8. Let the Words of our Prayers be pertinent, grave, material, not ftudiously many, but according to our need, fufficient to exprefs our wants and to fignifie our importunity. God hears us not the fooner for our many words, but much the fooner for an earnest defire, to which let apt and fufficient words minifter, be they few or many, according as it happens. A long Prayer and a fhort differ not in their Capacities of being accepted; for both of them take their value according to the fervency of Spirit, and the charity of the Prayer. That Prayer which is fhort, by reason of an impatient Spirit, or dulnefs, or defpight of holy Things, or indifferency of defires, is very often crimi nal, always imperfect; and that Prayer which is long out of oftentation, or fuperftition, or a trifling fpirit, is as criminal and imperfect as the other in their feve. ral Inftances. This rule relates to private Prayer. In publick our devotion is to be measured by the appointed Office,and we are to fupport our Spirit with fpiritual arts, that our private fpirit may be a part of the publick fpirit, and be adopted into the Society and Bleffings of the Communion of Saints.

9. In all Forms of Prayer mingle Petition with Thanksgiving, that you may endear the prefent Prayer and the future Bleffing by returning Praife and Thanks for what we have already received. This is St. Paul's Advice, [Be careful for nothing, but in every thing by Phil. 4. 6 Prayer and Supplication with Thank (giving, let your Requefts be made known unto God.]

10. Whatever we beg of God, let us alfo work for it, if the thing be matter of duty, or a confequent to Industry. For God loves to blefs labour and to reward it, but not to fupport Idlenefs. And therefore our bleffed Saviour in his Sermons joins Watchfulnefs with Prayer: for God's Graces are but affiftances, not new creations of the whole habit in every inftant or period of our Life. Read Scriptures, and then pray to God for understanding. Pray against temptation; but you must

unw; muse, xoregs in &Εἶτα λέγομεν, Κύριε ὁ θεὸς πως χεις; ἐκ εποίησέ σοι αυτὰς ὁ θεός εἶχε νῦν καθήμενΘ, ὅπως αἱμύξαι σε μὴ ῥέωσιν απόμυξαι μάλλον. Arian. l. 2. 6. 16.

alfa

Inter facra

& vota ver profanis ab

bis etiam

tinere. Tacit.

alfo refift the Devil, and then he will flee from you. Ask of God competency of living: but you must alfo work with your hands the things that are honest, that ye may have to fupply in time of need. We can but do our endeavour, and pray for a bieffing, and then leave the fuccefs with God: and beyond this we cannot deliberate, we cannot take care; but fo far we must.

11. To this purpose let every Man study his Prayers, and read his duty in his Petitions. For the body of our prayer is the tum of our duty: and as we must ask of God whatfoever we need; fo we must labour for all that we ask. Because it is our Duty, therefore we must pray for God's grace: but becaufe God's grace is neceffary, and without it we can do nothing, we are fufficiently taught, that in the proper matter of our religious Prayers is the just matter of our Duty: and if we fhall turn our Prayers into Precepts, we shall the cafier turn our hearty defires into effective practices. 12. In all our Prayers we must be careful to attend our prefent work, having a prefent mind, not wan dring upon impertinent Things, not diftant from our Words, much lefs contrary to them: and if our Thoughts do at any time wander, and divert upon other Objects, bring them back again with prudent and fevere Arts; by all means ftriving to obtain a diligent, a fober, an untroubled and a compofed Spirit.

13. Let your pofture and gesture of body in Prayers be reverent, grave and humble: according to publick order, or the best Examples; if it be in publick, if it be in private, either ftand, or kneel, or lie flat upon the ground on your face, in your ordinary and more folemn Prayers, but in extraordinary, cafual and ejaculatory Prayers, the reverence and devotion of the Soul, and the lifting up the eyes and hands to God with any other poiture not undecent, is ufual and commendable; for we may pray in bed, on 2 Tim. 2. 8. horfeback, every-where and at all times, and in all circumftances: and it is well if we do fo: and fome Servants have not opportunity to pray fo often as they would unless they fupply the Appetites of Religion by fuch accidental Devotions.

14. [Leg

14. [Let Prayers and Supplications and giving of 1 Tim. 2. 2. Thanks be made for all Men: for Kings and all that are in authority. For this is good and acceptable in the fight of God our Saviour.] We who must love our Neighbours as outfelvés, muft alfo pray for them as for ourselves: with this only difference, that we may enlarge in our temporal defires for Kings, and pray for fecular profperity to thein with more importunity than for ourselves, becaufe they need more to enable their duty and government, and for the interefts of Religion and Justice. This part of Prayer is by the Apoftle called [Interceffion] in which with special care we are to remember our Relatives, our Family, our Charge, our Benefactors, our Creditors; not forgetting to beg pardon and charity for our Enemies, and protection against them.

15. Rely not on a single prayer in matters of great Concernment: but make it as publick as you can by obtaining of others to pray for you: this being the great bleffing of the communion of Saints, that a prayer united is ftrong like a well-ordered Army; and God loves to be tied faft with fuch cords of love, and constrained by a holy violence.

16. Every time that is not feiz'd upon by fome other duty, is feasonable enough for prayer: but let it be performed as a folemn duty morning and evening, that God may begin and end all our bufinefs, and the outgoing of the morning and evening may praife him; for fo we blefs God, and God blees us. And yet fail not to find or make opportunities to worship God at fome other times of the day; at leaft by ejaculations and fhort addreffes, more or lefs, longer or fhorter, folemnly, or without folemnity, privately or publickly, as you can, or are permitted: always remembring, that as every fin is a degree of danger and unfafety; fo every pious prayer and well employed opportunity is a degree of return to hope and pardon.

Caution

Cautions for making Vows.

17. A Vow to God is an act of Prayer, and a great degree and inttance of importunity, and an increase of duty by fome new uncommanded inftance, or fome more eminent degree of duty, or frequency of action, or earneftness of fpirit in the fame. And because it hath pleafed God in all Ages of the World to admit of intercourse with his Servants, in the matters of Vows, it is not ill advice, that we make Vows to God in fuch Cafes in which we have great need, or great danger. But let it be done according to thefe Rules and by these Cautions.

1. That the matter of the Vow be lawful. 2. That it be useful in order to Religion or Charity. 3. That it be grave, not trifling and impertinent, but great in our proportion of duty towards the bleffing. 4. That it be in an uncommanded inftance, that is, that it be of fomething, or in fome manner, or in fome degree to which formerly we were not obliged, or which we might have omitted without fin. 5. That it be done with prudence, that is, that it be fafe in all the circumftances of perfon, left we beg à bleffing, and fall into a fnare. 6. That every Vow of a new action be alfo accompanied with a new degree and enforcement of our effential and unalterable duty: fuch as was Jacob's Vow, that (befides the payment of a tithe) God fhould be his God: that fo he might ftrengthen his duty to him firft in effentials and precepts, and then in additionals and accidentals. For it is but an ill tree that fpends more in leaves and fuckers and gumms than in fruit: and that Thankfulness and Religion is beft that firft fecures duty, and then enlarges in counfels. Therefore let every great prayer, and great need, and great danger draw us nearer to God by the approach of a pious purpose to live more ftrictly; and let every mercy of God anfwering that prayer produce a real perfor mance of it. 7. Let not young beginners in Religion enlarge

enlarge their Hearts and ftrengthen their liberty by Auguftum Vows of long contintance: nor (indeed) any one elfe, annullum non gefta, without a great experience of himself, and of all ac- dixit Pythag cidental Dangers. Vows of fingle actions are fafeft, id eft, Vita and proportionable to thofe fingle Bleffings ever genus liberum fe&tare, begged in fuch Cafes of fudden and tranfient Impor- nec vinculo tunities. 8. Let no action which is matter of queftion temetipfum and difpute in Religion ever become the matter of a obftringe. Vow. He vows foolishly that promifes to God to Sic Novatus live and die in fuch an opinion, in an article not ne novitios fuos compulit ad ceffary, nor certain; or that, upon confidence of his jurandum na prefent guide, binds himself for ever to the profeffion unquam ad of what he may afterwards more reafonably contra- Catholicos Epifcopos dict, or may find not to be ufeful, or not profita-redirent ble, but of fome danger, or of no neceffity.

Plutarch.

Eufeb. 1. 2.

If we obferve the former Rules, we fhall pray pi-Eccl. Hist, oufly and effectually: but because even this duty hath in it fome fpecial Temptations, it is neceffary that we be armed by fpecial Remedies against them. The dangers are, 1. Wandring Thoughts. 2. Tedioufness of Spirit. Against the first thefe Advices are profitable.

Remedies against wandring Thoughts.
in Prayer.

If we feel our Spirits apt to wander in our Prayers, and to retire into the World, or to Things unprofitable, or vain and impertinent;

r. Ufe Prayer to be affifted in Prayer: pray for the fpirit of fupplication, for a sober, fixed and recolleted fpirit: and when to this you add a moral induftry to be fteady in your Thoughts, whatsoever wandrings after this do return irremediably, are a misery of Nature and an imperfection, but no fin, while it is not cherished and indulged to.

2. In private it is not amifs to attempt the cure by reducing your Prayers into Collects and fhort Forms of Prayer, making voluntary Interruptions, and beginning again, that the want of fpirit and breath may be fupplied by the fhort Stages and Periods. 3. When