Counsel and direction for the weak Christian in persevering prayer 1/3

           Fourth. I shall wind up the discourse with a word of counsel and direction for the help of the weak Christian therein.  Now this will, I suppose, be best performed by laying be­fore you the several causes of a person’s falling off from this duty, or fainting in it, and so to fit the directions accordingly. All diseases are not cured with the same medicine, neither are catholic remedies so effectual as those which respect the particular humour from which the distemper aris­eth.  Now the causes of non‑persevering in prayer are diverse.

           First. Sometimes the cause is want of a lasting and en­during motive or principle to keep and hold us constantly to the duty.  When the spring is down the watch must needs cease going, for that fails that gave the wheels their motions.  That sometimes which sets the creature to prayer, is not pure obedience to the command, but a desire to some particular mercy, which, if obtained, the fish being caught, the net is laid aside; or, if he prays long, and hath it not, he grows weary of the work, and lets it fall.  Be sure, Christian, therefore to pray in obedience.  Bind the duty upon thy conscience, and thou wilt not easily shake it off.  ‘God forbid that,’ saith Samuel, ‘I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you,’ I Sam. 12:23.  He had little encouragement, from them he prayed for, to continue at the work, but his obedience to God, to whom he prayed, held him to it. This is a strong fence to hedge in the heart indeed. We cannot break through this hedge but we shall feel the thorns in our side.  A gracious soul dreads noth­ing more than guilt.  Tell him it is a sin to cease pray­ing, and you say enough.  What though God answers not my prayer, his silence to my prayer must not make me silent not to pray.  Prayer is still a duty. God is not bound to answer presently when we pray, but we are bound to pray though he doth not answer. ‘All this is come upon us,’ saith the church, ‘yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant,’ Ps. 44:17.  Remember, Christian, thou art a covenant servant, and one thing thou art as such bound to do is, to pray to thy God without ceasing, I Thes. 5:17.  This will defend thee against any motion that the tempter suggests to the contrary.  the beggar knocks awhile at the rich man's door, and, if he be not served, away he goes.  But the servant in the house, though he be hungry, doth not run away pres­ently from his master, because he hath not his dinner so soon as he desires.

           Second. Sometimes this not persevering in prayer comes from pride.  ‘This evil is of the Lord; what should I wait for the Lord any longer?’ II Kings 6:33.  What a haughty spirit was here!  Pride likes not to wait, but to be waited on.  He in the gospel was ashamed to beg, much more to stand long at the door upon a begging errand.  Now, though this be a disease which a saint is more free from than other men, yet there are dregs enough still within him to royle and distemper his spirit, if he be not daily evacuating and purging them out.  It will not therefore be amiss to leave a few soul‑humbling considerations in your hands, which you may be often taking, especially when you feel any grudgings of this sin about you, and your hearts begin to grow discontented that God makes you stay so long for any mercy prayed for.