Third kind of petitionary prayer—the imprecatory 1/3

           Third. Imprecatory prayer; wherein the Chris­tian imprecates the vengeance of God upon the ene­mies of God and his people.  On such a sad and sol­emn errand are the saints’ prayers sometimes sent to heaven, and speed as effectually as when they go to obtain blessings for themselves and the church of God.  And no wonder, for they are perfumed with Christ’s merits, and thereby are as acceptable to God as any other they put up in his name.  ‘And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God,’ Rev. 8:4.  Now what kind of prayers these were is clear by the next words, ‘And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake,’ ver. 5.  By which is signified the dreadful judgments which God in answer to his saints’ prayers would bring upon the wicked world, whose bloody persecutions of the church, and fury against the truth of God, made the saints to cry to heaven for vengeance upon them; and that it should come inevitably come as thunder, lightning, and earthquakes, that can be resisted by no power or policy of the greatest monarch on earth.  Thus, as at the firing of some cannon planted against a city, you may see its turrets or wall come tumbling down; so, upon the prayers of the saints, great judgments were certainly to befall the enemies of God and his church. Now, the path wherein the Christian is here to tread being very narrow, he is to be the more cautious that he steps not awry.  He is, in this part of prayer which is imprecatory, like one that drives a chariot on the brow of a steep hill, who, if he hath not the quicker eye and steadier hand, may soon spoil all.  The high­est strains of a saint’s duty run nearest the most dan­gerous precipices, as the most mysterious truths are soonest perverted into the most damnable errors.  I shall therefore first lay down a few particulars which may serve as a rail to compass in this duty, for the better securing the Christian from falling into any miscarriage about it.

1. Take heed thou dost not make thy private particular enemies the object of thy imprecation.  We have no warrant, when any wrong us, presently to go and call for fire from heaven upon them.  We are bid, indeed, to heap coals upon our enemy’s head, but they are of love, not of wrath and revenge.  Job sets a black brand upon this, and clears himself from the imputation of so great a sin: ‘If I rejoiced at the des­truction of him that hated me,...neither have I suffered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his soul,’ Job 31:29, 30.  He durst not wish his enemy ill, much less deliberately form a wish into a prayer, and desire God to curse him.  Our Saviour hath taught us a more excellent way: ‘Bless them that curse you,...and pray for them which despitefully use you,’ Matt. 5:44.  I know this is counted a poor sheepish spirit by many of our gallants.  Go pray for them? No, send them the glove rather, and be revenged on them in a duel by shedding their blood.  This is the drink-offering which these sons of pride delight to pour out to their revenge.  Or, curse them to the pit of hell with their God damn them oaths!  O tremble at such a spirit as this!  The ready way to fetch a curse from heaven on thyself, is to imprecate one sinfully upon another.  ‘As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones,’ Ps. 109:17, 18.  Moses, I suppose, has as noble a spirit as any of these that style them such men of honour; yet, did he draw upon Aaron, or fall a cursing of Miriam, when they had used him so unworthily?  I trow not, but bears all pa­tiently.  Nay, when God declares his displeasure against Miriam for this affront put upon him, see how this holy man intercedes for her with God, Num. 12. This is valour of the right make, to overcome evil with good, and instead of seeking revenge on him that wrongs us, to get the mastery of our own corruption so far as to desire his good the more.  Thus our Lord, when he was numbered amongst transgressors, even then ‘made intercession for the transgressors,’ Isa. 53:12; that is, those very men which used him so bloodily, while they were digging his heart out of his body with their instruments of cruelty, then was he begging the life of their souls with his fervent prayers.
2. When thou prayest against the enemies of God and his church, direct thy prayers rather against their plots than person.  Thus the apostles, ‘And now, Lord, behold their threatenings,’ Acts 4:29.  Not, ‘con­found their persons,’ but, ‘behold their threatenings;’ and so they leave their case with the Lord to right it for them.  So David, ‘O Lord, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness,’ II Sam. 15:31. Indeed, did do more, he destroyed plot and plotter also; and in this sense the saints may oft say with the prophet, ‘Thou hast done terrible things we looked not for’—by pouring out his vengeance on the per­sons, when they have only prayed against their wicked designs.

Second object of deprecatory prayer - How the Christian is to pray against temporal sufferings 4/4

   It was the speech of a gracious woman when on the very marches of death: ‘O Lord, send me not to hell among such filthy company, which thou knowest I have not liked on earth.’  But as for those that can fadge very well with their lusts, and the company of the wicked here, I know not how they can thus depre­cate that place where they shall meet with that which pleaseth them so much on earth.  David, Ps. 26, first protests his abhorrency against the ways and society of the wicked: ‘I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers; I have hated the congregation of evil-doers; and will not sit with the wicked,’ ver. 4, 5: then his zeal for God, and delight he had in his house to praise and serve him, ver. 6-8.  After which, he breaks out into this prayer, ‘Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men,’ ver. 9.  As if he had said, I am not of their knot in my life, O let me not be of their bundle at my death.  I have praised thee on earth, send me not to blaspheme thee in hell.  I have loved the habitations of thy house here, let me not dwell with unclean spirits hereafter.

           (b) Hell is a state of separation from the blissful presence of God.  Pray to be delivered from it under this notion—as it is the last, yea, everlasting excommunication of the creature from God.  ‘Go, ye cursed,’ that is, never to see my sweet face more—called therefore ‘outer darkness,’ because not the least beam or stricture of his favour to enlighten the souls of the damned, nor the least crevice is left open for hope to expect it.  The heat of hell-fire is not so dismal, as the want of this light.  This makes them cursed; ‘Go, ye cursed.’  The curse lies in their depar­ture from God, the fountain of all blessing.  All be­sides this were tolerable.  Would God cast but one kind look upon those miserable souls, as they swim in this lake of fire and brimstone, it were able to change the property of the place, and the joy thereof were enough to take away the sense of their torment.  The three worthies in Daniel could walk in the fire, having God to bear them company, as if they had been only in the sunshine.  That which a saint prizeth most in heaven is the presence of God: ‘So shall we ever be with the Lord,’ I Thes. 4:17.  And hell is most dreaded by them, because a gulf is fixed between the souls in it and God, that no communion can be had with him to all eternity.  O how few pray against hell under this notion! how few cry out with David, ‘Cast me not away from thy presence!’ Ps. 51:11.  If this were the thing above all they feared should befall them in the other world, would they so willingly live without ac­quaintance with God in this world?  Surely no.

           (c) Hell is a state wherein the damned can never actually satisfy God’s justice; for their debt being infinite, and they, because creatures, but finite, will ever be paying.  But the last farthing can never be paid, which is the only reason they lie forever in prison, because it can never be said, ‘Now God hath his due.’  But Christ, the saints’ pay-master, dis­charged their whole debt at once, and took in the bond, which he nailed to his cross, leaving no back-reckoning unpaid, to bring the believer afterward into any danger from the hands of divine justice. Now, as an ingenuous debtor desires his freedom at his cred­itor’s hands, that thereby he may be capable of paying his debt, as well as to escape the misery that himself should endure by his imprisonment; so an ingenuous soul—and such is every saint—deprecates hell, as well with an eye to God’s glory, as to his own ease and happiness.  Lord, saith the sincere soul, if thou pack­est me away to hell, there I shall pay thee, it is true, by my just torments something in a dribbling way by retail, but never be able to discharge the whole sum; but at Christ’s hands thou mayest receive to the full what thy justice can demand at mine, and also make me thy poor creature a trumpeter of thy praise to eternity.  O send me not to blaspheme thee among that wretched crew of damned souls and unclean spirits, who so much desire to join with the choir of holy angels and saints in singing hallelujahs to thy holy and glorious name.

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   (d) Thou mayest not only deprecate these evils in thy affections, but also pray believingly for a happy issue out of them all.  The darkest lane of suffering shall, to the saint, have a lightsome end.  And all, we say, is well that ends well.  ‘Ye have heard of the pa­tience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful,’ James 5:11.  This is that which God so fully intends in all his saints’ troubles, that he takes pleasure in thinking of it beforehand: ‘I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace,’ Jer. 29:11.  And that petition comes in a happy time to court, which finds the king thinking of the very business it prays for.

           (2.) Eternal suffering.  The second kind of suf­fering is eternal in hell.  This is the center in which all the lines of sin and of misery meet—the common shoal into which they all disgorge themselves, as rivers do their streams into the vast ocean.  And as rivers, when they are fallen into the sea, lose their several names in one that comprehends them all—the ocean; so all the evils of this life, when resolved into this, forget their private names—sickness, pains, poverty, &c,—and are called hell.  Not that these are all for­mally and literally there, but virtually, in that the torment of the damned doth not only amount to, but, beyond expression, exceed them all.  As in heaven there is no belly-cheer, yet a feast; no silks and satins worn, yet all in glorious robes; as silver is in gold, and gold in a jewel, so all these are in heaven—because that which is of infinite more value and worth than such things as are of highest reckoning on earth. Thus the great miseries of this life are incomparably less than the least torment of hell.  Never can the creature say he is completely miserable, till the devouring jaws of that infernal pit inclose him.  Were the worst of his punishment what he feels here, he might in a manner bless himself; as Paul, on the contrary saith, he should judge the saint miserable above others, if all his hope were here.  But there is the sinner’s easeless endless state.  There is not so much as one well day to release him a while from his pain, but he shall con­tinue forever in the height of his paroxysm; no change of weather or hope of clearing, but a perpetual storm set in to rain fire and brimstone upon him to all eternity, for so long it will be before the arm of the Almighty is weary of pouring out his wrath, or his heart be brought in love with sin, and reconciled to the sinner.  Now, in deprecating this, we should endeavour to keep this threefold notion of hell in our thoughts, for which above all we are to desire to be delivered from it.

           (a) Conceive of hell as a state of sin as well as of suffering, yea, in its utmost height.  Earth is a middle place betwixt heaven and hell.  Neither sin in the wicked, nor grace in the saint, come here to their full ripeness.  Grace being an outlandish slip brought from heaven’s paradise, riseth not to its just height and procerity Tallness; highth of stature. — From Webster’s, till it be transplanted and set in its native climate from whence it came.  And sin, being a brat of hell, comes not to its full complexion and monstrosity, till it be sent back to the place it came from.  Here poor wretches are tolled on to sin by the pleasure it promiseth.  But there they sin out of mal­ice, for nothing else can invite them where this morsel is eaten with such sour sauce.  On earth the sinner is maidenly, and conceals the venom that is bagged in his heart; but in hell he spits it out in blasphemies against heaven. In a word, here he sins with wavering thoughts, and some weak purposes of repenting, but there he is as desperate as the devil himself—hard­ened beyond all relenting.  Now, under this notion, thou shouldst pray to be delivered from hell, that thou mayest never be one of that damned crew, who think it not enough to fight against God their Maker on earth, but carry the war with them into the other world also, and there continue their feud with implac­able enmity to eternity.  Certainly the saints—to whom the notions of sin in this life are so grievous, above all the crosses and losses that befall them, and who count a few years’ neighbourhood among the wicked so great an affliction, that they cry, ‘Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar’—must needs deprecate that dismal state with their utmost vehemency of spirit, wherein they should be everlastingly yoked with sin, and cooped up with unclean sinners, both which they loathe so perfectly.

        

Second object of deprecatory prayer - How the Christian is to pray against temporal sufferings 2/4

  [2.] Affirmatively—how he may and should pray against sufferings; and in these particulars following.

           (a) Deprecate the vindictive justice and wrath of God in all temporal sufferings.  Thus Jeremiah shapes his prayer, ‘O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing,’ Jer. 10:24, and, ch. 17:17, ‘Be not a terror unto me: thou art my hope in the day of evil.’  He declines not suffering but deprecates wrath.  As if he had said, ‘Let trouble come, but not with this message—to tell me thou art mine enemy; shoot thy darts, my breast is open to re­ceive them; but let them not be envenomed arrows headed with thy punitive justice.’  Without this sting all suffering is innocent and harmless.  But if the creature does fear—though without just cause—that they are shot out of justice's bow, then they drink up his spirits and exanimate him presently.  ‘When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth,’ Ps. 39:11.  That holy woman, I Kings 17:18, was not so much distressed for her son's death as for the reflec­tion this sad providence made upon her conscience: ‘Art thou come...to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?’  Thou canst not therefore be too passionately importunate in deprecating this.

           (b) Deprecate the snare and temptation that suf­fering may expose thee to.  Satan commonly finds it easy to make some sinful impression upon the saint when he is heated, and his ‘heart made soft,’ as Job phraseth it, ‘in the furnace of affliction.’  He is a rare Christian in whom the stream of his grace runs clear upon such royling.  Job was a man of a thousand —God’s nonesuch: ‘None like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man,’ Job 1:8; yet bewrayed many weaknesses in his troubles, and would have done more, had not God in pity to his poor servant taken the devil off before he had quite run him down. Christ teacheth us to pray against suffering under the notion of temptation: ‘Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.’  That is, let us not be led into sin when we fall into suffering, let us not fall into thy hands and Satan’s together.  This discovers a holy frame of heart—to be more tender of our conscience than skin; not so much to fear affliction from God, as, left in it, we should be have ourselves unseemly and unholily towards him.  Agur is not so much ashamed to beg as afraid to steal, and so take the name of his God in vain, upon which account he chiefly prays against poverty, Prov. 30:8, 9.  There is nothing lost by serving God first and preferring his honour before our own private interest in our prayers. Self‑denial is the best for self‑seeking; for, by neg­lecting ourselves for God's sake, we oblige him to take the care of us upon himself, and he is the only happy man who hath his stake laid up in God’s hands.

           (c) Deprecate the excess of suffering—that thou beest not overladen, thy burden too heavy for thy back.  This is promised.  Thou mayest therefore pre­sent it in faith: ‘I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure;’ Jer. 46:28.  The patient doth not intrench upon the physician’s art by desiring him to proportion his dose according to the weakness of his body, if, when he hath done this, he acquiesceth in his skill and faith­fulness for the same.  Indeed, to desire God to con­sider our weakness, and then not to rely on his wis­dom and care, but continue jealous and suspicious, or to murmur at his prescriptions, as if the physic he gives were too churlish and strong, this makes a dis­honourable reflection upon God.  Sometimes the physician exceeds the proportion that his fearful pa­tient thinks strong enough, but withal tells him, ‘You are not so weak as you take yourself to be.  Your body may bear so many grains more in the composition. Leave me to my art and all shall be well.’  Thus God, who knows our frame exactly, deals with his people, and is highly pleased to see them satisfied with what he orders them out: ‘In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly,’ Job 1:22; @Û6 §*T6,< •ND@Fb<0< Jè 2,è—so the Septuagint reads it—he did not impute folly to God; indeed the word {Hebrew Characters Omitted} (tiphlah), is a noun.  The meaning of the place is, Job did not make any unworthy reflection upon God for the evils he suf­fered by his providence, as if anything were wanting in his care or wisdom, like some rash physician, who fails either in timing or tempering his physic.

        

Second object of deprecatory prayer - How the Christian is to pray against temporal sufferings 1/4

2. Object.  The second object of deprecatory prayer is suffering.  Sin brought suffering into the world.  Sin is indeed the elder twin, but suffering stayed not long after it; for it took it by the heel, presently arresting Adam upon the very place where he committed his trespass, and ever since follows it as close as the shadow doth the body.  It leaves not the saint till death parts him and his sin, but pursues the wicked with their sins into the other world also.  So that this distribution of suffering into temporal and eternal shall content us at present—they being comprehensive of all the miseries which sin hath brought upon the sons of men.  Now my work in this place shall be only to direct the Christian how to frame his prayer in deprecating the one and the other also.  (1.) Temporal sufferings—how the Christian is to deprecate and pray against them.  (2.) Eternal suffering.

           (1.) Temporal sufferings—how the Christian is to deprecate and pray against them.

           [1.] Negatively—The Christian is not to pray for an immunity from all temporal sufferings.  There is no foundation for such a prayer in the promise; and what God thinks not fit to promise we must not be bold to ask.  Temporal promises are to be under­stood, saith Melancthon, cum exceptione crucis —with exception of the cross.  God had one Son without sin, but he will have none in this life without suffering.  John writes himself, ‘Your brother, and companion in tribulation,’ Rev. 1:9.  He hath too high an opinion of himself that would have God lead him dryshod on a fair causeway to heaven, while he sees the rest of his brethren march through thick and thin to the same place; or who thinks he needs not this thorn‑hedge of suffering, to keep him as well as others from wandering out of his way to glory.  The rod and ferule are not more needful among children at school than suffering is to the saints while in their minority here on earth.  If thou wert come to that ripeness of ingenuity as to have worn off all thy childishness, thou shouldst stay here no longer under the lash; but while thou art subject to sin thou must submit to his disciplinary rod.  Valetudinarious bodies can as well spare food as physic, and saints in this their crazy state may as well live without ordinances as without sufferings.  In a word, to pray absolutely against all suffering is to desire one of the greatest punishments on this side hell.  When God said, ‘I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom,’ Hosea 4:14, he meant them no good by sparing his rod.  If we count him an unwise father that, when he puts his child to school, indents with his master not to whip him; surely much more folly were it in thee to desire God to privilege thee from all suffering.

         

Five particulars to be observed in praying against the defilement of sin 4/4

    (d) Pray against the power of thy lusts as a branch of the gospel covenant.  God is not bound by the first covenant to stir a foot for man’s help.  Man went of his own accord over to the devil’s quarters. He deserted God and chose a new lord; and in his hands God might have left him, without offering any help for his rescue.  It was not any tie that man had upon God by the covenant of nature which obliged him, but his own free grace that moved him, to undertake his recovery.  And this he doth by making a new covenant on the ruins of the old.  So that, whoever will pray against his lusts with success must first become a covenanter with God, by accepting the terms upon which God in it offers to save us from our sins, and they are faith and repentance.  When the soul doth thus face about from his sins to close with Christ, then he becomes a covenanter with God, and may, with faith, call God into the field for his help against this huge host of lusts and devils that come against him.  God’s chariots are his; the whole militia of heaven is engaged in his quarrel.  ‘Sin shall not have dominion over you’—and why?—‘for ye are not under law but under grace,’ Rom. 6:14; that is, you are not under the law covenant made with Adam, but under the gospel covenant made with Christ, and through him with all believers.  O how many prayers against sin are lost for want of well understanding this grand notion of the gospel!  A great cry is made and complaint by many of their sins to God, and victory over them pretend to be desired; yet they live and grow stronger every day than other.  And what is the reason?  Alas! they stand not in a federal relation to God; neither take they any care how to get into it. Will a prince raise an army to fight for he knows not whom?  Indeed, if his subjects or allies be in distress he is ready to step in for their succour; but strangers cannot expect he should do this for them.  Leagues are made before assistance desired.  God first prom­ised to bring Israel ‘into the bond of his covenant,’ Eze. 20:37; and then, that he will ‘accept them with your sweet savour,’ ver. 41.  David knew this very well, that the carnal world are abandoned by God, to be trod under the foot of every lust; and therefore, when he prays God would order his steps in his word, and let no iniquity have dominion over him, he desires it as a favour peculiar to those that were near and dear to him: Deal with me ‘as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name,’ Ps. 119:132.

           (e) Pray not only against the power of sin, but for the power of holiness also.  A naughty heart may pray against his sins, not out of any inward enmity to them, or love to holiness, but because they are troublesome guests to his conscience.  Believe it for a certain truth, his zeal is false that seems hot against sin but is key‑cold to holiness.  A city is rebellious that keeps their rightful prince out though it receives not his enemy in.  Nay, the devil needs not fear but at last he shall make that soul his garrison again, out of which for a while he seems shut, so long as it stands empty and is not filled with solid grace, Matt. 12:44, 45.  What indeed should hinder Satan’s re-entry into that house which hath not in it to keep him out?

Five particulars to be observed in praying against the defilement of sin 3/4

    (c) Again, God, who bids thee pray against thy lusts, commands thee also to take the sword of his word, by meditating on it, and applying it close to thy heart and conscience, to cut them down and get victory over them.  Thus did David. He hid the word in his heart that he might not sin.  Thou prayest against covetousness.  O that God would rid thy heart of it!  Well, what dost thou towards thy own delivery from this base lust?  Here is a sword put into thy hand, whose edge is sharp enough to cut and kill if thou wilt lay it on in good earnest.  This sets forth the vanity of the creature—how vile and base a sin covet­ousness is; takes away all occasion of inordinate desires and cares for the world by many sweet promises—what he hath laid up in another world for us, and what care in his providence he will take for us in this life.  ‘Let your conversation be without covet­ousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,’ Heb. 13:5.  Now, what use doth thou make of this weapon?  Dost thou strengthen thy assent to the truth of these promises?—labour to affect thy heart with the sweetness of them, and then draw forth this sword to defend thyself against this lust when the enemy comes with a temptation to it?  If so, thou wert sincere in thy prayer.  A false heart contents it­self with a few idle lay prayers against his lust, but is afraid to use this sword against it.  Or, if he doth, he strikes with the back and not the edge; or lays his stroke so favourably on that it shall not much endanger the life of his sin—like a mountebank, that will be sure to make no worse wound in his side than his balsam will in a day or two cure.

           Now, to raise thy heart to the greater vehemency in praying against thy lusts, labour deeply to affect thy heart what a fearful plague it is—indeed, of all other incomparably the greatest—for a soul to be given up of God to the power of his lusts.  This consideration, if any, will make thee lay close siege to God and set upon him with the utmost importunity, knowing thou art an undone creature if thou speedest not in thy errand.  When God intends to smite home he takes his aim at the heart, he gives the creature over to his lusts.  Thus he hardened Pharaoh to a final obstinacy, ‘I will...send all my plagues upon thine heart,’ Ex. 9:14. They did not only light upon the beasts and fruits of the field, or upon their own bodies, but chiefly upon their hearts and spirits, hardening them into obsti­nacy to their destruction. And this, indeed, is to send all plagues in one.  Other plagues, that reach only to estate or body, are consistent with the love and favour of God.  He can smite the body and smile on the soul; blast the man’s estate and bless him with spiritual riches; make him poor in the world and rich in faith.  But he that is given up to his lusts is abhorred of God.  A saint may be given up to Satan ut lictori—to correct him, for the destruction of the flesh and saving of his spirit; but it is the brand of a reprobate to be delivered up to Satan ut domino —that his lusts may have full power over him; which judiciary act of God portends the sinner’s destruction, Deut. 2:30; II Thes. 2:11.  Outward plagues are some­times in the sinner’s mouth as a bridle to restrain him from sin.  But this is a spur that makes them more mad after their lusts; it takes away the sense of sin, and then the wretch plays the devil.  Nothing will stop him in his way, but to hell he will go over hedge and ditch.

       

Five particulars to be observed in praying against the defilement of sin 2/4

      Question. But how may we come to know that our hearts are sincere or hypocritical in praying against the defiling power of sin?

           Answer [1].  Observe whether thy prayer be uni­form—laid against all sin, one lust as well as another. Sincerity makes not here a balk and there a furrow; is not hot against one lust and cold against another; but goes through stitch in the work: it ‘hates every false way,’ Ps. 119:104.  It shoots its arrows at the whole flock, and singles not this sin out in his prayers which he would have taken, and that left: ‘Let not any iniquity have dominion over me,’ ver. 133.  He knows if all his chains were knocked off, and only one left upon him, he should be as true a slave to Satan as if all the other were still on.  He prays not against one sin because a great one, and pleads for another be­cause it is a little one.  The dust and rubbish help to fill up the wall as well as the great stones; little sins contribute as well as great to make up the partition wall between God and the creature.  Every little speck blemisheth the garment, and every penny increaseth the sums.  So little sins defile the soul and swell the sinner's account.  Therefore he prays against them as well as the other.  David, who desired to be kept back from ‘presumptuous sins,’ did also beg to be ‘cleansed from his secret faults,’ Ps. 19:12.

           Answer [2]. Observe whether thy heart stand firmly resolved to renounce that sin thou prayest God to subdue.  The sincere Christian binds himself, as well as labours to engage God against his sin.  Indeed that prayer is a blank which hath not a vow in it.  ‘Thou...hast heard my vows,’ Ps. 61:5; that is, his pray­ers, which are always to be put up with vows.  Is it a mercy thou prayest him to give?  If sincere, thou wilt vow to praise him for it and serve him with it.  Is it a sin thou prayest against?  Except thou jugglest with God thou wilt vow as well as pray against it.  ‘Remove from me the way of lying,’ Ps. 119:29.  There is David’s deprecation.  Now, mark his promise and vow: ‘I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid before me,’ ver. 30.  While he prays against the way of lying he chooseth the way of truth.

           Answer [3]. Observe whether thou beest vigor­ous in the use of all appointed means to mortify the lust thou prayest against.  Resolutions in the time of prayer are good when backed with strenuous endeav­ours, else but a blind for a false heart to cover itself with.  Samson did not only pray he might be avenged on his enemies, but set his hands to the pillars of the house.  He that hath bid thee pray against thy lust hath bid thee shun the occasions of it.  ‘Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house, lest thou give thy honour unto others,’ Prov. 5:8; that is, lest thou be hooked in to her by the occa­sion.  Thus Joseph, that he might not be drawn to lie with his mistress, would not stay alone in the room with her, Gen. 39:7-12.  So, Prov. 23:20, ‘be not among wine-bibbers;’ and, ‘look not on the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup,’ ver. 31, be­cause look­ing may breed liking.  Now, art thou con­scientiously careful to keep out of the way that leads to the sin, and to shun the occasion that might betray thee into the hands of that lust thou prayest against? Certainly, he that would not have his house blown up will not have set his gunpowder in the chimney-corner.

       

Five particulars be observed in praying against the defilement of sin 1/4

           (a)  Be sure thou comest with a deep abhorrence of thyself for that sin-filth which cleaves to thee.  This is called ‘knowing the plague of a man’s own heart,’ I Kings 8:38, when a creature is affected and afflicted with the sense of his corruptions, as if he had so many plague sores running upon him, and bathes himself for them, as much as Job did for the boils and sores with which his body was covered.  The leper was commanded, in order to his cure, to put himself into a mourner’s habit: ‘His clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean,’ Lev. 13:45.  Why all this, but to express the deep sense of his sin and misery?  Look upon the saints in scripture, and you shall find this was their way to abase themselves in their prayers with the greatest self-abhorrency that was possible.  Penitent David takes the fool, yea the beast, unto himself; he knows not how to speak bad enough of himself.  ‘So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee,’ Ps. 73:22.  Holy Job cries out, ‘I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes,’ Job 42:6.  Others blush, and are as much ashamed to be seen in the presence of God, as one that had fallen into some puddle or jakes would be in that pickle to come before his prince.

           (b) In praying against thy lusts, look thy heart goes with thy tongue.  In nothing so our hearts put more cheats upon us than in our prayers, and in no requests more than in those which are levelled against our lusts.  That is least oftentimes intended which is most pretended.  And truly we had need be well ac­quainted with ourselves before we can find the bot­tom of our designs.  Austin confesseth, when he was a young man, and forced by conviction in his con­science to pray that God would deliver him out of the bondage of his lust, that yet the secret whispers of his heart were non adhuc, Domine—not yet, Lord.  He was afraid that God would take him at his word. Thus the hypocritical Jews first ‘set up their idols in their heart,’ Eze. 14:3.  This is a great wickedness.  And it were a just, though a heavy plague, for God to answer such according to the secret vote of their hearts, by them up to those lusts which they inwardly crave. When Paul begs prayers for himself, to embolden them in their requests for him, he assures them of his sincerity: ‘Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly,’ Heb. 13:18.  As if he had said, I durst not make you my spokesmen to God, if my heart did not check me that I did secretly comply with any sin, and did not mean in all things to live honestly.  How then canst thou have the face to go thyself to God on an errand to desire that of him which thou wouldst be loath to have.

     

Five particulars to be observed in praying against guilt 3/3

 In earthly courts, when the man dies his cause dies with him, because out of their jurisdiction, and past their summons.  But, at death, thou fallest into the hands of the living God, who will pursue his quar­rel with thee in the other world also.  No sooner is thy soul abandoned of thy body and turned out of its earthly house, but it shall return to God to receive its doom.  Neither shall thy body long rest in the grave where it is earthed, but be called forth to share with the soul in torment, whose partner it hath been in sin.  The parting of these at death to a guilty soul is sad enough; but their meeting again at the great day of judgement will be much more dismal.  For husband and wife, that have joined in some bloody murder, to be attached and sent to several prisons in order to their trial, must needs fill them with fear and terror of their approaching judgment, but much more dreadful is it to them when brought forth to receive their sen­tence, and suffer at the same gibbet together.  At death, the sinner's body is disposed of to one prison, his soul to another, and both meet again at the great day of assize for the world—then to be sent by the final sentence of the Judge to everlasting flames in hell’s fiery furnace, where, after the poor wretch hath experimented a thousand millions of years the weight of God’s just vengeance, he shall find himself no nearer the end of his misery than he was the first day wherein his torment commenced.  Then death will be desired as a favour, but it shall flee from him—his misery being both intolerable and interminable.  By this time, I suppose, a pardon will be thought worth thy having, and too good to be lost by sluggish sleepy praying for it.  When, therefore, thou hast chafed thy soul thus into a sense of the indispensable necessity of this mercy, then take up a holy resolution to lay thy siege to the throne of grace, and never to rise till God open the gates of his mercy to thee.  As it is so necessary thou canst not want it; so thou hast the promise of a faithful God that thou shalt not miss it, upon the timely and sincere seeking of it.  ‘If we con­fess, he is faithful and just to forgive.’  Prayers and tears are the weapons with which the Almighty may be overcome.  Manasseh, who could not on his throne —when he sinned and stouted it out against God —defend himself from the justice of God, yet in his dungeon and fetters, greatly humbling himself before the Lord, obtained his mercy.  So Ephraim, ‘when he spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died,’ Hosea 13:1.

           (2.) The second thing in sin to be deprecated is the defiling power of it.  He that desires not to be purged from the filth of sin, prays in vain to be eased of the guilt.  If we love the work of sin, we must like the wages also.  A false heart, could be willing to have his sin covered, but the sincere desires his nature to be cured and cleansed.  David begged a clean heart as well as a quiet conscience: ‘Blot out all mine iniqui­ties; create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me,’ Ps. 51:9, 10.  He desires water to purify his heart, as well as blood to sprinkle and pa­cify his conscience.  Now, in framing thy requests as to this, observe these particulars.