A discourse concerning prayer : and the frequenting daily public prayers . cerity and up-rightness of our hearts resolving to be whollyHis, and to serve Him in newness of life allour days. And the truth is, every one of these is vir-tually a petition to Him. Whether we hear-tily acknowledge what He is, or adore Him,or praise Him, or give Him thanks, or confessour unworthiness, or profess our dependenceon Him, or promise fidelity to Him, theyall bespeak His grace and favour towardsus, and move Him to bestow His mercyupon us. This is a short explication of the nature ofPrayer ; which will be som
A discourse concerning prayer : and the frequenting daily public prayers . cerity and up-rightness of our hearts resolving to be whollyHis, and to serve Him in newness of life allour days. And the truth is, every one of these is vir-tually a petition to Him. Whether we hear-tily acknowledge what He is, or adore Him,or praise Him, or give Him thanks, or confessour unworthiness, or profess our dependenceon Him, or promise fidelity to Him, theyall bespeak His grace and favour towardsus, and move Him to bestow His mercyupon us. This is a short explication of the nature ofPrayer ; which will be something better under-stood, by what follows concerning the neces-sity of it; though when I have said all that Ican, I am sensible it will be defective. ForPrayer is so sublime a thing, that the noblestwits have acknowledged, we stand in need ofthe Father to enlighten, of His first-begottenWord to teach, and of the Spirit to operate in O O o- -o 30 OF THE NATURE OF THIS DUTY. us (as Origen^s words are) that we may beable to think and speak worthily in so great 0- -o —o OF THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER. 31 CHAPTER II. OF THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER. V^fTE shall be the more strongly moved to ^ study this high and excellent duty, andto labour to perform it aright, when we aremade sensible it is so indispensable a part of agodly life, that we cannot so much as pretendto the profession of Christianity, if we do notpractice it. Of which there is this general de-monstration, which cannot be gainsaid. That which is founded in our nature, and towhich we are bound by virtue of our beingcreatures; to that, every Christian is indispen-sably tied: it being the intention of the comingof our Lord Christ not to loosen those obli-gations we have upon us, as men; but tostrengthen them, and bind them harder uponus ; to heighten all natural duties, and to makeus more deeply sensible of the laws that arewritten in our very being. o 6 Q 32 OF THE NECESSITY Now such a one is this of Prayer; whichd
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