Use First. A word to those who live in the total neglect of this duty, that are prayerless creatures. Such ruins of mankind there are to be found, who pass their wretched days like so many swine; they never look up to heaven till God lays them on their back; nor are heard to cry in prayer till this knife is at their throat. What shall I say to these giants and sons of the earth, that have renounced their allegiance to the God of heaven!—these kine of Bashan, who, like so many metamorphosed Nebuchadnezzars, have lost the heart of a man, and live like as very brutes, as the beasts themselves, who, while they feed, take no notice of him that clothes the field with grass for them! Can I hope they will hear man who will not acknowledge the God of heaven by praying to him? Surely your case is deplored. What! not pray? Can you do less than by this homage to own God for your Maker? O less for your own souls, than to beg their life of God, whose hand of justice is lift up against you? Are you resolved thus to throw yourselves into the devil's mouth, without so much as striking one stroke for your defence? If God had required a greater matter at your hands than this, the salvation of your souls would have deserved it. And will you stick at this?
God does not put us to the cost of laying down the price of our ransom; no, not so much as to pay our prison fees. Only, he bids thee pray, and he will pay: ‘Your heart shall live that seek God,’ Ps. 69:32. O, what salt and vinegar will this pour into thy wounds, when in hell thy conscience shall fly in thy face, and tell thee thou hadst not been there if thou wouldst in time have humbled thy soul before God, and sought his favour in that way which cost Christ his blood to procure. Either thou must be dispossessed of this dumb devil, or undoubtedly it will be thy damnation! And who dies with less pity than that malefactor that stouts it before the judge, and will not so much as down on his knees, or open his mouth to cry for mercy, though the judge on purpose stays to pro-nounce the sentence and break up the court, to see whether his stomach will fall, and his proud spirit stoop to ask his life at his hands? You know how angry Pilate was when Christ was silent: ‘Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?’ John 19:10, though, alas! poor creature, as Christ told him, he could do nothing for or against him; and therefore Christ neither feared him, nor ought him so much service as to bestow a word upon him. The warrant for Christ’s death was sealed in heaven, and he, with the rest of Christ’s enraged enemies, were but God's servants to do the execution according to the determinate counsel of God. But how much more reason hath the great God to be provoked by this irreligion, and say, ‘Wilt thou not speak to me? pray to me? Dost thou not know I have the power to save or damn? to deliver thee to the tormentor, or keep thee out of his hands?’ Or, dost thou look that God is bound to save thee whether pray or not pray? If he doth, I promise you he shall do more for thee than for others; yea, than for his own Son, who made strong cries and supplications to be saved by him. God hath laid the method of salvation and think not that he will alter it, and so make a blot in the counsel of his will, for thy pleasure. What he hath written he hath written, and it shall not be reversed. Yea, though others should be so kind as out of pity to thy soul to pray for thee, yet if thou beest thyself a prayerless creature, thou shalt die the death. If they were Noah, Samuel, and Daniel, that stood up to beg thy life they should not be heard for thee. Proxy prayers in this case will not prevail. And therefore, when the Israelites came a begging to Samuel for his prayers—which, good man, he easily promised; in¬deed, durst not have forgot them in that, though they had not remembered him of it—mark what caveat he annexeth, ‘Only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth with all your heart,’ I Sam. 12:24. As if he had said, ‘Do not set me to do for you {that} which you will not do for yourselves.’ It is not all the interest my prayers have in heaven {that} will keep the wrath of God from falling on you, if you be wicked and atheistical; therefore ‘fear the Lord, and serve him.’ That is, pray and obey him.
Fear oft denotes the worship of God, Gen. 31:53. God is called ‘the fear of Isaac;’ i.e. the God whom he feared and worshipped. So, ‘Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? Jer. 10:7, that is, worship thee, rather than the stocks and stones; because the worshipping of God results from our reverence and fear we have of him. Christ ‘was heard in that he feared him,’ Heb. 5:7—•BÎ J¬H ,Û8"$X4"H; that is, his religious fear, expressed in those his strong cries which he groaned forth to God in his agony. And therefore, so long as you are prayerless, you live without the fear of God. And what will not such a wretch dare to do? Even anything that Satan shall command him, though it be to go to a wizard. When Saul had given over inquiring after God, we hear him by and by knocking at the devil's door, and asking counsel of a witch. Oh! take heed of living so near the tempter! If Satan might have his wish, surely it would be this—that the creature might live prayerless; for by this he should do the greatest spite possible to God; in that he makes the creature set him at nought in all his attributes, and have the greatest advantage against the sinner himself. Now he hath thee as sure as the thief hath the traveller, when he hath thrown him into a ditch fast bound, and stopped his mouth, that he cannot cry to others for help. In a word, thou art free booty for Satan, who may now satisfy his lust upon thee. He that prayeth invites God into his further acquaintance, and soon shall have it; as we see in Paul, who had Ananias sent from God to him. But he that lives in the neglect of this duty, gives the devil fuller possession of him. Thou art the man of all others most fit for him to make an atheist of. I should not wonder that the devil persuades thee there is no God, who already livest in such defiance against him as cannot but make the belief of a deity dreadful to thy thoughts. Herod was soon persuaded to cut off John's head, because, when he was alive, he so troubled and nettled his conscience. And it is to be feared thou wilt easily be drawn to attempt the stifling all thoughts of a deity, from whom thy criminous conscience expects to hear nothing that can please thee. Yea, it is probable thou hast too much of the atheist in thee already, or else thou durst not deny God that part of natural worship which they that know him least give unto him. I am sure the Scripture lays this brat of irreligion at the door of atheism, Ps. 14:1: ‘The fool’ there would fain persuade himself ‘there is no God,’ and when he hath got so far the mastery of his conscience as to blot God out of his creed, he then soon leaves him out of his paternoster, ver. 2.
Question. But, it may be, some will ask me whether I think that any do, where the gospel is preached, neglect prayer on this account of atheism?
Answer. Truly I do; and which is more, I think there are worse atheists to be found under the meridian light of the gospel, than in the darkest nook in America, where yet this day never broke. As weeds grow rankest in richest grounds, and fruits ripest in hottest climates; so do sins grow to the greatest height where the gospel sun climbs highest. ‘Who is blind, but my servant?...and blind as the Lord’s servant?’ Isa. 42:19. Who such atheists as those that have their eyes put out by the light of the gospel? The poor Indian’s little knowledge of a God is for want of light; which may be cured, when it is brought to them. But if a judiciary atheism—as that in gospel times and places commonly is—falls upon a soul for rebelling against the light, this is incurable. Here the very visive faculty is perished, and the eye bored out.
