By this means, you would be often improving your prayers, and storing yourself with proper forms of making the desires of your heart known unto God.

At all the stated hours of prayer, it will be of great benefit to you, to have something fixed, and something at liberty, in your devotions.

You should have some fixed subject, which is constantly to be the chief matter of your prayer at that particular time; and yet have liberty to add such other petitions, as your condition may then require.

For instance as the morning is to you the beginning of new life; as God has then given you a new enjoyment of yourself, and a fresh entrance into the world, it is highly proper that your first devotions should be a praise and thanksgiving to God, as for a new creation; and that you should offer and devote body and soul, all that you are, and all that you have, to his service and glory.

Receive therefore every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life; meet every rising sun with such sentiments of God's goodness, as if you had seen it, and all things, new created upon your account; and under the sense of so great a blessing, let your joyful heart, praise and magnify so good and glorious a Creator.

Let therefore praise and thanksgiving, and oblation of yourself unto God, be always the fixed and certain subject of your first prayers in the morning; and then take the liberty of adding such other devotions, as the accidental difference of your state, or the accidental difference of your heart, shall then make most needful and expedient for you.

For one of the greatest benefits of private devotion, consists in rightly adapting our prayers to these two conditions, the difference of our state, and the difference of our hearts.

By the difference of our state, is meant the difference of our external state or condition as of sickness, health, pains, losses, disappointments, troubles, particular mercies or judgments from God; all sorts of kindnesses, injuries, or reproaches from other people.

Now as these are great parts of our state of life, as

they make great difference in it, by continually changing; so our devotion will be made doubly beneficial to us, when it watches to receive and sanctify all these changes of our state, and turns them all into so many occasions of a more particular application to God of such thanksgivings, such resignation, such petitions as our present state more especially requires.

And he that makes every change in his state a reason of presenting unto God some particular petitions suitable to that change, will soon find, that he has taken an excellent means, not only of praying with fervour, but of living as he prays.

The next condition to which we are always to adapt some part of our prayers, is the difference of our hearts; by which is meant the different state of the tempers of our hearts, as of love, joy, peace, tranquillity; dulness and dryness of spirit, anxiety, discontent, motions of envy and ambition, dark and disconsolate thoughts, resentments, fretfulness and peevish tempers.

Now as these tempers, through the weakness of our nature will have their succession more or less, even in pious minds; so we should constantly make the present state of our heart, the reason of some particular applica tion to God.

If we are in the delightful calm of sweet and easy passions, of love and joy in God, we should then offer the grateful tribute of thanksgiving to God, for the possession of so much happiness, thankfully owing and acknowledging him as the bountiful Giver of it all.

If on the other hand, we feel ourselves laden with heavy passions, with dulness of spirit, anxiety and uneasiness, we must then look up to God in acts of humility, confessing our unworthiness, opening our troubles to him, beseeching him in his good time to lessen the weight of our infirmities, and to deliver us from such passions as oppose the purity and perfection of our souls.

Now by thus watching and attending to the present state of our hearts, and suiting some of our petitions exactly to their wants, we shall not only be well acquainted

with the disorders of our souls, but also be well exercised in the method of curing them.

By this prudent and wise application of our prayers, we shall get all the relief from them that is possible; and the very changeableness of our hearts, will prove a means of exercising a greater variety of holy tempers.

Now by all that has here been said, you will easily perceive, that persons careful of the greatest benefit of prayer, ought to have a great share in the forming and composing their own devotions.

As to that part of their prayers, which is always fixed to one certain subject, in that they may use the help of some forms composed by other persons; but in that part of their prayers, which they are always to suit to the present state of their life, and the present state of their heart-there they must let the sense of their own condition help them to such kinds of petition, thanksgiving, or resignation, as their present state more especially requires.

Happy are they, who have this business and employment upon their hands!

And now, if people of leisure, whether men or women, who are so much at a loss how to dispose of their time, who are forced into poor contrivances, idle visits, and ridiculous diversions, merely to get rid of hours that hang heavily upon their hands; if such were to appoint some certain spaces of their time, to the study of devotion, searching after all the means and helps to attain a devout spirit; if they were to collect the best forms of devotion, to use themselves to transcribe the finest passages of Scripture prayers; if they were to collect the devotions, confessions, petitions, praises, resignations, and thanksgivings, which are scattered up and down in the Psalms, and range them under proper heads, as so much proper fuel for the flame of their own devotion; if their minds were often thus employed, sometimes meditating upon them, sometimes getting them by heart, and making them as habitual as their own thoughts, how fervently would they pray, who came thus prepared to prayer!

And how much better would it be, to make this benefit of leisure time, than to be dully and idly lost in the

poor impertinences of a playing, visiting, wandering

life!

How much better would it be, to be thus furnished with hymns and anthems of the saints, and teach their souls to ascend to God, than to corrupt, bewilder and confound their hearts with the wild fancies, the lustful thoughts of lewd poets!

Now though people of leisure seem called more par ticularly to this study of devotion, yet persons of much business or labour, must not think themselves excused from this or some better method of improving their devotion.

For the greater their business is, the more need they have of some such method as this, to prevent its power over their hearts; to secure them from sinking into worldly tempers, and preserve a sense and taste of heav enly things in their minds. And a little time regularly and constantly employed to any one use or end, will do great things, and produce mighty effects.

And it is for want of considering devotion in this light, as something that is to be nursed and cherished with care, as something that is to be made part of our business, that is to be improved with care and contrivance, by art, and method, and a diligent use of the best helps; it is for want of considering it in this light, that so many people are so little benefitted by it; and live and die strangers to that spirit of devotion, which by a prudent use of proper means, they might have enjoyed in a high degree.

For though the spirit of devotion is the gift of God, and not attainable by any mere power of our own, yet it is moetdy: giószem, never withheld, from those, who by a wise and diligent use of proper means, prepare themselves for the reception of it.

And it is amazing to see how eagerly men employ their parts, their sagacity, time, study, application, and exercise; how all helps are called to their assistance, when any thing is intended and desired in worldly matters; and how dull, negligent, and unimproved they are, how little they use their parts, sagacity, and abilities, to raise and increase their devotion!

Mundanus is a man of excellent parts, and clear appre

hension. He is well advanced in age, and has made a great figure in business. Every part of trade and business that has fallen in his way, has had some improvement from him; and he is always contriving to carry every method of doing any thing well, to its greatest height. Mundanus aims at the greatest perfection in every thing. The soundness and strength of his mind, and his just way of thinking upon things, makes him intent upon removing all imperfections.

He can tell you all the defects and errors' in all the common methods, whether of trade, building, or improving land or manufactures. The clearness and

strength of his understanding, which he is constantly improving, by continual exercise in these matters, by often digesting his thoughts in writing, and trying every thing every way, has rendered him a great master of most concerns in human life.

Thus has Mundanus gone on, increasing his knowledge and judgment, as fast as his years came upon him.

The one only thing which has not fallen under his improvement, nor received any benefit from his judicious mind, is his devotion: this is just in the same poor state it was, when he was only six years of age; and the old man prays now, in that little form of words, which his mother used to hear him repeat night and morning.

Thus Mundanus, that hardly ever saw the poorest utensil, or ever took the meanest trifle into his hand, without considering how it might be made or used to better advantage, has gone all his life long praying in the same manner as when he was a child; without ever considering how much better or oftener he might pray" without considering how improveable the spirit of devotion is, how many helps a wise and reasonable man may call to his assistance, and how necessary it is, that our prayers should be enlarged, varied, and suited to the particular state and condition of our lives.

If Mundanus sees a book of devotion, he passes it by, as he does a spelling-book, because he remembers that he learned to pray so many years ago under his mother, when he learnt to spell.