with lively gratitude and joy, to adopt the language of the prophet: O Lord, I will praise thee though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid : for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation. Therefore with joy shall (I) draw water out of the wells of salvation." (Isaiah, xii. 1-3.) Thus the Christian, withdrawn for a season from the world, and realizing the immediate presence of God, the awfulness of eternity, and the vast importance of heavenly things, prays to his Father, which seeth in secret; gets more humbling views of himself, and makes fresh discoveries of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and of the superaboundings of Divine grace, of the long-suffering patience of the Lord, of the grace he has bestowed on him, the deliverances he has wrought for him, and the abundant mercy which is treasured up in Christ Jesus for all true believers. Thus he, who began his secret prayers "with groanings that cannot be uttered"

(Rom. viii. 26), finds spiritual enlargement; is strengthened with might in the inner man" (Eph. iii. 16); is enriched with the light of God's reconciled countenance; and comes forth from his closet in a more humble, more watchful, more spiritual, more holy, more heavenly frame; and, consequently, is more fit for the public duties of religion, or the particular duties of his calling-the Lord having put into his heart more gladness than an increase of corn and wine could give (Ps. iv. 7), and caused his holy comforts to delight his soul. (Ps. xciv. 19.)

CHAPTER II.

ON THE NEGLECT OF PRIVATE PRAYER.

How lamentable is it that a duty so obvious, a privilege so great, a means of grace so enriching to the soul, ever should be neglected! What are the causes to be assigned for it?

If the neglect be total and permanent, impenitency of heart may be suspected as the cause.

To perceive no necessity for secret prayer -to have no mind, no will, no heart, to such a duty to make no effort to discharge it, and to feel no remorse of conscience for neglecting it, are fearful signs of an unhumbled, unrenewed, impenitent heart. Whilst the cause remains, the effect will continue; therefore, let such "beseech

God to grant them true repentance, and his Holy Spirit," that their indisposition to call upon him in private may be removed, that their secret prayers may be accepted, and openly rewarded by him, "and that the rest of their life may be pure and holy; so that at the last they may come to his eternal joy, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

If the neglect be temporary and voluntary, some sin, or sins, committed against light and knowledge, may be the cause.

SUCH sins load the conscience with guilt, weaken the spiritual strength of the Christian, becloud his evidences of grace, make him a terror to himself, and afraid of realizing the Divine presence. Then he is shy of drawing near to God in secret; and as our first parents, from conscious guilt, would have "hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden;" so he, by neglecting the positive and known duty of secret prayer,

flies, as it were, from the Lord's presence, to forget his transgression, and acquire his former confidence, by occupying his time and thoughts with the affairs of this. world. But this is folly. To add sin to sin-the sin of omission to the sin of commission-gives the enemy of souls a powerful advantage over him. It invariably increases his guilt, benumbs his conscience, strengthens his inbred corruptions, and renders his return to spiritual duties increasingly difficult. However painful it may be to draw near to God in secret with an awful consciousness of guilt on the soul, it should not be shunned. It is vastly better, while the conscience is feelingly alive to the wound it has received, to hasten to the throne of grace, and ingenuously to confess the sin, looking to the cross of Christ, and imploring the pardon of it for his sake, and grace to be more watchful in future. It must be done, or the consequences will be most awful; and the sooner it is done the better. "For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption; and he shall