ready knows. As he has not so much made his promise to our necessities, as to our requests, it is reasonable that our requests should be made before we can hope that our necessities will be relieved. God does not promise to those who want that they shall "have," but to those who "ask;" nor to those who need that they shall "find,” but to those who "seek." So far therefore from his previous knowledge of our wants being a ground of objection to prayer, it is in fact the true ground for our application. Were he not Knowledge itself, our information would be of as little use, as our application would be, were he not Goodness itself.

We cannot attain to a just notion of prayer while we remain ignorant of our own nature, of the nature of God as revealed in Scripture, of our relation to him and dependence on him. If therefore we do not live in the daily study of the holy Scriptures, we shall want the highest motives to this duty and the best helps for performing it; if we do, the cogency of these motives, and the inestimable value of these helps, will render argument unnecessary and exhortation superfluous.

One cause therefore of the dullness of many Christians in prayer, is, their slight acquaintance with the sacred volume. They hear it periodically, they read it occasionally, they are contented to know it historically, to consider it superficially; but they do not endeavour to get their minds imbued with its Spirit. If they store their memory with its facts, they do not impress their hearts with its truths. They do not regard it as the nutriment on which their spiritual life and growth depend. They do not pray over it; they do not consider all its doctrines as of prac tical application; they do not cultivate that spiritual discernment which alone can enable them judiciously to ap propriate its promises and its denunciations to their own actual case. They do not apply it as an unerring line to ascertain their own rectitude or obliquity.

In our retirements, we too often fritter away our precious moments, moments rescued from the world, in trivial, sometimes it is to be feared, in corrupt thoughts. But if we must give the reins to our imagination, let us send this excursive faculty to range among great and noble objects. Let it stretch forward under the sanction of faith and the anticipation of prophecy, to the accomplishment of those glorious promises and tremendous threatenings

which will soon be realized in the eternal world. These are topics which under the safe and sober guidance of Scripture, will fix its largest speculations and sustain its loftiest flights. The same Scripture while it expands and elevates the mind, will keep it subject to the dominion of truth; while at the same time it will teach it that its boldest excursions must fall infinitely short of the astonishing realities of a future state.

Though we cannot pray with a too deep sense of sin, we may make our sins too exclusively the object of our prayers. While we keep, with a self abasing eye, our own corruptions in view, let us look with equal intenseness on that mercy, which cleanseth from all sin. Let our prayers be all humiliation, but let them not be all complaint. When men induige no other thought but that they are rebels, the hopelessness of pardon hardens them into disloyalty. Let them look to the mercy of the King, as well as to the rebellion of the Subject. If we contemplate his grace as displayed in the Gospel, then, though our humility will increase, our despair will vanish. Gratitude in this as in human instances will create affection. "We love him because he first loved us."

Let us then always keep our unworthiness in view as a reason why we stand in need of the mercy of God in Christ; but never plead it as a reason why we should not draw nigh to him to implore that mercy. The best men are unworthy for their own sakes; the worst on repentance will be accepted for his sake and through his merits.

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In prayer then, the perfections of God, and especially his mercies in our redemption, should occupy our thoughts as much as our sins; our obligation to him as much as our departures from him. We should keep up in our hearts a constant sense of our own weakness, not with a design to discourage the mind and depress the spirits; but with a view to drive us out of ourselves, in search of the divine assistance. We should contem. plate our infirmity in order to draw us to look for his strength, and to seek that power from God which we vamly look for in ourselves; We do not tell a sick friend of his danger in order to grieve or terrify him, but to induce him to apply to his Physician, and to have recourse to his remedy.

Among the charges which have been brought against serious piety, one is, that it teaches men to despair.

The charge is just in one sense as to the fact, but false in the sense intended. It teaches us to despair indeed of ourselves, while it inculcates that faith in a Redeemer, which is the true antidote to despair. Faith quick'ens the doubting spirit while it humbles the presumptuous. The lowly Christian takes comfort in the blessed promise, that God will never forsake them that are his. The presumptuous man is equally right in the doctrine, but wrong in applying it. He takes that comfort to himself which was meant for another class of characters. The mal-appropriation of Scripture promises and threatenings, is the cause of much error and delusion.

Though some devout enthusiasts have fallen into error by an unnatural and impracticable disinterestedness, asserting that God is to be loved exclusively for himself with an absolute renunciation of any view of advantage to ourselves; yet that prayer cannot be mercenary, which involves God's glory with our own happiness, and makes his will the law of our requests. Though we are to desire the glory of God supremely; thongh this ought to be our grand actuating principle, yet he has graciously permitted, commanded, invited us, to attach our own happiness to this primary object. The Bible exhibits not only a beautiful, but an inseparable combination of both, which delivers us from the danger of unnaturally renouncing our own benefit for the promotion of God's glory on the one hand; and on the other, from seeking any happiness independent of him, and nuderived from him. In enjoining us to love him supremely, he has connected an unspeakable blessing with a paramount duty, the highest privilege with the most positive command.

What a triumph for the humble Christian to be assured, that "the high and lofty one which inhabiteth eternity," condescends at the same time to dwell in the heart of the contrite; in his heart! To know that God is the God of his life, to know that he is even invited to take the Lord for his God-To close with God's oers, to accept his invitations, to receive God as his portion, must surely be more pleasing to our heavenly Father, than separating our happiness from his glory. To disconnect our interests from his goodness, is at once to detract from his perfections, and to obscure the brightness of our own hopes, The declarations of inspired writers are confirmed by the authority of the heavenly hosts. They proclaim that the

glory of God and the happiness of his creatures, so far from interfering, are connected with each other. We know but of one anthem composed and sung by Angels, and this most harmoniously combines "the glory of God in the highest with peace on earth and good will to men." "The beauty of Scripture," says the great Saxon Reformer, "consists in pronouns." This God is our God→→→ God even our own God shall bless us-How delightful the appropriation! to glorify him as being in himself consum mate excellence, and to love him from the feeling that this excellence is directed to our felicity! Here modesty wonld be ingratitude, disinterestedness rebellion. It would be severing ourselves from him, in whom we live, and move, and are; it would be dissolving the connexion which he has condescended to establish between himself and his creatures.

It has been justly observed, that the Scripture Saints make this union the chief ground of their grateful exultation-"My strength," " my rock," " 'my fortress,” “my deliverer!" again, "let the God of my salvation be exalted!" Now take away the pronoun and substitute the article the, how comparatively cold is the impression! The consummation of the joy arises from the peculiarity, the intimacy, the endearment of the relation.

Nor to the liberal Christian is the grateful joy diminished, when he blesses his God as "the God of all them that trust in him." All general blessings, will he say, all providential mercies, are mine individually, are mine as completely, as if no other shared in the enjoyment. Life, light, the earth and heavens, the sun and stars, whatever sustains the body, and recreates the spirits! My obliga tion is as great as if the mercy had been made purely for me; as great? nay it is greater-it is augmented by a sense of the millions who participate in the blessing. The same enlargement of the personal obligation holds good, may rises higher in the mercies of Redemption. The Lord is my Saviour as completely as if he had redeemed only me. That he has redeemed "a great multitude which no man can number, of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues" is diffusion without abatement; it is general participation without individual diminution. Each has all.

In adoring the Providence of God, we are apt to be struck with what is new and out of course, while we too

much overlook long, habitual and uninterrupted mercies. But common mercies, if less striking are more valuable, both because we have them always, and for the reason above assigned, because others share them. The ordinary blessings of life are overlooked for the very reason that they ought to be most prized, because they are most uniformly bestowed. They are most essential to our sup. port, and when once they are withdrawn we begin to find that they are also most essential to our comfort. Nothing raises the price of a blessing like its removal, whereas it was its continuance which should have taught us its value. We require novelties, to awaken our gratitude, not considering that it is the duration of mercies which enhances their value. We want fresh excitements. We consider mercies long enjoyed as things of course, as things to which we have a sort of presumptive claim, as if God had no right to withdraw what he had once bestowed, as if he were obliged to continue what he has once been pleased to confer.

But that the sun has shone unremittingly from the day that God created him, is not a less stupendous exertion of power than that the hand which fixed him in the heavens, and marked out his progress through them, once said by his servant, "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon." That he has gone on in his strength, driving his uninterrupted career, and "rejoicing as a giant to run his course," for six thousand years, is a more astonishing exhibition of Omnipotence than that he should have been once suspended by the hand which set him in motion." That the ordinances of heaven, that the established laws of nature, should have been for one day interrupted to serve a particular occasion, is a less real wonder, and certainly a less substantial blessing, than that in such a multitude of ages they should have pursued their appointed course, for the comfort of the whole system;

For ever singing as they shine

The hand that made us is divine.

As the affections of the Christian ought to be set on things above, so it is for them that his prayers will be chiefly addressed. God in promising to give those who delight in him the desire of their heart," could never mean temporal things, for these they might desire improperly as to the object, and inordinately as to the degree. The promise relates principally to spiritual blessings.