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           Doth sick David pray that some further time may be added to the lease of his temporal life?  It is not out of a fond love to this world or the carnal entertainments of it, but to prepare himself the better for another life.  ‘O spare me,’ a little ‘that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more,’ Ps. 39:13.  Is he comforted with hopes of a longer stay here?  It is not any of this world’s carnal pleasures that kindles this joy in his holy breast, but the advan­tage he shall thereby have for praising God in the land of the living.  ‘Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God,’ Ps. 42:11.  The saint hath as quick a sense to taste the sweetness of a temporal mercy as another; but his heart being spiritual, and so acquainted with higher enjoyments, he desires with Luther that God would not put him off with these shells of blessings. O how few thus pray for temporals!  Most are but progging^[4] for their lusts while praying for them.  ‘Ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts,’ James 4:3.  One is sick, and prays for health that he may be again at his pots or harlots.  Another is child­less, and he would have an heir to uphold the pride and grandeur of his house, but not the increase of Christ’s family in the world.  A third would be a greater man in the world—and for what?  May be, that having more power he may take the fuller re­venge on his enemies that are now out of his reach. And other that bring not their sacrifice with so evil a mind, yet look no higher their carnal contentment in the enjoyment they would have, as appears by their carriage in the use of it.  Thus the mariners in a sea‑storm, ‘Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble,’ Ps. 107:28.  And when they have their life given them as they desire, ‘then are they glad because they be quiet,’ and God hears no more of them now their turn is served—a plain evidence that they were selfish and carnal in their prayer for this mercy, because they improve it not for their spiritual end. Which makes the psalmist break out into that holy option and vote, ‘Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness,’ ver. 31.  But much more abominable is it to pray for spiritual mercies for the sake of some temporal advantage we hope to have by them.  Thus Simon Magus desired the gifts of the Holy Ghost that he might be JÂH µX(­"H—a man of fame and name.  And do not some labour to bring the gospel to town as an expedient to mend the takings in their shop? —others pray for the assistances of the Spirit, and project their own praise by the means, basely per­verting those holy things to secular advantages?  O horrid baseness! As if one should desire a prince’s robe to stop an oven with it!  This is, as Austin saith, uti Deo ut fruamur mundo—to make God the stirrup and the creature our saddle.

           (2.) Those spiritual blessings which are intrin­sical to our happiness and indispensably necessary to our salvation, these we are to pray for with an undeni­able importunity.  Such are pardon of sin, the love and favour of God, and the sanctifying graces of the Spirit.  To be cold or indifferent in our prayers for these is a great wickedness.  The promise will bear us out in our greatest importunity: ‘Seek the Lord, and his strength: seek his face evermore,’ Ps. 105:4. ‘Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely,’ Rev. 22:17.  Tantum possumus in negotio religionis, quantum volumus—we are powerful in the matter of religion.  Nothing loseth us these mercies more than weak velleities and faint desires of them.  But our prayers for temporal blessings must be with a latitude of submission to the will of God, because they are promised conditionally. The promise is the founda­tion of our faith, the superstructure therefore of our prayers must not jet beyond it.  This was Israel’s sin —‘Who shall give us flesh to eat?’ Num. 11:18.  God had indeed promised to feed them in the wilderness, but not to give them every dish their wanton palate craved; and therefore, when God’s bill of fare contents them not, but they cry for flesh, they have their desire but sour sauce with it; for, ‘while their meat was yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them,’ Ps. 78:31. Thus they were fed for the slaughter by the meat they inordinately lusted after.  O take heed of peremptory prayers for any temporal enjoyment, for thereby thou beggest but a rod for thy own back.  Rachel must have children or else she dies, and she at last hath two, but dies in travail of the latter.  It was a smart saying of one to his wife, who passionately desired a son, and had one at last, but none of the wisest, ‘Wife,’ saith he, ‘thou hast long passionately desired a boy, and now thou hast one that will always be a boy.’  God may justly set some print of his anger on that mercy which he answers our peremptory prayers with.  Why, alas! must we needs have that which we must needs lose, or shall not enjoy while we have it?

           (3.) Those spiritual blessings which are intrinsical to the saints’ happiness are to be prayed for with boundless desires.  Not, Give me thus much grace and I will trouble thee for no more.  No, God gives a little grace, not to stop our mouth, but to open it wider for more.  Yet, alas! how unreasonably rea­sonable are most in this particular!  So much holiness contents them as will, like salt, keep them from putrefying in gross sins, that they be not unsavoury to the nostrils of their neighbours, or as will save them from the lash of their tormenting conscience; like school-boys, that care for no more of their lesson than will save a whipping.  Alas! this is not to desire it at all; it is thy credit abroad and thy quiet within thou desirest, and the other but to help thee to these.  He that knows the true worth of grace thinks he hath never enough till satisfied with it in glory.  Paul had more than many of his brethren, yet prays and presseth as hard after more as if he had none at all, Php. 3:13, 14.  But in temporal enjoyments we are to stint our desires, and not let out all the sails of our affections when praying for them.  A gracious heart is as unwilling to have too much of these as afraid of having too little.  ‘Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me,’ Prov. 30:8.  I think not a saint but could cheerfully say amen to this prayer of Agur—I am sure he ought.  That house is best seated which stands neither on the bleak top of the hill nor on the wet bottom.  The nature of these temporal good things is enough to convince any wise man that the mean is best.  They are not the Chris­tian’s freight but his ballast, and therefore are to be desired to poise, not load, the vessel.  They are not his portion—heaven is that; but his spending money in his journey thither; and what traveller that is wise desires to carry any greater charge about him than will pay for his quarters?

All prayer’ viewed as to DIVERSITY IN MATTER - First kind of petitionary prayer—THE PRECATORY 3/4

           (4.) Our requests for both must be spiced with thanksgiv­ing.  ‘With thanksgiving let your requests be made known,’ Php. 4:6; and, I Thes. 5:18, ‘in everything give thanks.’  Art thou praying for the love and favour of God?  Bless God thou art where it may be ob­tained, and not in hell past hope or help. Is it health thou desirest?  Bless God for life; it is the Lord’s mercy we are not consumed.  No condition on earth can be of so sad a colour in which there may not some eye of white, some mixture of mercy, be found inter­woven.  Puræ tenebræ—utter darkness, without any stricture of mercy, is found in hell alone.  Come not therefore to pray till you know also what to praise God for.  As God hath an open hand to give, so he hath an open eye to see who comes to his door, and to discern between the thankful beggar and the unthankful.  Will God give more to him on whom all is lost that he hath formerly bestowed?  Indeed he doth do good to the evil and unthankful, but it is not a gracious return of their prayers, but an act of common providence, of which they will have little comfort when he brings the bounty of his providence in judgement against them, to aggravate their sins and increase their torment.—Now follows a threefold dissimilitude which we are to observe in framing our requests for spiritual and temporal mercies.

2. There is a threefold dissimilitude to be used in precatory prayer.  Temporal mercies are chiefly to be desired for the sake of spiritual, but spiritual mercies for themselves, and not for temporal advantages.

           (1.) Temporal mercies are chiefly to be desired for the sake of spiritual blessings, and not their own. The traveller desires a horse not for itself so much as for the convenience of his journey he is to go.  Thus the Christian, when praying for temporal things, should desire them as helps in his way and passage to heaven.  I do not say it is unlawful to desire life, health, and other comforts of this life, for the suit­ableness these have to our natural affections, and to supply our outward necessities; but to desire them only for this is low and base, it is the mere cry of the creature.  The ravens thus cry, and all the beasts of the field seek their meat of God; that is, they desire the preservation of their lives, and make their moan when they want that which should support them. And these creatures being made for no higher end than the enjoyment of these particular narrow good things, they observe the law of their creation.  But thou art an intellectual being, and by thy immortal soul, which is a spiritual substance, thou art as near akin to the angels in heaven as thou art by thy meaner bodily part to the beasts, yea, allied to God thy Maker, not only made by him, as they were, but for him, which they are not.  He is thy chief good, and therefore thou infinitely dishonourest him and thyself too if thou canst sit down short of him in thy desires.  Nihil bonum sine summo bono—nothing should be good to thee without God, who is thy chief good.  Non placent tibi mea sine mecum, nec tua mihi sine tecum—thus shouldst thou say and pray, O Lord, as all my gifts and services do not please thee except with them I give thee myself, so none of these gifts of thy bounty can content me except with them thou wilt bestow thyself on me.  Now this regular motion of the heart in praying for temporals is to be found only in those whose inward wheels—I mean powers and faculties —are set right by the hand of divine grace.  Man in his corrupt state is like Nebuchadnezzar at grass—he hath a beast’s heart, that craves no more than the sat­isfaction of his sensual appetite.  But when renewed by grace, then his understanding returns to him, by which he is enabled in praying for temporals to ele­vate his desires to a higher pitch and nobler end.

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           (2.) In both thou must pray in faith, for both spiritual and temporal blessings are promised, and therefore thou art to believe that God will be as faithful and punctual in the performance of the less promises that concern this life, as in the more weighty matters which respect thy eternal happiness in the other.  Indeed, he promiseth spiritual blessings in specie—grace and glory he will give; but temporal enjoyments in valore—either in kind or value—‘no good thing will he withhold.’  And it is fit he should judge when a temporal enjoyment will be good for us, and when it will be better to give some other thing in the lieu of it.  Hence that method in our Lord’s prayer, first to pray, ‘Thy will be done,’ before we pray, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’  But the seal is the same which ratifies temporal promises with that which he sets to spiritual; his truth and faithfulness are as deeply obliged to perform temporal promises, according to the tenure in which they are made, as to make good the other.  And therefore we are as strongly to acquiesce in his care and providence for our protection and provision here, as for our salva­tion hereafter; else he had done his people wrong to take them off from an anxious care for those things which he meant not to charge his providence with. Certainly if he bids us be careful for none of these things, but only let our requests be made known to him, he intends not our loss by our ease, but thereby would have us understand and believe that he will take the care upon himself, and give us at last a full account of his love and faithfulness in the issue of his providence, how all was disposed for our best advantage.

           (3.) We must join our endeavour in the use of all means with our prayers, whether they be put up for spiritual or temporal blessings.  Lazy beggars are not to be relieved at our door.  ‘This we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat,’ II Thes. 3:10.  And certainly God will not bid them welcome to his door whom he would have us deny at ours.  We must pray with our hand at the pump or the ship will sink in sight of our prayers.

           Is it temporal subsistence thou prayest for?  Pray and work, or pray and starve.  Dost thou think to set God at work whilst thou sittest with thy hand in thy bosom?  Those two proverbs in Solomon are observable, ‘The hand of the dili­gent maketh rich,’ Prov. 10:4; and, ver. 22, ‘The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.’  He that prays but is not diligent is not like to be rich.  He that is diligent but prays not may be rich, but he cannot be blessed with his riches.  But he that obtains his riches by sincere prayer in conjunction with his diligence is rich by the blessing of God, and shall escape the sorrow which the worldling lays up with his money; yea, though he gets not an estate, yet he hath the blessing of God, and that makes him rich when there is no money in his purse.

           Again, is it any spiritual blessing thou prayest for?  Wouldst thou have more knowledge in the things of God?  Think not it will drop into thy mind without endeavour.  Daniel studied as his eyes were one while on the book, and another while lift up to heaven in prayer, Dan. 9:2.  ‘Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased,’ Dan. 12:4.  It is got by running from one means to another.  As the merchant's ship takes in some of her freight at one port, some at another, so the Christian gets some light in a sermon, some in a conference; some in one duty, some in another.  And he that takes up one duty, but through sloth neglects the rest, saves but his pains to lose his gains.  Sometimes God is found in this duty and sometimes in that, on purpose to keep up the credit of all, that we waive none.

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  Passing from what we have said of diverse man­ner in prayer, we are now to consider the diversam materiam orationis—the diverse matter of prayer. And thus, to pray with all prayer and supplication, is to encircle the whole matter of prayer within the com­pass of our duties, and not to leave anything out of our prayers which God would have taken in.  Now this diversity of prayer’s matter, some think they find in the two words of the text, BDTF,LP¬ and *,ZF4H; but I shall not ground my discourse on so nice a criti­cism.  We will content ourselves with the division which the same apostle makes: ‘In every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God,’ Php. 4:6; and, ‘Pray without ceasing.  In every thing give thanks,’ I Thes. 5:17, 18.  In both which places the whole matter of prayer is com­prehended in these two: First. Re­quest or petitionary prayer.  Second. Thanksgiving. These two are like the double motion of the lungs, by which they suck in and breathe out the air again.  In the petitionary part of prayer we desire something at God's hands; in thanksgiving we return praise to him for mercies received from him. I begin with the petitionary part of prayer.

The petitionary part of prayer.       First. The first of the twofold division of the whole matter of prayer, viz. petitionary prayer.  This is threefold.  First. Precatory.  Second. Deprecatory. Third. Imprecatory. As for that of intercession, we shall leave it to another place, under those words ‘supplication for all saints.’

First kind of petitionary prayer—the precatory.

           First. Precatory prayer; that part of prayer, I mean, wherein the Christian desires of God, in the name of Christ, some good thing of the promise to be given unto him.  Now the good things promised are either spiritual or temporal—those that respect our souls and our eternal salvation, or those which relate to our bodies and temporary estate of them in this life.  Such a large field hath the Christian given him for his requests to walk in, for ‘godliness hath the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come,’ I Tim. 4:8.  This earth below, to a saint, is a land of promise, though not the land which is chiefly promised.  God hath not promised him heaven but left him to the wide world to shift for his outward sub­sistence, he hath not bid them live by faith for their souls, but live by their wits for their bodies.  No, he that hath promised to ‘give’ him ‘grace and glory,’ hath also said, ‘no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly,’ Ps. 84:11.  Their bill of fare is provided as well as their inheritance hereafter. Now all that I shall do here is to put a compass into your hand, by the help of which you may steer your course safely, when you are bound in your requests to either point of the promise, whether it be for temporal or spiritual mercies.  And that I may not run you beside the true channel upon rocks or sands, I shall touch the needle of that compass I would commend to your use with the lodestone of Scripture, from which we may gather a fourfold similitude to be used in our request for spiritual and temporal good things promised, and a threefold dissimilitude also.

1. There is a fourfold similitude to be used in precatory prayer.

           (1.) Whether thou prayest for temporal or spir­itual blessings, thou must pray in the sense of thy own unworthiness, for thou deservest neither.  When Christ prays for us, he pleads as an advocate for justice, because he paid before he prays, and asks but what he gives the price for.  But we poor creatures are beggars, and must crave all as pure alms, for the money comes not out of our purse that made the pur­chase; neither was God the Father bound to engage his Son, or the Son to engage himself, in our recov­ery, who were fallen by forfeiture into the hands of divine justice.  So that mercy is the only plea thou who art a sinner canst make with God.  Thou mayest with man stand upon thy desert.  Thus Jacob claimed his wages at Laban’s hand; but when he hath to do with God he changeth his plea, and sues sub formâ pauperis—in the form of the poor: ‘I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant,’ Gen. 32:10.  So Daniel: ‘We do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies.’  No blessing so great but may be obtained where mercy is the plea, and none so little that we merit.  If thou wouldst therefore beg anything at God’s hand, confess thou deservest nothing.  Then are we fit to receive great things from God when we are least in our own eye; then nearest the crown when we judge ourselves unworthy of a crust.  The proud Pharisee brought his righteousness in his prayer to God, and carried away his sin bound upon him; the publican brought his sin in his humble confession, and carries away his absolution and justification with him.  Thus God crosseth his hands like Jacob in giving his blessings.

What is needful after extraordinary prayer

3. Requisite.  That which is necessary after extra­ordinary prayer.  The third word of direction is to the Christian, how he should carry himself when the day for extraordinary prayer is over, and this lies in a holy watch that he is to set upon himself.  He that prays and watcheth not, is like him that sows a field with precious seed, but leaves the gate open for hogs to come and root it up; or him that takes great pains to get money, but no care to lay it up safely when he hath it.  If Satan cannot beat thee in the field, yet he hopes to have thee at an advantage when thou hast disbanded thy forces, the duty be past, and thou liest in a careless posture.  Esau promised himself an opportunity of avenging himself on Jacob: ‘The days of mourning,’ saith he, ‘for my father are at hand; then will I slay him,’ Gen. 27:41.  Thus saith Satan: The days of mourning and fasting will soon be over; he will not be always upon his knees praying, not always beating down his body with fasting, and then I will fall upon him.  Now one of these two ways thy danger is like to come upon thee—either by his wounding thy faith or slackening thy care in thy obediential walking; and if he can do either, he will give a sad blow to thy prayers.

           (1.) Look therefore after such a day to thy faith. To pray and not to act faith, is to shoot and not look where the arrow lights; to send a ship with merchan­dise to sea and look for no return by the voyage. Thou hast in prayer laboured to overcome God to hear and help thee; now take as much pains to overcome thy heart into a quiet waiting on God and entire confidence in him.  When Jehoshaphat had ended his public fast, he stands up the next day and speaks these words to his people that had joined with him in that solemn duty, ‘Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper,’ II Chr. 20:20.  So when our blessed Saviour had taught his disciples to pray, then he pres­seth them entirely to commit themselves and their affairs to that God to whom they prayed, Matt. 6:19-34. Truly else extraordinary prayer is but extraordinary prattle; we mock God, and our prayers will mock us, for no fruit will come of them.  The hunter may want his supper, though his dog runs fast and mouths it well, if, when he comes at the prey, he dares not fasten upon it.  Now it is faith's office to fasten on the promise and take hold of God, without which thy loud cry in prayer is bootless and fruitless.  O canst thou trust thy cause with the lawyer, after thy opening it to him; and put thy life into the physician's hand by following his prescriptions, when thou hast acquaint­ed him with thy disease; and darest not thou venture thy stake in God's hand, after thou hast poured thy soul forth to him in prayer!  This is a great folly. Why shouldst thou think omnipotency cannot help, or truth and faithfulness will not?  Yea, a grievous sin to bring the name of the great God into question by thy unbelief.  Yet this our Saviour complains sadly to be the usage God meets with at their hands from whom he might expect better.  ‘Shall not God avenge his own elect which cry day and night to him, though he bear long with them?  I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.’  What greater security can the heart of a saint desire more than the word of a faithful God? yet few to be found after all their praying for deliverance that can entirely wait for the same. ‘Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?’ Luke 18:8.

           (2.) Look after a day of extraordinary prayer to thy obediential walking.  Solomon’s advice is, to ‘keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God,’ Ecc. 5:1.  Mine at present is, to look to thy foot as thou comest from it.  Thou mayest do thyself more mis­chief than all the devils in hell can do thee.  They cannot intercept thy prayers and hinder the happy re­turn of them into thy bosom, but thou mayest soon do it: ‘Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear,’ Isa. 59:1, 2.  This is the whisperer that separateth chief friends; that makes God, our best friend, stand aloof from his people and their prayers.  Be as careful, Christian, after a fast, as a man would be after strong physic.  A cold caught now—a little disorder in thy walking—may be of sad consequence.  Remember that as thou hast left thy prayers, so thy vows, with the Lord. As thou lookest God should answer the one, so he expects thou shouldst pay the other.  Break thy promise to him and thou dischargest God with thy own hand of any mercy he owes thee.  It is folly to think thou canst bind God and leave thyself free.—We have des­patched then the first branch of the distinction of the kinds of prayer, which held forth the diversos modos orandi—diverse manners of praying; from which hath been shown, that we are to pray with all manner of prayer, ejaculatory and composed, solitary and social, private and public, ordinary and extraordinary; and we now go on to the second.

What is needful IN extraordinary prayer 2/2

           (3.) Be very careful to approve thyself faithful in the soul-humbling work of the day.  Let thy confes­sions be free and full, the sense thou hast of thy sins be deep, and thy sorrow for them be sincere and evangelical, for as thou quittest thyself in this, so thou wilt be in all the other parts of the duty.  If thou con­fessest thy sin feelingly, thou wilt pray against it fervently.  If thy sorrow be deep and reach to thy very heart and spirit, then thy petitions for pardoning mercy and purging grace will also come from the heart, be cordial, warm, and vehement.  Whereas he that melts not in confession of sin will freeze in his prayers that he puts up against it; if his tears be false and whorish—lachrymæ mentiri doctæ, his desires cannot be true.  Why do men ask in their petitions that grace which they do not in their hearts desire, but because they do not feel the smart, and are not loathed with the evil, of their sins that they confess? thus many confess their sins as beggars sometimes show their sores, which they are not willing to have cured.  Again, as thou art in thy confession of sin, so thou wilt be in thy acknowledgments of mercy.  The lower thou fallest in the abasement of thyself for thy sins, the higher thou wilt mount in thy praises for his mercies.  The rebound of the ball is suitable to the force with which it is thrown down.  The deeper the base is in confession, the shriller will the treble of thy praises be, for these mutually aggravate one another. the greater our mercies are, the greater are our sins; and the greater our sins, the greater are the mercies which, notwithstanding them, our good God vouch­safeth to us.  So that the sense we have of one must needs be in proportion to the other; as we are afflic­ted for sin so will we be affected with mercy.

           (4.) Improve the intervals of prayer with sea­sonable and suitable meditations, that thou mayest be fitted to return to the work with more life and vigour. Meditation is prayer’s handmaid to wait on it both before and after the performance.  It is as the plough before the sower, to prepare the heart for the duty of prayer, and the harrow to cover the seed when it is sown.  As the hopper feeds the mill with grist, so doth meditation the heart with matter for prayer.  Now, if it be necessary that thou shouldst consider before duty what thou art to pray, then surely after duty to make reflection on thyself how thou didst pray.  The mill may go and yet no corn be ground.  Thus thou mayest confess many sins, and yet thy heart be bro­ken and ground with sorrow for none of them all. Thou mayest pray for many graces, and exercise little or no grace in thy praying for them—thy heart being lazy, and putting no weight to the work—without which these spices are not broken, and so send not forth their sweet savour.  Look therefore back upon the past duty, and observe narrowly what the beha­viour of thy heart was in it.  If thou findest it to have been lazy, and drew loose in its gears, or played the truant by gadding from the work with impertinent thoughts—in a word, if under the power of any sinful distemper, be sure at thy return to the duty of prayer that thou chargest this home upon thyself with shame and sorrow.  This is the only way to stay God’s hand and stop him from commencing a suit against thee: ‘If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged,’ I Cor. 11:31.  Ubi desinit justitia incipit judi­cium—where justice takes end judgment begins.  If we do not justice on ourselves, then God will right himself as well as he can.  Indeed thou canst not in faith pray for pardon of these sins till thou hast shown thyself on God's side by entering thy protest against them.  Moses took the right method—he expressed his zeal first for God against Israel’s sin of the golden calf, and then fell hard to the work of prayer to God for the pardon of it.  He durst not open his lips for them to God till he had vented his zeal for God, Ex. 32:26 compared with ver. 30, 31.  And if he took this course when to intercede for others, much more then shouldst thou when to pray for the pardon of thy own sin.

           Again, if upon this review of thy prayer thou findest thy heart was warm in the work, that thy affec­tions flowed out to God, and his reciprocated loves again by unbosoming himself to thee, take heed that no secret pride robs thee of thy new got treasure; be humble and thankful, remembering they were not thy own wings on which thou wert carried.  And also, be careful to improve these divine favours given to en­courage thee in the work, as the handfuls of ears of corn let fall for Ruth in the field of Boaz.  God would not that they should stop thy mouth, but open it wider when thou comest again to pray.  Did thy heart begin to melt in thy bosom?  O now cry for more bro­kenness of heart.  Did thy God cast a kind look on thee? let it set thee a longing for fuller discoveries of his love.  When the beggar sees the rich man putting his hand to his purse he cries more earnestly.  God is now on the giving hand, and this should embolden thee to ask; as Abraham, who, as God yielded, made his approaches closer, improving the ground which he got by inches for a further advantage to gain more, Gen. 18:27.

What is needful IN extraordinary prayer 1/2

2. Requisite.  That necessary to be observed in the performance of the duty of extraordinary prayer. Because those directions will serve here which are given in another place for the duty of prayer in general, I shall name but a few, and those briefly.

           (1.) When the time to engage thyself in this extraordinary duty is come, beware thou settest not upon it in the confidence of thy preparation, whatever thy care success therein hath been.  What a worthy doctor directed ministers {to do} as to their preach­ing, is applicable to Christians as to their praying—he bade them study for their sermons as if they expected no divine assistance in the pulpit, and when they came in the pulpit to cast themselves upon divine assistance as if they had not studied at all.  Thus prepare before thou comest to fast and pray, as if thou wert to meet with no further assistance in the duty; but when thou comest to the performance of the duty, cast thyself wholly upon divine assistance as if thou hadst not at all prepared.  I know not which of the two doth worst, he that presumes upon God’s as­sistance in this great work without preparation, or he that presumes on his preparation, and relies not after he hath done his best endeavour on the gracious as­sistance of God.  The first shows he hath but mean thoughts of this solemn ordinance, yea, low and un­worthy thoughts of the great God with whom he hath to do in it; and the other too high thoughts of himself.

           What though now, Christian, thou marchest in goodly array and thy heart in order; how soon, alas! may all that preparation be routed, and thy chariot-wheels, which thou hast taken so much pains to oil, be set fast or knocked off!  Now thy thoughts are unit­ed, thou thinkest; dost thou know where they will be a few minutes hence, if thy God help thee not to keep them together?  Thou canst as easily hold the four winds in a bag, as keep the thoughts of thy fluid mind from gadding.  Now thy affections are wound up to some height, but canst thou hold the pegs from slip­ping?  Cannot God wither thy hand while thou stretchest it out in prayer; make thy tongue falter when thou wouldst make use of it; yea, suffer a sud­den damp to fall on thy spirit that shall chill all thy affections and leave thy heart as cold as a stone in thy bosom? ‘Surely man at his best estate is vanity.’  And this in regard of the temper of his spirit as well as in the constitution of his body and other {of} his world­ly advantages.  How oft do we see the gifts of his mind and the vivacity of his graces fade and wither in one duty, which at another, when the Spirit of God vouch­safed his gentle breath to quicken them, did flourish and send forth their fragrant spices in abundance!  O do not then applaud thyself in thy gourd, which may so soon be smitten, neither commit so great an ad­venture as the success of this duty is in the leaking bottom of thy own preparation.

           (2.) Pray often rather than very long at a time.  It is hard to be very long in prayer and not slacken in our affections. Those watches which are made to go longer than ordinary at one winding do commonly lose towards the end.  The flesh is weak; and if the spirits of the body tire, the soul that rideth on this beast must needs be cast behind.  Our Saviour, when he prayed for his life, we find him praying rather often than long at once.  He who, in a long journey, lights often to let his beast take breath, and then mounts upon him again, will get to his journey’s end may be sooner than he that puts him beyond his strength.  Especially observe this in social prayers. For, when we pray in company we must consider them that travail with us in the duty; as Jacob said, ‘I will lead on softly,...as the children are able to endure.’  Yet I speak not this that you should give any check to the Spirit of God in his assistances, which sometime come so strong that the Christian is, as it were, carried with a full fore‑wind, and hath the la­bour of tugging at the oar saved him.  The ship of the soul goes with most facility when with most speed.  Such assistances lift both the person praying and those that join with him—if gracious, and under the same quickenings—in a manner above all weariness. The Spirit brings spirits—affections, I mean—with him. Such a soul is like a vessel that runs full and fresh—what pours from him is quick and spiritful; whereas at another time, when the Spirit of God de­nies these assistances, his prayer tastes flat to his own palate, if not to others’.

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2. For the mercies thou hast received.  Thou hast these—at least the most signal instances of them —upon the file, unless thou beest a very bad husband for thy soul.  If God thinks fit to bottle his saints’ tears, they should surely not forget to book his mer­cies.  Now there are some special seasons wherein the saint should take down this chronicle of God’s mercies to read in it; and this is one, when he is to engage in this extraordinary duty.

           (1.) As the most effectual means to melt his heart for sin.  Mercy gives the greatest aggravation to sin, and therefore must needs be the most powerful instrument to break the heart for sin.  With this God doth reproach sinning Israel, ‘Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise?’ Deut. 32:6. They could not have been evil to such a height if God had not been so good to them.  When God would break the sore of his people's sin, he compounds a poultice with his choicest mercies and lays this warm to their hearts.  David had sat many months under the lec­tures of the law, unhumbled for his bloody compli­cated sin; but Nathan is sent to preach a rehearsal sermon to him of the many mercies that God had graced him with, and while these coals are pouring on his head his heart dissolves presently, II Sam. 12.  The frost seldom is quite out of the earth till the sun hath got some power in the spring to dissolve its bands; but then it sets it going.  Neither will the hardness of the heart be to any purpose removed until the soul be thoroughly warmed with the sense of God’s mercies. ‘And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight,’ Eze. 20:43.  Where is that ‘there’ but amidst the thoughts of his mercies, as by the context is manifest?  A pardon from the prince hath made some weep whom the sight of the block and axe could not move.  Sight of wrath inflames the conscience, but sense of mercy kindly melts the heart and overcomes the will.

           (2.) As a necessary ingredient in all our prayers.  ‘With thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God,’ Php. 4:6.  This spice must be in all our offerings.  He that prays for mercy he wants, and is not thankful for mercies re­ceived, may seem mindful of himself, but he is forgetful of God, and so takes the right course to shut his prayers out of doors.  God will not put his mercies into a rent purse, and such is an unthankful heart, for it drops them soon out of his memory.

3. For the wants thou liest under.  Before the tradesman goes to the fair he looks over his shop that he may know what commodity he most lacks.  Thou goest to this duty to furnish thyself with the graces and mercies thou needest, is it not necessary then to see what thy present store is? what thy personal and what thy relational needs are?—not forgetting the public, in whose peace and happiness thou art so much concerned; for, if this ship sink, thou canst not be safe in thy private cabin.  To leave all these to oc­cur and overtake thee, without charging thy thoughts with them by previous meditation, is too high a presumption for a sober Christian to take up.  Be­sides, thy affections need help as well as thy memory. Nay, we may sooner bring our sins and wants to mind than lay them to heart.  It is easier to know them, than knowing them to be deeply affected with them: and we do not come in prayer to tell God a bare story of these things, but feelingly and affectionately to make our moan and complaint with deep sighs and groans to him that can pardon the one and relieve us in the other.

           Third.  When thou hast upon this scrutiny kin­dled thy affections with the bellows of meditation into a deep sense of these things, then furnish thyself with arguments from the promises to enforce thy prayers and make them prevalent with God.  The promises are the ground of faith, and faith when strengthened will make thee fervent, and such and such fervency ever speeds and returns with victory out of the field of prayer.  ‘The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,’ James 5:16.  Words in prayer are but as powder; the promise is the bullet that doth the execution, faith the grace that chargeth the soul with it, and fervency that gives fire, and dischargeth it into God's bosom with such a force that the Almighty cannot deny it entrance, because indeed he will not. Now, as he is an impudent soldier that leaves his bullets to be cast or fitted to the bore of his piece till he comes into the field; so he an unwise Christian that doth not provide and sort promises suitable to his condition and request before he engageth in so solemn a service.  Daniel first searcheth out the promise—what God had engaged himself to do for his people, as also when the date of this promise expired; and when by meditation and study upon it he had raised his heart to a firm belief thereof, then he sets upon God with a holy violence in prayer, and pres­seth him close, not only as a merciful God, but righteous also, to remember them now the bond of his promise was coming out: ‘O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem,’ &c., Dan. 9:16.  The mightier any is in the word, the more mighty he will be in prayer.  Having despatched the preparatory directions, I now come to those that are to be observed in the duty itself

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1. For the sins thou hast committed.  The great business of a fast lies in the practice of repentance, and this cannot be done without a narrow scrutiny of the heart: ‘Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord,’ Lam. 3:40.  The thief must be found before he can be tried, and tried before he is con­demned and executed.  Some sins no doubt may be taken and apprehended with little pains; but if thou beest true to God and thy own soul, thou wouldst not willingly let any of the company escape.  How canst thou expect pardon for any that desirest not justice on all? and how canst thou say thou desirest justice on those sins which thou endeavourest not to appre­hend?  That constable that having a hue and cry brought him for a pack of thieves, and lets any get away rather than he will rise to search for them, shows his zeal to justice is little. I do not say thou wilt be able to find all.  It is enough if by thy diligence thou givest proof of thy sincerity that thou wouldst not conceal any.  Set thyself, therefore, in good earnest to the work.  Beset thy heart and life round, as men would do a wood where murderers are lodged.  Hunt back to the several stages of thy life, youth, and riper years all the capacities and relations thou hast stood in, thy calling general and particular—every place where thou hast lived, and thy behaviour in them.  Bid memory bring in its old records, and read over what passages are there written.  Call conscience in to depose what it knows concerning thee, and encourage it to speak freely without mincing the matter: and take heed thou dost not snib this witness, as some corrupt judges use when they would favour a bad cause, or give it secret instructions—as David did Joab—to deal gently with thee.  Be willing to have thy condition opened fully and all thy coverings turned up.  For many times foul designs are his with fair pretences, as the barrels of powder in the parliament cellar under coals and billets.  Now, when thou hast gone as far as thou canst, begging Heaven’s help in the thing, to search and try thee whether there be any further wickedness that thou hast not found out, then burden thy soul, judge thyself for them with all the brokenness of heart thou canst get, justifying God in the sentence denounced against thee for them.  God will have thee lay thy neck on the block, though he means not to give the stroke.  In a word, labour in thy meditations to give every sin its due accent, and suffer thy thoughts to dwell on them till thou findest the fire of thy indignation kindle in thy heart against them, yea, flame forth into such a holy zeal against them as makes thee put thyself under an oath to endeavour their utter ruin and destruction.  Then thou art fit to beg thy own life when thou hast vowed the death of thy sins.

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 (2.) The end may be, though not intrinsically evil, yet evil from some irregularity in misplacing it; as when we make that our ultimate end which should only be our subordinate end in the duty.  That which would be lawful standing in its proper place, becomes sinful when the ultimate end is crowded down to make room for that.  The glory of God is to be the ultimate end, not only in every duty of worship, but in all our common actions also, even to eating and drinking.  Those low actions are to be elevated to this high end, I Cor. 10:31.  And good reason he should be our utmost end from whom we received our begin­ning.  All things are of him, and therefore fit they should be to him.  The river-water empties itself into the bosom of the sea from whence it flows.  Now, if we are to have so high an end in our lowest actions, then surely in our highest; and such are acts of wor­ship, in which we have immediately to do with God, and are thence called priests, ‘to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ,’ I Peter 2:5.  There is indeed another end also for which ordinances are appointed, viz. to conduit-pipes for conveying all kind of blessings from God unto us; but this is an inferior end, and to be subordinated to the former, or else we make the glory of God an under­ling to our particular good, which God will not endure.  Possibly we are in some great affliction.  This sets us to prayer for deliverance.  Thus far we keep our way.  But then we turn aside when our deliver­ance is more regarded by us than his glory.  This is to set the subject in his prince’s chair; uti Deo ut frua­mur mundo—to make use of God that we may enjoy the creature.  Beware of this.  Whatever we prefer in our desires above the glory of God is an idol-worship by us.  The heart can engrave as well as the hand, and an idol in the heart is as bad as one set up in the house.

           Question.  But how may I find whether the glory of God, or the particular good thing I pray for, be that which I make my chief end in duty?

           Answer.  It may be discovered two ways: (a) By thy carriage in prayer. (b) By thy carriage after prayer.

           (a) By the carriage of thy heart in prayer.  If the glory of God be chiefly aimed at by thee, this will give a tincture to the whole duty, and be influential into every part of it; thou wilt suit thy requests to this end. For, as there is a secret force from the arm that draws the bow impressed on the arrow which carries it to the mark aimed at by the shooter, so there is a secret power which carries the soul out in duty to act suit­ably to the end he chiefly propounds and desires to obtain; for no man would willingly obstruct and hin­der what above all he wisheth for.  We will suppose pardon of sin is the mercy thou prayest for.  Now if thou desirest sincerely the glory of God as well as this mercy, yea, above it, this will direct thee in thy con­fession of sin to afflict thy soul more for the dis­honour thou hast by it reflected on God than the wrath thou hast incurred thyself.  So in thy petition, thou darest not beg thy pardon on terms that were dishonourable for God to give it on, but will desire the mercy in such a way as his glory may be both secured and advanced.  Now God cannot pardon the sin of an impenitent wretch that holds still the love and liking of his lust without infinite wrong to his glorious name.  And therefore, if his glory be so high in thy eye as thou sayest, thou wilt cry as earnestly for his sanctifying grace as for pardoning mercy, and not merely because thou canst not have pardon without it—as a sick man desires a bitter potion to save his life, not that he loves it—but because by it thou shalt be fitted to glorify him.

           (b) It may be discovered by thy carriage after duty, and that in two particulars: when the thing prayed for is obtained, and also when denied.

           When the mercy prayed for is obtained.  If thou didst chiefly aim at the glory of God in begging it, thy chief care will be to lay it out for his glory now thou hast it; whereas he that aimed at himself in praying for it, will as little regard God in the using of it as he did in begging it.  It is natural for things to resolve into their principles.  The child that Hannah obtain­ed of God she dedicates unto the Lord—and why? but because this was her end in praying for him, I Sam. 1:11 compared with ver. 28.  When David’s prayer is heard, and he delivered, mark what his resolve from this is, ‘I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living,’ Ps. 116:9.  And again, ‘O Lord, truly I am thy servant,...thou hast loosed my bonds,’ ver. 16.  He re­turns the mercy to God by improving it for him in a holy life. How can we think he aimed at the glory of God in praying for health that runs away from God as soon as he is set upon his legs? or, in praying for wealth, that lays it out upon his lusts?

           Again, when the thing prayed for is denied.  He that aims sincerely at God’s glory in prayer for a mer­cy—I speak now of such mercies as are but conditionally promised—he will cheerfully submit to the will of God in a denial thereof, because God can in such petitions glorify himself by denying as well as granting them.  David prayed and fasted for the life of his sick child.  It dies notwithstanding.  Now, does this denial make him fall out with God? is he clam­orous and discontent?  No, it raiseth no storm in his heart or lowering weather in his countenance to hin­der him in the service of God.  He washeth his tears from his blubbered cheeks, changes his apparel, and goes cheerfully into the house of God and worship­peth, II Sam. 12:20, so powerfully did the will of God determine his will.  Thus, as the heavenly bodies are by the primum mobile carried contrary to their par­ticular inclination, so grace in a saint overrules his natural affection, and carries him into a compliance with the will of God when it crosseth his own.  Our blessed Saviour had natural affections, which made him pray the bitter cup of his passion might, if pos­sible, pass from him; yet not so but he was willing to take a denial, and therefore desires his Father to glorify himself, though it were by taking away his life, John 12:27, 28.

           Second.  The second thing thou art to do, having fixed thy end right, is to make a private search into thy heart and life, whereby thou mayest be enabled more fully and feelingly to lay open thy condition before the Lord.  Now there are three heads of inquiry thou art to go upon: 1. For the sins thou hast committed.  2. For the mercies thou hast received.  3. For the wants thou liest under.

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First.  Examine thy soul, what end thou pro­poundest to thyself in the intended service of extraordinary prayer.  None but a child or a fool will run before he knows what is his errand.  The end is that which a wise man looks to before he sets his hand to any work, and the more weighty the enter­prise is the more necessary this is.

1. Consider, if the end thou propoundest be evil, the duty cannot be good, because thy heart is not sincere in it.  The sincerity of the heart discovers itself in the mark it sets up and end it aims at in a duty, not in the external performance of it.  The thief and the honest traveller may be found riding in the same road, but they have different aims therein, and this distinguisheth them.  Thus the saint and hypo­crite join in the same duty, shoot as it were the same bow, but their eye takes not the same aim, and therefore the arrows meet not in the same butt.  The prayers of one are rejected as abominable, and the other graciously accepted.  Who more seemingly de­vout than the captive Jews that kept up a fast for seventy years together? yet God gives them but little thanks for their pains, because their end was not right: ‘When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?’ Zech. 7:5.  The faster a man gallops, if he be out of his way, it is the worse. Zeal is the best or worst thing in a duty.  If the end be right, O it is excellent! but if wrong, stark naught.  And it is no easy thing to propound a right end.  The eye must be set right in the head before it can look right.  If the piece be wrong made it will never carry the bullet straight to the mark.  A false heart—and every carnal heart is such—cannot have a true end.
2. Consider that your endeavour in the duty will bear proportion, and be commensurate, to the end you propound therein.  If your end be low, your endeavour will be no more than to reach that end; as he that intends to build a little cot­tage contents himself with ordinary stuff, clay and thatch; but he that designs some stately palace provides more precious materials.  Thus David was very curious in the materials he laid aside for the temple: ‘For the palace,’ saith he, ‘is not for man, but for the Lord God.’  Therefore he ‘prepared with all his might gold and silver,’ &c., I Chr. 29:1-3.  The hypocrite’s ends in a fast are low and base—his credit with men, carnal profit, and the like.  Accordingly, his endeavour is laid out on the external duty—a demure counten­ance, devout posture, and such expressions in prayer as may most take with those that hear him, and this is all he looks at.  But the gracious soul saith with David, This palace I build, this duty I perform, ‘is not for man, but for the Lord God,’ and therefore his chief care is to provide more precious materials—a broken heart for sin in his confessions, faith and fervency in his petitions, love and thankfulness in his acknowledgments of mercies received.

           Question.  But when is an evil end propounded in this duty?

           Answer.  The end we propound may be evil, either intrinsically, when the thing we aim at is evil in its own nature, or else from some irregularity in placing it too high or low in our aim.

           (1.) The ends that are intrinsically evil.  To name two,

           (a) When a person or a people shall fast and pray to cover and more sleightily carry on any wicked enterprise.  This is a horrid evil, a monstrous abomin­ation.  What is this but to hang out the sign of an angel at the door, that they may play the devil within the less suspected?  Yet, such deep hypocrisy hath the heart of man discovered, that it dare come and lay its cockatrice egg under the very wing of God, and make use of this solemn ordinance as an expedient to hatch their wicked designs.  The fox, they say, when hard put to it, will, to save himself, fall in among the dogs, and hunt among them as one of their company.  Thus the hypocrite, the better to conceal his wicked proj­ects, will run among the saints, and make as loud a cry in this duty and others as the best of them all.  It is the devil’s old trick, and he hath learned it his instruments, to wrap up wicked plots in the gilded covers of God’s ordinances.  What plotting and counterplotting was there between Shechem the son of Hamor and Simeon and Levi? and the expedient both used to accomplish their designs was an ordin­ance of God.  The one hopes by submitting to it to hook into his hands the whole estate of Jacob’s family —‘shall not their substance be ours?’ and the other persuades them to it that when they were sore they might butcher them without resistance.  Absalom, that he might better play the traitor against his father, begs leave to pay his vow at Hebron.  Jezebel sets her trap for Naboth, and that he may the more surely fall into her clutches, she croucheth and humbleth herself even before God in a fast.  And the demure Pharisee, who bragged so much of his fasting, our Saviour was bold to tell him it was to ‘devour the widows’ houses.’ But, as the father hath it, manducant in terris quod apud inferos digerunt—they devour on earth those morsels that will lie heavy on their stomachs in hell to be digesting to eternity.  Thus the hypocrite, like antichrist, sits in the temple of God, and there com­mits his execrable abominations, turning a house of prayer into a den of thieves.  O tremble at this great wickedness!  It gives a crimson tincture to a sin when it is committed under the disguise of religion.

           (b) When a person thinks by fasting and prayer to satisfy God for his sin, or merit any favour at the hands of God.  This is wicked and abominable, and as contrary to the nature of prayer as buying is to begging.  ‘The poor,’ saith Solomon, ‘useth en­treaties,’ Prov. 18:23.  ‘Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, but I would make supplica­tion to my judge,’ Job 9:15.  We cannot have the bene­fit of the throne of grace till we quit our legal plea. Christ indeed pleads as righteous, and therefore desires what he asks for us as just, because he hath paid for it; but we pray as sinners, and therefore crave all as mercy, yea, though we plead Christ’s merit, because he is the greatest and freest gift of all other. Yet, such is the pride of man's heart, that he had rather play the merchant, and truck his duties for God’s blessings, than be thought to receive them gratis.  This was the temper of the carnal Jews.  They thought to pacify God for their sin, as Jacob his angry brother, with the droves and flocks of duties which they presented him with, and thought their services undervalued when they were not accepted for good payment.  Hence their bold expostulating the case with the Lord, ‘Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge?’ Isa. 58:3.  Such a high opinion they had of themselves.  O take heed of this: pride turns an ordinance into an idol.  God accepts our fasts and prayers when used for humilia­tion, but abhors them when we bring them for our justification.  The Pharisee lost himself by his proud brags how oft he fasted, while the poor publican got the prize by a humble confession of his sin, Luke 18.  He that thinks to wash his face with puddle water, instead of making it clean will leave it fouler.  Truly our best tears are not over clean, and can they make us clean that need themselves to be washed?  Holy Job durst not rely on his purity: ‘If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.  For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment,’ Job 9:30-32.

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   (2.) There is more close and immediate prepa­ration required, and this I call actual preparation.  It is true, indeed, he that is conscientious and careful in the ordinary exercises of religion, hath a great advan­tage of him that either neglects them or is loose in them, for his heart must needs stand in a nearer disposition to this extraordinary service than the other—as he that is up and hath his clothes on, is more ready to go on his master’s errand than he that is asleep in his bed.  Yet, besides this care in our daily walking, there needs some further pains to be taken with his heart to raise it unto such a frame as may comport with this solemn service.  The neat house­wife, though she endeavours to keep her house clean, yet, against some good time, as they call it, she is more than ordinary curious in washing her rooms, and scouring her vessels, that they might not only be clean but bright; and so should the Christian.  Now is the time for thee to scour off the dust thou contract­est in thy daily course, and to brighten thy graces unto a further glory that appears in thy everyday walking, to do which will cost pains and require time.

           The Christian is like some heavy birds, as the bustard and others, that cannot get upon the wing without a run of a furlong or two; or a great bell that takes some time to the raising of it.  Now, meditation is the great instrument thou art to use in this pre­paratory work.  Allow thyself some considerable por­tion of time, before the day of extraordinary prayer, for thy retirement, wherein thou mayest converse most privately with thy own heart.  This cannot be done in a crowd, neither must it be left to the time of engaging in the extraordinary duty.  We cannot do both duties together.  The husbandman cannot whet his scythe and cut grass at once.  Betake thyself there­fore to thy closet, and in the first place call thy thoughts off the world, and as much as is possible clear thy soul of all that is foreign to the work thou art about; this is the wiping of the table‑book before we can write anything well on it. Now the more effec­tually to gather in thy heart to a holy seriousness, and compact thy thoughts together, it were expedient for thee at first to lay before thee the grand importance of the approaching service.  Thou art going to stand be­fore the great God, and that very near in an extra­ordinary duty, wherein thou wilt either sanctify or profane his reverend in a high degree, and accordingly art to expect his love or wrath in some choice blessing or dreadful curse, to be the issue and result of thy undertaking!  Gird the loins of thy mind with some such awful apprehensions as these.  As natural fear makes the spirits retire from the outward parts of the body to the heart, so this holy fear of miscarrying in so solemn a duty would be a means to call thy thoughts from all exterior carnal objects, and fix them upon the duty in hand; 'In thy fear will I worship,’ Ps. 5:7.  Such will the print on the wax be as the sculpture is on the seal.  If the fear of God be deeply engraven on thy heart, there is no doubt but it will make a suit­able impression on the duty thou performest.  Well, now the court is set and silence commanded, a few particulars I shall propound for thy thoughts to go upon in this preparatory work.

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           Question Fifth.  What counsel or direction may be given to the acceptable and successful performance of this solemn duty?

           Answer.  I come now to shut up my discourse on this point, in answering this last question.  A serious necessary one it is, for indeed it is an edge‑tool of excellent use, but dangerous in his hand that knows not how to use it.  Like some physic, if it doth not purge it poisons.  In the same fat soil where the corn is best the weeds also are rankest.  Neither grace nor sin grow to such a height anywhere as in those that converse much with this solemn ordinance.  And therefore, as they who are in a ship upon a swift stream had need the more look to the steerage of it, because they will be carried amain either to their port or wreck; so have they to be reason to be very careful in the managery of this service, the issue whereof cannot be ordinary because the duty is extraordinary. Now the counsel or direction to be given must neces­sarily be divided into these three general heads.  1. Some preparatory direction before the duty.  2. Something to be observed in the performance of the duty.  3. Something after the despatch of it.

The city cannot be safe unless the whole line be kept. It is all one whether the enemy breaks in at the front flank or rear of an army; or whether the ship be taken at sea, or sink in the haven when the voyage is over.

What is needful before extraordinary prayer

1. Requisite.  Some preparatory direction before the duty.  Now there is a double preparation requisite —the one more remote, the other immediate; or, if you please, habitual preparation and actual.

           (1.) There is a remote and habitual preparation, of great use to the performance of this solemn duty of extraordinary prayer.  It lies in this, to look, Chris­tian, that thou showest a conscionable care in thy daily walking, and the constant exercise of this duty in thy ordinary daily offices of devotion, or else thou art like to make but bad work when thou comest to engage in the extraordinary.

           (a) Thy neglect in the ordinary duty will exceed­ingly indispose thee for the extraordinary.  Who would take a foggy horse out of the pasture to run a race?  In extraordinary prayer the soul is to be put on her full speed, all her powers to strained to their utmost ability, and to continue long in the work also. Is he fit for so swift and long a race, whose soul is not kept in breath by the daily exercise of ordinary prayer, but lets his graces, if he hath any, to be choked up with sloth or formality?  The more any member is used, the stronger it is.  The right hand, which is our working hand, hath more activity than the left, that is used less.  A weakness will certainly invade the powers of thy lazy soul, which, though thou perceivest not as thou sittest in thy chair of sloth, will appear when thou risest, and thinkest to go forth in any solemn duty, as thou wert wont to do; then thou wilt find, with Samson, that thou hast lost thy strength in the lap of sloth and negligence.  As fasting is too strong for new bottles, so it is too sweet wine for to be put into fusty and mouldy ones.  Now the only way to keep a bottle or cask sweet, is to not let it stand long empty without any liquor in it.

           (b) As it will indispose thee for this solemn duty, so it is a bad symptom concerning thy spiritual state itself, which is worse than the former.  Grace works uniformly, and discovers a comely proportion in its actings.  Haply you may see the son of a prince on some high day in richer and more glorious apparel than on another day that is ordinary; but you shall never find him in sordid, ragged, and beggarly clothes. Still he will be clad as becomes a king's son.  Possibly, yea, it is likely, that you may see the Christian come forth, in an extraordinary day and duty, with more enlargement of affections in prayer, and all his graces raised to a higher glory in their actings, than ordinary, but you shall never find him with his robe of grace laid aside.  Still the true saint will declare his high birth by his everyday course.  He will not live in the neglect of ordinary duties, and cast off communion with God, in his daily walking.  O, it is the brand of a hypocrite to have his devotion come by fits, and, like a drift of snow, to lie thick in one place and none in another; to seem for zeal like angels at a time and live like atheists many weeks after.  Surely grace acts more evenly and is never so unlike itself.  It is ill living in that miser's house who hath never any good meat on his table but when he makes a feast, and that is very seldom; or with him that upon an occasion hath a day of prayer, but starves himself and family, or pinches them in their daily fare.  Well, never think of med­dling with this extraordinary duty till thou inurest thyself to the ordinary exercise of prayer, and takest more care in thy daily walking with God.

        

The reasons for extraordinary prayer

           Question Fourth. But why is extraordinary prayer to be superadded by the Christian to his ordinary exercise of it in his daily course?

           Answer 1. Extraordinary prayer is superadded in obedience to the command of God.  He commands not only that we should ‘pray always,’ but ‘with all prayer’ also, and extraordinary prayer is one kind among the rest.  And let none of us say it is not enough to pray once or twice every day, but we must upon some occasions devote a whole day also, to the damage of calling and family?  O what niggards would some be towards God, were they left free to devote what time they thought fit for his worship?  This cavil sounds too like that of Judas: ‘To what purpose is this waste?  For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor,’ Matt. 26:8, 9.  ‘But this he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief.’  Truly so, when I hear some carnal wret­ches cry out against this waste of time in praying and fasting—‘how much might the improvement of that time, if laid out in their callings, have advantaged their families, wives, and children’—I am ready to think it is not because they have such a care of their relations as they pretend (for they who grudge a day for prayer can throw, some of them, many away at the ale-house or in idleness), but they carry thievish hearts in their bosoms, which love to rob God of his due, and care not how little service they put him off with.  Is he a loyal subject that pays the ordinary tribute to his prince, but, if occasion of state requires a subsidy, refuseth this, or doth it grudgingly?  God’s commands are none of them, no not this which car­ries some outward severity on it, so grievous, that any should need to groan or grumble under them.  Those yokes—duties and commands, I mean—whose out­side seem most hard have the softest lining within. What seem harder than suffering? and yet when are the saints fuller of heaven's joy?  What duty more austere than this of fasting and afflicting our souls? and yet in the breast of this lion, that scares sensual wretches, the Christian finds the sweetest honey-comb of inward comforts.  Temple-work is sure to be well paid if well done; though it be never so little work in his house, God will not have it done gratis. None shall kindle a fire on his altar for naught.  And therefore he takes it in great disdain at their hands who durst say, ‘What profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?’ Mal. 3:14.  Whereas the fault was not in the duty, but in themselves, that they got no more by it.  As if a naughty servant should bring himself by his riot and excess to poverty, and then give out a hard master hath undone him.

           Answer 2. It is superadded to comport with the providence of God, by a suitable return of duty to his actings and dispensations towards us.  When God is extraordinary in his providence, he expects his people should be more than ordinary in seeking of him. What else means that of the prophet? ‘Thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel,’ Amos 4:12.  Here God alarms them by his extraordinary proceedings intended against them, to take the hint of this warning, and apply themselves speedily to the solemn practice of repentance and humbling their souls, as a suitable posture to meet God in, and keep off the storm of his wrath now gathering against them. Is it not high time for a nation to betake them to their defensive arms when a mighty host is marching against them?  So, Isa. 26:20, 21, ‘Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee,’ &c.  Here he sends his people to their chambers and closets, that they may, by afflicting their souls and fervent prayers, find a hiding in the day of his indignation.  And why must they do thus? ‘For behold the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,’ ver. 21.  The rising of God out of his place imports some notable enterprise he is about to do; and when the master riseth, it is not manners for the servant to sit still, but to rise also and prepare to follow him where he goes.  God takes special notice how we be­have ourselves and comport with is dispensations of judgment or mercy, ‘In that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning;’ Isa. 22:12, that is, he called them by the voice of his providence as well as his prophets, the nature of which was such, that had not their lusts bunged up their ears and made them deaf, they could not but hear and under­stand that now was the time, if ever, that God ex­pected to see them in sackcloth and tears humbling their souls before him.  Now see how heinously he takes their security and profane slighting of his provi­dence, ‘And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord of hosts,’ ver. 14.  Few sins more provoke God than this.  ‘Because they re­gard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them, and not build them up,’ Ps. 28:5.  So, ‘And thou...O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this,’ Dan. 5:22.  This lost him his life and kingdom, as the contrary saved Ahab’s for a time, though it was not so sincere as it ought.  A temporal humiliation got him a temporal benefit.

           Answer 3. It is superadded for the great influ­ence that this extraordinary duty solemnly performed would have upon our whole life and course of godliness.  To keep the body healthful requires not only daily food, but now and the physic also; for in the soundest constitution, and that advantaged with the best care and temperance, there will, in time, such a quantity of superfluous humours gather, that nature without help cannot digest.  And truly the temper of the soul is as infirm and needs as much tending as the body.  Ordinary prayer is the saint’s food.  He can as little miss the constant returns of it as his usual meals.  But extraordinary is his physic, to clear and discharge his soul of those distempers which it con­tracts, and cannot conquer by the use of ordinary means; as also to advance and heighten the Chris­tian’s graces unto a further degree of strength and activity.  As God hath, in his wise providence, ordered one star of great influence to be at a certain season of the year in conjunction with the sun, for the more effectual ripening of the harvest in these colder parts of the world; so hath he, in the same wisdom, ap­pointed for the Christian's spiritual advantage and help in this cold climate of the world, that this sol­emn duty should now and then be taken into con­junction with our ordinary exercise of devotion; for want of which it is that many ripen slower both in their graces and comforts than some of their fellow-saints who sit often under the influences of this powerful quickening ordinance.

The seasons for extraordinary prayer 3/3

  Again, in affliction we are called to pray, as more inten­sively, so more extensively; I mean longer and oftener.  Thus I find that our Saviour, rendered by Lucas Brugensis and others, prolixius orabat—he prayed longer, that is, he spent more time than ordinary in it.  Thrice one after another we find him at it, Matt. 26:44.  His agony was great and the waves of his affliction vio­lent, and therefore he doubles, yea trebles, his prayer with deep sighs and strong cries to his Father.  Nature never strains so to its utmost, as when it is oppressed; then temples work, lungs heave, and heart pants; so in affliction the spirit of prayer should be increased and intended.

           Season 4.  When the Christian is buffeted with any temptation, or overpowered with a corruption, and cannot, with the use of ordinary means, quench the one or master and mortify the other.  If the short dagger of ordinary prayer will not reach the heart of a lust, then it is time to draw out this long sword of extraordinary prayer upon it.  There is a ‘kind’ of devils, our Saviour tells us, that ‘goes not out but by prayer and fasting,’ Matt. 17:21.  You know the occa­sion of this speech was that complaint of one con­cerning his lunatic son, ‘I brought him to thy disciples and they could not cure him.’  Thus some poor souls complain they have come to the word preached so long, in their daily prayers begged power over such a lust, resolved against it many a time, and none of these means could cure it; what can they now do more?  Here thou art told.  Bring thy condition to Christ in this solemn ordinance of prayer and fasting; this hath at last been the happy means to strengthen many a poor Christian to be avenged on those spir­itual enemies which have outbraved all the former, and like Samson to pull down the devil’s house upon his head.

           Season 5.  When sin doth abound more than or­dinary in the times and places we live in.  Sinning times have ever been the saints’ praying times.  This sent Ezra with a heavy heart to confess the sin of his people, and to bewail their abominations before the Lord, Ezra 9.  And Jeremiah tells the wicked rout of his degenerate age that his ‘should weep in secret places for their pride,’ Jer. 13:17.  Indeed sometimes sin comes to such a height and insolence, that this is almost all the godly can do, to get into a corner and bewail the general pollutions of the present age; as he told Luther, abi, frater, in cellam et dic miserere Domine—go, brother, into a cell and bewail.  ‘If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?’ Ps. 11:3.  Such dismal days of national confusion our eyes have seen, when foundations of government were destroyed, and all hurled into a military confusion. When it is thus with a people, what can the righteous do?  Yes, this they may, and should do, ‘fast and pray.’  There is yet a God in heaven to be sought to, when a people's deliverance is thrown beyond the help of human policy or power.  Now is the fit time to make their appeal to God, as the words following hint, ‘The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven,’ ver. 4; in which words God is pre­sented sitting in heaven as a tem­ple, for their en­couragement, I conceive, in such a desperate state of affairs, to direct their prayers thither for deliverance. And certainly this hath been the engine that hath been above any instrumental to screw up this poor nation again, and set it upon the foundation of that lawful government from which it was so dangerously slid.

           Season 6. To name no more, times of great ex­pectation are times for extraordinary prayer.  When the people of God have been big with expectation of great mercies approaching, then have they been more abounding in prayer.  As the cocks crow thickest to­wards break of day, so the saints, the nearer they have apprehended the accomplishment of promises made to his church, the more instant they use to be in prayer.  When a woman with child her reckoning is near out, then she desires her midwife to be at hand. And prayer hath had the name of old for its excellent usefulness to obstetricate mercies.  ‘The children are come to the birth,’ saith good Hezekiah; and then he desires the help of the prophet’s prayer for the fair delivery of it: ‘Lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left,’ Isa. 37:3, 4.  When Daniel the prophet had learned by study that the happy period of the seventy years' captivity, bound upon the Jews’ neck for their sin, was now at hand, Dan. 9:1, then in an extraordin­ary manner he sets himself to pray and afflict his soul before the Lord.  And we have reason to hope that spir­itual Babylon—Rome, I mean—is not long‑lived; it is high time therefore that the saints should fall more earnestly than ever to dig her grave for her by their prayers.

The seasons for extraordinary prayer 2/3

Season 2. When the Christian is in the dark con­cerning any truth, and cannot satisfy his judgment by humble and diligent inquiry he hath made after it. Now is a fit season to take up this extraordinary duty as an excellent means to be led into the knowledge of the mind of God therein.  Prayer is the proper key to unlock God’s heart, and he alone can open our un­derstandings and satisfy our scruples.  This course Daniel took, and got more understanding by his fasting and prayer than by all his study, for a mes­senger is sent from heaven to ‘give him skill and understanding,’ Dan. 9:20-23, and again, ch. 10:12.  In both he sped.  And the angel is careful to let him know that it was his extraordinary praying that procured this extraordinary favour, and also how acceptable his motion was, by the easy access and quick despatch it found with God; and therefore tells him in both, that he had no sooner set upon this course of afflicting his soul but he was heard, and the messenger ordered to give him an answer to his prayer.  Surely prayer hath not lost its credit in heaven, but is now as welcome to God as ever; and though an angel be not the mes­senger to bring the saint an answer, yet he shall have it by as sure and more honourable hand—even the Holy Spirit, whose office is to lead his people into truth.  Thus Cornelius, Acts 10, came to be instructed in the mystery of the gospel, upon his extraordinary seeking of God by fasting and prayer.  It is very prob­able this good man in those divided times, wherein he saw many zealous for the old way of Jewish worship, and others preach up an new way, stood in some doubt what to do; and this might stir him up by fast­ing and prayer to ask counsel, and beg further light, of God, to direct him in the way of truth, as may seem by the tenor of the message sent him from God in the vision while he was at prayer, which bade him send to Joppa ‘for one Simon, whose surname is Peter,...and he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do,’ ver. 5, 6. And certainly, in our divided times, wherein there is so much difference in judgment, had there been less wrangling among ourselves, and more wrestling with God for his teaching Spirit, we had been in a fairer way to find the door of truth, which so many are yet groping for.  The way of controversies, and conten­tious disputes raise this dust, and blow it most into their eyes that gallop fastest in it, so that they miss the truth, which humble souls find upon their knees at the throne of grace.  When the apostles were quar­relling, then they got nothing from Christ but a chid­ing, Luke 22:24, &c.; but when they were praying to­gether earnestly, then he sent the Spirit to teach them, Acts 2.

Season 3. When the Christian is under any great affliction.  Now is a fit season if he be able for the work.  ‘Is any among you afflicted? let him pray,’ James 5:13.  That is, let him then be more than ordin­ary in this duty; for he must, yea will, if a Christian, pray where he is not afflicted as well as when he is. But the meaning is, he must now pray after an extra­ordinary manner; he must now pray with more vehe­mency; for, though in all our addresses to God, we are to express the lively workings of our hearts to him, without which our prayers are unsavoury (cold prayers ever find cold welcome); yet God expects, and it always hath been the care of, holy men in their extraordinary applications to this duty of prayer, to wind up their affections to a pitch higher than ordin­ary, having the advantage of some special occasion to help them thereunto. Look upon them in some great strait and affliction, and you shall find them exceeding themselves, and put upon them a prince-like spirit.  So Jacob behaved himself in prayer, Gen. 32:28.  As a prince fighting in the field for his crown and kingdom, he wrestled with the angel, who was no other than God himself; that is, he strained as it were, every vein in his heart, and put forth his whole might in prayer, as a wrestler would do that grapples with a potent adversary.  Moses is so transported in zeal for Israel, when a dismal cloud of wrath impended them for their idolatry, that he offers rather to die upon the place, than to go down the mount and not carry the joyful news of a pardon with him, Ex. 32:32.  And Nehemiah, when he had been afflicting his soul and praying before the Lord, it was with such vehemency that the anguish of his spirit looked out at his eyes, and left a mark of sorrow upon his very countenance, which his prince could observe as he waited on him.