Considerations to induce to a public spirit in prayer

           Take two or three quickening considerations to set thee the more feelingly to this work.

1. Consideration.  Thou canst not pray in faith for thyself, if only for thyself.  The Lord Jesus taught his disciples this piece of charity in the form of prayer he gave them: ‘When ye pray, say, Our Father.’  Pater est verbum fidei; noster est verbum charitatis— ‘father’ is a word of faith and confidence; ‘our father’ imports love and charity, two necessary graces in prayer.  We live by faith, and faith works by love. No prayer can be without faith, nor faith without charity. Christ sends him in the gospel from the altar, to rec­oncile himself to his brother before he offered his gift. And why, but that he might be as ready and willing to pray for his brother as himself?  If we have not charity to pray for our brother, we cannot expect welcome when we pray for ourselves.
2. Consideration.  You do not else make good the character and report which God gives of his children.  He speaks of them to be a blessing to the persons and places about them: Israel ‘a blessing in the midst of the land of Assyria,’ Isa. 19:24.  They are compared to a fountain, which is a common benefit to serve a whole town; to stop or trouble which is a wrong to all that draw their water thence, Prov. 25:26. Now, one way wherein the godly are eminently serviceable to others, is by the interest they have in God and the prevalency of their prayers with him. ‘By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted,’ Prov. 11:11; that is, by their fervent prayers, which draw down a blessing from heaven upon it.  God blesseth imperatoriè—by command: ‘he commanded the blessing, even life for evermore,’ Ps. 133:3.  The saints bless when they pray: ‘On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, The Lord bless thee, and keep thee,’ Num. 6:23, 24.
3. Consideration.  God gives a signal testimony of his favour to his saints' prayers for others.

           (1.) He doth great things at their request for others.  How oft did Moses reverse divine plagues that were executed on Egypt? even as oft as Pharaoh had a heart to beg his prayers.  How low did Abraham beat the market for Sodom’s preservation? he brought it down to ‘ten righteous men.’  Could that wicked place have but afforded that number, it had not been turned to ashes.

           (2.) When their prayers obtain not a mercy for the people, then nothing else can help them.  There­fore God, to express his peremptory resolution and irreversible decree to punish Israel, tells them, ‘Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people,’ Jer. 15:1, thereby intimating their case desperate.  If the prayers of such holy men could not prevent the fall of that cloud of his wrath impending, much less could they with their own power or policy shift it off.  Indeed when God is fully set upon a vindictive way, he takes them off from praying: ‘Pray not thou for this people,...for I will not hear thee,’ Jer. 7:16.  And even in this he shows at what a rate he values his people’s prayers, which makes him loath they should bestow their pains in vain. ‘Pray not thou for this people’—as if he had said, Let them pray if they will, I can without any regret reject their motion; but I am un­willing thou shouldst pray in an unaccepted time for that which I have no mind to give.

           (3.) When the saints’ prayers bring not back with them the mercy for others that is their express errand, yet God is careful that his people should not have the least suspicion that the denial proceeds from any dis­respect he hath to their persons or prayers, and there­fore he sometimes gives the thing they desire, only he changes the subject.  Thus, when God denied Abra­ham for Ishmael he gave him abundantly in Isaac. Sometimes, again, what he denies them for others he grants to themselves.  Thus David’s prayers for his enemies ‘returned into his own bosom.’  Now in praying for others:

           (a) Get thy heart deeply affected with their state and condition for whom thou prayest.  God loves mercy better than sacrifice.  To draw out our souls in giving and alms is greater charity than to draw out our purse.  So in prayer, be sure thy soul be poured out, or else thou art a deceiver; thou wrongest both God and him also  thou prayest for.  Before Christ prayed for Lazarus he troubled himself.  ‘Behold how he loved him!’ said those about him who were witness to the groans he fetched and tears he shed.  Then thou wilt pray fervently for others when thy heart is warmed into sympathy for them.  A lawyer may show more rhetoric in pleading a man’s cause, but a brother or dear friend that carries the sense of his condition upon their hearts must needs discover more affection.

           (b) Prefer spiritual blessings in thy prayers for others before temporal.  Is it a sick friend on whose errand thou goest?  If health be all thou beggest for him, thou art not faithful to thy friend.  He may have that and be the worse for it.  Ask of Christ grace and glory for him, and then thou dost something to purpose.  Surely this our Saviour meant in his method of causing the palsied man to be cured of his disease: ‘Be of good cheer,’ saith Christ, ‘thy sins are forgiven,’ Matt. 9:2.  He first brings him the news of a pardon, as a mercy {of} infinitely more worth than life or limbs, thereby tacitly reproving his friends, who took more care to have his body healed than his soul saved.  Is it the nation thou art praying for?  Aim at more than deliverance from outward judgments and plagues.  The carnal Jews could say, ‘Give us water that we may drink,’ Ex. 17:2; but thought not of their sin, to beg repentance for and pardon of it.  That was the cry of the creature—a beast can low and bellow in a drought; but this is the voice of a saint.

           (c) Be not discouraged in your prayers for others though an answer doth not presently overtake them. Thou prayest for a rebellious child, or carnal friend, who yet continue to be so; take heed thou dost not presently think them past grace, and give over the work.  Samuel saw the people he prayed for mend but slowly, yet hear what he saith: ‘God forbid that I should cease praying for you,’ I Sam. 12:23.  I have heard of some that have been laid forth, yea buried, before they were dead, by their overhasty friends.  Be not thou thus cruel to the souls of thy relations or neighbours.  Lay them not out of thy prayers, bury them not in thy thoughts for reprobates, because thou canst not perceive any sign of spiritual life in them, though thou hast many a time stretched thy hands in prayer over them; their souls thou seest are yet in their bodies, and so long it is not too late for God to breathe the life of grace into their souls.  Again, is it for the public thou prayest?  Draw not in thy stock of prayer, though thou hast not so quick a return in thy trade with heaven for it as thou desirest.  The father’s labour is not lost if his son receives the benefit of it. He may be dies before the ship comes home he sent forth, but his child lives to have the gains of that adventure paid into his purse.  Thus one generation sows prayers for the church, and another reaps the mercy prayed for.