2. Make religious conversation your practice and delight. If you are but inured to speak to men concerning the things of God without blushing, you will be enabled to speak to God in the presence of men with holy confidence.

3. Labor to attain this gift of prayer in a tolerable degree, and exercise it often in secret for some considerable time before you begin in public.

4.

Take heed that your heart be always well prepared, and let the matter of your prayer he well premeditated when you make your first public attempts of it.

5. Strive to maintain upon your soul a much greater awe of the majesty of that God to whom you speak, than of the opinions of those fellowcreatures with whom you worship; that so you may, as it were, forget you are in the company of men, while you address the Most High God. Chide your heart into courage when you find it shy and sinking, and say, “Dare I speak to the great and dreadful God, and shall I be afraid of man?"

Now, in order to practice this advice well, the next shall be akin to it.

6. Be not too tender of your own reputation in these externals of religion. This softness of spirit, which we call bashfulness, has often a great deal of fondness for self mingled with it. When we are to speak in public, this enfeebles the mind, throws us into a hurry, and makes us perform much worse than we do in secret. When we are satisfied, therefore, that we are engaged in present duty to God, let us maintain a noble

negligence of the censures of men, and speak with the same courage as though none but God were present.

Yet, to administer farther relief under this weakness, I add,

7. Make your first essays in the company of one or two, either of your inferiors, or your most intimate, most pious, and candid acquaintance, that you may be under no fear or concern about their sentiments of your performance; or join yourself in society with some young Christians of equal standing, and set apart times for praying together; which is an excellent way to obtain the gift of prayer.

8. Do not aim at length of prayer in your younger attempts, but rather be short, offer up a few more common and necessary requests at first, and proceed by degrees to enlarge and fulfil the several parts of this worship, as farther occasion shall offer, and as your gifts and courage in

crease.

9. Be not discouraged if your first experiments be not so successful as you desire. Many Christians have in time arrived at a glorious gift in prayer, who, in their younger essays, have been overwhelmed with bashfulness and confusion. Let not Satan prevail with you, therefore, to cast off this practice, and your hope, at once, by such a temptation as this.

10. Make it the matter of your earnest requests to God, that you may be endowed with Christian courage, with holy liberty of speech, and freedom of utterance; which the blessed apostle Paul often prays for :-and you have

every reason to hope that He who gives " every good and perfect gift," will not deny you that which is so necessary to the performance of your duty.

I proceed now to the fourth general direction. IV. Intreat the assistance of some kind Christian friend to give you notice of all the irregularities that yourselves may have been guilty of in prayers, especially in your first years of the practice of this duty; and esteem those the most valuable of your friends who will put themselves to the trouble of giving you a modest and an obliging hint of any of your own imperfections ; for it is not possible that we ourselves should judge of the tone of our own voice, or the gestures that we ourselves may use, whether they be agreeable to our fellow-worshippers or not. And in other instances also, our friends may form a more unbiassed judgment than ourselves.; and therefore are fittest to be our correctors.

For want of this, some persons in their youth have gained so ill a habit of speaking in public, and so many disorders have attended their exercise of the gift of prayer, ill tones, vicious accents, wild distortions of the countenance, and divers other improprieties, which they carried with them all the years of their life, and have oftentimes exposed the worship of God to contempt, and hindered the edification of those that joined with them, rather than promoted it.

V. Be frequent in the practice of this duty of prayer, not only in secret, but with one another For though every rule that I have before given were fixed in your memories and always at hand, yet without frequent practice, you will never

attain to any great skill and readiness in this holy exercise.

As our graces themselves, by being often tried and put upon action, become stronger, and shine brighter, give God more glory, and do more service to men; so will it fare with every gift of the Holy Spirit also ; it is improved by frequent exercise. Therefore the apostle bids the young evangelist Timothy, that he should not neglect to stir up the gift that was in him, though it was a gift communicated in an extraordinary way, by the imposition of hands, 2 Tim. i. 6. And therefore it is, that some serious Christians that have less knowledge, will excel persons of great learning, and talents, and judgment, in the gift of prayer; because, though they do not understand the rules so well, yet they practise abundantly more. And, for the most part, if all other circumstances are equal, it will be found a general truth, that he that prays most, prays best.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE GRACE OF PRAYER.

In the first two chapters, I have finished what I proposed concerning the external parts of prayer; I proceed now to take a short view of the internal and spiritual part of that duty: and this has been usually called the Grace of Prayer.

Here I shall endeavor to explain what it means, and show how properly that term is used: afterwards I shall particularly mention what are those inward and spiritual exercises of the mind which

are required in the duty of prayer, and then give directions how to attain them.

But in the most part of this chapter, I shall pass over things with much brevity, because it is not my design in writing this book, to say over again what many practical writers have said on these subjects.

SECTION I.

WHAT THE GRACE OF PRAYER IS, AND HOW IT DIFFERS FROM THE GIFT.

GRACE, in its most general sense, implies the free and undeserved favor of one person towards another that is esteemed his inferior. And in the language of the New Testament, it is usually put to signify the favor and mercy of God towards sinful creatures: which, upon all accounts, is acknowledged to be free and undeserved. Now, because our natures are corrupt, and averse to what is good, and whensoever they are changed and inclined to God and divine things, this is done by the power of God working in us: therefore, this very change of nature, this renewed and divine frame of mind, is called, in the common language of Christians, by the name of Grace.

If I were to write my thoughts of the distinction between the terms, virtue, holiness, and grace, I should give them thus:

Virtue generally signifies the mere material part of that which is good, without a particular reference to God, as its principle or end; there