PART I. SERMON y. 75 ing God from our eyes, while there is any special temptation like a mountain that separates between God and our souls, he may sendhis Spirit to wotkus up to earnest desires and long-, ins afterhim. But when this SPIRIT OF PRAYER has brought the soul near, when God has been pleased to turn aside the veil, to remove the mountain, and to discover, himself in all his glory, beauty, and love, then there will be generally the giftof prayer also in exec, riseby the assistance of the promised Spirit ; and such persons many times are able to address themselves to God with muchfree- dom, and to pour out the soul before God in proper words, not- fvithstandingat other times they appear tohive but weak capa- cities. When they have suchaffecting sights oftheir own sin and guilt, andsuch surprizingviews of the mercy of God manifested to them in particular, and at the same time when they look upon all things round them with a design for the glory of God ; they are both naturally and divinely taught to,pour out their souls be- fore God, and represent their cares and circumstances to him in affecting language. I will not say indeed, it is always so when any soul gets near to God ; there must be some allowance made for the different_ tempers and constitutions, as I shall shew immediately. There have also been some instances of holy men, whose voice has, at such a time, been overpowered with divine pleasure, all their powers have been transported and overwhelmed with rapturous silence ; but for the most part holy souls have found. an'uncom- mon liberty of language at the throne of grace at such seasons. And this is One reason, I am persuaded, why the gift of prayer is not so common a thing asmight be wished, because there is so little nearness to God among the professors of our day. Thegift of prayer abounds not among christians in our churches ; O that I could say it was found more gloriously among ministers, while in your name we speak to the great God ! But ifthere were a constant laborious diligence in the soul to get nearer to God, in all our secret as well as public addresses to him, we should find more abundanceof the gift of prayer poured down upon us by the Spirit, as well as brighter evidences of every praying grace. I must concludethis discourse before I proceed to the other heads which were proposed ; but I would not willingly leave it without acaution or two, and one reflection. The first caution is this ; Let not the humble mourning christian, who walks carefully with God, under much darkness and fear, charge himself with utter distanceand estrangement from the throneof grace, because he does not feel all these sacred passionsandpowers of nature in lively exercise, while he bows his knees before the Lord : for I
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