is a science.

gary And all this is for the wants of the body, which must soon be at ari end. The soul has its wants, which none, but God, can supply; and cannot live a single day, unless they are supplied: I say live; for the life that is without God is not life: his grace is as necessary to the soul, as bread is to the body: for man liveth not by bread alone, but by the word of God: and as the manna came down from heaven every day, we are thereby taught, that man must do as the Israelites did; he must go out every day to seek it by prayer, and gather it. If we seek it, we shall find it; nothing is promised to him, that seeketh not; he who knows this, and acts accordingly, is a true believer he feels himself to be, when he comes to God, what the beggar feels himself, when he comes to the door of plenty: hungry, and thirsty, and full of complaints; he feels, what no man but a Christian can feel; his hunger and thirst are therefore blessed: they are a proof that he is alive; they have a promise, that they shall be filled. But he that asketh not, hungers not; and he that hungers not, has not the wants of a living man.

We are now to consider that every man ought to pray as a sinner; for a sinner he cer

tainly is. In many things we offend all: and

if God should be extreme to mark what is done amifs, no flesh should be saved. What shall then become of us, without forgiveness of sin? for this purpose were the morning and evening sacrifices appointed from the beginning, which ought to be daily offered at this time, in their proper signification, to him, without whom there is no remission of sin. All men are guilty of offences which they do know; and of many more, which they do not know. Hence the Psalmist says, who can tell how oft he offendeth? O cleanse thou me from my secret faults! Sins of both kinds were equally before the eyes of God, and needed the advantage of the sacrifice. That forgiveness of sin is to be prayed for daily, is manifest from hence; because it is the subject of a petition in the Lord's Prayer, which is daily to be used. But the same was signified by the daily practice of the Church, before that prayer was given every sacrifice that was offered shewed the necessity of atonement for sin. And the sacrifices of the tabernacle and temple being offered daily in the morning and evening service, the congregation who offered them applied for forgiveness of sin twice a day to God and less, I think, will not suffice in any family at this day. We are not departed from the custom of

:

sacrificing

1

1

sacrificing, though we do not offer up a bloody sacrifice, as of old; but we offer to the Father his Son Jesus Christ, who suffered for our sins upon the Cross. Twice in the day doth the Church direct all its members to put up a petition to heaven, that the Lord would have mercy upon us miserable offenders, according to his promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord. But here it should be well considered, that when we ask forgiveness for our sins, we ask it, on condition that we forgive the sins of others. The words are easily spoken; but what man can fulfil them, without the grace of God to dispose and assist him? for wrath and malice are in the heart of man; the spirit that is in us lusteth to envy; and we thirst for revenge against those who have despised, offended, or injured us. The struggle between duty and passion is often very hard to good men; who cannot bring their minds to calmness, patience and forbearance, till they set before their eyes the patience of Jesus Christ, who pleaded and prayed for his murderers.

But after all that has been said, the greatest reason for prayer is yet behind. Our duty first calls upon us to pray; next, our wants and necessities; and lastly, our dangers, From the

a

final petitions of the Lord's prayer, we may learn what will certainly become of us, if we do not pray: viz. that we shall, as I observed before, be led into temptation, and not be delivered from evil. The first temptation brought death with it: all temptation aims at man's destruction: and the world is full of it. Every age, every state of life, hath its temptations. How shall we meet them? how shall we overcome them? never, without the help of God; and this I cannot repeat too often: that help he will not find, who does not pray for it. If you would have a pros pect of all the dangers to which man is liable, set before your eyes the three great enemies of his salvation; always endeavouring to draw him into sin. Look at the vain and wicked world, with all its ways and its fashions, its vain pageants and diversions, its corrupt customs and lies by which it acquires an absolute authority over the unguarded man: it first deceives him, and then domineers over his judgment. Next to this, behold the flesh, with all its appetites; all of which are by nature given to impetuosity, and excess. As the dog goes to his vomit, and the swine to its wallowing in the mire, so doth the natural man, if he has self-indulgence for his rule, lose the understanding of a man, and fall into what is beastly and destructive. Every D 2

object

;

object which is about us, if our faculties are not duly regulated, tempts us to some abuse of the creatures of God: and, what is worst of all, there is a subtle invisible enemy always at hand, who, being himself evil, turns all things to evil; to the end that those things, which God made for our good, may work together for our ruin; and we are either to be delivered from this enemy, or to be delivered up to him. Where we pray to God, to deliver us from evil, it means rather, from the evil one; and many of our best divines agree, that the words ought to have been so rendered; deliver us from the evil one, that is, the Devil. Our English version seems to fail in the same way, in another passage where the person of our Saviour is to be understood; "Who will "harm you, if ye be followers of that which is

good? where it ought rather to be, "if ye be followers, (or imitators) of that good one, Christ? for the Scripture does not deal much in abstractions. Taking it for granted then, that evil is the EVIL ONE; We learn from the Scripture, who, and what, he is; that his work in general is, to overthrow all the designs of God for the salvation of man that he is a serpent, a liar, a murderer, a destroyer: though modern divinity, if it may be called divinity, says he is nothing. (What? when Christ came into the world to

destroy