be the Possessor of heaven and earth, by returning Him some part of those good things which He hath bountifully bestowed upon mankind. This was the nature and meaning of sacrifices from the beginning; which being all now abolished by the sacrifice of Christ, and yet it being natural to mankind, to offer something to God, it remains that we present Him continually with the sacrifice of Prayer, together with that of praise and thanksgiving, which are a part or concomitant of Prayer, as we learn from many places of Holy Scripture: where they are scarce distinguished, but used as words of the same signification. They are both joined together in the fiftieth Psalm, v. 14, 15. " Offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the Most High." And, "Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me." These Prayers and these thanksgivings, being presented by worthy persons, as Justin Martyr tells Trypho the Jew, are the only perfect, and Tryph. well pleasing sacrifices unto God. To whom the sacrifice of beasts was never

Dialog. cum.

acceptable, no not when by Himself appointed; unless they were significations of pious and devout minds, begging pardon, imploring mercy, and rendering thanks for benefits received.

Alms indeed are also called a sacrifice: but they then only are truly so, when we give them as an acknowledgment of God's bounty unto us, with humble Prayer to Him that He would be pleased graciously to accept them. They are often therefore joined together; particularly in the story of Cornelius, to whom the angel said, "thy Prayers, and thy Alms are come up, for a memorial before God." First his Prayers, and then his Alms, which are an offering or sacrifice, when they attend upon Prayer and thanksgiving; whereby they are naturally put in mind of the poor and needy, and stirred up, even by the feeling we have of our own necessities, to relieve and succour them.

We pay no homage to God then, if we omit this duty; we live wholly without God in the world; and give no token, no signification,

that we own His being. We rank ourselves among Atheists, or Epicureans; who are men only in name, having lost the common sense of all mankind, which has ever led them to acknowledge God by solemn supplications and thanksgivings to Him.

and so

V. Which is a duty so necessary, essentially flowing (if I may so speak) from human nature, that Christ our Lord, (it may be in the next place observed,) lived in the constant performance of it.

Christ, I say, "in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;" nay, who was "God blessed for ever;" who, in that respect needed nothing, and was able to effect all things; yet, as He was a man, prayed, and made supplication for those things, which as He was God, He already possessed, and could presently communicate to the human nature by His immediate conjunction and intimate union therewith. Notwithstanding this, He asked them of God, and beseeched Him to bestow them, because it was necessary and natural so to do, because it became a creature to own its

dependence on a higher cause, to give to the Creator the honour due unto his name, and to testify by this action, His submission and obedience, His humility and love, and that how highly soever advanced, (as the human nature of Christ was to the utmost degree of honour,) due acknowledgment ought to be made by it unto the Most High, who is the fountain of glory and honour.

And here I take it to be very remarkable, that there is no kind of Prayer whereof we have not an example in our Lord Christ. Of secret Prayer we read Luke v. 16, where it is said, "he withdrew Himself into the wilderness, and prayed:" spent that retirement from company and other employments, in thoughts of God, and acknowledgments of the honour He had done Him, and in Prayer for His constant presence with Him. Of private Prayer with His disciples, that passage seems to be meant, Luke ix. 18. "And it came to pass, as He was alone praying, His disciples were with Him: and he asked them, saying, whom say the people that I am?" i. e. in His retirement

from the multitude, attended only by His disciples, He first prayed, and then began, by way of inquiry and asking questions, to instruct them in His religion. As for public Prayer, we read often of His going into the temple, the house of prayer at Jerusalem, and of His frequenting the synagogues, which were places for religious assemblies all over the country.

We read also how He prayed for others, as well as for Himself. For Peter, Luke xxii. 31. that "his faith might not fail:" for all His apostles, that His "joy might be fulfilled in them," and that God would " keep them from the evil of the world," and that "they might be sanctified through the truth." John xvii. 13, 15, 19. For His whole church, "that they may all be one, as He and the Father are one." ver. 21. And on the cross He prayed for His bitterest enemies, as before for His friends, Luke xxiii. 34. And after all we read, that it was His custom thus to pray to God, Luke xxii. 39. "And He came out, and went as He was wont, to the Mount of Olives, and His disciples also followed Him: and when He was at