.140 A GUIDE YO PRAYER. pleasant to yourselves. Besides, when persons run on heedless with an incessant flow of words, being carried as it were in a violent stream, without rests or pauses, they are in danger of uttering things rashly before God, givingno time at all to their own meditation, but indulging their tongue to run sometimes too fast for theirown thoughts, as well as for the affections of such as are present with them. And hence it comes to pass, that some persons have begun a sentence in prayer, and been forced to break off and begin a new : Or, if they have pursued that sentence, it has been with so much inconsistency, that it could hardly be reduced to sense or grammar ; which has giY en too sensible an occasion to others to ridicule all conceived prayer, and has been very dishonourable to God and his worship. All this arises from a hurry of the tongue into the middle of a sentence, before the mind has conceived the full and complete sense of it. On the other hand, if you are too slow, and very sensibly and remarkably so, this will also grow tiresome to the hearers, while they have done with the sentence you spoke last, and wait in pain, and long for the next expression, to exercise their thoughts, and carryon their devotion. This will make our'wor- ship appear heavy and dull. Yet I must needs say, that an error on this hand in prayer, is to be preferred before an excess of speed and hurry, and its consequences are less hurtful to reli- gion. In general, with regard to the two foregoing directions, let the sense of each sentence be a rule to guide your voice, whe- ther it must be high or low, swift or leisurely. In the invocation of God, in humble adoration, in confession of sin, and self-re- signation, a slower and a modester voice is for the most part very becoming, as well as in every other part of prayer where there is nothing very pathetical expressed. But in petitions, in plead- ings, in thanksgivings and rejoicing in God, fervency and impor- tunity, holy joy and triumph will raise the voice, some degrees higher ; and lively passions of the delightful kind will naturally draw out our language with greater speed and spirit. IV. Let proper accents be put according as the sense re- quires. It would be endless to give particular rules how to place our accents. Nature dictates this to every man, if he will but attend to the dictates of nature. Yet in order to attain it in greater perfection, and to secure us from irregularity in this point, let us avoid these few things following : L Avoid a constant uniformity of voice, that is, when every word and sentence are spoken without any difference of sound : like a boy at school repeating all his lesson in one dull note which chews that he is not truly acquainted with the sense au' value of the author. Now though persons may be truly sincere and devout, who speak without any diffefence of accent, yet such
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