CHAPTERV. 199 ,attend them hereafter, consider what share of the guilt will lie at the door of those who never took any pains to shew them to pray. While I am persuading Christians with so much earnest- ness to seek the gift of prayer, surely none will be so weak as to imagine the grace and spirit of prayer may be neglected. Without some degrees of common influence from the blessed Spirit, the gift is not to be attained. And without the exercise of grace in this duty, the prayer will never reach heaven, nor prevail with God. He is not taken with the brightest forms of worship, if the heart be not there. Bé the thoughts never so divine, the expressions never so sprightly and delivered with all the sweet and moving accents of speech, it is all in his esteem but a fair carcase without a soul : It is amere picture of prayer, a dead picture which cannot charm ; a lifeless offering, which the livingGod will never accept; nor will our great High -priest ever present it to the Father. But these things do not fall directly under my present de- sign. 1 would therefore recommend my readers to those trea- tises that enforce thenecessity of spiritual worship, and describe the glory of inward devotion above the best outward perfor- mances. Then shall they learn the perfection of beauty in this part of worship, when the gift and grace of prayer are happily joined in the secret pleasure and success of it, and appear before men in its full loveliness, and attractive power. Then shall re- ligion look like itself, divine and heavenly, and shine in all the lustre it is capable of here upon earth.
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