as I may so say—upon our prayers, that no answer comes from heaven to us, and yet we will send more after them, as Jacob did Benjamin after his other son, who was then prisoner in Egypt. When the poor soul will not be taken off the duty by any intervening discouragements, but presseth harder upon God from his seeming denials, this is indeed to give glory to God. ‘Blessed is he that hath not seen, and yet’ thus ‘believeth.’

2. God, by his people’s persevering long in prayer before he gives in his gracious answer, intends their advantage.

(1.) He usually pays them use for their forbearance. The longer they pray, the more redundant the mercy is when it comes. Such a mercy, that comes as an answer of persevering prayers, is compared to the husbandman’s gains at harvest, which abundantly recompenseth his whole year’s patience. ‘In due season we shall reap, if we faint not,’ Gal. 6:9. The breast is filling for the child while the mother is sleeping. God sometimes seems to sleep and forget his poor children that cry to him, but he is preparing the fuller mercy for them.

(2.) Such mercies are got with longest and greatest difficulties, they come with sweetest manifestations of divine love: ‘O woman, great is thy faith,’ Matt. 15:28. This poor woman had not her request so soon granted as some others, but she lost nothing by it; for, with the recovery of her child—which was all her errand—she carries away with her a high testimony from Christ’s own mouth to the truth and eminency of her grace. She who was at first called a dog is at last owned for a dear child.

(3.) Such mercies as are the issue of persevering prayers, they are received usually with more joy and thankfulness than others. Partly they are so, because the Christian’s desires are more intense and sharp by long staying and earnest praying for them—and so he tastes more sweetness in the mercy, as he that comes hungry from a long journey at plough relisheth his food better than another that hath not whetted his appetite with any labour or exercise; and also because such mercies give disappointment to the Christian’s many fears, which their long stay occasioned. When God is long a coming, we are prone to question whether he will come at last or no: ‘Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?’ Ps. 77:7, 8. See how many sad thoughts gathered about this good man’s heart; which, though they did not overthrow his chariot of prayer, yet clogged his wheels, and made him drive with a heavy heart. Now, for a mercy to break out of so dark a cloud, it must needs bring such a glory with it as to ravish the soul with joy and enlarge it into thankfulness. Those judgments amaze and dispirit sinners most which come after long peace and prosperity, when they think the danger is over and bitterness of death is even past; as in Haman’s case, who was sent to the gallows after he had vaunted how he was invited to the queen’s banquet. This strange turn of his affairs made it a double death to him. So, mercies that surprise the saint after he hath prayed long, and can hear no tidings that they are on their way, O how it affects his heart with joy and gratitude! The church had prayed ‘without ceasing’ for Peter in prison, but still he is there, even to the very time when Herod would have brought him forth—probably to his execution. Now, when he came himself to bring the joyful news their prayers were heard—while they were instant at the work—it is said ‘they were astonished,’ Acts 12:16.

(4.) They were usually more holily used and improved. For God holds his people long at prayer for a mercy many times for this very end—to prepare and season their hearts, that, when they have it, they may know the better how to employ it for his glory and their own good. None are more careful to husband a great estate than those who are at most pains to get it. Hannah prayed long for a son, but none is given. This makes her add a vow to her prayer: ‘If thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and wilt give unto thine handmaid a man-child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life,’ I Sam. 1:11. Happy was it for this good woman she had not her desire sooner. If she had received him at first, haply she had never given him back to God again. The Lord sometimes forbears to give a mercy to us, only to get us deeper into bonds to lay it out for him when we have it.

(5.) The last advantage that comes to the Christian by perseverance in prayer is, when the mercy is at last denied. And it is this—it will enable and dispose him to bear the denial more meekly and holily than another. He that is short‑spirited, and cannot wait on God for a mercy, will not easily submit to him in a denial; whereas, he that keeps up a spirit of prayer for it, when God comes to take away the subject of his prayer, will acquiesce, now he sees God hath fully declared his will in the thing. David and Job are pregnant instances for this. Job lets not a day pass without prayer for his children; and how does the man behave himself when they are slain? Doth he fret and fume? Doth he curse God for making them a sacrifice for whom he had offered so many sacrifices? No; he meekly submits to his holy will; he opens not his mouth against him, but in praises to him. So David, when his child was dead—for whom, while living, he ceased not passionately to pray—to show how well satisfied he was with divine providence, he washeth his blubbered cheeks, puts off his mourning apparel, and goes to the house of God to worship, II Sam. 12:20. Prayer is a great heart‑easer; it breathes out those distempered passions which, being bound up in others, break out when God at any time crosseth them in their wills.

[Some considerations pressing the duty of persevering prayer.]

Third. Having shown why we are to persevere in prayer, I come no to the third place, to cast in some considerations to move us to the duty. Christ bestowed a parable on his disciples for this very end, to show that ‘men ought always to pray and not to faint.’ Surely, then, it deserves an exhortation. Now to enforce the exhortation, take these five particulars into your consideration.

First Consideration. The prevalency of perseverance in prayer. This is emphatically expressed by that question of our Saviour in his parable upon this subject: ‘Shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?’ Luke 18:7. As if he had said, Can you think that God will send away those who are so near and dear to him, his own elect, with a denial and that when he hath made full proof of their faith and patience in waiting long upon him for an answer? ‘I tell you,’ saith Christ, ‘that he will avenge them speedily.’ Men seek to please their old customers that are constant to their shop, whoever else they send away; so will God those that are in constant trading with him at the throne of grace. ‘They that wait upon the Lord are not ashamed.’ David is careful for our encouragement to let us know how well he sped after his long waiting at God’s door: ‘I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry,’ Ps. 40:1; Hebrew ‘in waiting I waited;’ that is, I stayed waiting long, and at last he came. But David was a favourite; may others look to speed as he did? See ver. 3, ‘Many shall see it,…and shall trust in him.’ Answer of prayers is a covenant privilege. It is not a monopoly given to one or two, but a charter granted to the whole corporation of saints to the end of the world: ‘He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer,’ Ps. 102:17. Now mark what follows, ‘This shall be written for the generation to come,’ ver. 18.

Second Consideration. Thy perseverance in prayer will help to evidence thy state to be gracious. The hypocrite is oft uncased here; will he pray always? Job 27:10. Many will come into a workman’s shop, and take up his tools to work with them for awhile, and lay them down again by and by, who would never yield to be bound to his trade and serve out an apprenticeship at it. Thus an unsound heart will be meddling with this duty now and then, but grows weary of the work at last, especially if he be made to wait long for an answer. Saul prays to God, and because he hears not from him, goes at last to seek to the devil. Observe what effect God’s silence, frowns, and seeming denials produce in thy heart, and thou mayest know the temper of thy spirit thereby. Do they wear off thy edge to prayer, or sharpen it? Do they make thee fall off, and send thee away from God’s door—as some sturdy beggars go from ours when denied an alms—with clamours in thy mouth, and discontent in thy heart, resolved to beg no more there? Or do they make thee fall on with more courage, and enkindle thy affections to God and this duty more ardently? as the suitor, whose love is heightened by repulses, and importunity doubled by being obstructed and opposed. Truly, if thou findest the latter, thou mayest conclude, if this instant constancy in prayer be for spiritual blessings—Christ and his sanctifying graces—that divine virtue, and that good store hath gone from Christ into thy soul. ‘O woman, great is thy faith!’

Third Consideration. Consider the great folly of fainting in prayer. Thou dost a foolish and irrational act. Haply thou art in a deserted condition, prayest for comfort, but none comes; for victory over such a temptation without or corruption within, but art foiled in both, for all thy praying; therefore thou first faintest in the duty, and then givest it over. What egregious folly is this! Because mercy comes not in all haste to thee, therefore thou wilt run from it —which thou dost in ceasing to pray! When the fisher misseth his draught, he doth not presently give over his trade, but falls a mending his net. O cease not to pray, but mend thy praying! See at what hole the fish went out—the mercy was lost; double thy diligence, and all shall be well at last. If thy pain continues while the plaster is on, dost think it will cease when it is taken off? Whatever the mercy is thou wouldst have, must it not come from God’s hands? Now will God give the mercy to thee who rejectest his counsel for the obtaining of it? Is not prayer, and that ‘with all perseverance,’ the way he directs all his people to take? Suppose a physician, who is sent for to a sick patient, should give the messenger an electuary to carry back with him, and saith, It will be some time before I come myself to the sick man, but charge him to take a good quantity of this as oft as he finds himself ill, every day, till I come, and he shall do well. Now the patient begins to follow his physician’s directions, but, staying longer than he likes before he comes, and finding his trouble continue, sets it away, and takes no more of it. The physician at last sets forth, and, as he is on his way to him, hears of it, turns back, and comes not at him; so the poor man dies by his own hasty folly. Truly this is our case. God, for reasons best known to himself, stays some while before he comes to his tempted distressed servants, for their deliverance, but leaves order when any of them ail anything—so the word 6”6`B”2,Ã, James 5:13, signifies—that they should pray, apply themselves to the use of this duty; yea, continue the spiritual constant use of it till he comes; and withal assures us he will come soon enough to save us. Now, what folly is it to cast off this means so strictly prescribed? Surely, thought there were nothing else, this is enough to turn God back when on his way of mercy to do us good.

Fourth Consideration. Consider it is as sinful as foolish to give over this duty. ‘Thou castest off fear, and restrainest prayer before God,’ Job 15:4. It is a high crime for one trusted with a castle for his prince to deliver it cowardly into his enemy’s hand, especially if he hath provision wherewithal to defend it. Now hath not God provided sufficiently to enable the Christian to maintain this duty against all the armies of men and devils, afflictions and temptations, that can oppose it? Princes are most careful to enforce and supply frontier castles above others with all necessaries for defence, because most assaulted. Prayer is a duty that is as hard laid at by Satan as any, and hath many other difficulties that render it no easy matter for the Christian to be instant and constant at it. God hath considered this, and accordingly provided succour. He gives his Spirit to help the Christian—because of his many infirmities—what and how to pray; who, if he be used kindly, will not be wanting to lift with him in the work. And, while the Spirit is ready to pray in him, Christ is as ready in heaven to pray for him; who also sends the precious promise of the gospel—as messengers into a besieged town—to assure the soul relief is coming from heaven to him, be the affliction or temptation never so great and formidable that besets it. Now, to faint in the work, and, by giving over the duty, to open the city gates of his soul, for Satan to enter and triumph over God with his insulting blasphemies—O what gracious soul, that hath any spark of loyalty in his breast unquenched to his God, doth not tremble at the thought of such a treasonable action! We cannot cast off prayer, but we cast some dishonourable reflection upon God; for, as one saith well, every real defect in the creature proceeds from an imaginary defect which he falsely supposeth to be in God. Men first conceive unworthily of God, and then carry themselves unworthily and undutifully to him. Now the causes from which this fainting in prayer proceeds are all evil and bitter, as by and by will appear.

Fifth Consideration. As it is foolish and evil, so it is of dangerous consequence to ourselves, to faint, and cease to pray.

1. It is the ready way to bring some stinging affliction upon us. This is the best that can come of it. Art thou a servant of God, and fleest from his face? Art thou a child, and playest the truant? Look that thy heavenly Father will send thee to school with a rod at thy back.

2. Cease to pray, and thou wilt begin to sin. Prayer is not only a means to prevail for mercy, but also to prevent sin. ‘Pray that ye enter not into temptation.’ The thief comes when the candles are out and all the house in their beds. Christ could not keep his disciples awake at their devotions; and how soon were they put to the rout when the tempter came! When the courtier in a discontent withdraws, and gives over his attendance at court, he is more easily wound in to disloyal practices against his prince. Discontent softens the heart to receive sinful impressions from the tempter. ‘Thou castest off fear, and restrainest prayer before God,’ Job 15:4. Eliphaz’s doctrine was true, though his application was false. When Saul gave over in a pet to pray to God, then he sought to a witch. Sins of commission are the usual punishments that God inflicts on persons for sins of omission. He that leaves a duty may fear to be left to commit a crime; he that turns his ear from the truth takes the ready course to be given over to believe fables, II Tim. 4:4. He that casteth off prayer, it is a wonder if you find him not ere long cast into some foul sin.

[Counsel and direction for the weak Christian in persevering prayer.]

Fourth. I shall wind up the discourse with a word of counsel and direction for the help of the weak Christian therein. Now this will, I suppose, be best performed by laying before you the several causes of a person’s falling off from this duty, or fainting in it, and so to fit the directions accordingly. All diseases are not cured with the same medicine, neither are catholic remedies so effectual as those which respect the particular humour from which the distemper ariseth. Now the causes of non‑persevering in prayer are diverse.

First. Sometimes the cause is want of a lasting and enduring motive or principle to keep and hold us constantly to the duty. When the spring is down the watch must needs cease going, for that fails that gave the wheels their motions. That sometimes which sets the creature to prayer, is not pure obedience to the command, but a desire to some particular mercy, which, if obtained, the fish being caught, the net is laid aside; or, if he prays long, and hath it not, he grows weary of the work, and lets it fall. Be sure, Christian, therefore to pray in obedience. Bind the duty upon thy conscience, and thou wilt not easily shake it off. ‘God forbid that,’ saith Samuel, ‘I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you,’ I Sam. 12:23. He had little encouragement, from them he prayed for, to continue at the work, but his obedience to God, to whom he prayed, held him to it. This is a strong fence to hedge in the heart indeed. We cannot break through this hedge but we shall feel the thorns in our side. A gracious soul dreads nothing more than guilt. Tell him it is a sin to cease praying, and you say enough. What though God answers not my prayer, his silence to my prayer must not make me silent not to pray. Prayer is still a duty. God is not bound to answer presently when we pray, but we are bound to pray though he doth not answer. ‘All this is come upon us,’ saith the church, ‘yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant,’ Ps. 44:17. Remember, Christian, thou art a covenant servant, and one thing thou art as such bound to do is, to pray to thy God without ceasing, I Thes. 5:17. This will defend thee against any motion that the tempter suggests to the contrary. the beggar knocks awhile at the rich man’s door, and, if he be not served, away he goes. But the servant in the house, though he be hungry, doth not run away presently from his master, because he hath not his dinner so soon as he desires.

Second. Sometimes this not persevering in prayer comes from pride. ‘This evil is of the Lord; what should I wait for the Lord any longer?’ II Kings 6:33. What a haughty spirit was here! Pride likes not to wait, but to be waited on. He in the gospel was ashamed to beg, much more to stand long at the door upon a begging errand. Now, though this be a disease which a saint is more free from than other men, yet there are dregs enough still within him to royle and distemper his spirit, if he be not daily evacuating and purging them out. It will not therefore be amiss to leave a few soul‑humbling considerations in your hands, which you may be often taking, especially when you feel any grudgings of this sin about you, and your hearts begin to grow discontented that God makes you stay so long for any mercy prayed for.

1. Consider what it is to pray. It is to go a begging for an alms, not to demand a debt. Now, doth it become thee in so poor a condition, and about such a work, to be so quick and short with thy God? If you can live without being beholden to God, why then do you at all come to his door? If you cannot, why then do you not wait more patiently for his pleasure? Should he wrong thee if he beat thee from his door? Why then art thou no more thankful for his leave to wait there, though thou beest not presently served?

2. Consider who he is thou prayest to. Is he not the great and glorious majesty of heaven and earth? And is not this one piece of the state he looks to be served in by his poor creatures? How long did Mordecai sit at the king’s gate before he had that which he waited for? Is it not time enough for the servant to be set at dinner after he hath waited at his master’s table? Were it not unsufferable sauciness in the servant to complain his master sat too long and required too much waiting at his hands? This is the language of our hearts, when we think much to stay God’s time for a mercy. Is he not a righteous holy God? Surely he doth thee no wrong to make thee pray, and that long, for a mercy which thou deservest not when it comes at last. Is he not wiser than thou, to know how to time his mercies? ‘Shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place?’ Job 18:4. Wilt thou have God overthrow the course of his providence, which he thinks fit, to gratify thy impatient spirit? Surely this is to charge God foolishly with some error in his government. In a word, is not he a faithful God, though he comes not so soon to thy relief as thou wouldst have him? where did he give thee leave to date his promises and set the day of payment? No; he hath promised to answer his children’s prayers, but concealed the time of performance of his promise, on purpose to keep them in a waiting posture; and therefore he breaks not his promise when he detains a mercy, but thou forgettest thy duty not to wait. God is not unfaithful, but thou art faithless and unbelieving.

3. Have not as good as thyself prayed, and that as long as thou, before they have received an answer, and yet have not thus behaved themselves? Look into the generation of seekers, and thou wilt find that God hath exercised their patience as well as thine. Hast thou stood at God’s door longer than many of thy brethren have done? Remember Job, David, and Heman, how many troubles came over their heads! what sad tidings did they hear! Dismal afflictions did they endure they endure before the day broke and divine providence cleared up! Shall God raise a causey⁵ for thee to walk by thyself dryshod, while these, and thousands besides, have taken many a weary step through the deep sloughs of affliction, before they could come to fair way? When God led Israel far about, and made it a journey of forty years from Egypt to Canaan, it had been great pride for any among them to have desired God to lead them a shorter way thither than all his brethren. David desired no more at God’s hands than to fare as his fellow-saints did: ‘Be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name,’ Ps. 119:132. Nay, doth not Christ himself and example beyond all example, wait, and that long, even in heaven itself for an answer to his prayers? He hath been already above a thousand years there at prayer for his church, and against his enemies, and hath not as yet received the full of his desires; but still is expecting till the one be saved, and the other be made his footstool. Who art thou that thou shouldst have so high an opinion of thyself, as to look God should make all stay, and trade for time, while thou alone for ready money?

4. Consider whether thou didst never make God wait on thee before his suit could be heard, though he begged not for his benefit but thy own. Did God wait in thy carnal state upon thee, that he might at last be gracious to thee, and thinkest thou much to wait at prayer now on him?

Third. This not persevering in prayer proceeds oft from unbelief. The creature prays, God is silent, and no answer comes. Now, thinks Satan, is my time come to do this person a mischief; and therefore he labours to persuade the creature that there is no mercy to be expected from God. If, saith the tempter, God had meant to come, he would have been here before now. So many days and months are now gone, and no news of his approach. Thou hast stayed too long to meet with disappointment at last; give over, and take some other course. Thus he dealt with our Saviour. No enemy appeared in the field for forty days, and then he appears. This is his way with the saints also. He lets them alone while he thinks they are softened into a compliance by long standing upon duty, and hopes their ammunition grows low; then he comes to parley with them, and take them off from waiting upon God, by starting many fears and doubts in their thoughts concerning the power, mercy, and truth of God; so that the poor Christian is at last put to a stand, and knows not whether he should pray or not pray. Or if he holds up the duty, yet not his heart in it; he prays faintly, and with a kind of despair, as the poor widow made ready her last handful of meal with no other thoughts than of dying when she had ate it. Thus he prays, but lots upon nothing but death and misery to follow it. O this is sad praying, to expect no good from God in the performance! Unbelief is a soul‑enfeebling sin; it is to prayer as the moth to the cloth, which bites the very threads asunder, and crumbles it to nothing; it wastes the soul’s strength, that it cannot look up to God with any hope. ‘For they all made us afraid, saying, Their hands shall be weakened,’ Neh. 6:9. Resist therefore Satan, steadfast in the faith. Never let thy heart suffer the power, mercy, or truth of God to be called into question; thou hadst as good question whether he can cease to be God. These attributes of the divine nature are to thy faith like the stone to Moses, which Aaron and Hur put under him to sit upon; they will sustain thy spirit, that thou shalt not faint or grow weary at the work, though God makes thee wait till ‘the going down of the sun.’ O this waiting posture highly pleaseth God, and never puts the soul to shame. Mary, that stayed by the sepulchre, though she missed her Lord there, got at last a happy sight of him. Quæramus et nos Christum, saith one upon the place, ex fide, et astabit nobis licet non illicò eum agnoverimus—let us but seek Christ in faith, and he will at last be with us, though we do not presently see him.

Fourth. Some persevere not in prayer, because they have their eye upon some other than God from whom they expect help. It is no wonder he gives over praying who thinks he hath another string to his bow. While the carnal heart prays for deliverance, he hath other projects in his head how to wriggle himself out of the briers in which he is caught, and on these he lays more stress and weight than on God to whom he prays; therefore, at last, he leaves praying, to betake himself to them. Whereas another, that looks for all from God, and sees no way to help himself but by calling in God to his aid, will say as Peter to Christ —asking his disciples whether they would leave him as others had done—‘Lord, to whom shall we go but unto thee? thou hast the words of eternal life.’ I know not another door to knock at—saith the poor soul—but thine; the creature hath it not to give, but thou hast; I will therefore never leave thee. We know not what to do, said good Jehoshaphat, but our eyes are up unto thee.

Fifth. It proceeds from a want of inward complacency which the creature should have in God, and communion with him. ‘Will he delight himself in the Almighty? will he always call upon God?’ Job 27:10. He will not always call upon him, because he never did ordinarily delight in him. We easily let go what we take no great content to enjoy. The sincere soul is tied to God by the heart‑strings, his communion is founded in love; and ‘love is stronger than death,’ ‘many waters cannot quench it.’ A stranger may have an errand that brings him to a man’s house; but that done his acquaintance ceaseth. But a friend, he comes to sit with him, and the delight he takes in his company will not suffer him to discontinue his acquaintance long. Get therefore thy affections but once placed upon God as thy chief good, and the spark or stone will as soon forget the way to their centre, as thou the way to thy God in prayer. The hypocrite useth prayer as we use physic—not because he loves the taste of it; the sincere soul as food—it is sweet to his gust⁶. David, from the inward satisfaction he found in the presence of God, cries out, ‘It is good for me to draw near to God;’ Ps. 73:28, as one that, tasting some rich wine or sweet morsel, lays his hand on his stomach—where he finds the cheering of it—and saith to the standers‑by, ‘O it is good!’ Never will such a soul part with it. No, he will say, as the fig‑tree in Jotham’s parable, Shall I forsake my sweetness, and the good fruit I have found in communion with my God! I will never do it.

Division Sixth.—The Comprehensiveness of Prayer.

‘And supplication for all saints.’

These words contain the sixth and last branch in the apostle’s directory for prayer, and that is, the comprehensiveness of the duty, or the persons that are to be the subject of our prayers—‘supplication for all saints.’ But what! would he have us pray for none but saints? Thus cannot be the apostle’s meaning, it being so contrary to the mind of Christ, from whom he hath his message. Christ both bids us pray for our enemies, and is himself our pattern for it; yea, Paul himself teacheth contrary doctrine to this: ‘I exhort therefore, that, first of all, prayers and supplications be made for all men,’ I Tim. 2:1, that is, all sorts of men, faithful and infidels, friends and enemies. So then saints are not here named as the adequate and only subject of our prayers, but as a principal species, a sort of persons whom we are in an especial manner to carry in our prayers to God, whom if we do but remember, we shall not easily forget to pray for others also; because, as Augustine saith, numerus sanctorum de numero impiorum semper est auctus —the saints’ number is increased and taken out of the number of the wicked. In praying for Babylon, we pray for Jerusalem. The more that are prayed out of sin, the more are prayed into Christ. We shall wind up our discourse upon this subject upon these three propositions or bottoms. First. We must show a public spirit in prayer, by praying for others as well as ourselves. Second. Of all whom we remember in our prayers, saints must not be forgot. Third. In praying for saints, we must be careful to comprehend and encircle all saints.

FIRST PROPOSITION.

[A public spirit must be shown in prayer.]

We must show a public spirit in prayer, by praying for others as well as ourselves. This is a duty of common interest, in which others are to share with ourselves. Like the buckets that hang in our houses, which are for the use of the whole town when any house is on fire, the spirit of prayer is a public treasure, though laid up in some few hands. All cannot pray, therefore all should be prayed for. I say it is the saints’ duty, not a favour upon courtesy, which may ad libitum—at pleasure, be done or left undone. We sin and transgress the law of prayer if we do it not. ‘God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you,’ I Sam. 12:23. Paul writes himself a debtor to his brethren in this respect, ‘We are bound to thank God always for you,’ II Thes. 1:3. He acknowledges it due debt. In another place he ‘thanks God that he hath them in remembrance always.’ So sensible he was of the weight of this duty, that he thanks God for giving of him a heart to perform it.

[Why a public spirit must be shown in prayer.]

First. It is one end why the Spirit of prayer is given us. The gifts of the Spirit are to be employed according to the mind and intent of the Donor. If a man bequeaths house and land to another, but charges the estate with such a payment for the use of the poor, he forfeits his legacy that fulfills not the will of the dead. God intends the good of others in all his gifts to particular saints; the way to lose our gift is to hoard it up, and not lay it out for the end it was given. ‘The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal,’ I Cor. 12:7. How should we profit others by this gift of the Spirit, if not by praying for them? That Spirit which stirs us up to pray for ourselves, will, if we quench it not, send us on the same errand for others; yea, in some cases, for others before ourselves—for their spiritual good, before our own temporal; for the public good of a community, before the private good of our single person; as in Moses’ case, who would not be taken off praying for Israel to be made great upon their ruins. Indeed that offer from God, ‘Let me alone, and I will make of thee a great nation,’ was only probatory, to try whether Moses would prefer his own stake before the people’s, and God was highly pleased with his self-denial.

Second. The law of love binds it as a duty upon us. We are commanded to ‘love our neighbour as ourself.’ That ‘as’ imports a parity for kind, though not for proportion; for manner, though not for measure. I must love my neighbour as truly, though not as strongly, as myself. Now, how do we show real love to ourselves, if we pray not for ourselves? Our Saviour expounds our love to our enemy by praying for him: ‘Love your enemies,’ and ‘pray for them which despitefully use you,’ Matt. 5:44. We may give an alms to an enemy, and not love him. It is easier to draw out our purse than to draw out our soul to the hungry; as the prophet phraseth it, in prayer we draw out our souls. If a man ever speaks or does anything sincerely, surely it is when he directs his speech to God in prayer, saith Lucas Brugens, upon the place. Therefore, God chooseth this of praying for our enemies as the surest testimony for our loving of them. And truly he that wisheth well only to himself may well be reckoned among the most degenerate of mankind. One well compares such a self-lover to the hedgehog, that laps himself with his own soft down, and turns out bristles to all the world besides.

Use. This shows the largeness of God’s bountiful heart. He gives his children not only leave to ask for themselves, but for others. This is not the manner of men; we count it too much boldness to beg for themselves and others also. If a poor man, when he hath got his alms, should then beg for all his neighbours, where should he find the man that would bid him welcome? But behold here the immensity of divine goodness, who gives us leave to bring our neighbour’s pitcher with our own to his door, yea commands it, and then takes it ill when we steal to prayer upon our own private errand, and leave the thought of others’ necessities behind us. Why shouldst thou, Christian, stand in doubt whether God will supply thy own wants, when he commands thee to intercede for others?

[Lamentation for the want of a public spirit in prayer.]

A lamentation may be taken up for the narrowness of our spirits in prayer. Some, indeed, are so far from praying for others, that they have not learned to show so much mercy to themselves; yea, live in such an estate of alienation from God, wherein they cannot pray for themselves or their dearest relations. O how many prayerless fathers have we that are cruel to their own flesh! husbands to the wives of their own bosom! Ask whether they love them; they will tell you, Yes, that they do as their own souls. And you may believe them, for they serve them no worse than they do their own souls. A time is coming wherein they will know, one hearty prayer found upon the file for their relations would speak more for their love they pretend towards them, than all the bags of money which they fill for them. Others, if they show a little natural affection to their own flesh and domestic relations, yet their love hath much ado to get over their own thresholds, to inquire how it fares with others. O how little do they feel their neighbours’ pains! how seldom do they spread them with any real sense upon their hearts before the Lord! Or, if their eye affects their heart with what is presented so near unto them in the afflictions of their next-door neighbour, yet how few discover such a public spirit as to carry upon their hearts the miseries of those that are at further distance, so as to be faithful remembrancers to the Lord for them? Blessed Paul was afflicted with, yea, had ‘a great conflict for, those that had never seen his face in the flesh.’ Even among those that are Christian, O what a decay is there of this public spirit! There is great complaint in the world among men of their great losses in our late times of confusion; but I think the saints are the greatest losers, who have lost so much of their love and charity. One saith the world was once destroyed with water, propter ardorem cupidinis—for the heat of lust which had set it on a flame; and shall be once again destroyed with fire, propter teporem charitatis—for the coldness of love and charity. Love is to the soul what natural heat is to the body—it gives vigour, and enables for the performance of all offices of life. But alas! how is this kindly heat decayed among Christians in this old age of the world! This was long ago foretold by our Saviour, ‘The love of many shall wax cold,’ Matt. 24:12, and no wonder, when self‑love, that predatory fire, waxes so hot; foretold also by the apostle, ‘In the last days men shall be lovers of themselves,’ II Tim. 3:2. And what a black regiment follows this captain sin, is there to be seen! If once a man make self the top of his aim, farewell loving of or praying for others. Charity cannot dwell in so narrow a house as the self‑lover’s heart is; yea, it is diametrically opposed to it: ‘Love seeks not her own,’ I Cor. 13:5.

But to turn lamentation into exhortation: labour for a public spirit in prayer. Is there none, O man, that needs the mercy of God besides thyself? Wouldst thou have none saved in another world, nor provided for in this with thee? Now, in remembering others, God will give thee leave thy love should begin at home, though he would not have it end there. Look into thy family; canst thou forget them a day, if thou rememberest thyself? Shall a believer turn worse than an infidel? He provides for his house; and thou hast light that tells thee all thy providing for them is nothing, except God say amen. When thou hast paid thy duty to them, still widen thy charity and take up thy neighbours into thy thoughts. O consider what is doing in the streets and neighbourhood! How many mayest thou there soon find pouring out their precious souls as a drink-offering to Satan, the god of this world, in their horrid abominations? O pray that God would stay their bloody hand before they have irrecoverably made away themselves! Then take a further walk in thy meditations to view the public state and posture of the nation. See what mercies are writ with the golden pen of Providence upon its forehead, and pay thy humble thanks; what prognostics of judgments coming thou canst observe in the face of the times, and get into the gap before the wrath begins. Did Abraham so plead for a Sodom, though himself was far enough from the danger of the storm, and not thou for thy own nation, who art like to be taken in it if it fall in thy days, or thy posterity to rue it, if the cloud impending be not scattered by the prayers of the faithful? Nay, let not the sea that divides thee and the other parts of the earth make thee think thou art not concerned in their happiness or misery. Let thy prayers walk over the vast ocean, and bring matter for thy devotions, like the merchant’s ship her freight from afar. Visit the churches of Christ abroad; yea, the poor Indians and other ruins of mankind that lie where Adam’s sin threw them with us, without any attempt made as yet upon them by the gospel for their recovery, and carry their deplored condition before the Lord. Our Drake is famous for compassing the earth with his ship in a few years; thou mayest by thy prayers every day, and make a more gainful voyage of it too than he did.

[Considerations to induce to a public spirit in prayer.]

Take two or three quickening considerations to set thee the more feelingly to this work.

1. Consideration. Thou canst not pray in faith for thyself, if only for thyself. The Lord Jesus taught his disciples this piece of charity in the form of prayer he gave them: ‘When ye pray, say, Our Father.’ Pater est verbum fidei; noster est verbum charitatis— ‘father’ is a word of faith and confidence; ‘our father’ imports love and charity, two necessary graces in prayer. We live by faith, and faith works by love. No prayer can be without faith, nor faith without charity. Christ sends him in the gospel from the altar, to reconcile himself to his brother before he offered his gift. And why, but that he might be as ready and willing to pray for his brother as himself? If we have not charity to pray for our brother, we cannot expect welcome when we pray for ourselves.

2. Consideration. You do not else make good the character and report which God gives of his children. He speaks of them to be a blessing to the persons and places about them: Israel ‘a blessing in the midst of the land of Assyria,’ Isa. 19:24. They are compared to a fountain, which is a common benefit to serve a whole town; to stop or trouble which is a wrong to all that draw their water thence, Prov. 25:26. Now, one way wherein the godly are eminently serviceable to others, is by the interest they have in God and the prevalency of their prayers with him. ‘By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted,’ Prov. 11:11; that is, by their fervent prayers, which draw down a blessing from heaven upon it. God blesseth imperatoriè—by command: ‘he commanded the blessing, even life for evermore,’ Ps. 133:3. The saints bless when they pray: ‘On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, The Lord bless thee, and keep thee,’ Num. 6:23, 24.

3. Consideration. God gives a signal testimony of his favour to his saints’ prayers for others.

(1.) He doth great things at their request for others. How oft did Moses reverse divine plagues that were executed on Egypt? even as oft as Pharaoh had a heart to beg his prayers. How low did Abraham beat the market for Sodom’s preservation? he brought it down to ‘ten righteous men.’ Could that wicked place have but afforded that number, it had not been turned to ashes.

(2.) When their prayers obtain not a mercy for the people, then nothing else can help them. Therefore God, to express his peremptory resolution and irreversible decree to punish Israel, tells them, ‘Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people,’ Jer. 15:1, thereby intimating their case desperate. If the prayers of such holy men could not prevent the fall of that cloud of his wrath impending, much less could they with their own power or policy shift it off. Indeed when God is fully set upon a vindictive way, he takes them off from praying: ‘Pray not thou for this people,…for I will not hear thee,’ Jer. 7:16. And even in this he shows at what a rate he values his people’s prayers, which makes him loath they should bestow their pains in vain. ‘Pray not thou for this people’—as if he had said, Let them pray if they will, I can without any regret reject their motion; but I am unwilling thou shouldst pray in an unaccepted time for that which I have no mind to give.

(3.) When the saints’ prayers bring not back with them the mercy for others that is their express errand, yet God is careful that his people should not have the least suspicion that the denial proceeds from any disrespect he hath to their persons or prayers, and therefore he sometimes gives the thing they desire, only he changes the subject. Thus, when God denied Abraham for Ishmael he gave him abundantly in Isaac. Sometimes, again, what he denies them for others he grants to themselves. Thus David’s prayers for his enemies ‘returned into his own bosom.’ Now in praying for others:

(a) Get thy heart deeply affected with their state and condition for whom thou prayest. God loves mercy better than sacrifice. To draw out our souls in giving and alms is greater charity than to draw out our purse. So in prayer, be sure thy soul be poured out, or else thou art a deceiver; thou wrongest both God and him also thou prayest for. Before Christ prayed for Lazarus he troubled himself. ‘Behold how he loved him!’ said those about him who were witness to the groans he fetched and tears he shed. Then thou wilt pray fervently for others when thy heart is warmed into sympathy for them. A lawyer may show more rhetoric in pleading a man’s cause, but a brother or dear friend that carries the sense of his condition upon their hearts must needs discover more affection.

(b) Prefer spiritual blessings in thy prayers for others before temporal. Is it a sick friend on whose errand thou goest? If health be all thou beggest for him, thou art not faithful to thy friend. He may have that and be the worse for it. Ask of Christ grace and glory for him, and then thou dost something to purpose. Surely this our Saviour meant in his method of causing the palsied man to be cured of his disease: ‘Be of good cheer,’ saith Christ, ‘thy sins are forgiven,’ Matt. 9:2. He first brings him the news of a pardon, as a mercy {of} infinitely more worth than life or limbs, thereby tacitly reproving his friends, who took more care to have his body healed than his soul saved. Is it the nation thou art praying for? Aim at more than deliverance from outward judgments and plagues. The carnal Jews could say, ‘Give us water that we may drink,’ Ex. 17:2; but thought not of their sin, to beg repentance for and pardon of it. That was the cry of the creature—a beast can low and bellow in a drought; but this is the voice of a saint.

(c) Be not discouraged in your prayers for others though an answer doth not presently overtake them. Thou prayest for a rebellious child, or carnal friend, who yet continue to be so; take heed thou dost not presently think them past grace, and give over the work. Samuel saw the people he prayed for mend but slowly, yet hear what he saith: ‘God forbid that I should cease praying for you,’ I Sam. 12:23. I have heard of some that have been laid forth, yea buried, before they were dead, by their overhasty friends. Be not thou thus cruel to the souls of thy relations or neighbours. Lay them not out of thy prayers, bury them not in thy thoughts for reprobates, because thou canst not perceive any sign of spiritual life in them, though thou hast many a time stretched thy hands in prayer over them; their souls thou seest are yet in their bodies, and so long it is not too late for God to breathe the life of grace into their souls. Again, is it for the public thou prayest? Draw not in thy stock of prayer, though thou hast not so quick a return in thy trade with heaven for it as thou desirest. The father’s labour is not lost if his son receives the benefit of it. He may be dies before the ship comes home he sent forth, but his child lives to have the gains of that adventure paid into his purse. Thus one generation sows prayers for the church, and another reaps the mercy prayed for.

SECOND PROPOSITION.

[Saints must be specially remembered in prayer.]

In praying for others, of all we remember, saints must not be forgot. The apostle hints this, by making them the instance for all, as the species famosa—or chief rank of men, for whom we are to pray; and it suits well with Paul’s doctrine elsewhere. We are here bid ‘As we have opportunity, let us do good unto all, especially unto them who are of the household of faith,’ Gal. 6:10. Now this of prayer I take to be one of the most eminent ways of doing them good. What greater kindness can a man do for his sick friend than to go to the physician for him. By other acts of charity we give a little out of our own purse; but, by praying for the poor saints, we open God’s treasury for them. If one should meet a beggar, and out of his purse throw him a few pence; but another tells him, I have no money of my own to give, yet I will go to court, and open your necessitous condition to the king my master; it were easy to tell which of these does the poor man the greatest kindness. A poor saint may thus do more for another, though, as Peter told the cripple, he hath neither silver nor gold to give, than he who hath the largest purse of his own. That of Araunah is observable, where we have his bountiful offer to king David: ‘Let my lord the king take and offer up what seemeth good unto him: behold, here be oxen for burnt‑sacrifice,’ II Sam. 24:22. This was much, and showed his heart to be noble and large, as it follows, ‘All these things did Araunah, as a king, give unto the king,’ ver. 23. Yet one thing he did amounted to more than all this, which was his hearty prayer to God for David’s acceptance: ‘And Araunah said to the king, The Lord thy God accept thee.’ He might have done all the other for fear; a subject sometimes gives his prince, because he knows he may take though he gives it not. But by his praying for him he discovered his hearty affection to him. There are several weighty reasons for this duty. First. >From God. Second. From Satan. Third. From the saints prayed for. And, Fourth. From the saints praying.

[Why believers are to be specially remembered in prayer.]

First. There is a reason taken from God.

1. They are the special object of his love; his heart is set upon them, his thoughts and providence are at work continually for them. Others indeed do partake of divine bounty, but they may thank the saints’ company and neighbourhood for it. When the gardener waters his beds of flowers, some runs down into the alleys, but had he no flowers he would save that pains. When once God hath got his whole family of saints home to himself in heaven, it will quickly be seen what God will do with the rest of the world. God dispenseth the same providence to them both, but not with the same affection, not to the same end. ‘He is the Saviour of all men, but especially of those that believe,’ I Tim. 4:10. He saves the saints with saving purposes; the wicked he saves temporally, to destroy them eternally. He saves them from a present sickness or danger that they may ripen for hell; as we save our young wood for greater growth, and then cut it down for the fire. Now what shall be done for those whom God declares so much love? We cannot do less than pray for them. By this we comply with God, and show our content in his choice.

2. God hath made them the proper heirs of all his promises. Now promises are the ground of prayer. We are to pray for others, though wicked, not knowing but God may have a secret purpose of doing them good. But when there is grace, hic se asperit decretum—here God breaks open his decree. The fountain of his electing grace, which ran hitherto underground, now bursts forth; so that now you may with fuller confidence pray for such a one. When Paul begs prayers, to encourage his friends at the work for him, he assures them of his sincerity: ‘Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly’ Heb. 13:18. As if he had said, You pray for one that God will not chide you for mentioning. It is an encouragement for a merchant to adventure when he puts his stock into a good bottom.

3. They are a generation that alone honour God in the world. Indeed God honours himself upon others in their present lusts and future damnation. He makes their wrath praise him here, and his wrath poured on them shall praise him hereafter; but no thanks to them for all this, for they do their utmost to lay the honour of God in the dirt. But the saints are a people who are not merely passive but active in the praising of God; it is their mother‑language to bless the name of God. Whatever is their work, this is their end and aim—‘whether they eat or drink,’ to ‘do all to the glory of God.’ Now, upon this account, we are to pray for saints above others. The first thing our Saviour teacheth us to pray for is, that the name of God may be hallowed, in order to which he directs us in the very next words to pray for his church and saints, as those who alone can hallow it—‘thy kingdom come.’

Second. There is a reason from Satan. His great spite is against the saints. God owns them; therefore he hates them, and spits fire and brimstone at them. Where God is of one side you may be sure to find the devil on the other; indeed they are the only company that stand in his way. As for the wicked, he takes himself to be advanced when they are exalted in the world; the father is honoured when the child is preferred. But the saints’ rising portends his fall; this makes him bend all his force, by temptation or persecution, to procure their ruin. these are the stars he would stamp under his feet. The first murder in the world was of a saint; and Cain will kill Abel to the end of the world. In all broils and confusions of nations these are the threatened party, therefore they need our prayers most.

Third. There is a reason taken from the saints prayed for.

1. They exceedingly desire prayers. The wicked, I confess, may do this also, but it is by fits—in a pang of fear or fright. Thus Pharaoh sends in all haste for Moses when the plagues of God are in his house and fields. The carnal Jews pray Samuel to pray for them that they die not; but it was when terrified with dreadful thunder and rain that fell, I Sam. 7⁷. Yea, Simon Magus himself, smitten with horror at Peter’s words, begs his payers, ‘that none of those things which he had spoken might come upon him.’ But at another time these wretches cared neither for the saints nor for their prayers. Pharaoh, who desired Moses at one time to pray for him, at another time chases him out of his presence with a charge never to come at him more. But now, the saints are very covetous, yea ambitious, of the auxiliary prayers of their brethren, and those not the meanest among them neither. Indeed, as any is more eminent in grace, so more greedy of his brethren’s help. The richer the tradesman is, the more he sets at work for him. Paul himself is not ashamed to beg this boon of the meanest saint. ‘Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me,’ Rom. 15:30. Did you ever hear a beggar at your door, or prisoner at the gate, beg more passionately?—for the Lord Jesus’ sake, for the Spirit’s sake. If ever you felt any warmth in your hearts from the blood of Christ, or love of the Spirit comforting you, strive FL<“(T<.,2,, wrestle with me till we together have the victory, prevailed with God for this mercy.

2. As the saints are covetous of prayers, so they lot upon it that you do pray for them; yea, take up comfort beforehand from the expectation of what they shall receive by them. ‘I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayers,’ Php. 1:19. ‘I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you,’ Phm. 22. Where,

(1.) Observe Paul’s modesty. He sinks and drowns his own prayers, and expresseth his faith on theirs.

(2.) His confidence. He doubts not but they will pray, neither does he question the happy return of them into his bosom. As if he had said, If ye be faithful ye will pray for me. So that we break our trust, and disappoint our brethren, if we forget them.

3. Saints are the honest debtors we can deal with; they will pay you in their own coin. He that shows any kindness to a saint is sure to have God for his paymaster; for it is their way to turn over their debts to God, and engage him to discharge their score to man. Onesiphorus had been a kind friend to Paul, and what does Paul for him? To prayer he goes, and desires God to pay his debts. ‘The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain,’ II Tim. 1:16.

Fourth. There is a reason taken from the saints praying. There is no duty God commands but he pays the Christian well for the performance, and leaves him a loser that neglects it. There is enough in this duty we are speaking to that may make it lovely and desirable in our eye. The best of saints have accounted it a great privilege to be admitted into this noble order. Paul thanks God that ‘without ceasing he had Timothy in remembrance in his prayers night and day.’ But wherein lies this mercy to have a heart to pray for our brethren?

1. It is a singular mercy to be instrumental to the grace or comfort of any saint, much more to be instrumental for the glorifying of God. This a gracious heart prizeth highly, though it costs him dear to promote it. Now in praying, though but for one single saint, thou dost both. ‘Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf,’ II Cor. 1:11. Paul, begging prayers, enforceth his request with a double argument.

(1.) From the prevalency of joint prayers. When twenty pull at a rope, the strength and force of every one is influential to the drawing of it; so in prayer, where many concur, all help. God looks at every one’s faith and fervency exerted in the duty, and directs the answer to all.

(2.) From the harmony of joint praises. The fuller the concert in praises, the sweeter the music in God’s ear. Joint prayers produce social praises. He that concurs to a prayer, and not in returning praise, is like one that helps his friend into debt, but takes no care to bring him out.

2. By praying for others we increase our own joy. When Paul saw the prayers which he had sown for the Thessalonian saints, I Thes. 1, come up in their faith and zeal, he is transported with joy, as an incomparable mercy bestowed upon himself: ‘What thanks can we render to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God?’ I Thes. 3:9. He had watered them with his prayers; God gives increment to their grace. From this his joy flourisheth, and his heart is so ravished, that he knows not what thanks to God are enough for the mercy he receives through his hands. Truly, the reason why we gain no more from the graces of our brethren, is because we venture no more prayers upon them.

3. This would be an undoubted evidence to prove ourselves saints—could we but heartily pray for them that are such. Love to the brethren is oft given as a character of a true saint. Now, no act whereby we express our love to saints stands more clear from scruples of insincerity than this of praying for them. Will you say you love the saints because you frequent their company, show kindness to their persons, stand up ion their defence against those that reproach them, or because you suffer with them? All this is excellent, if sincere; yet how easy is it for vainglory, or some other carnal end, to mingle with these! But if thou canst find thy heart in secret—where none of these temptations have such an advantage to corrupt thee—let out to God for them with a deep sense and feeling of their sins, wants, and sorrows, this will speak more for the sincerity of thy love, than all the former without this.

[Use or Application.]

Use First. Must we pray above all for saints? Woe then to those who, instead of praying for them, had rather with those, Isa. 59:15, make ‘a prey’ of them; that, instead of praying for them, can curse them, and drink to their confusion. Haply it is not under the plain name of saints, but as wrapped up in the bearskin of fanatic, puritan, or some other name of scorn, invented to cover their malice, so they can devour and tear them in pieces. The saints are a sort of people that none love but those that are themselves such. It is a good gloss of Jerome, estote sancti, ut oratis pro sanctis—be saints, and then you will pray for saints. The righteous is an abomination to the wicked: it is a sect everywhere spoken against. The feud began at first between Abel and Cain, and so spread over the whole world; one generation takes up the cudgel against them, as another lays it down. Hamilcar bequeathed his hatred against the Romans to his son Hannibal when he died. So is the feud transmitted by the wicked from one generation to another against the saints. Nothing can quench their wrath or take up the quarrel;—no moral perfections, which, were they in others, would be thought lovely. Let the saint be never so wise, meek, affable, and bountiful, yet this, that he is a Christian, is a ‘but’ that will blot all in the wicked world’s thoughts. Bonus vir Cajus Sejus, sed malus tantum quod Christianus, was the language in Tertullian’s age —Cajus Sejus had been a good man if he had not had that without which he could not be good. No near relation can wear off their spite. Michal cannot bite in her scornful spirit, but jeers her husband to his face for his zeal before the Lord.

In a word, no benefit which accrues to the wicked by the saints’ neighbourhood—and that is not a little—can make them lay down their hatred. They are the only bail which God takes to keep a nation, when under his arrest, out of prison. They are the cause of blessings to the families, towns, and kingdoms they live in; yet the butt at which their envenomed arrows are levelled against. The whole city is against Lot; not a man among them to take his part, so true and constant are the wicked to their own side. Tertullian tells us of some heathen husbands that liked their wives, though loose and wanton, and lived with them, when such, before they were converted to Christianity, but when once they had embraced the faith, and thereby were made chaste, they put them away; fathers that could bear undutiful rebellious carriages in their children, when once converted and these amended, they turned them out of doors. Ut quisque hoc nomine emendatur, offendit—as any were reformed in their lives by turning Christian, so he became an offender. It were will if this were only the heathens’ sin; but by woeful experience we find that the true Christian hath not more cruel enemies in the whole world than some be that are of his own name. The sharpest persecutions of the church have been by those that were in the church. O what a dreadful will such have to make in the great day, who profess the name of Christ, yet hate his nature in the saints!—who call Christ Lord, yet persecute his best servants and destroy his loyalest subjects! These are the men that above all other shall feel the utmost of the Lord’s fiery wrath in the day when he shall plead his people’s cause and avenge himself on their adversaries.

Use Second. Be exhorted tot his duty of praying for saints; you cannot do that which God will take more kindly at your hands. He himself puts this petition into our mouths: ‘Ask me of things to come concerning my sons,’ Isa. 45:11. Courtiers frame their petitions according to their prince’s liking. They are careful not to ask that which he is unwilling to give; but when they perceive he favours a person or business, then they are ambitious to present the petition. Joab knew what he did in sending the woman of Tekoah to David, with a petition wrapped up in a handsome parable for Absalom the king’s son. He knew the king’s heart went strongly after him, and so the motion could not but be acceptable. And is not the Lord’s heart gone after his saints? Thy prayer for them, therefore, must needs come in a good time, when it shall find the heart of God set upon the very thing thou askest. This was it that God was so pleased with in Daniel, ch. 9:22, 23. Now, in your prayers for the saints, among other things that you pray for them, forget not these:

1. Pray for their lives. They are such a blessing when they live, that they seldom fall but the earth shakes under them. It is commonly a prognostic of an approaching evil when God takes them away by death. Jeroboam had but one son in whom some good was found; he must die, and then the ruin of his father’s family follows, I Kings 14:7. When Augustine died, then Hippo falls into the enemy’s hands. If the wise man be gone that preserved the city, no wonder if its end hastens. God makes way to let his judgments in upon the world by taking the saints out of the world. When God chambers his children in the grave, a storm is at hand, Isa. 26. It is, you see, of concernment to do our utmost to keep them among us, especially when their number is so few and thin already, that we may say, as once the prophet concerning Israel, ‘I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape-gleanings of the vintage,’ Micah 7:1. Did we indeed see them come up as thick in our young ones as they fall in the old, we might say a blessing is in them. These would be as hope‑seeds at least for the next generation. But when a wide breach is made and few to step into it, this is ominous. At Moses’ death, Joshua stood up in his place, and it went well with Israel’s affairs. But when Joshua died, and a generation rose up that had not seen the wonders God had done for his people, and so rebelled, then they to wrack apace, Judges 2:9, 10.

2. Pray for their liberty and tranquility. ‘Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee,’ Ps. 122:6. Jerusalem was the place for their public worship, ‘whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord,’ ver. 4; so that, by praying for Jerusalem’s peace, is meant such serene times wherein the people of God might enjoy his pure worship without disturbance. The church hath always had her vicissitudes; sometimes fair and sometimes foul weather, but her winter commonly longer than her summer; yea, at the same time that the sun of peace brings day to one part of it, another is wrapped up in a night of persecution. Universal peace over all the churches is a great rarity; and where it is in any part of it enjoyed, some unkind cloud or other soon interposeth. The church’s peace therefore is set out by a half-hour’s silence, Rev. 8:1. When God gave the poor Jews ‘a reviving,’ after a tedious captivity, by moving Cyrus to grant them liberty to go and rebuild the house of God, how soon did a storm rise and beat them from their work! One prince furthers them, another obstructs the work. The gospel church Acts 9, had a sweet breathing time of peace; but how long did it last? this short calm went before a sudden hurricane of persecution that falls upon them, Acts 12. Thus have the politic rulers of the world used the saints, as their carnal interest seemed to require; one while to countenance, another while to suppress, them. No sort of people in the world can expect less favour from the world than the church; their only safety therefore lies to engage God to espouse their cause.

3. Pray for their love and unity among themselves. The persecutor’s sword—blessed be God!—is not at the church’s throat among us. But are not Christians at daggers’ drawing amongst themselves? The question in our days hath oft been asked, Why the word preached—being as frequent, clear, and powerful as any former age ever enjoyed in this nation —hath been no more effectual to convert the wicked or to edify the saints? I will not say this is the sole reason, but I dare deliver it as none of the least causes—and that is the woeful divisions and rents amongst those that have made greatest profession of the truth.

(1.) For the saints. It is no wonder they should thrive no more under the word, for the body of Christ is edified in love, Eph. 4. So long as there is a fever upon the body it cannot nourish. The apostles themselves, when wrangling, got little good by Christ’s sermon, or the sacrament itself administered by Christ unto them. One would have thought that such was a meal in the strength whereof, as so many Elijahs, they might have gone a long journey. But, alas! we see how weak they rise from it. One denies his master, and the rest in a fright forsake him; so unfit were they in such a temper to make a spiritual advantage of the best of means.

(2.) Again, for the wicked. It is no wonder that the word prevails no more on them. The divisions and scandals that have arisen among those that call themselves saints have filled their hearts with prejudice against the holy truths and ways of God. Christ prays for his people’s unity: ‘That the world may believe,’ saith he, ‘that thou hast sent me,’ John 17:21. What is oftener in the mouths of many profane wretches than this—We will believe them when they are all of one mind, and come over to them when they can agree among themselves? Who loves to put his head into a house on fire? This should, methinks, stir up all that wish well to the gospel to pray, and that instantly, for the reunion of their divided hearts. Hot disputes will not do it; prayer, or nothing can. Pliny saith of the pearls called uniones, that their nature, though they be engendered in the sea, partakes of the heavens more than the earth. ‘The God of peace’ can only see us at peace. If ever we be wise to agree, we must borrow our wisdom from above; this alone is ‘pure and peaceable.’

THIRD PROPOSITION.

[In praying for saints, we must comprehend ‘all.’]

In praying for saints, we must be careful to comprehend and encircle all saints. I do not mean, as the Papists, for quick and dead. Prayer is a means to wait upon them in their way; at death, then they are at their journey’s end. Prayers are bootless for the dead sinner, and needless for the deceased saint. The wicked in that state are beneath, the saint above, our prayers. We cannot help the wicked. The tree is fallen, and so it must lie. We read of a change the body shall have after death. Vile bodies may, but filthy souls cannot, after death be made glorious. If they go off the body filthy, so they shall meet it at the resurrection. The time to pray for them is now while they live among you, or never; for death and hell come together to the sinner. No sooner Dives’ wretched soul is forced out of his body, but you hear it shriek in hell, ‘The rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torment,’ Luke 16:22, 23. But Abraham tells him ‘there is a gulf fixed,’ that forbids all intercourse betwixt heaven and him. No what is that but an irrevocable decree with which the wicked are sealed under everlasting wrath? If God receive no prayers from them, then not from others for them. And as the wicked are beyond our help, so the saints above all need of our help; for they are in their port and haven. Prayer implies want, but saints departed are perfect, called therefore ‘the spirits of just men made perfect.’ We need not beg a pardon for them, for the Lord acquits them—they are ‘just;’ not for a supply of any good they want, they are ‘made perfect;’ not to remove any pain they feel, for ‘the Spirit saith, Blessed are they that die in the Lord, they rest from their labours.’ But they who invented this device intended, it is like, gain to their own purse, rather than benefit to others’ souls. It is a pick‑purse doctrine, contrived to bring grist to the pope’s mill. But, to leave this, they are the living saints, your companions here in tribulation, that are the subject of your prayers, and of these we are to encircle the whole community within our remembrance. The Papists speak much of a treasury the church hath. This indeed is the true treasury of the church—the common stock of prayers with which they all trade to heaven for one another. Paul tells us what a large heart he had, even for those whose ‘face he never saw in the flesh,’ Col. 1:2. Take a few reasons for the point.

[Why in praying on behalf of saints we are to comprehend ‘all.’]

Reason First. We are to love all saints, therefore to pray for all. Love in a saint is the picture of God’s love to us; and God’;s love looks not asquint to one saint more than another. That image is not of God’s drawing which is not like himself. Nature may err in its productions, but not God in the grace he begets in his saint’s bosom. The new creature never wants its true nature. If God loves all his children, then wilt thou all thy brethren, or not one of them. When Paul commends Christians for this grace of love, he doth it from this note of universality, Eph. 1:15; ‘After I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints;’ so Col. 1:4; Phm. 5. Now, if we love all, we cannot but pray for all. To say we love one, and not pray for him, is a solecism. Can a courtier love his friend and not speak to his prince for him, when he may do him a favour by it? Love prompts a man to do that wherein he may express the greatest kindness to his friend. Mary pours the most precious ointment she hath upon Christ. Prayer, if of the right composition, is the most precious ointment thou canst bestow on the saints. Save it not for some few of them that are of thy private society or particular acquaintance; but let the sweet odour of it fill the whole house of the church; pray for all.

Reason Second. We are to pray for all saints, because Christ prays for all. He carries all their names in his breastplate. ‘Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.’ He leaves not one of the number out of his remembrance. The elder brother was priest to the whole family; so is Christ, our elder brother, to the whole household of believers. Now Christ’s intercession is a pattern for our prayers. We cannot indeed pray for all as he doth. He prays for them not only in the lump, but for every individual saint by name: ‘I have prayed,’ Peter, ‘for thee,’ Luke 22:32; yea, not only for every person by name, but for their particular wants and occasions. ‘I have prayed that thy faith fail not.’ Christ takes notice of that very grace which was in most imminent danger, and secures it by his intercession. O what unspeakable comfort is this to a saint, that he in particular should be spoken of in heaven, and every want or temptation he laboureth with be taken notice of, and provided for, by Christ’s mediation! Thus indeed we cannot pray for all, because we know but few of their persons, and little of the state and condition of those we know. Neither is there need we should. Our general suffrage and vote is as kindly taken as if we could descend to particular instances. God knows the mind of the Spirit, in our prayers on earth, to be for the same things which Christ insisteth on in his intercession in heaven.

Reason Third. We must pray for all saints, or else we can pray for none.

1. We cannot pray really for any, if not for all. He that prays for one saint and desires not good to another, prays not for that one as a saint, but under some other consideration, as wife, friend, child, or the like—a saint clothed with such and such circumstances; for à quatenus ad omne valet consequentia —he that loves a man, because a man, loves all, because the same human nature is found in all; and all saints have the same nature.

2. We cannot pray acceptably for one, except for all; and so we wrong those for whom we do pray, by leaving them out for whom we also should. Joseph would not hear the patriarchs for Simeon’s release till they brought Benjamin over to him also. If thou wouldst be welcome to God in praying for any, carry all thy brethren to him in thy devotions; leave none behind. ‘Are here all thy children?’ said Samuel to Jesse. He would not sit down till the stripling David was fetched to complete the company. May be thou art earnest in prayer for thy hear neighbour Christians, but dost thou not forget others that are further off? Thou rememberest the church of God at home, but dost thou lay the miseries of the churches abroad to heart? What if God should ask thee now, Are here all thy brethren? Are there none but these that live under thy eye to be remembered? Have not I children, and you brethren, elsewhere in the world to be thought upon? The Jews in Babylon were not to forget Jerusalem because of the great distance. ‘Remember the Lord afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind,’ Jer. 51:50.

[Use or Application.]

Use First. O what a rich merchant is the saint, who hath a stock going in so many hands! In heaven Christ is hard at prayer for him, on earth his brethren. What can this man want? Christ hath such an interest in his Father’s heart, that he can deny him nothing; the saints such interest in Christ, that he will not deny them. So the Christian’s trade goes smoothly on in both worlds. Think of this, Christian, for thy comfort—wherever a child of God is living upon earth, there hast thou a factor to traffic with heaven for thy good. Let this help thy faith in putting up thy own private prayers, knowing that thou prayest in a communion and fellowship with others. Even when thou art alone in thy closet, expect an answer to more than thy own prayer. It is an uncharitableness not to pray for others, and pride not to expect a benefit from the prayers of others.

Use Second. It teacheth us how inquisitive we should be of the affairs of our brethren and state of the church, that so we may pray with a more bowelly sense of their wants for them. Nehemiah, when he heard of some that were come out of Judea, inquires how it fared with his brethren there? and from the sad report he heard of their afflictions and reproaches is put into a bitter passion, which he emptied, with prayers and tears for them, into the bosom of God, Neh. 1:4. How could he have done this so feelingly, had he not first been acquainted with their distressed condition? We are many of us asking oft, ‘What news?’ and reading books of intelligence, foreign and national; but is it as Athenians, or as Christians? to fill our heads, or to affect our hearts? to furnish us with matter of chat and talk by the fireside with our neighbours, or of prayer to our God?

Use Third. Labour to get a wide heart in prayer for all the saints. God, it is said, gave Solomon a large heart of knowledge and wisdom, as the sand of the sea, I Kings 4;29. Behold a mercy greater than that to Solomon is here. A large heart is better than a large head—to do good, than to know it. Nothing is more unworthy than a selfish spirit; no selfishness worse than that which is vented in prayer. A heathen could blame that Athenian who in a drought prayed for his own city, saying, ‘O Jupiter, rain upon the fields of the Athenians,’ but forgot that his neighbours wanted as well as himself. Many heathens were great admirers of this virtue of charity. Take one instance for all. It was a law among the Romans that none should come near the emperor’s tent in the night upon pain of death. Now, there was one night a certain soldier apprehended, standing near the emperor’s tent with a petition to deliver unto him, who was therefore presently to be executed; but the emperor, hearing the noise from within his pavilion, called out, saying, ‘If it be for himself, let him die; if for another, spare his life.’ Being examined, it was found his petition was for two of his fellow-soldiers that were taken asleep on the watch. So both he escaped death and they punishment. Was this office of charity so pleasing to an earthly prince as to dispense with a law for its sake? O how acceptable then to our merciful God is it to intercede for our fellow-saints! But the more to provoke you to the exercise of this duty in its full breadth and latitude—viz. for all saints —consider,

1. This praying for all saints will prove thy love to saints sincere. A man, in praying for himself or his relations, stands not at that advantage to see the actings of pure grace, as when he prays for such as have not these carnal dependencies on him. When thou prayest for thyself in want or sickness, how knowest thou that it is any more than the natural cry of the creature? Is it for thy family thou prayest? Still thy flesh hath an interest in the work, and may help to quicken thee—if it be not the chief spring to set thee agoing. But when thy heart beats strongly with a sense of any other’s misery, that hath nothing to move thee, but his Christianity to be his remembrancer, and thou canst in secret plead with God for him as feelingly as if thou didst go on thy own errand, truly thou breathest a gracious spirit.

2. As it will speak for the truth of thy grace, so for the height and vigour of it. It is corruption that contracts our hearts. They were none of the best Christians of whom Paul gives this character, ‘They sought their own,’ Php. 2:21. As the heart advanceth in grace, so it widens and grows more public‑spirited. The higher a man ascends a hill the larger his prospect. One that stands upon the ground cannot look over the next hedge; his eye is confined within the compass of his own wall. Thus the carnal spirit thinks of none but his own estate or stake, feels not the water till it comes into his own cabin; whereas grace cleaves the soul, and the more grace a man hath, the more it will enable to look from himself over into the condition of his brethren. Such a one partakes of the nature of the heavenly bodies, which shed their influences down upon the whole world. Especially this would speak grace high in its actings, if these circumstances concur with it:

(1.) When a person is himself swimming in abundance of all enjoyments, and can then lay aside his own joy to weep and mourn for and with any afflicted saints, though at never so great a distance from them. Thus did Nehemiah for his brethren at Jerusalem, when himself was in a warm nest and had all the enjoyments that so great a prince’s court could afford. It is not usual for any but those of great grace to feel the cords of the church’s afflictions through a bed of down on which themselves lie. It must be a David that can prefer Jerusalem above his chief joy.

(2.) On the other hand, when in the depth of our own personal troubles and miseries, we can yet reserve a large room in our prayers for any other saints, this speaks a great measure of grace. It showed the Romans’ strength and courage to be great, that they could spare several legions to send into Spain for the help of their friends there, while Hannibal was near their own walls with a puissant army. To be able to lend auxiliary prayers to other afflicted saints, or abroad to the church of God, when thou thyself art engaged deeply with private sorrows, does signify a very gracious spirit.

(3.) When, in our own distresses, we can entertain the tidings of any other saint’s mercies with joy and thankfulness. This requires great grace indeed, to act two so contrary parts well at the same time. The prosperity of others too oft breeds envy and discontent in them that want it. If therefore thou canst praise God for others’ mercies, while the tears stand in thy eyes for thy own miseries, it is a rare temper; flesh and blood never learned thee it thou mayest be sure.

To shut up this with a caution—though we are to pray for all saints, yet some call for a more special remembrance at our hands.

(a) Those that are near to us by other relations. First, by bond of nature as well as of grace: ‘A brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord?’ Phm. 16. It is true the bond of the Spirit is more sacred than that of the flesh—sanctior est copula cordis quàm corporis; yet, when that of the flesh is twisted with the other, it adds, as force to the affection, so argument to the duty; therefore saith Paul, ‘much more unto thee.’ Charity may begin, though it must not end, at home. Again, by domestic relation, society and communion, whether civil or religious—these give an enforcement to the duty; master for servant, and servants for masters; minister for people, and people for minister. He that starves his family is not like to feast his neighbours. He that is a churl to his neighbours, is not like to be overkind to strangers. So he that prays not for those who by these relations stand so near to him, is very unlike to abound in this duty for others.

(b) Those that are in distress. Whoever you forget, remember these. If one be sick in our family, we will send him his portion before we carve for any that are at the table. This is a fit season for love. A friend for adversity is as proper as fire is for a winter’s day. Job’s friends chose the right time to visit him in, but took not the right course of improving their visit. Had they spent the time in prayer for him which they did in hot disputes with him, they had profited and pleased God more. Again, this is the season that the tempter is busy. This lion walks abroad in the night of affliction, hoping then to make the Christian his prey. And if he wakes to make a prey of him, shall not we watch to pray for him? Again, this is the season of God’s most speedy answering prayers. ‘In the day when I cried thou answeredst me,’ Ps. 138:3; that is, in the day of affliction. Indeed now is the time when the Spirit of Christ will be stirring us up to pray. And when should we send our letters but when the post calls? He that stirs thee up to pray for them, will be as careful to deliver up thy prayers and see an answer returned.

(c) Such of the saints as are of a public place and use. You pray for many here while you pray for one.

(d) Such as have expressly desired and engaged you to remember them at the throne of grace. Among debts, specialties are paid in the first place. Thou art a debtor to all thy brethren, and owest them a remembrance in thy prayers; but more especially them to whom thou hast particularly promised it. This is, as it were, a bond under thy hand, given for further security of paying this debt to thy friend. Whoever thou forgettest, remember him. Did the butler’s conscience accuse him for not remembering his promise to Joseph, who had engaged him—when he was restored to court—to intercede with Pharaoh for him? ‘I do,’ saith he, ‘remember my faults this day,’ Gen. 41:9. Much more hast thou cause to confess thy faults, who forgettest to make mention of them to the Lord that have solemnly desired it at thy hands. To have promised the payment of a sum of money, and to have failed, were not greater dishonesty. Thou mayest prejudice his soul more by disappointing him of thy prayer, than his estate could suffer for want of thy money. How knowest thou but the mercy he wants is stopped while [until] thy prayers come to heaven for it? That other saints obtain by their prayers for us what sometimes we do not by our own is clear from Job 42:8.

2. A piece of cloth for mean purposes.

—From Webster’s

— From Webster’s

—Sdb

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Footnotes

1. CLOUT, n. 1. A patch; a piece of cloth or leather, &c., to close a breach. ↩

2. Precedaneous: (Pre`ceda”neous) a. Preceding; antecedent; previous. [Obs.] Hammond. — From Websters’s ↩

3. Familist: — member of Family Of Love, religious sect of Dutch origin, followers of Hendrik Niclaes, a 16th-century Dutch merchant. Niclaes’ main activity was in Emden, East Friesland (1540-60). In his Evangelium regni, issued in England as A Joyfyl Message of the Kingdom, he invited all “lovers of truth, of what nation and religion soever they be, Christian, Jews, Mahomites, or Turks, and heathen,” to join in a great fellowship of peace, the Family of Love, giving up all contention over dogma and seeking to be incorporated into the body of Christ. ↩

4. Exsuscitation:—Exsus`cita”tion ) n. [L. exsuscitatio.] A stirring up; a rousing. ↩

5. causey: — a raised path or road as across wet ground. ↩

6. Gust: — taste; relish; flavour; savour. ↩

7. I Sam 7:9-11. But also see I Sam 12:14-19; which seems to fit Gurnall’s context better. — SDB ↩