CFIAPTEIL II. 109 they were well suited to do when we first heard or.made use of them. When we continually tread one constant road of senten- ces, or track of expressions, theybecome like an old beaten path in which we daily travel, and we are ready to walk on without particular notice of the several parts of theway ; so in our daily repetition of a form we neglect due attention to the full sense of the words. But there is something more suited to awaken the attention of themind in a conceived prayer ; when a christian is making his own way toward God, according tc the present incli- nation of his soul, and urgency of his present wants; and to use the words of a writer lately cited, W/zileweare clothing the sense of our hearts in. fit expressions, andas it were digging the matter of our prayers out of our own feelings and experiences, it must needs keep the heart closer at work. O. The duty of prayer is very useful to discover to us the frameof our ownspirits; but a constant useof forms willmuch hin- der our knowledge of ourselves,andpreventour acquaintance with our own hearts, which is one great springof maintaining inward religion in the power of it. Daily observation of our own spirits would teach us what our wants are, andhow to frame our prayers before God ; but if we tie ourselves down to the same words al- ways, our own observation of our hearts will be of little use, since we must speak the same expressions, let our hearts be how they will. As therefore an inward search of our souls, and inti- mate acquaintance with ourselves, is a means to obtain the gift of prayer, so the exercise of the gift of prayer will promote this self-acquaintance, which is discouraged and hindered by the re- straint of forms. In the last plate, I mention the most usual, most evident and convincing argument against perpetual confinement of our- selves to a form ; and that is, because it renders our converse with God very imperfect ; for it is not possible that forms of prayer should be composed, that are perfectly suited to all our frames of spirit, and fitted to all our occasions in the things of this life, and the life to come. Our circumstances are always altering in this frail and mutable state. We have new sins to be confessed, new temptations and sorrows to be represented, new wants to be supplied. Every changeof, providence in theaffairs of a nation, a family, or a person, requires suitable petitions and acknowledgments. And all thesecan neverbe well provid- ed for in any prescribed composition. I confess all our con- cerns of soul and body may be included in some large and gene- ral wordsof a form, which is no more suited to one time, or place, or condition, than to another : but generals are cold and do not affect us, nor affect persons that join with us, and whose case he that speaks in prayer should represent before God. It is much sweeter to our own souls, and to our fellow-worshippers,
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