then consider that this is that high amazing incomprehensible Being whom thou addressest thy pitifull Self to in Prayer Consider next his Infinite All-searching Knowledge which looks through and through the most secret of our Thoughts ransacks every corner of the Heart ponders the most inward designs and ends of the Soul in all a man's Actions And then consider That this is the God whom thou hast to deal with in Prayer the God who observes the postures the frame and motion of thy Mind in all thy Approaches to Him and whose piercing Eye it is impossible to elude or escape by all the tricks and arts of the subtillest and most refined Hypocrisy And lastly Consider the great the fiery and the implacable Jealousy that he has for his Honour and that he has no other use of the whole Creation but to serve the Ends of it And above all that he will in a most peculiar manner be honoured of those who draw near to him and will by no means suffer himself to be mockt and affronted under a pretence of being worshipped nor endure that a wretched contemptible sinfull Creature who is but a piece of living Dirt at best should at the same time bend the Knee to him and spit in his face And now consider that this is the God whom thou prayest to and whom thou usest with such intolerable Indignity in every unworthy Prayer thou puttest up to Him every bold sawcy and familiar Word that upon confidence of being one of God's Elect thou presumest to debase so great a Majesty with And for an Instance of the dreadfull Curse that attends such a daring Irreverence consider how God used Nadab and Abihu for venturing to offer strange Fire before him and then know that every unhallowed unfitting Prayer is a strange Fire A Fire that will be sure to destroy the Offering though Mercy should spare the Offerer Consider these things seriously deeply and severely till the Consideration of them affects thy Heart and humbles thy Spirit with such awefull Apprehensions of thy Maker and such abject Reflections upon thy self as may lay thee in the Dust before Him And know that the lower thou fallest the higher will thy Prayer rebound And that thou art never so fit to pray to God as when a sense of thy own unworthiness makes thee ashamed even to speak to Him 2 ly The second Object of our Premeditation is the Matter of our Prayers For as we are to consider whom we are to pray to so are we to consider also what we are to pray for and this requires no ordinary Application of Thought to distinguish or judge of Men's prayers are generally dictated by their Desires and their Desires are the Issues of their Affections and their Affections are for the most part influenced by their Corruptions The first constituent principle of a well-conceived Prayer is to know What not to pray for which the Scripture assures us that some doe not while they pray for what they may spend upon their Lusts James 4. 3. Asking such things as it is a Contumely to God to hear and Damnation to themselves to receive No Man is to pray for any thing either sinfull or directly tending to Sin No Man is to pray for a Temptation and much less to desire God to be his Tempter which he would certainly be should he at the instance of any Man's prayer administer fuel to his sinfull or absurd Appetites Nor is any one to ask of God things mean and trivial and beneath the Majesty of Heaven to be concerned about or solemnly addressed to for Nor lastly is any one to admit into his Petitions things superfluous or extravagant such as Wealth Greatness and Honour Which we are so far from being warranted to beg of God that we are to beg his Grace to despise and undervalue them and it were much if the same things should be the proper Objects both of our Self-denial and of our Prayers too and that we should be allowed to sollicit the satisfaction and enjoyned to endeavour the mortification of the same Desires The Things that we are to pray for are either 1 st Things of absolute Necessity or 2 ly Things of unquestionable Charity Of the first sort are all spiritual Graces required in us as the indispensable Conditions of our Salvation Such as are Repentance Faith Hope Charity Temperance and all other Vertues that are either the parts or principles of a pious Life These are to be the prime subject matter of our Prayers and we shall find that nothing comes this way so easily from Heaven as those things that will assuredly bring us to it The Spirit dictates all such Petitions and God himself is first the Author and then the Fulfiller of them owning and accepting them both as our Duty and his own Production The other sort of things that may allowably be prayed for are things of manifest unquestionable Charity Such as are a competent measure of the innocent Comforts of Life as Health Peace Maintenance and a Success of our honest Labours And yet even these but Conditionally and with perfect Resignation to the Will and Wisdom of the Soveraign Disposer of all that belongs to us Who if he finds it more for his Honour to have us serve him with sick crazy languishing Bodies with poverty and extreme want of all things and lastly with our Country all in a Flame about our Ears ought in all this and much more to over-rule our Prayers and Desires into an absolute Acquiescence in his All-wise disposal of things and to convince us that our Prayers are sometimes best answered when our Desires are most opposed In fine to state the whole matter of our Prayers in one word Nothing can be fit for us to pray for but what is fit and honourable for our great Mediator and Master of Requests Iesus Christ himself to intercede for This is to be the unchangeable Rule and Measure of all our Petitions And then if Christ is to convey these our Petitions to his Father can any one dare to make him who was Holiness and Purity it self and Advocate and Sollicitor for his Lusts Him who was nothing but Meekness Lowliness and Humility his Providetore for such things as can only feed his Pride and flush his Ambition No certainly when we come as Suppliants to the Throne of Grace where Christ sits as Intercessor at God's right hand nothing can be fit to proceed out of our Mouth but what is fit to pass through His. 3 ly The Third and Last Thinng that calls for a previous Meditation to our Prayers is the Order and Disposition of them For though God does not command us to set off our Prayers with Dress and Artifice to flourish it in Trope and Metaphor to beg our daily Bread in blank Verse or to shew any thing of the Poet in our Devotions but Indigence and Want I say though God is far from requiring such things of us in our Prayers yet he requires
that we should manage them with Sense and Reason Fineness is not expected but Decency is and though we cannot declaim as Orators yet he will have us speak like Men and tender him the Results of that Understanding and Judgment that essentially constitute a Rational Nature But I shall briefly cast what I have to say upon this particular into these following Assertions 1. That nothing can express our Reverence to God in Prayer that would pass for Irreverence towards a Great Man Let any Subject tender his Prince a Petition fraught with Nonsense and Incoherence Confusion and Impertinence and can he expect that Majesty should answer it with any thing but a deaf Ear a frowning Eye or at best vouchsafe it in any other Reward but by a gracious Oblivion to forgive the person and to forget the petition 2 ly Nothing Absurd and Irrational and such as a Wise man would despise can be acceptable to God in Prayer Solomon expressly tells us in Ecclesiastes 5. v. 4. that God has no pleasure in Fools nor is it possible that an Infinite Wisdom should The Scripture all along expresses Sin and Wickedness by the Name of Folly And therefore certainly Folly is too near of kin to it to find any Approbation from God in so great a Duty it is the simplicity of the Heart and not of the Head that is the best Enditer of our Petitions That which proceeds from the latter is undoubtedly the sacrifice of fools and God is never more weary of Sacrifice than when a Fool is the Priest and Folly the Oblation 3 ly and Lastly Nothing rude slight and careless or indeed less than the very best that a man can offer can be acceptable or pleasing to God in Prayer If ye offer the Blind for sacrifice is it not Evil If ye offer the Lame and the Sick is it not Evil Offer it now to thy Governour and see whether he will be pleased with thee or accept thy Person saith the Lord of Hosts Malachi 1. 8. God rigidly expects a Return of his own Gifts and where he has given ability will be served by Acts proportionable to it And he who has parts to raise and propagate his own Honour by but none to imploy in the Worship of him that gave them does as I may so express it refuse to wear God's Livery in his own Service adds Sacrilege to Prophaneness strips and starves his Devotions and in a word falls directly under the Dint of that Curse denounced in the last Verse of the 1 st of Malachi Cursed be the Deceiver that hath in his Flock a Male and voweth and sacrificeth to the Lord a corrupt thing The same is here both the Deceiver and the Deceived too for God very well knows what he gives Men and why And where he has bestwoed Judgment Learning and Utterance will not endure that Men should be accurate in their Discourse and loose in their Devotions or think that the great Author of every good and perfect Gift will be put off with Ramble and confused Talk Babble and Tautology And thus much for the Order and Disposition of our Prayers which certainly requires precedent Thought and Meditation God has declared himself the God of Order in all things and will have it observed in what he commands others as well as in what he does himself Order is the great Rule or Art by which God made the World and by which he still governs it Nay the World it self is nothing else and all this glorious System of things is but the Chaos put into order And how then can God who has so eminently owned himself concerned for this excellent thing brook such Absurdity and Confusion as the slovenly and profane Negligence of some treats him with in their most solemn Addresses to him All which is the natural unavoidable Consequent of Unpreparedness and want of Premeditation without which whosoever presumes to pray cannot be so properly said to approach to as to break in upon God And surely he who is so hardy as to do so has no reason in the Earth to expect that the success which follows his prayers should be greater than the preparation that goes before them Now from what has been hitherto discoursed of this first and grand Qualification of a pious and devout Prayer to wit Premeditation of Thought what can be so naturally and so usefully inferr'd as the high Expediency or rather the absolute Necessity of a Set-form of Prayer to guide our Devotions by We have lived in an Age that has despised contradicted and counter-acted all the principles and practices of the Primitive Christians in taking the measures of their Duty both to God and Man and of their Behaviour both in matters Civil and Religious but in nothing more scandalously than in their vile abuse of the great Duty of Prayer concerning which though it may with the clearest truth be affirmed That there has been no Church yet of any account in the Christian World but what has governed its publick Worship of God by a Liturgy or Set-form of Prayer yet these enthusiastick Innovators the bold and blind Reformers of all Antiquity and wiser than the whole Catholick Church besides introduced into the room of it a sawcy senceless Extemporary way of speaking to God affirming that this was a Praying by the Spirit and that the Use of all Set-forms was stinting of the Spirit A pretence I confess popular and plausible enough with such Idiots as take the Sound of Words for the Sence of them But for the full Confutation of it which I hope shall be done both easily and briefly too I shall advance this one Assertion in direct Contradiction to that Namely That the Praying by a Set-form is not a stinting of the Spirit and the Praying extempore truly and properly is so For the proving and making out of which we will first consider What it is to Pray by the Spirit A thing much talkt of but not so convenient for the talkers of it and pretenders to it to have it rightly stated and understood In short it includes in it these two Things 1 st A praying with the Heart which is sometimes called the Spirit or Inward man and so it is properly opposed to Hypocritical Lip-devotions in which the Heart or Spirit does not go along with a man's Words 2 ly It includes in it also a praying according to the Rules prescribed by God's Holy Spirit and held forth to us in his Revealed Word which Word was both Dictated and Confirmed by this Spirit And so it is opposed to the praying unlawfully or unwarrantably and that either in respect of the Matter or Manner of our Prayers As when we desire of God such things or in such a way as the Spirit of God speaking in his Holy Word does by no means warrant or approve of So that to Pray by the Spirit signifies neither more nor less but to pray knowingly heartily and affectionately for such things and in such
a manner as the Holy Ghost in Scripture either commands or allows of As for any other kind of Praying by the Spirit upon the best enquiry that I can make into these matters I can find none And if some say as I know they both impudently and blasphemously doe that to pray by the Spirit is to have the Spirit immediately inspiring them and by such Inspiration speaking within them and so dictating their prayers to them let them either produce plain Scripture or doe a Miracle to prove this by But till then he who shall consider what kind of prayers these pretenders to the Spirit have been notable for will find that they have as little Cause to father their Prayers as their Practices upon the Spirit of God These Two things are certain and I doe particularly recommend them to your Observation One that this way of Praying by the Spirit as they call it was begun and first brought into use here in England in Queen Elizabeth's days by a Popish Priest and Dominican Fryar one Faithfull Commin by Name who counterfeiting himself a Protestant and a Zealot of the highest form set up this new Spiritual way of Praying with a design to bring the People first to a Contempt and from thence to an utter Hatred and Disuse of our Common-prayer which he still reviled as only a Translation of the Mass thereby to distract men's Minds and to divide our Church And this he did with such success that we have lived to see the Effects of his Labours in the utter subversion of Church and State Which hellish Negotiation when this malicious Hypocrite came to Rome to give the Pope an account of he received of him as so notable a service well deserved besides a thousand Thanks two thousand Ducats for his pains So that now you see here the Original of this Extempore-way of praying by the Spirit The other thing that I would observe to you is That in the neighbour Nation of Scotland one of the greatest Monsters of Men that I believe ever lived and actually in league with the Devil was yet by the confession of all that heard him the most Excellent at this Extempore-way of Praying by the Spirit of any Man in his time none was able to come near him or to compare with him But surely now he who shall venture to ascribe the Prayers of such a Wretch made up of Adulteries Incest Witchcraft and other Villainies not to be named to the Spirit of God may as well strike in with the Pharisees and ascribe the Miracles of Christ to the Devil And thus having shewn both what ought to be meant by Praying by the Spirit and what ought not cannot be meant by it let us now see whether a Set-form or this Extemporary-way be the greater hinderer and stinter of it In order to which I shall lay down these three Assertions 1. That the Soul or Mind of Man is but of a limited Nature in all its Workings and consequently cannot supply two distinct Faculties at the same time to the same height of Operation 2 ly That the finding Words and Expressions for Prayer is the proper business of the Brain and the Invention and that the finding Devotion and Affection to accompany and go along with those Expressions is properly the Work and Business of the Heart 3 ly That this Devotion and Affection is indispensably required in Prayer as the principal and most Essential part of it and that in which the Spirituality of it does most properly consist Now from these three Things put together this must naturally and necessarily follow That as Spiritual Prayer or Praying by the Spirit taken in the right sense of the word consists properly in that Affection and Devotion that the Heart exercises and imploys in the Work of Prayer so whatsoever gives the Soul scope and liberty to exercise and imploy this Affection and Devotion that does most effectually help and enlarge the Spirit of Prayer and whatsoever diverts the Soul from employing such Affection and Devotion that does most directly stint and hinder it Accordingly let this now be our Rule whereby to judge of the Efficacy of a Set-form and of the Extempore-way in the present Business As for a Set-form in which the Words are ready prepared to our hands the Soul has nothing to doe but to attend to the work of raising the Affections and Devotions to go along with those words So that all the Powers of the Soul are took up in applying the Heart to this great Duty and it is the Exercise of the Heart as has been already shewn that is truly and properly a Praying by the Spirit On the contrary in all extempore-Extempore-prayer the Powers and Faculties of the Soul are called off from dealing with the Heart and the Affections and that both in the Speaker and in the Hearer both in him who makes and in him who is to joyn in such Prayers And first for the Minister who makes and utters such Extempore-prayers He is wholly imploying his Inventions both to conceive Matter and to find Words and Expressions to cloath it in This is certainly the work which takes up his Mind in this Exercise And since the Nature of man's Mind is such that it cannot with the same vigour at the same time attend the work of Invention and that of raising the Affections also nor measure out the same supply of Spirits and Intention for the carrying on the Operations of the Head and those of the Heart too it is certain that while the Head is so much imployed the Heart must be idle and very little imployed and perhaps not at all And consequently if to pray by the Spirit be to pray with the Heart and the Affections it is also as certain that while a Man prays Extempore he does not pray by the Spirit Nay the very truth of it is that while he is so doing he is not praying at all but he is studying He is beating his Brain while he should be drawing out his Affections And then for the People that are to hear and joyn with him in such Prayers it is manifest that they not knowing before-hand what the Minister will say must as soon as they do hear him presently busy and bestirr their Minds both to apprehend and understand the meaning of what they hear and withall to judge whether it be of such a Nature as to be fit for them to joyn and concur with him in So that the People also are by this Course put to study and to imploy their apprehending and judging Faculties while they should be exerting their Affections and Devotions and consequently by this means the Spirit of Prayer is stinted as well in the Congregation that follows as in the Minister who first conceives a Prayer after their Extempore-way Which is a Truth so clear and indeed self-evident that it is impossible that it should need any further Arguments to demonstrate or make it out The Sum of all is this
That since a Set-form of Prayer leaves the Soul wholly free to imploy its Affections and Devotions in which the Spirit of Prayer does most properly consist it follows that the Spirit of Prayer is thereby in a singular manner helped promoted and enlarged And since on the other hand the Extempore-way withdraws and takes off the Soul from imploying its Affections and engages it chiefly if not wholly about the use of its Invention it as plainly follows that the Spirit of Prayer is by this means unavoidably cramp'd and hindred and to use their own word stinted Which was the Proposition that I undertook to prove But there are two Things I confess that are extreamly hindred and stinted by a Set-form of Prayer and equally furthered and enlarged by the Extempore-way which without all doubt is the true Cause why the former is so much decried and the latter so much extolled by the Men whom we are now pleading with The first of which is Pride and Ostentation the other Faction and Sedition 1. And first for Pride I do not in the least question but the chief Designs of such as use the Extempore-way is to amuse the unthinking Rabble with an Admiration of their Gifts their whole Devotion proceeding from no other principle but only a Love to hear themselves talk And I believe it would put Lucifer himself hard to it to out-vye the Pride of one of those fellows pouring out his Extempore-stuff amongst his ignorant whining factious Followers listning to and applauding his copious Flow and Cant with the ridiculous Accents of their impertinent Groans And the truth is Extempore-prayer even when best and most dextrously performed is nothing else but a business of Invention and Wit such as it is and requires no more to it but a teeming Imagination a bold Front and a ready Expression and deserves much the same Commendation were it not in a matter too serious to be suddain upon which is due to Extempore Verses only with this difference That there is necessary to these latter a competent measure of Wit and Learning whereas the former may be done with very little Wit and no Learning at all And now can any sober person think it reasonable that the publick Devotions of a whole Congregation should be under the Conduct and at the Mercy of a pert empty conceited Holder-forth whose chief if not sole intent is to Vaunt his spiritual Clack and as I may so speak to pray Prizes whereas Prayer is a Duty that recommends it self to the Acceptance of Almighty God by no other Qualification so much as by the profoundest Humility and the lowest Esteem that a man can possibly have of himself Certainly the Extemporizing faculty is never more out of its Element than in the Pulpit Though even here it is much more excusable in a Sermon than in a Prayer For as much as in that a Man addresses himself but to Men Men like himself whom he may therefore make bold with as no doubt for so doing they will also make bold with him Besides the peculiar advantage attending all such suddain Conceptions that as they are quickly Born so they quickly Die It being seldom known where the Speaker has so very fluent an Invention but the Hearer also has the Gift of as fluent a Memory 2 ly The other thing that has been hitherto so little befriended by a Set-form of Prayer and so very much by the Extempore-way is Faction and Sedition It has been always found an Excellent way of girding at the Government in Scripture-phrase And we all know the Common Dialect in which the great Masters of this Art used to pray for the King and which may justly pass for only a cleanlier and more refined kind of Libelling him in the Lord. As that God would turn his Heart and open his Eyes As if he were a Pagan yet to be converted to Christianity with many other sly virulent and malicious Insinuations which we may every day hear of from those Mints of Treason and Rebellion their Conventicles and for which and a great deal less some Princes and Governments would make them not only eat their Words but the Tongue that spoke them too In fine let all their Extempore Harangues be considered and duly weighed and you shall find a Spirit of Pride Faction and Sedition predominant in them all The only Spirit which those Impostors do really and indeed pray by I have been so much the longer and the earnester against this intoxicating bewitching Cheat of extempore-Extempore-prayer being fully satisfied in my Conscience that it has been all along the Devil's Master-piece and prime Engine to overthrow our Church by For I look upon this as a most unanswerable Truth That whatsoever renders the publick Worship of God contemptible amongst us must in the same degree weaken and discredit our whole Religion And I hope I have also proved it to be a Truth altogether as clear That this Extempore-way naturally brings all the Contempt upon the Worship of God that both the Folly and Faction of Men can possibly expose it to And therefore as a thing neither subservient to the true Purposes of Religion nor grounded upon Principles of Reason nor lastly sutable to the Practice of Antiquity ought by all means to be exploded and cast out of every sober and well-ordered Church or that will be sure to throw the Church it self out of Doors And thus I have at length finished what I had to say of the first Ingredient of a Pious and Reverential Prayer which was Premeditation of Thought prescribed to us in these words Let not thy mouth be rash nor thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God Which excellent Words and most wise Advice of Solomon whosoever can reconcile to the Expediency Decency or Usefulness of Extempore-prayer I shall acknowledge him a Man of greater Ability and Parts of Mind than Solomon Himself The other Ingredient of a Reverential and duly qualified Prayer is a pertinent Brevity of Expression mentioned and recommended in that part of the Text Therefore let thy Words be few But this I cannot dispatch now and therefore shall not enter upon at this time Now to God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost Three Persons and One God be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen A DISCOURSE AGAINST Long and Extempore-Prayers In Behalf of the LITURGY OF THE Church of ENGLAND Upon the same Text. ECCLES V. 2. Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God for God is in Heaven and thou upon Earth therefore let thy words be few I Formerly began a Discourse upon these Words and observed in them these three Things 1. That whosoever appears in the House of God and particularly in the way of Prayer ought to reckon himself in a more especial manner placed in the sight and presence of God And 2 ly
and much less satisfie an accusing Conscience But now for the better Management of this Examination of our Past-lives we must throughly canvass them with these and the like Questions As for instance Let a Man enquire what Sins he has committed and what Breaches he has made upon those two great standing Rules of Duty the Decalogue and our Saviour's Divine Sermon upon the Mount Let him enquire also what particular Aggravations ly upon his Sins as whether they have not been committed against strong Reluctancy and Light of Conscience after many winning Calls of Mercy to reclaim and many terrible Warnings of Judgment to affright him Whether Resolutions Vows and Protestations have not been made against them Whether they have not been repeated frequently and persisted in obstinately And lastly whether the same Appetites to Sin have not remained as active and unmortified after Sacraments as ever they had been before How important these Considerations and Heads of Enquiry are all who understand any Thing will easily perceive For this we must know That the very same Sin as to the Nature of it stamp'd with any one of these Aggravations is in effect not the same And he who has sinned the same great Sin after several times receiving the Sacrament must not think that God will accept him under ten times greater Repentance and Contrition for it than he brought with him to that Duty formerly Whether God by his Grace will enable him to rise up to such a Pitch or no is uncertain but most certain that both his Work is harder and his Danger greater than it was or could be at the first Secondly When a Man has by such a close and rigorous Examination of himself found out the accursed Thing and discovered his Sin the next Thing in order must be to work up his Heart to the utmost Hatred of it and the bitterest Sorrow and Remorse for it For Self-examination having first presented it to the Thoughts these naturally transmit and hand it over to the Passions And this introduces the next Ingredient of our Sacramental Preparations to wit Repentance Which arduous Work I will suppose not now to begin but to be renewed and that with special Reference to Sins not repented of before and yet more especially to those new Scores which we still have run our selves upon since the last preceding Sacrament Which Method faithfully and constantly observed must needs have an admirable and mighty Effect upon the Conscience and keep a Man from breaking or running behind-hand in his Spiritual Estate which without frequent Accountings he will hardly be able to prevent But because this is a Duty of such high Consequence I would by all means warn Men of one very common and yet very dangerous Mistake about it and that is the taking of meer Sorrow for Sin for Repentance It is indeed a good Introduction to it but the Porch though never so fair and spacious is not the House it self Nothing passes in the Accounts of God for Repentance but Change of Life Ceasing to doe Evil and doing Good are the Two great Integral Parts that complete this Duty For not to doe Evil is much better than the sharpest Sorrow for having done it and to doe Good is better and more valuable than both When a Man has found out Sin in his Actions let him resolutely Arrest it there but let him also pursue it home to his Inclinations and dislodge it thence otherwise it will be all to little purpose for the Root being still left behind it is odds but in time it will shoot out again Men befool themselves infinitely when by venting a few Sighs or Groans putting the Finger in the Eye and whimpering out a few melancholy Words and lastly concluding all with I wish I had never done so and I am resolved never to doe so more they will needs perswade themselves that they have repented though perhaps in this very thing their Heart all the while deceives them and they neither really wish the one nor resolve the other But whether they doe or no all true penitential Sorrow will and must proceed much further It must force and make its way into the very inmost Corners and Recesses of the Soul it must shake all the Powers of Sin producing in the Heart strong and lasting Aversions to Evil and equal Dispositions to Good which I must confess are great Things But if the Sorrow which we have been speaking of carry us not so far let it express it self never so loudly and passionately and discharge it self in never so many Shours of Tears and Vollies of Sighs yet by all this it will no more purge a man's Heart than the washing of his Hands can cleanse the rottenness of his Bones But Thirdly When Self-examination has both shewn us our Sin and Repentance has disowned and cast it out the next Thing naturally confequent upon this is with the highest Importunity to supplicate God's Pardon for the Guilt and his Grace against the Power of it And this brings in Prayer as the Third preparative for the Sacrament A Duty upon which all the Blessings of both Worlds are entailed A Duty appointed by God himself as the great Conduit and noble Instrument of Commerce between Heaven and Earth A Duty founded on Man's Essential dependance upon God and so in the Ground and Reason of it perpetual and consequently in the Practice of it indispensable But I shall speak of it now only with reference to the Sacrament And so whatsoever other Graces may furnish us with a Wedding-garment it is certain that Prayer must put it on Prayer is that by which a Man engages all the Auxiliaries of Omnipotence it self against his Sin and is so utterly contrary to and inconsistent with it that the same Heart cannot long hold them both but one must soon quit possession of it to the other and either Praying make a Man leave off Sinning or Sinning force him to give over Praying Every real Act of Hatred of Sin is in the very Nature of the Thing a partial Mortification of it and it is hardly possible for a Man to pray heartily against his Sin but he must at the same time hate it too I know a Man may think that he hates his Sin when indeed he does not but then it is also as true that he does not sincerely pray against it whatsoever he may imagine Besides since the very Life and Spirit of Prayer consists in an ardent vehement Desire of the Thing prayed for and since the Nature of the Soul is such that it strangely symbolizes with the Thing it mightily desires it is evident That if a Man would have a devout humble Sin-abhorring Self-denying Frame of Spirit he cannot take a more efficacious course to attain it than by Praying himself into it And so close a Connexion has this Duty with the Sacrament that whatsoever we receive in the Sacrament is properly in answer to our Prayers And consequently we may with great
That the vast and infinite Distance between God and Him ought to create in him all imaginable Awe and Reverence in such his Addresses to God 3 ly and Lastly That this Reverence required of him is to consist in a serious preparation of his Thoughts and a sober government of his Expressions Neither is his mouth to be rash nor his heart to be hasty in uttering any thing before God These three Things I shew were evidently contained in the Words and did as evidently contain the whole Sense of them But I gathered them all into this one Proposition Namely That Premeditation of Thought and Brevity of Expression are the great Ingredients of that Reverence that is required to a pious acceptable and devout Prayer The first of these which is Premeditation of Thought I then fully treated of and dispatched and shall now proceed to the other which is a pertinent Brevity of Expression Therefore let thy words be few Concerning which we shall observe first in General That to be able to express our Minds briefly and fully too is absolutely the greatest Perfection and Commendation that Speech is capable of such a mutual Communication of our Thoughts being as I may so speak the next approach to Intuition and the nearest Imitation of the Converse of blessed Spirits made perfect that our Condition in this World can possibly raise us to Certainly the greatest and the wisest Conceptions that ever issued from the Mind of Man have been couched under and delivered in a few close home and significant Words But to derive the Credit of this way of speaking much higher and from an Example infinitely greater than the greatest humane Wisdom was it not authorized and ennobled by God himself in his making of the World Was not the Work of all the six days transacted in so many Words There was no Circumlocution or Amplification in the Case which makes the Rhetorician Longinus in his Book of the Loftiness of Speech so much admire the Height and Grandeur of Moses's Style in his first Chapter of Genesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law-giver of the Iews says he meaning Moses was no ordinary Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because says he he set forth the Divine Power sutably to the Majesty and Greatness of it But how did he this Why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For that says he in the very Entrance of his Laws he gives us this short and present Account of the whole Creation God said Let there be Light and there was Light Let there be an Earth a Sea and a Firmament and there was so So that all this high Elogy and Encomium given by this Heathen of Moses sprang only from the Majestick Brevity of this one Expression an Expression so suted to the Greatness of a Creator and so Expressive of his boundless creative Power as a Power infinitely above all Controll or possibility of finding the least obstacle or delay in atchieving its mightiest and most stupendious Works Heaven and Earth and all the Host of both as it were dropt from his Mouth and Nature it self was but the product of a Word a Word not designed to Express but to Constitute and give a Being and not so much the Representation as the Cause of what it signified This was God's way of speaking in his first forming of the Universe And was it not so in the next grand Instance of his Power his Governing of it too For are not the great Instruments of Government his Laws drawn up and digested into a few Sentences the whole Body of them containing but Ten Commandments and some of those Commandments not so many words Nay and have we not these also brought into yet a narrower Compass by him who best understood them Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart and with all thy Soul and thy Neighbour as thy self Precepts nothing like the Tedious Endless Confused Trash of Humane Laws Laws so numerous that they not only exceed men's Practice but also surpass their Arithmetick and so voluminous that no mortal Head nor Shoulders neither must ever pretend themselves able to bear them In God's Laws the Words are few the Sense vast and infinite In Humane Laws you shall be sure to have Words enough but for the most part to discern the Sense and Reason of them you had need read them with a Microscope And thus having shewn how the Almighty utters himself when he speaks and that upon the greatest Occasions let us now descend from Heaven to Earth from God to Man and shew That it is no presumption for us to Conform our Words as well as our Actions to the supreme Pattern and according to our poor measures to imitate the Wisdom that we adore And for this has it not been noted by the best Observers and the ablest Judges both of Things and Persons that the Wisdom of any People or Nation has been most seen in the Proverbs and short Sayings commonly received amongst them And what is a Proverb but the Experience and Observation of several Ages gathered and summ'd up into one Expression The Scripture vouches Solomon for the wisest of Men and they are his Proverbs that prove him so The Seven Wife men of Greece so famous for their Wisdom all the World over acquired all that Fame each of them by a single Sentence consisting of two or three Words And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 still lives and flourishes in the Mouths of all while many vast Volumes are extinct and sunk into Dust and utter Oblivion And then for Books we shall generally find that the most Excellent in any Art or Science have been still the smallest and most compendious And this not without ground for it is an Argument that the Author was a Master of what he wrote and had a clear Notion and a full Comprehension of the Subject before him For the Reason of Things lies in a little compass if the Mind could at any time be so happy as to light upon it Most of the Writings and Discourses in the World are but Illustration and Rhetorick which signifies as much as nothing to a Mind eager in pursuit after the Causes and Philosophical Truth of Things It is the work of Fancy to enlarge but of Judgment to shorten and contract and therefore this must needs be as far above the other as Judgment is a greater and a nobler Faculty than Fancy or Imagination All Philosophy is reduced to a few Principles and those Principles comprized in a few Propositions And as the whole Structure of Speculation rests upon three or four Axioms or Maxims so that of Practice also bears upon a very small number of Rules And surely there was never yet any Rule or Maxim that filled a Volume or took up a Week's time to be got by Heart No these are the Apices Rerum the Tops and Summs the very Spirit and Life of Things extracted and abridged just as all the Lines drawn from the vastest
acting while those Principles of Activity flag No man begins and ends a long Journey with the same pace But now when Prayer has lost its due fervour and attention which indeed are the very Vitals of it it is but the Carkase of a Prayer and consequently must needs be loathsome and offensive to God Nay though the greatest part of it should be enlivened and carried on with an actual Attention yet if that Attention fails to enliven any one part of it the whole is but a joyning of the Living and the Dead together for which Conjunction the Dead is not at all the better but the Living very much the worse It is not length nor copiousness of Language that is Devotion any more than Bulk and Bigness is Valour or Flesh the measure of the Spirit A short Sentence may be oftentimes a large and a mighty Prayer Devotion so managed being like Water in a Well where you have fullness in a little compass which surely is much nobler than the same carried out into many petit creeping Rivulets with length and shallowness together Let him who prays bestow all that strength fervour and attention upon Shortness and Significance that would otherwise run out and lose it self in Length and Luxuriancy of Speech to no purpose Let not his Tongue out-strip his Heart nor presume to carry a Message to the Throne of Grace while that stays behind Let him not think to support so hard and weighty a Duty with a tired languishing and be-jaded Devotion To avoid which let a Man contract his Expression where he cannot enlarge his Affection still remembring that nothing can be more absurd in it self nor more unacceptable to God than for one engaged in the great Work of Prayer to hold on speaking after he has left off praying and to keep the lips at work when the spirit can do no more 4 ly The fourth Argument for shortness or conciseness of Speech in Prayer shall be drawn from this That it is the most natural and lively way of expressing the utmost Agonies and Out-cries of the Soul to God upon a quick pungent sense either of a pressing Necessity or an approaching Calamity which we know are generally the chief Occasions of Prayer and the most effectual Motives to bring Men upon their Knees in a vigorous Application of themselves to this great Duty A person ready to sink under his Wants has neither time nor heart to Rhetoricate or make Flourishes No Man begins a long Grace when he is ready to starve Such an one's Prayers are like the Relief he needs quick and suddain short and immediate He is like a Man in Torture upon the Rack whose Pains are too acute to let his Words be many and whose Desires of Deliverance too impatient to delay the things he begs for by the manner of his begging it It is a Common Saying If a Man does not know how to Pray let him go to Sea and that will teach him And we have a notable Instance of what kind of prayers Men are taught in that School even in the Disciples themselves when a Storm arose and the Sea raged and the Ship was ready to be cast away in the 8 th of Matthew In which Case we doe not find that they fell presently to harangue it about Seas and Winds and that dismal face of things that must needs appear all over the devouring Element at such a time All which and the like might no doubt have been very plentifull Topicks of Eloquence to a Man who should have lookt upon these things from the Shoar or discoursed of Wrecks and Tempests safe and warm in his Parlour But these poor Wretches who were now entring as they thought into the very Jaws of Death and struggling with the last Efforts of Nature upon the Sense of a departing Life and consequently could neither speak nor think any thing low or ordinary in such a Condition presently rallied up and discharged the whole Concern of their desponding Souls in that short Prayer of but three words though much fuller and more forcible than one of three thousand in the 25th Verse of the fore-mentioned Chapter Save us Lord or we perish Death makes short work when it comes and will teach him who would prevent it to make shorter For surely no Man who thinks himself just a perishing can be at leisure to be Eloquent or judge it either Sense or Devotion to begin a long Prayer when in all likelihood he shall conclude his Life before it 5 ly The fifth and last Argument that I shall produce for Brevity of Speech or Fewness of Words in Prayer shall be taken from the Examples which we find in Scripture of such as have been remarkable for Brevity and of such as have been noted for Prolixity of Speech in the discharge of this Duty 1. And first for Brevity To omit all those notable Examples which the Old Testament affords us of it and to confine our selves only to the New in which we are undoubtedly most concerned Was not this way of Praying not only Warranted but Sanctified and set above all that the Will of Man could possibly except against it by that infinitely exact Form of Prayer prescribed by the Greatest the Holiest and the Wisest Man that ever lived even Christ himself the Son of God and Saviour of the World Was it not an instance both of the truest Devotion and the fullest and most comprehensive Reason that ever proceeded from the Mouth of Man And yet withall the shortest and most succinct Model that ever grasped all the Needs and Occasions of Mankind both Spiritual and Temporal into so small a compass Doubtless had our Saviour thought fit to amplifie or be prolix He in whom were hid all the Treasures of Wisdom could not want Matter nor he who was himself the Word want Variety of the fittest to have expressed his Mind by But He chose rather to contract the whole Concern of both Worlds into a few Lines and to unite both Heaven and Earth in his Prayer as he had done before in his Person And indeed one was a kind of Copy or Representation of the other So then we see here Brevity in the Rule or Pattern let us see it next in the Practice and after that in the Success of Prayer And first we have the Practice as well as the Pattern of it in our Saviour himself and that in the most signal passage of his whole Life even his Preparation for his approaching Death In which dolorous Scene when his whole Soul was nothing but Sorrow that great moving Spring of Invention and Elocution and when Nature was put to its last and utmost stretch and so had no refuge or relief but in Prayer yet even then all this Horror Agony and Distress of Spirit delivers it self but in two very short Sentences in Matth. 26. 39. O my Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt And
as to take pleasure in other men's Sins For we know what a foul Sin David committed and what a Crime St. Peter himself fell into both of them no doubt fully and clearly against the Dictates of their Conscience yet we do not find that either of them was thereby brought to such an impious frame of Heart as to delight in their own Sins and much less in other men's And therefore it is not every sinfull Violation of Conscience that can quench the Spirit to such a degree as we have been speaking of but it must be a long inveterate Course and Custom of Sinning after this manner that at length produces and ends in such a cursed Effect For this is so great a Master-piece in Sin that no Man begins with it He must have pass'd his Tyrocinium or Novitiate in Sinning before he can come to this be he never so quick a Proficient No man can mount so fast as to set his Foot upon the highest step of the Ladder at first Before a man can come to be pleased with a Sin because he sees his Neighbour commit it he must have had such a long Acquaintance with it himself as to create a kind of Intimacy or Friendship between him and That and then we know a Man is Naturally glad to see his Old friend not only at his own House but wheresoever he meets him It is generally the Property of an Old Sinner to find a delight in re-viewing his own Villainies in the Practice of other Men to see his Sin and himself as it were in Reversion and to find a greater satisfaction in beholding him who succeeds him in his Vice than him who is to succeed him in his Estate In the matter of Sin Age makes a greater Change upon the Soul than it does or can upon the Body And as in this if we compare the Picture of a Man drawn at the Years of Seventeen or Eighteen with the Picture of the same person at Threescore and Ten hardly the least Trace or Similitude of one Face can be found in the other So for the Soul the Difference of the Dispositions and Qualities of the Inner Man will be found much greater Compare the Harmlesness the Credulity the Tenderness the Modesty and the Ingenuous pliableness to vertuous Counsels which is in Youth as it comes fresh and untainted out of the hands of Nature with the Mischievousness the Slyness the Craft the Impudence the Falshood and the confirmed Obstinacy in most sorts of Sin that is to be found in an aged long-practised Sinner and you will confess the Complexion and Hue of his Soul to be altered more than that of his Face Age has given him another Body and Custom another Mind All those Seeds of Vertue and good Morality that were the Natural Endowments of our first Years are lost and dead for ever And in respect of the Native Innocence of Childhood no man through Old Age becomes twice a Child The Vices of Old Age have in them the stiffness of it too And as it is the unfittest Time to learn in so the unfitness of it to unlearn will be found much greater Which Considerations joyned with that of its Imbecillity make it the proper Season for a super-annuated Sinner to enjoy the Delights of Sin in the Rebound and to supply the Impotence of Practice by the airy phantastick Pleasure of Memory and Reflection For all that can be allowed him now is to refresh his decrepit effete Sensuality with the Transcript and History of his former Life recognized and read over by him in the vitious Rants of the vigorous youthfull Debauchees of the present time whom with an odd kind of Passion mixed of Pleasure and Envy too he sees flourishing in all the bravery and prime of their Age and Vice An old Wrestler loves to look on and to be near the Lists though Feebleness will not let him offer at the Prize An old Huntsman finds a Musick in the Noise of Hounds though he cannot follow the Chace An old Drunkard loves a Tavern though he cannot go to it but as he is supported and led by another just as some are observed to come from thence And an old Wanton will be doating upon Women when he can scarce see them without Spectacles And to shew the true Love and faithfull Allegiance that the Old Servants and Subjects of Vice ever after bear to it nothing is more usual and frequent than to hear that such as have been Strumpets in their Youth turn Procurers in their Age. Their great Concern is that the Vice may still go on 4 ly A fourth Cause of men's taking pleasure in the Sins of others is from that meanness and poor-spiritedness that naturally and inseparably accompanies all Guilt Whosoever is conscious to himself of Sin feels in himself whether he will own it or no a proportionable Shame and a secret Depression of Spirit thereupon And this is so irksome and uneasie to Man's mind that he is restless to relieve and rid himself from it For which he finds no way so effectual as to get Company in the same Sin For Company in any Action gives both Credit to that and Countenance to the Agent and so much as the Sinner gets of this so much he casts off of Shame Singularity in Sin puts it out of fashion since to be alone in any Practice seems to make the Judgment of the World against it but the Concurrence of others is a Tacit Approbation of that in which they concurr Solitude is a kind of Nakedness and the Result of that we know is Shame 'T is Company only that can bear a Man out in an ill Thing and he who is to encounter and fight the Law will be sure to need a Second No wonder therefore if some take delight in the Immoralities and Baseness of others for nothing can support their Minds drooping and sneaking and inwardly reproaching them from a sense of their own guilt but to see others as bad as themselves To be Vitious amongst the Vertuous is a double disgrace and misery but where the whole Company is vitious and debauched they presently like or at least easily pardon one another And as it is observed by some that there is none so homely but loves a Looking-glass so it is certain that there is no man so vicious but delights to see the Image of his Vice reflected upon him from one who exceeds or at least equals him in the same Sin in it self is not only shamefull but also weak and it seeks a Remedy for both in Society For it is this that must give it both Colour and Support But on the contrary how great and as I may so speak how Self-sufficient a thing is Vertue It needs no Credit from Abroad no Countenance from the Multitude Were there but one vertuous man in the World he would hold up his Head with Confidence and Honour He would shame the World and not the World him For according to
upon these Three things First To shew what it is that brings a man to such a Disposition of Mind as to take pleasure in other men's Sins Secondly To shew the Reasons why a man 's being disposed to doe so comes to be attended with such an extraordinary Guilt Thirdly and Lastly To declare what kind of Persons are to be reckoned under this Character The Two first of which being dispatched already I proceed now to the Third and Last Concerning which I shall lay down this general Assertion That whosoever draws others to Sin ought to be lookt upon as one delighting in those Sins that he draws them to For as much as no man is brought to doe any thing especially if it be ill or wicked but in order to the pleasing of himself by it It being absurd and incredible that any one should venture to damn himself hereafter for that which does not some way or other gratifie and please him here But to draw forth this General into Particulars 1. First of all Those are to be accounted to take pleasure in other men's Sins who teach Doctrines directly tending to engage such as believe them in a sinfull Course For there is none so compendious and efficacious a way to prepare a man for all Sin as this This being properly to put out the Eyes of that which is to be his Guide by perverting his Judgment and when that is once done you may carry him whither you will Chance must be his Rule and present Appetite his Director A man's Judgment or Conscience is the great Spring of all his Actions and consequently to corrupt or pervert this is to derive a Contagion upon all that he does And therefore we see how high a Guilt our Saviour charges upon this in Matth. 5. 19. Whosoever shall break one of these least Commandments and shall teach men so shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven That is in Truth shall never come thither And we find the great Sin of the Pharisees was that they promoted and abetted the Sins of other Men taught the Devil's Doctrine out of Moses's Chair and by false Descants upon the Divine Precepts cut asunder the binding force of them So that according to their wretched Comments Men might break the Law and yet never sin against it For in Matth. 15. 5 6. they had taught Men how to dishonour their Parents without any Violation of the Fifth Commandment Thus they preached And what design can any one imagine the Authors of such Doctrines could have but the Depravation of men's Manners For if some Men teach wicked Things it must be that others should practise them And if one Man sets another a Copy it is no doubt with a purpose that he should write after it Now these Doctrines are of Two sorts 1. Such as represent Actions that are in themselves really wicked and sinfull as not so 2. Such as represent them much less sinfull as to their kind or degrees than indeed they are For the first of which To instance in one very gross one instead of many take the Doctrine of those commonly called Antinomians who assert positively That Believers or Persons regenerate and within the Covenant of Grace cannot Sin Upon which account no wonder if some very liberally assume to themselves the Condition and Character of Believers for then they know that other mighty Privilege belongs to them of course But what may not these Believers Cheat and Lye commit Adultery Steal Murther and Rebel Why yes they may and nothing is more common than to see such Believers doe such things But how then can they escape the Charge of all that Guilt that Naturally follows from such Enormities Why thus you must in this case with great Care and Accuracy distinguish between the Act of Lying and the Sin of Lying the Act of Stealing and the Sin of Stealing and the Act of Rebellion and the Sin of Rebellion Now though all these Acts are frequent and usual with such persons yet they are sure as they order the matter never to be guilty of the Sin And the Reason is because it is not the Quality of the Action that derives a Qualification upon the Person so as to render him such or such good or bad but it is the Antecedent Quality or Condition of the Person that denominates his Actions and stamps them Good or Evil. So that they are those only who are first wicked that doe wicked Actions But Believers and the Godly though they doe the very same things yet they so much out-wit the Devil in the doing of them that they never commit the same Sins But you will say how came they by such a great and strange Privilege Why they will tell you it is because they are not under the obliging Power of the Law And if you ask further How they come to get from under that common Obligation that lies so hard and heavy upon all the rest of the World They will tell you it is from this That Believers instead of the Law have the Spirit actually dwelling in them and by an admirable kind of invisible Clock-work moving them just as a Spring does a Watch and that immediately by himself alone without the Mediation of any written Law or Rule to guide or direct and much less to command or oblige them So that the Spirit we see is to be their sole Director without and very often contrary to the written Law An excellent Contrivance doubtless to authorize and sanctifie the blackest and most flagitious Actions that can proceed from Man For since the Motions of the Spirit which they so confidently suppose themselves to have cannot so much as in things Good and Lawfull by any certain Diagnostick be distinguished from the Motions of a Man 's own Heart they very easily make a step further and even in things unlawfull conclude the Motions of their own Hearts to be the Impulse of the Spirit and this presently alters the whole Complexion of an Action that would otherwise look but very scurvily and makes it absolutely pure and unblameable or rather perfect and meritorious So that let a Man have but Impudence and Wickedness enough to Libel his Maker and to entitle the Spirit of God to all that he does or desires Sur-naming his own Inclinations and Appetites though never so irregular and impure the Holy Ghost and you may upon very sure grounds turn him loose and bid him Sin if he can And thus much for the first sort of Doctrines which once believed like the Floud-gates of Hell pulled up le ts in a Deluge and Inundation of all Sin and Vice upon the Lives of Men. And if this be the Natural effect of the Doctrines themselves we cannot in all reason but inferr that the Interest of the Teachers of them must needs be agreeable 2. The other sort of Doctrines tending to engage such as believe them in a sinfull Course are such as represent many Sins much less as to
assurance conclude That he who is not frequently upon his Knees before he comes to that holy Table Kneels to very little purpose when he is there But then Fourthly Because Prayer is not only one of the highest and hardest Duties in it self but ought to be more than ordinarily servent and vigorous before the Sacrament Let the Body be also called in as an Assistant to the Soul and Abstinence and Fasting added to promote and heighten her Devotions Prayer is a kind of Wrestling with God and he who would win the Prize at that Exercise must be severely dieted for that purpose The truth is Fasting was ever acknowledged by the Church in all Ages as a singular Instrument of Religion and a particular Preparative to the Sacrament And hardly was there ever any thing Great or Heroick either done or attempted in Religion without it Thus when Moses received the Law from God it was with Fasting Deut. 9. 9. When Christ entred upon the great Office of his Mediatorship it was with Fasting Matth. 4. 2. And when Paul and Barnabas were separated to that high and difficult Charge of Preaching to the Gentiles Acts 13. 2. still it was managed with Fasting And we know the Rubrick of our own Church always almost enjoyns a Fast to prepare us for a Festival Bodily Abstinence is certainly a great help to the Spirit and the Experience of all wise and good Men has ever found it so The Ways of Nature and the Methods of Grace are vastly different Good Men themselves are never so surprized as in the midst of their Jollities nor so fatally over-taken and caught as when the Table is made the Snare Even our first Parents ate themselves out of Paradise and Iob's Children junketted and feasted together often but the Reckoning cost them dear at last The Heart of the Wise says Solomon is in the House of Mourning and the House of Fasting adjoyns to it In a word Fasting is the Diet of Angels the Food and Refection of Souls and the richest and highest Aliment of Grace And he who Fasts for the sake of Religion Hungers and Thirsts after Righteousness without a Metaphor Fifthly Since every Devout Prayer is designed to ascend and fly up to Heaven as Fasting according to St. Austin's Allusion has given it one Wing so let Alms-giving to the Poor supply it with another And both these together will not only carry it up Triumphant to Heaven but if need require bring Heaven it self down to the Devout Person who sends it thither As while Cornelius was Fasting and Praying to which he still joyned giving Alms an Angel from Heaven was dispatched to him with this happy Message Acts 10. 4. Thy Prayers and thine Alms are come up for a Memorial before God And nothing certainly can give a greater Efficacy to Prayer and a more peculiar Fitness for the Sacrament than an Hearty and Conscientious Practice of this Duty without which all that has been mentioned hitherto is nothing but Wind and Air Pageantry and Hypocrisie For if there be any truer Measure of a Man than by what he does it must be by what he gives He who is truly Pious will account it a Wedding-supper to Feed the Hungry and a Wedding-garment to Cloath the Naked And God and Man will find it a very unfit Garment for such a purpose which has not in it a Purse or Pocket for the Poor But so far are some from considering the Poor before the Sacrament that they have been observed to give nothing to the Poor even at the Sacrament And those such that if Rich Cloaths might pass for a Wedding-garment none could appear better fitted for such a Solemnity than themselves yet some such I say I my self have seen at a Communion drop nothing into the Poor's Bason But good God! What is the Heart of such Worldlings made of and what a Mind doe they bring with them to so Holy an Ordinance An Ordinance in which none can be qualified to receive whose Heart does not serve them also to give From such indeed as have nothing God expects nothing but where God has given as I may say with both Hands and Men return with None such must know that the Poor have an Action of Debt against them and that God Himself will undertake and prosecute their Suit for them and if he does since they could not find in their Hearts to proportion their Charity to their Estates nothing can be more just than for God to proportion their Estates to their Charity and by so doing he cannot well give them a shrewder and a shorter Cut. In the mean time let such know further That whosoever dares upon so Sacred and Solemn an Occasion approach the Altar with Bowels so shut up as to leave nothing behind him there for the Poor shall be sure to carry something away with him from thence which will doe him but little good Sixthly Since the Charity of the Hand signifies but little unless it springs form the Heart and flows through the Mouth let the Pious Communicant both in Heart and Tongue Thoughts and Speech put on a Charitable Friendly Christian Temper of Mind and Carriage towards all Wrath and Envy Malice and Backbiting and the like are direct Contradictions to the very Spirit of Christianity and fit a Man for the Sacrament just as much as a Stomach over-flowed with Gall would help him to digest his Meat St. Paul often Rebukes and Schools such Disturbers of the World very sharply correcting a base Humour by a very generous Rule Phil. 2. 3. Let each says he esteem others better than themselves No Man doubtless shall ever be Condemned of God for not Iudging his Brother For be thy Brother or Neighbour never so wicked and ungodly satisfie thy self with this That another's Wickedness shall never Damn thee but thy own Bitterness and Rancour may and continued in certainly will Rather let his want of Grace give thee occasion to exercise Thine if thou hast any in Thinking and Speaking better of him than he deserves And if thy Charity proves mistaken assure thy self that God will accept the Charity and over-look the Mistake But if in Judging him whom thou hast nothing to doe with thou chancest to Judge one way and God and Truth to Judge another take heed of that Dreadfull Tribunal where it will not be enough to say That I thought this or I heard that and where no Man's mistake will be able to warrant an unjust Surmise and much less justifie a false Censure Such would find it much better for them to retreat inwards and view themselves in the Law of God and their own Consciences and that will tell them their own impartially that will fetch off all their paint and shew them a foul Face in a true Glass Let them read over their Catechism and lay aside Spight and Virulence Gossipping and Medling Calumny and Detraction and let not all about them be Villains and Reprobates because they themselves are Envious
of Intercourse with God as Papists and Fanaticks who in most Things copy from one another as well as rail at one another do usually boast of But certainly if the Evil Spirit may and often does suggest wicked and vile Thoughts to the Minds of Men as all do and must grant and is sufficiently proved from the Devil 's putting it into the Heart of Iudas to betray Christ John 13. 2. And his filling the Heart of Ananias to lye to the Holy Ghost Acts 5. 3. It cannot after this with any Colour of Reason be doubted but that the Holy Spirit of God whose Power and Influence to Good is much greater than that of the wicked Spirit to Evil does frequently inject into and imprint upon the Soul many blessed Motions and Impulses to Duty and many powerfull Avocations from Sin So that a Man shall not only as the Prophet says hear a Voice behind him but also a Voice within him telling him which way he ought to go For doubtless there is something more in those Expressions of being led by the Spirit and being taught by the Spirit and the like than meer Tropes and Metaphors and nothing less is or can be imported by them than that God sometimes speaks to and converses with the Hearts of Men immediately by himself And happy those who by thus hearing him speak in a still Voice shall prevent his speaking to them in Thunder But you will here ask perhaps how we shall distinguish in such Motions which of them proceed immediately from the Spirit of God and which from the Conscience In answer to which I must confess that I know no certain Mark of Discrimination to distinguish them by save only in general that such as proceed immediately from God use to strike the Mind suddenly and very powerfully But then I add also that as the Knowledge of this in Point of Speculation is so nice and difficult so thanks be to God in Point of Practice it is not necessary But let a Man universally observe and obey every good Motion rising in his Heart knowing that every such Motion proceeds from God either mediately or immediately and that whether God speaks immediately by himself to the Conscience or mediately by the Conscience to the Soul the Authority is the same in both and the Contempt of either is Rebellion Now the Thing which I drive at under this Head of Discourse is to shew That as God is sometimes pleased to address himself in this Manner to the Hearts of Men so if the Heart will receive and answer such Motions by a ready and obsequious Compliance with them there is no doubt but they will both return more frequently and still more and more powerfully till at length they produce such a Degree of Light in the Conscience as shall give a Man both a clear Sight of his Duty and a certain Iudgment of his Condition On the contrary as all Resistance whatsoever of the Dictates of Conscience even in the Way of Natural Efficiency brings a kind of Hardness and Stupefaction upon it So the Resistance of these peculiar Suggestions of the Spirit will cause in it also a Iudicial Hardness which is yet worse than the other So that God shall withdraw from such an Heart and the Spirit being grieved shall depart and these blessed Motions shall cease and affect and visit it no more The Consequence of which is very terrible as rendring a Man past feeling And then the less he feels in this World the more he shall be sure to feel in the next But 3. Because the Light of Natural Conscience is in many Things defective and dimn and the Internal Voice of God's Spirit not always distinguishable above all let a Man attend to the Mind of God uttered in his Revealed Word I say his Revealed Word By which I do not mean that Mysterious Extraordinary and of late so much studied Book called the Revelation and which perhaps the more it is studied the less 't is understood as generally either finding a Man crack'd or making him so But I mean those other Writings of the Prophets and Apostles which exhibit to us a plain sure perfect and intelligible Rule a Rule that will neither fail nor distract such as make use of it A Rule to judge of the two former Rules by For nothing that contradicts the Revealed Word of God is either the Voice of Right Reason or of the Spirit of God nor is it possible that it should be so without God's contradicting himself And therefore we see what high Elogies are given to the Written Word by the inspired Pen-men of both Testaments It giveth Understanding to the simple says David in Psalm 119. 130. And that you will say is no such easie Matter to doe It is able to make the Man of God perfect says St. Paul 2 Tim. 3. 17. It is quick and powerfull and sharper than any Two-edged Sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of the Soul and Spirit and is a Discerner of the Thoughts and Intents of the Heart Heb. 4. 12. Now what a Force and Fulness what a Vigour and Emphasis is there in all these Expressions Enough one would think to recommend and endear the Scriptures even to the Papists themselves For if as the Text says They give understanding to the simple I know none more concerned to read and study them than their Popes Wherefore since the Light and Energy of the Written Word is so mighty let a Man bring and hold his Conscience to this steady Rule the unalterable Rectitude of which will infallibly discover the Rectitude or Obliquity of whatsoever it is applied to We shall find it a Rule both to instruct us what to doe and to assure us in what we have done For though Natural Conscience ought to be listned to yet it is Revelation alone that is to be relied upon As we may observe in the Works of Art a Judicious Artist will indeed use his Eye but he will trust only to his Rule There is not any one Action whatsoever which a Man ought to doe or to forbear but the Scripture will give him a clear Precept or Prohibition for it So that if a Man will commit such Rules to his Memory and stock his Mind with Portions of Scripture answerable to all the Heads of Duty and Practice his Conscience can never be at a Loss either for a Direction of his Actions or an Answer to a Temptation It was the very Course which our Saviour himself took when the Devil plied him with Temptation upon Temptation Still he had a sutable Scripture ready to repell and baffle them all one after another Every pertinent Text urged home being a direct Stabb to a Temptation Let a Man therefore consider and recount with himself the several Duties and Vertues of a Christian. Such as Temperance Meekness Charity Purity of Heart Pardoning of Enemies Patience I had almost said Passive Obedience too but that such old fashioned Christianity seems as
the Throne of Grace and his Boldness is not greater than his Welcome God recognizes the voice of his own Spirit interceding within him and his Prayers are not only followed but even prevented with an Answer 2ly A Second Instance in which this Confidence towards God does so remarkably shew it self is at the Time of some notable Tryal or sharp Affliction When a Man's Friends shall desert him his Relations disown him and all Dependencies fail him and in a word the whole World frown upon him certainly it will then be of some moment to have a Friend in the Court of Conscience which shall as it were buoy up his sinking Spirits and speak greater Things for him than all these together can Declaim against him For it is most certain that no Height of Honour nor affluence of Fortune can keep a Man from being Miserable nor indeed Contemptible when an enraged Conscience shall fly at him and take him by the Throat so it is also as certain that no Temporal Adversities can cut off those inward secret invincible Supplies of Comfort which Conscience shall pour in upon distressed Innocence in spight and in defiance of all Worldly Calamities Naturalists observe that when the Frost seizes upon Wine they are onely the slighter and more waterish parts of it that are subject to be congealed but still there is a mighty Spirit which can retreat into it self and there within its own Compass lie secure from the freezing impression of the Element round about it And just so it is with the Spirit of a Man while a good Conscience makes it firm and impenetrable An outward Affliction can no more benumb or quell it than a blast of Wind can freeze up the Bloud in a Man's Veins or a little Showr of Rain soak into his Heart and there quench the Principle of Life it self Take the two greatest Instances of Misery which I think are incident to Humane Nature to wit Poverty and Shame and I dare oppose Conscience to them both And first for Poverty Suppose a Man stripped of all driven out of House and Home and perhaps out of his Countrey too which having within our memory happened to so many may too easily God knows be supposed again yet if his Conscience shall tell him that it was not for any failure in his own Duty but from the success of anothers Villainy that all this befell him why then his Banishment becomes his Preferment his Rags his Trophies his Nakedness his Ornament and so long as his Innocence is his Repast he feasts and banquets upon Bread and Water He has disarmed his Afflictions unstung his Miseries and though he has not the proper Happiness of the World yet he has the greatest that is to be enjoyed in it And for this we might appeal to the Experience of those great and good Men who in the late Times of Rebellion and Confusion were forced into foreign Countries for their unshaken Firmness and Fidelity to the oppressed Cause of Majesty and Religion whether their Conscience did not like a Fidus Achates still bear them company stick close to them and suggest Comfort even when the Causes of Comfort were invisible and in a word verify that great saying of the Apostle in their Mouths We have nothing and yet we possess all Things For it is not barely a Man's Abridgement in his External Accommodations which makes him miserable but when his Conscience shall hit him in the Teeth and tell him that it was his Sin and his Folly which brought him under these Abridgements That his present scanty Meals are but the natural Effects of his former over full ones That it was his Taylor and his Cook his fine Fashions and his French Ragou's which sequestred him and in a word that he came by his Poverty as sinfully as some usually do by their Riches and consequently that Providence treats him with all these Severities not by way of Trial but by way of Punishment and Revenge The Mind surely of it self can feel none of the Burnings of a Fever but if my Fever be occasioned by a Surfeit and that Surfeit caused by my Sin it is that which adds Fuel to the fiery Disease and Rage to the Distemper 2 ly Let us consider also the Case of Calumny and Disgrace Doubtless the Sting of every reproachfull Speech is the Truth of it and to be conscious is that which gives an Edge and Keenness to the Invective Otherwise when Conscience shall plead not guilty to the Charge a Man entertains it not as an Endictment but as a Libel He hears all such Calumnies with a generous Unconcernment and receiving them at one Ear gives them a free and easie Passage through the other They fall upon him like Rain or Hail upon an oiled Garment they may make a Noise indeed but can find no Entrance The very Whispers of an acquitting Conscience will drown the Voice of the loudest Slander What a long Charge of Hypocrisie and many other base Things did Iob's Friends draw up against him But he regarded it no more than the Dunghill which he sate upon while his Conscience enabled him to appeal even to God Himself and in Spight of Calumny to assert and hold fast his Integrity And did not Ioseph lie under as black an Infamy as the Charge of the highest Ingratitude and the lewdest Villainy could fasten upon him Yet his Conscience raised him so much above it that he scorned so much as to clear himself or to recriminate the Strumpet by a true Narrative of the Matter For we read nothing of that in the whole Story Such Confidence such Greatness of Spirit does a clear Conscience give a Man always making him more solicitous to preserve his Innocence than concerned to prove it And so we come now to the 3 d. and last Instance in which above all others this Confidence towards God does most eminently shew and exert it self and that is at the Time of Death Which surely gives the grand Opportunity of trying both the Strength and Worth of every Principle When a Man shall be just about to quit the Stage of this World to put off his Mortality and to deliver up his last Accounts to God at which sad Time his Memory shall serve him for little else but to terrify him with a frightfull Review of his past Life and his former Extravagances stripped of all their Pleasure but retaining their Guilt What is it then that can promise him a fair Passage into the other World or a comfortable Appearance before his dreadfull Judge when he is there Not all the Friends and Interests all the Riches and Honours under Heaven can speak so much as a Word for him or one Word of Comfort to him in that Condition they may possibly reproach but they cannot relieve him No at this disconsolate Time when the busie Tempter shall be more than usually apt to vex and trouble him and the Pains of a dying Body to hinder and discompose him
direct design of the Command is to enjoyn this also wheresoever there is ability and power to perform it So that we see here the Necessity of vocal Prayer founded upon the Authority of a Divine Precept whereas for long Prolix Prayer no such Precept can be produced and consequently the Divine Omniscience may be a sufficient Reason against Multiplicity of Words in Prayer and yet conclude nothing simply or absolutely against the bare use of them Nevertheless that we may not seem to alledge bare Command unseconded by Reason which yet in the Divine Commands it is impossible to doe there is this great Reason for and use of Words in Prayer without the least pretence of Informing the person whom we pray to and that is to acknowledge and own those wants before God that we supplicate for a Relief of It being very proper and rational to own and acknowledge a thing even to him who knew it before For as much as this is so far from offering to communicate or make known to him the thing so acknowledged that it rather pre-supposes in him an Antecedent knowledge of it and comes in only as a subsequent Assent and subscription to the Reality and Truth of such a Knowledge For to acknowledge a thing in the first sense of the word does by no means signify a design of Notifying that thing to another but is truly and properly a man's passing Sentence upon himself and his own Condition There being no reason in the World for a Man to expect that God should relieve and supply those Wants that he himself will not own nor take notice of any more than for a Man to hope for a pardon of those Sins that he cannot find in his heart to confess And yet I suppose no Man in his right Senses does or can imagine that God is informed or brought to the knowledge of those Sins by any such Confession And so much for the clearing of this Objection And in the whole for the first Argument produced by us for Brevity and against Prolixity of Prayer namely That all the Reasons that can be assigned for Prolixity of Speech in our Converse with Men cease and become no Reasons for it at all when we are to speak or pray to God 2 ly The second Argument for Paucity of Words in Prayer shall be taken from the Paucity of those things that are Necessary to be prayed for And surely where few Things are necessary few Words should be sufficient For where the Matter is not Commensurate to the Words all Speaking is but Tautology that being truly and really Tautology where the same thing is repeated though under never so much variety of Expression As it is but the same Man still though he appears every day or every hour in a new and different Sute of Clothes The adequate Subject of our Prayers I shew'd at first comprehended in it Things of Necessity and Things of Charity As to the first of which I know nothing absolutely necessary but Grace here and Glory hereafter And for the other we know what the Apostle says 1 Tim. 6. 8. Having food and raiment let us be therewith content Nature is satisfied with a little and Grace with less And now if the Matter of our Prayers lies within so narrow a compass why should the Dress and Out-side of them spread and diffuse it self into so wide and disproportioned a largeness By reason of which our Words will be forced to hang loose and light without any Matter to support them much after the same rate that it is said to be in Transubstantiation where Accidents are left in the lurch by their proper Subject that gives them the slip and so leaves those poor slender Beings to uphold and shift for themselves In Brevity of Speech a Man does not so much speak Words as Things Things in their precise and naked Truth and stripp'd of their Rhetorical Mask and their Fallacious Gloss And therefore in Athens they circumscribed the Pleadings of their Orators by a strict Law cutting off Prologues and Epilogues and Commanding them to an immediate Representation of the Case by an impartial and succinct Declaration of meer Matter of Fact And this was indeed to speak Things fit for a Judge to hear because it argued the Pleader also a Judge of what was fit for him to speak And now why should not this be both Decency and Devotion too when we come to plead for our poor Souls before the great Tribunal of Heaven It was the Saying of Solomon A Word to the Wise and if so certainly there can be no necessity of many Words to Him who is Wisdom it self For can any man think that God delights to hear him make Speeches and to shew his Parts as the word is or to jumble a multitude of misapplied Scripture-sentences together interlarded with a frequent nauseous Repetition of Ah Lord which some call exercising their Gifts but with a greater exercise of their Hearers patience Nay does not he present his Maker not only with a more decent but also a more free and liberal Oblation who tenders him much in a little and brings him his whole Heart and Soul wrapt up in three or four words than he who with full Mouth and loud Lungs sends up whole Vollies of Articulate Breath to the Throne of Grace For neither in the esteem of God or Man ought multitude of Words to pass for any more In the present Case no doubt God accounts and accepts of the former as infinitely a more valuable Offering than the latter As that Subject pays his Prince a much nobler and more acceptable Tribute who tenders him a Purse of Gold than he who brings him a whole Cart-load of Farthings in which there is Weight without Worth and Number without Account 3 ly The third Argument for Brevity or Contractedness of Speech in Prayer shall be taken from the very Nature and Condition of the person who prays which makes it impossible for him to keep up the same fervour and attention in a long Prayer that he may in a short For as I first observed that the Mind of Man cannot with the same force and vigour attend two several Objects at the same time so neither can it with the same force and earnestness exert it self upon one and the same Object for any long time Great Intention of Mind spending the Spirits too fast to continue its first freshness and agility long For while the Soul is a Retainer to the Elements and a Sojourner in the Body it must be content to submit its own quickness and spirituality to the dullness of its Vehicle and to comply with the pace of its inferiour Companion Just like a Man shut up in a Coach who while he is so must be willing to go no faster than the Motion of the Coach will carry him He who does all by the help of those subtile refin'd parts of Matter called Spirits must not think to persevere at the same pitch of
which is out of the Compass of any Man's Power is to that Man Impossible He therefore who exerts all the Powers and Faculties of his Soul and plies all Means and Opportunities in the Search of Truth which God has vouchsafed him may rest upon the Judgment of his Conscience so informed as a Warrantable Guide of those Actions which he must account to God for And if by following such a Guide he falls into the Ditch the Ditch shall never drown him or if it should the Man perishes not by his Sin but by his Misfortune In a word he who endeavours to know the utmost of his Duty that he can and practises the utmost that he knows has the Equity and Goodness of the great God to stand as a mighty Wall or Rampart between him and Damnation for any Errours or Infirmities which the Frailty of his Condition has invincibly and therefore inculpably exposed him to And if a Conscience thus qualified and informed be not the Measure by which a Man may take a true Estimate of his Absolution before the Tribunal of God all the Understanding of humane Nature cannot find out any Ground for the Sinner to pitch the Sole of his Foot upon or rest his Conscience with any Assurance but is left in the Plunge of Infinite Doubts and Uncertainties Suspicions and Misgivings both as to the Measures of his present Duty and the final Issues of his future Reward Let this Conclusion therefore stand as the firm Result of the foregoing Discourse and the Foundation of what is to follow That such a Conscience as has not been wanting to it self in endeavouring to get the utmost and clearest Information about the Will of God that its Power Advantages and Opportunities could afford it is that great Internal Iudge whose Absolution is a Rational and sure Ground of Confidence towards God And so I pass to the second Thing proposed Which is to shew How and by what Means we may get our Heart or Conscience thus informed and afterwards preserve and keep it so In order to which amongst many Things that might be alleaged as highly usefull and conducing to this great Work I shall insist upon these Four As 1. Let a Man carefully attend to the Voice of his Reason and all the Dictates of Natural Morality so as by no means to doe any thing contrary to them For though Reason is not to be relied upon as a Guide universally sufficient to direct us what to doe yet it is generally to be relied upon and obeyed where it tells us what we are not to doe It is indeed but a weak and diminutive Light compared to Revelation but it ought to be no disparagement to a Star that it is not a Sun Nevertheless as weak and as small as it is it is a Light always at hand and though enclosed as it were in a dark Lanthorn may yet be of singular use to prevent many a foul Step and to keep us from many a dangerous Fall And every Man brings such a Degree of this Light into the World with him that though it cannot bring him to Heaven yet if he be true to it it will carry him a great way indeed so far that if he follows it faithfully I doubt not but he shall meet with another Light which shall carry him quite through How far it may be improved is evident from that high and refined Morality which shined forth both in the Lives and Writings of some of the Ancient Heathens who yet had no other Light but this both to live and to write by For how great a Man in vertue was Cato of whom the Historian gives this glorious Character Esse quà m videri bonus malebat And of what an impregnable Integrity was Fabricius of whom it was said that a Man might as well attempt to turn the Sun out of his Course as to bring Fabricius to doe a base or a dishonest Action And then for their Writings what admirable Things occur in the Remains of Pythagoras and the Books of Plato and of several other Philosophers short I confess of the Rules of Christianity but generally above the Lives of Christians Which being so ought not the Light of Reason to be look'd upon by us as a Rich and a Noble Talent and such an one as we must account to God for For it is certainly from him It is a Ray of Divinity darted into the Soul It is the Candle of the Lord as Solomon calls it and God never lights us up a Candle either to put out or to sleep by If it be made conscious to a Work of Darkness it will not fail to discover and reprove it and therefore the checks of it are to be revered as the Echo of a Voice from Heaven for whatsoever Conscience binds here on Earth will be certainly bound there too and it were a great Vanity to hope or imagine that either Law or Gospel will absolve what Natural Conscience condemns No Man ever yet offended his own Conscience but first or last it was revenged upon him for it So that it will concern a Man to treat this great Principle awfully and warily by still observing what it commands but especially what it forbids And if he would have it always a faithfull and sincere Monitor to him let him be sure never to turn a deaf Ear to it for not to hear it is the Way to silence it Let him strictly observe the first Stirrings and Intimations the first hints and Whispers of Good and Evil that pass in his Heart and this will keep Conscience so quick and vigilant and ready to give a Man true Alarms upon the least Approach of his spiritual Enemy that he shall be hardly capable of a great Surprize On the contrary if a Man accustoms himself to Slight or pass over these first Motions to Good or Shrinkings of his Conscience from Evil which Originally are as Natural to the Heart of Man as the Appetites of Hunger and Thirst are to the Stomach Conscience will by Degrees grow dull and unconcerned and from not spying out Motes come at length to over-look Beams from Carelesness it shall fall into a Slumber and from a Slumber it shall settle into a deep and long Sleep till at last perhaps it sleeps it self into a Lethargy and that such an one that nothing but Hell and Judgment shall be able to awaken it For long disuse of any thing made for Action will in time take away the very use of it As I have read of one who having for a Disguise kept one of his Eyes a long time covered when he took off the Covering found his Eye indeed where it was but his Sight was gone He who would keep his Conscience awake must be carefull to keep it stirring 2. Let a Man be very tender and regardfull of every pious Motion and Suggestion made by the Spirit of God to his Heart I do not hereby go about to establish Enthusiasm or such phantastick Pretences
the fittest Engine to get into Power by which by the way when they are once possessed of they generally manage with as little Tenderness as they do with Conscience Of which we have had but too much Experience already and it would be but ill venturing upon more In a word Conscience not acting by and under a Law is a boundless daring and presumptuous thing and for any one by vertue thereof to challenge to himself a Privilege of doing what he will and of being unaccountable for what he does is in all Reason too much either for Man or Angel to pretend to 3 ly The third and last Property of Conscience which I shall mention and which makes the Verdict of it so Authentick is its great and rigorous Impartiality For as its wonderfull Apprehensiveness made that it could not easily be deceived so this makes that it will by no means deceive A Iudge you know may be skilfull in understanding a Cause and yet partial in giving Sentence But it is much otherwise with Conscience no Artifice can induce it to accuse the Innocent or to absolve the Guilty No we may as well bribe the Light and the Day to represent White things Black or Black White What pitifull things are Power Rhetorick or Riches when they would terrifie disswade or buy off Conscience from pronouncing Sentence according to the Merit of a Man's Actions For still as we have shewn Conscience is a Copy of the Divine Law and though Iudges may be bribed or frightened yet Laws cannot The Law is Impartial and Inflexible it has no Passions or Affections and consequently never accepts Persons nor dispenses with it self For let the most potent Sinner upon Earth speak out and tell us whether he can command down the Clamours and Revilings of a guilty Conscience and impose silence upon that bold Reprover He may perhaps for a while put on an high and a big Look but can he for all that look Conscience out of Countenance And he may also dissemble a little forced Jollity that is he may Court his Mistress and quaff his Cups and perhaps sprinkle them now and then with a few Dammees but who in the mean time besides his own wretched miserable self knows of those secret bitter Infusions which that terrible thing called Conscience makes into all his Draughts Believe it most of the appearing Mirth in the World is not Mirth but Art The wounded Spirit is not seen but walks under a disguise and still the less you see of it the better it looks On the contrary if we consider the vertuous Person let him declare freely whether ever his Conscience checked him for his Innocence or upbraided him for an Action of Duty did it ever bestow any of its hidden Lashes or concealed Bites on a mind severely Pure Chaste and Religious But when Conscience shall complain cry out and recoyl let a Man descend into himself with too just a Suspicion that all is not right within For surely that Hue and cry was not raised upon him for nothing The spoils of a rifled Innocence are born away and the Man has stoln something from his own Soul for which he ought to be pursued and will at last certainly be over-took Let every one therefore attend the Sentence of his Conscience For he may be sure it will not dawb nor flatter It is as severe as Law as impartial as Truth It will neither conceal nor pervert what it knows And thus I have done with the Third of those four Particulars at first proposed and shewn whence and upon what account it is that the Testimony of Conscience concerning our spiritual Estate comes to be so Authentick and so much to be relyed upon Namely For that it is fully empowered and commissioned to this great Office by God himself and withall that it is extremely Quick-sighted to apprehend and discern and moreover very Tender and Sensible of every thing that concerns the Soul And lastly That it is most exactly and severely Impartial in judging of whatsoever comes before it Every one of which Qualifications justly contributes to the Credit and Authority of the Sentence which shall be passed by it And so we are at length arrived at the Fourth and last Thing proposed from the words Which was to assign some particular Cases or Instances in which this Confidence towards God suggested by a rightly informed Conscience does most eminently shew and exert it self I shall mention Three 1. In our Addresses to God by Prayer When a Man shall presume to come and place himself in the Presence of the Great Searcher of Hearts and to ask something of him while his Conscience is all the while smiting him on the Face and telling him what a Rebel and a Traitour he is to the Majesty which he supplicates surely such an one should think with himself that the God whom he prays to is greater than his Conscience and pierces into all the filth and baseness of his Heart with a much clearer and more severe Inspection And if so will he not likewise resent the Provocation more deeply and revenge it upon him more terribly if Repentance does not divert the Blow Every such Prayer is big with Impiety and Contradiction and makes as odious a noise in the Ears of God as the Harangues of one of those Rebel Fasts or Humiliations in the year Forty One invoking the Blessings of Heaven upon such Actions and Designs as nothing but Hell could reward One of the most peculiar Qualifications of an Heart rightly disposed for Prayer is a well grounded Confidence of a Man's fitness for that Duty In Heb. 10. 22. Let us draw near with a true Heart in full assurance of faith says the Apostle But whence must this Assurance spring Why we are told in the very next Words of the same Verse Having our Hearts sprinkled from an evil Conscience Otherwise the voice of an impure Conscience will cry much louder than our Prayers and speak more effectually against us than these can intercede for us And now if Prayer be the great Conduit of mercy by which the Blessings of Heaven are derived upon the Creature and the noble Instrument of Converse between God and the Soul then surely that which renders it ineffectual and loathsome to God must needs be of the most mischievous and destructive Consequence to Mankind imaginable and consequently to be removed with all that Earnestness and Concern with which a Man would rid himself of a Plague or a moral Infection For it taints and pollutes every Prayer it turns an Oblation into an Affront and the Odours of a Sacrifice into the Exhalations of a Carcass And in a word makes the Heavens over us Brass denying all Passage either to descending Mercies or ascending Petitions But on the other side when a Man's Breast is clear and the same Heart which endites does also encourage his Prayer when his Innocence pushes on the Attempt and vouches the Success Such an one goes boldly to