SPIRITUAL PEACE AND COMFORT. 429 For the weakest prayer bath some degree 'of good desire in it, and addresses to Godwith an endeavor toexpress them ; and these can come fromnone but only from the Spirit. Mere words, without de- sires, are no more prayer than a suit of apparel, hanged on a stake, is a man. You may have the spirit of prayer, and yet have it in a very weak degree. Yet still I would encourage you to bewail your defect herein as your sin, and seek earnestly the supply of your wants; but what is that to the questioning or denying your sincerity, or right to sal- vation? Doubt 10. ' I have no gifts to make .me useful to myselfor oth- ers. When I should profit by the word, I cannot remember it: when I should reprove a sinner, or instruct the ignorant, I have not words: if I were called to give an account of my faith, I have not words to express that which is in my mind : and what grace can here be then?' Answ. This needs no tong answer. Lament and amend those sins by which you have been disabled. But know, that these gifts depend more on nature, art, industry and common grace, than upon special saving grace. Many a bad man is excellent in all these,.and many a one that is truly godly is defective. Where hath God laid our salvation upon the strength of our memories, the readiness of our tongues, or measure of the like gifts? That were almost as if he should have made a law, that all shall be saved that have sound completions, and healthful and youthful bodies; and all be damned that are sickly, aged, weak, children, and most women. Doubt 11. ' O, but I have been a grievous sinner, before I came home, and have fallen foully since, and I am utterly unworthy of mercy ! Will the Lord ever save such an unworthy wretch as I? Will he ever give his mercy and the blood of his Sdn to one that hath so abused it Asesto. 1. The question is not, with God, what you have been, but what you are. God takes men as they then are, and notas they were. 2. It is a dangerous thing to object the greatness of your guilt against God's mercy and Christ's merits. Doyou think Christ's satisfaction is not sufficient? Or that he çlied for,small sins and not for great? Do you not know that he bath made satis- faction for all, and will pardon all, and hath given out thepardon of all in his covenant, and that to all men, on condition they will accept Christ to pardon and heal them in his own way? Hath God made it his great design, in the work of man's redemption, to make his love and mercy as honorable and wonderful as he did his power in the work ofcreation ? And will you, after all this, oppose the greatness of your sins against the greatness of this mercy and
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