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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.