PREFACE TO "PRAYERS COMPOSED FOR THE ESE AND IMITATION OF CHILDREN." _ IHope there is no need to make an apology for composing little prayers, in order to teach children this first and necessary part of practical religion. As soon as they are capable of learning any thing. concerning that great and glorious God, whocreated them, they are capable of being taught to ad- dress him in a way of prayer, for the good things they want, and to make their acknowledgments to him in a way of praise, for the (lading blessings they receive. Yet our own experience teaches us that in the younger years of life we are incapable of framing our own addresses to God, so as to honour him according to his perfections. We are notonly unacquainted withour own various wants, but we are unable to express ourselves in any of the parts of prayer in a proper manner. Therefore such assistances as may be derived from formsand patternsof devotionare necessary to lead children into the most early and easy practice of their duty. Our blessed Lord himself gave his disciples a form of prayer*, when in the younger years of their christia nity they desired him to teach them to pray ; Luke xi. 2, 3. " When ye pray, say, Our Father, &c." . I could never approve of confining persons, and binding them down to a constant set titrm of prescribed words, especially when they are capable of adding, leaving out and altering a prayer with Judgment and discretion, be- cause thetemper of our spirits, the occurrencesof life, and our occasions of conversewith. God, are infinitely various : and it may beeasily proved, that our Saviour never intended so to confine bis disciples: yet I am persuaded there mayhave been a superstitious abhorrence of all forms of prayer, as though theywere sinful, on the one hand, as well as a superstitious fondness fer them, and imposition of them, as though they were necessary, on the other: for superstition consists in snaking that a sin, which God has not made so, as well as in making that necessary, which God has not ap- pointed. I verily believe, that manypersons, grown up tomature years, through an unreasonable prejudice and aversion to all forms of prayer, from their childhood, have suffered some disadvantage in their private devotions ; their spirits have been early contracted and bound up within too narrow a circle of pious thoughts, for want of those greater enlargements, which might bave been attained, by a prudent and pious use of books of devotion. There is an excellent improvement to be madeof such religious composures, without confiningourselves to the whole matter, form and order, to all the wordsand syllables of those devotional writings. Many sentences maybe changed, put is,m left out, according to various cases that occur in daily life ; and patterns of prayer ma v, be of considerable service, were they are not expressly used as forms of worship. Among-the most zealous writers against the imposition of liturgies. and Here it may be observed, that not only by the writers of the church of England, but by the protestant dissenters also, this is expressly Milled, " The Rum ..f Prayer which Christ taught his Disciples." See " The Assembly's Les- :. r Catechism," answer ninetynioe.
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