and business in the world, and scarce ever wants words to discourse with his dealers; and the reason is, because his heart and his tongue are frequently engaged therein. Thus, if our affections are kept warm, and we use ourselves frequently to speak of the things of religion to men, we shall learn to express ourselves much better about the same divine concerns when we come before God.

Direction 4. Pray earnestly for the gift of utterance, and seek the blessing of the Spirit of God upon the use of proper means to obtain a treasure of expressions for prayer. The great apostle prays often for a freedom of speech and utterance in his ministry, "that he may speak the mystery of Christ, and make it manifest so as he ought to speak." Col. iii. 4. So the gift of utterance in prayer is a very fit request to be made to God for the advantage of our own souls and those that join with us. The wise man tells us, in Prov. xvi. 1. “That the preparation of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord." Let us pray then, that when God hath prepared our heart for his worship, he would also teach our tongue to answer the thoughts and desires of the heart, and to express them in words suitable, and answering to all our inward spiritual affections. A happy variety of expression, and holy oratory in prayer, is one of these "good and perfect gifts that come from above, from God, the Father of lights and knowledge." James i. 17.

The rules about the choice and use of proper expressions in prayer are these:

Rule 1. Choose those expressions that best suit your meaning, that most exactly answer the ideas

of your mind, and are fitted to your sense and ap prehension of things. For the design of prayer is to tell God the inward thoughts of your heart; if you speak therefore what is not in the heart, though the words be ever so fine and pathetical, it is but a mere mockery of God. Let your tongues be the true interpreters of your minds.-When our souls are filled with a lively impression of some of the attributes or works of God; when our hearts are overpowered with a sense of our own guilt and unworthiness, or big with some important request; O what a blessed pleasure it is to hit upon a happy expression, that speaks our very soul, and fulfils all our meaning, and what a pleasure doth it convey to all that join with us, who have their spiritual senses exercised! and it helps to excite in them the same devotion that dictated to us the words we speak: the royal preacher, in Eccl. xii. 10, "Sought out and gave good heed to find, and to set in order acceptable words" in his sermons, that they might be "as goads and nails fastened by the master of assemblies:" that is, that they might leave a strong and lasting impression on those that hear; that by piercing deep into the heart as goads, they might be fixed as nails. And there is the same reason for the choice of proper words in prayer.

Rule 2. Use such a way of speaking as may be most natural and easy to be understood, and most agreeable to those that join with you. The apostle gives this direction to the Corinthians, concerning their public worship; "Except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for you shall speak into the air." 1 Cor. xvi. 9. Avoid, there

fore, all foreign and uncommon words, which are borrowed from other languages, and not sufficiently naturalized, or which are old and gone out of use. Avoid those expressions which are too philosophical, and those which savor too much of mystical divinity. Avoid a long train of dark metaphors, or of expressions that are used only by some particular violent party men. Avoid length and obscurity in your sentences, and in the placing of your words; and not interline your expressions with too many parentheses, which cloud and entangle the sense.

And here I beg leave to give one or two instances of each of these improper methods of speaking; not that I ever heard these very phrases used by any ministers or private Christians in prayer. But, as vices of the life are rendered most hateful, and are best cured or prevented by seeing them represented in their plainest and most odious colors; so the vices of speech, and improprieties of expression are best avoided by a plain representation of them in their own complete deformity. This will deter us from coming near them, and make us watchful against all those forms of speaking that border upon these follies. And indeed, without giving examples of each of these faults, I know not how to make the unlearned Christian understand the things he ought to avoid.

By uncommon words I mean such as are either too new, or too old for common use.

Old and obsolete words are such as these; we do thee to wit, for we acquaint thee. Leasing, for lying. A gin, for a snare. Some such words

as these yet stand in our translation of the Bible; many of these you may find in the old translation of the Psalms, in the Common Prayer book, and in the metre of Hopkins and Sternhold; which might be proper in the age when they were written, but are now grown into contempt.

New words are, for the most part, borrowed from foreign languages, and should not be used in social prayer, till they are grown so common, that there appears no difficulty to the hearers, nor affectation in the speaker. Such as these, which have a French original: Thou, O Lord, art our dernier resort; i. e. our last refuge. The whole world is but one great machine, managed by thy puissance; i. e. an engine managed by thy pow

er.

We are chagrined because of the hurries and tentations of the malign spirit; i. e. we are vexed and grown uneasy by reason of the temptations of the devil. Or these, which are borrowed from the Latin: "The beatific splendors of thy face irradiate the celestial region, and felicitate the saints: there are the most exuberant profusions of thy grace, and the sempiternal efflux of thy glory."

By Philosophical expressions, I intend such as are taught in the academical schools, in order to give learned men a shorter and more comprehensive knowledge of things, or to distinguish nicely between ideas, that are in danger of being mistaken without such distinction. As for example, it is not proper to say to God in public prayer "Thou art hypostatically three and essentially one. By the plentitude and perfection

in thine essence, thou art self-sufficient for thine own existence and beatitude; who in an incomplex manner eminently, though not formally, includest all the infinite variety of complex ideas that are found among the creatures." Such language as this may be indulged perhaps in secret, by a man that uses himself to meditate under these forms; but his less informed fellow-Christians would no more be edified by them, than by praying in an unknown tongue.

By the language of mystical divinity, I mean such incomprehensible sort of phrases, as a sect of divines among the Papists have used, and some few Protestants too nearly imitated. Such are, "of the deiform fund of the soul; the superessential life; of singing a hymn in silence; that God is an abyss of light, a circle whose centre is everywhere, and his circumference nowhere: that hell is the dark world made up of spiritual sulphur, and other ingredients not united or harmonized, and without that pure balsamic oil that flows from the heart of God." These are great swelling words of vanity, that captivate silly people into raptures, by the mere sound without

sense.

By running long metaphors, I mean the pursuing of similitude or metaphor, and straining so far, as to injure the doctrines of religion, by a false sense, or very improper expressions. Such was the language of a foolish writer, who bids us "give our hearts to the Lord, cut them with the knife of contrition, take out the blood of your sins by confession, afterwards wash it with sanctification," &c.