SUNDAY XLVI.

CHAP. XLVI.

On devotional Duties.

WHEN the practice and tempers essential to Christians are explained, too many cry out, Who then can be saved? There is really no place in the Christian scheme for such despondency. Though our natural weakness and corruption be much greater than such objectors believe, still Christian obedience springs from a root sufficient to produce it all. For God, the mighty God, hath promised light, power, and consolation to those who seek them in Christ Jesus, sufficient to maintain every holy temper in the measure required.

The means which must be used with diligence and perseverance, to obtain these supernatural supplies, are called, by way of distinction, Devotional Duties, and, in every one's judgment, are essential to religion. Yet, through sad self-abuse, devotional duties in general are mere religious formalities, which dishonour God, lull nominal Christians into a false peace, and harden the profane in their contempt of religion itself. To guard against an error so pernicious, I shall treat at large on the nature of devotional duties, and the right method of performing them; confining myself principally to secret prayer, and reading the word of God; as what will be offered on these two capital parts of devotion bears an easy application to all public ordinances, and other means of grace.

With respect to prayer, the object of it is God alone, because the end of prayer, is to obtain deliverance or preservation from evil, or the possession of good; therefore our application must be made to him from whom every good and perfect gift cometh; who orders all things according to the counsel of his own will, able completely to bless us in spite of all opposition; and without whose favour the whole creation cannot afford either protection or comfort. Joined with uncontrolable power, the attributes of omnipresence and omniscience are essential to the true object of prayer, in order that not one supplicant should be overlooked; not one of the numberless millions of petitions offered up in the same instant throughout the world be lost; and that, amidst the infinite variety of complicated cases, the things best for each individual, and those only, should be conferred. United with these perfections, there must be mercy and love to forgive our sins, to overcome our fears, and encourage our petitions, conscious as we must be of our own vileness when we are fit to pray.

Thus, from the nature of prayer, it is evident we must address ourselves to God alone. We are taught the same in his oracles. "Praise waiteth

for thee, O God, in Sion, and unto thee shall the vow be performed. O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come." Psal. lxv. "I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have none other gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, nor in the earth beneath, nor in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them; for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God," Exod. xx.

A truth so plain, so important, so often repeated in scripture, that the monstrous corruptions of wor

ship introduced by popery, are matter of astonishment, no less than lamentation. Instead of making God the only object of their trust, papists have besides him almost innumerable saints and angels, and from each, they tell us, they are to receive some benefit in answer to their prayers. They tell us there are above advocates and patrons for all exigencies and occasions, who defend men from dangers and diseases, and bestow favours and virtues. They tell us, we are to apply to these patrons, without troubling God the Father and the Redeemer, who is God, by presuming, upon every occasion, to make immediate addresses to them.

A horrid superstition; at once confuted, when you know what perfections are essential to the object of our prayers. Where is almighty power, infinite understanding, and omnipresence, but in the eternal God? How absurd then and impious to call on those for help, who by nature are no gods; so limited as to be incapable of knowing what we want, or bestowing what we ask?

Our prayers should generally* (if we exactly follow the scripture rule) be addressed to the Father, in dependence upon the sacrifice and mediation of the Son, and the influence of the Spirit. In this manner of address, the distinct part each person of the Godhead bears in the salvation of sinners, the infinite purity of God, and our own defilement to

* I say generally, for there are numerous instances of prayer addressed to Jesus Christ. The disciples prayed to him, increase our faith-the dying malefactor, to save his soul. Stephen, with his dying breath, commended himself into his hands. Paul besought him thrice to take away the thorn in his flesh, and styles him Lord over all, rich in mercy to all that call upon him; for, whosoever calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved. These are precedents (never to be set aside) proving that each member of the Christian church may and will say, as Thomas did to Jesus, My Lord and my God.

the last, are forcibly taught; points of such moment, that all scripture labours to impress them on our minds.

Now, as God is the only object to whom we must pray, so prayer is the spreading before him the wants and desires we feel. Without this, the best chosen petitions repeated punctually every morning and evening out of a book, or the greatest fluency of expression, are only the mimicry of prayer. Ă sort of devotion, which the proud and self-sufficient, and most grossly ignorant, can practise; on which the formal and superstitious can fancy themselves religious in an extraordinary degree, though they never prayed once since they were born. For as the needy only can stoop to ask alms, so we begin to pray, and not before, when we feel ourselves ready to perish, if we receive not the things we ask for.

"If

This sensibility of real want, scripture representations and examples prove essential to prayer. thou shalt seek the Lord, thou shalt find him; if thou seekest him with all thy heart, and with all thy soul," Deut. iv. "Trust in God at all times; pour out your hearts before him," Ps. lxii. "The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth," Ps. cxlv. 18. When the inspired Solomon commands us to pray for wisdom, he emphatically expresses the need we must feel of that gift. "If thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasure." Our Lord points out the same feeling as essential to prayer; he describes it by asking, seeking, knocking: terms which express a pungent need of help, and an immediate answer. St. James, holding out the very same idea, calls successful petition inwrought prayer. What scripture thus defines to be prayer, the practice of God's saints illustrates.

When they came before the throne of grace, they were penetrated with the feeling of their necessities. "With my whole heart have I sought thy favour. At evening, and at morning, and at noon-day, will I cry, and that instantly; and thou shalt hear me." See another example of the distress and importunity of a true supplicant: "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord: Lord hear my voice. O let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication." In the address of Daniel, greatly beloved, every syllable breathes sense of want, which scarce knows how to bear the least denial or delay. "O Lord hear, O Lord forgive: O Lord hearken, and do; defer not for thine own sake, O my God.'

From this scripture representation of prayer, that it means spreading the wants we feel before God, it is plain, all men stand perfectly on a level in their natural state, as to any ability to pray. Outward circumstances here make no difference. A polished scholar and an ignorant clown; those who have been most piously trained, and those who have been brought up profanely; those who have been kept back from sinful excesses, and those who have plunged most deeply into them, if no other difference takes place, remain alike strangers to real prayer. For, notwithstanding the grosses ignorance, and bad education, and profligate manners, soon as ever the sting of sin is felt, and its tyranny oppresses the soul, prayers and cries will ascend up to God from a humble troubled heart. On the contrary, where the guilt, strength, and defilement of sin are not painfully felt, neither learning nor pious education, nor abstinence from all vice, will enable any one to pray. In many instances, these advantages blind and flatter by their specious appearance; in all, they are entirely distinct from conviction of sin, and every alarming apprehension of its issue, unless par