CHAPTER V. 17' importunity in pleading with God with many arguments, we put ourselves more d6ectly under the promise that is made to impor- tunate petitioners ; and we become fitter to receive the mercies we seek. Yet in the last place, I would answer by way of concession : If we have the scheme and substance of several prayer%ready composed, and well suited to all the most usual cases and con- cerns of life and religion, and if one or other of these he daily used with seriousness, interposing new expressions wherever the soul is drawn out to farther breathings after God, or where it findsoccasion for newmatter from some present providences : This is much rather to be approved than a neglect of all prayer, or a dwelling upon a single form or two ; and it will be more edifying to those who join with us, than a perpetual, con- fusion of thought, and endless dishonourable attempts in the mere extemporary way. But I speak this by way of indulgence to persons of weaker gifts, or when the natural spirits are low, or the mind much in- disposed for duty : And in these cases the way of addressing God, which is called mixed prayer, will be so far from confining the pious soul to a dead form of worship, that it will sometimes prove a sweet enlargement and release to the spirit under its own darkness and confinement. It will furnish it with spiritual matter, and awaken it to a longer and more lively conversé with God in its own language : And, if I may use a plain comparison, it will be likepouring a littlewater into apump, whereby amuclt greater quantity will be raised from the spring when it lies low in the earth. Objection. If any christian on the other hand should forbid all usé of such compositions, as supposing them utterly unlaw- ful, and quenching the Spirit: Answer. I would humbly reply, there is no danger of that, whilewe do not rest in them, as our designed end, but use them only as means to help us to pray, . and never once confine ourselves to them without liberty of al- teration. .It is the saying of a great divine, " Though set forms made by others, be as acrutch or help ofour insufficiency, yet those which we compose ourselves, are a fruit of our suffi- ciency : And that a man ought not to be so confined by any pre- meditated form, as to neglect any special infusion ; he should so prepare himself, as if he expected no assistance : And he should so depend upon divine assistance, as if Ile had made no pre- paration." Here, if I might obtain leave of my fathers in the ministry, I -would say this to younger students : That if in their private yearsof study, they pursued sucha course once s week, as I have here described, I am persuaded their gifts would be richly improved; their ministerial labours would be more universally N 3
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