are my people,' saitli God, ' children that will not lie ; so he was their Saviour,' Isa. Ixiii. 8. Secondly, Prayer is a means to dispose the heart to praise. Prayer and praise, like the symbolical qualities in the elements, are soon re- solved each into the other. When David begins a psalm with prayer, he com- monly ends it with praise. From whence things have their- original, thither they return. From the sea the river comes, and no mountains can prevent its return to the sea. That Spirit which leads the soul out of itself to God for supply, will direct it to the same God with his praise. We do not borrow money of one man and return it to another. If God hath been thy strength, surely thou wilt make him thy song. The thief comes not to thank a man for what he steals ovit of his yard. It is not surprising that they do not glorify God for or with his mercies, who did not ask his leave by prayer for them. What men do by themselves they ascribe to themselves. Mercies ill got are com- monly as ill spent, because they are not sanctified to them, and so become fuel to feed their lusts : hence it is, the more enjoyments they have, the more proud and unthankful they are. But by prayer the Christian's enjoyments are sancti- fied, and the flatulency of them, which pufls up others into pride, is corrected ; and the same mercies received by prayer become nourishment to the saint's graces, that putrefy and turn to noisome lust in the prayerless sinner. Thirdly, God will have his people pray for what he hath purposed and promised, to show the delight he takes in their prayers. As a father, though he can send to his son, who lives abroad, the money he hath promised for his maintenance, yet will not let him have it except he comes at the appointed time for it. And why ? Not to trouble his son, but to delight himself in his son's company. God takes such delight in the company of his praying saints, that to prevent all strangeness on their part, he orders it so that they cannot neglect a duty but they shall lose something by it. ' Ye have not, because ye ask not.' And the more they abound in prayer, the more they shall abound in blessings. The oftener Joash smote upon the ground, the more complete was his victory over the Syrians. As the arrows of prayer are that we shoot to heaven, so will the returns of mercy from thence be; yet it must not be imputed to any lothness in God to give, that he makes them pray often and long before the mercy comes, but rather to the delight he takes in our prayers : he doth this to draw out the graces of his Spii'it in his children, the voice of which in prayer makes sweet melody in the ear of God. The truth is, we are in this too much like musicians playing under our window ; they play until the money is thrown out to them, and then their pipes are put up. And were our v/ants so supplied by the answer of one prayer, so that we did not suddenly need recruiting, we would be gone, and God would not hear of us in haste.
CHAPTER V.
A SHARP REPROOF TO ALL PRAYERLESS SOULS ; WITH THE DISMAL STATE THAT SUCH ARE IN, SHEWN.
A WORD to those who live in the total neglect of this duty. Such there are to be found, who pass their wretched da3^s like so many swine ; they never look up to heaven till God lays them on their back ; nor are heard to cry in prayer, till his knife is at their throat. What shall I say to these giants, the sons of the earth, that have renounced their allegiance to the God of heaven ; — these kine of Bashan, who, like so many metamorphosed Nebuchadnezzars, have lost the heart of a man, and live as the beasts, who, while they feed, take no notice of him that clothes the field with grass for them ! Can I hope they will hear man, who will not acknowledge the God of heaven, by praying to him ? Surely your case is deplorable. What, not pray ! Can you do less than by this homage to own God for your maker? or less for your own souls than to beg their life of God, whose hand is lift up against you ? Are you resolved to throw yourselves into the devil's mouth, without striking one stroke for your defence ? If God had required a greater matter at your hands than this, the salvation of your souls would have deserved it; and will you hesitate at this? God does not put us to the cost of laying down tlie price of our ransom ; no, not so much as to pay our prison fees; only he bids thee pray, and he will reward thee : ' Their souls shall live that seek the Lord,' Psa. Ixix. 32. O what salt and vinegar will
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