CHAPTER H. 1$7 for in thee do I put my trust. Omy soul, thou hast said to the Lord, thou art my Lord, 4c. In meditations, psalms, hymns, or other devotional compositions, these Apostrophes may be longer and more frequent ; but isa prayer they should be very short, except when the speech is turned from one person of the blessed Trinity to another, thus; " Great God hast thou not promised that thy Son should have the heathen for his inheritance, and that he should rule the nations? Blessed Jesus; how long ere thou assume this kingdom ? when wilt thou send thy Spirit to enlighten. and convert the world ? When, O eternal Spirit, wilt thou come and shed abroad thy light and thy grace, through all the earth." 7. Ingeminations, or redoubling our expressions, which argue an eager and inflamed affection. Psal. xciv. 1, 2. 0Lord God to whom vengeance belongeth ; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shoo thyself. Psal. cxxx. 6. MySoul waiteth for the Lordmore than they that watchfor the morning ; -I say, more than they that watch for the morning. And the conclusion of Psal. lxxii. is, Blessed be the Lord for evermore, Amen and Amen. But here let us takecare to distinguish between those repetitions that arise from real fervency of spirit, and those that are used merely to lengthen out a prayer, or that arise frommere barren- ness of heart, and want of matter. it is far better, at least in public prayer, to yield to our present indisposition, and shorten the duty, than to fill up our time with constant repetitions ; such as, 0 Lord our God; if it be thy blessed will; we intreat thee; we beseech thee ; O Lord, have mercy upon us. For thoágh some of these expressions may be properly enough repeated several times in a prayer, yet filling up every empty space and stretching out almost every sentence with them, is not agree- able to our fellow-worshippers, nor an ornament, nor a help to our devotion, or theirs. V. Do not always confine yourselves to one set form of words to express any particular request, nor take too much pains to. avoid an expression, merely because you used it in prayer heretofore. Be not over fond of a nice uniformity of words, ntA of perpetual diversity of expression in every prayer. It is best to keep the middle between these two extremes. We should seek indeed to be furnished with a rich variety ofholy language, that our prayers may always have something new, and something entertaining in them, and not tie ourselves to express one thing always in one set of 'Words, lest this make us grow formal add dull,, and indifferent in those petitions. But ou the other hand, if we are guilty of a perpetual affectation of new words, which we never before used, we shall sometimes miss our own best and most spiritual meaning, and many times be driven to great im- propriety of speech ; and at best, our prayers by this means will
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