CHAP. X.] OF MENTAL PRAYER. 335
prayer/' as it is called, it neither is prayer nor can on any account be so esteemed. That we allow of mental prayer, and all actings of the mind in holy meditations, was before declared. Nor do we deny the usefulness or necessity of those other things, of mortifying the affec- tions and passions, of an entire resignation of the whole soul unto God, with complacency in him, so far as our nature is capable of them in this world. But it is that incomparable excellency of it in the silence of the soul, and the pure adhesion of the will, without any actings of the understanding, that we inquire into. And I say, what- ever else there may be herein, yet it hath not the nature of prayer, nor is to be so esteemed, though under that name and notion it be recommended unto us. Prayer is a natural duty, the notion and understanding whereof is common unto all mankind; and the con- current voice of nature deceiveth not. Whatever, therefore, is not compliant therewith, at least what is contradictory unto it or incon- sistent with it, is not to be esteemed prayer. Now, in the common sense of mankind, this duty is that acting of the mind and soul wherein, from an acknowledgment of the sovereign being, self-suffi- ciency, rule, and dominion of God, with his infinite goodness, wisdom, power, righteousness, and omniscience and omnipresence, with a sense of their own universal dependence on him, his will and plea- sure, as to their beings, lives, happiness, and all their concernments, they address their desires with faith and trust unto him, according as their state and condition doth require, or ascribe praise and glory unto him for what he is in himself and what he is to them. This is the general notion of prayer, which the reason of mankind centres in ; neither can any man conceive of it under any other notion what- ever. The gospel directs the performance of this duty in an accept- able manner with respect unto the mediation of Christ, the aids of the Holy Ghost, and the revelation of the spiritual mercies we all do desire; but it changeth nothing in the general nature of it. It doth not introduce a duty of another kind, and call it by the name of that which is known in the light of nature but is quite another thing. But this general nature of prayer all men universally understand well enough in whom the first innate principles of natural light are not extinguished or wofully depraved. This may be done among some by a long traditional course of an atheistical and brutish con- versation. But as large and extensive as are the convictions of men concerning the being and existence of God, so are their apj>rehensions of the nature of this duty; for the first actings of nature towards a Divine Being are in invocation. Jonah's mariners knew every one how to call on his god, when they were in a storm. And where there is not trust or affiance in God acted, whereby men glorify him as God, and where desires or praises are not offered unto him, — neither
336 WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN PRAYER. [BOOK VII.
of which can be without express acts of the mind or understanding, — there is no prayer, whatever else there may be. Wherefore, this contemplative devotion, wherein, as it is pretended, the soul is ecsta- sied into an advance of the will and affections above all the actinsrs
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of the mind or understanding, hath no one property of prayer, as the nature of it is manifest in the light of nature and common agreement of mankind. Prayer without an actual acknowledgment of God in all his holy excellencies, and the actings of faith in fear, love, confi- dence, and gratitude, is a monster in nature, or a by-blow of imagi- nation, which hath no existence in rerum natura. These persons, therefore, had best find out some other name wherewith to impose this kind of devotion upon our admiration, for from the whole pre- cincts of prayer or invocation on the name of God it is utterly ex- cluded ; and what place it may have in any other part of the wor- ship of God, we shall immediately inquire.
But this examination of it by the light of nature will be looked on as most absurd and impertinent: for if we must try all matters of spiritual communion with God, and that in those things which wholly depend on divine, supernatural revelation, by this rule and standard, our measures of them will be false and perverse; and, I say, no doubt they would. Wherefore, we call only that concern of it unto a trial hereby whose true notion is confessedly fixed in the light of nature. Without extending that line beyond its due bounds, we may by it take a just measure of what is prayer and what is not; for therein it cannot deceive nor be deceived. And this is all which at present we engage about. And in the pursuit of the same inquiry we may bring it also unto the Scripture, from which we shall find it as foreign as from the light of nature ; for as it is described, so far as any thing intelligible may be from thence collected, it exceeds or deviates from whatever is said in the Scripture concerning prayer, even in those places where the grace and privileges of it are most emphatically expressed, and as it is exemplified in the prayers of the Lord Christ himself and all the saints recorded therein. Wherefore, the light of nature and the Scripture do by common consent ex- clude it from being prayer in any kind. Prayer, in the Scripture representation of it, is the soul's access and approach unto God by Jesus Christ, through the aids of his Holy Spirit, to make known its requests unto him, with supplication and thanksgiving. And that whereon it is recommended unto us are its external adjuncts, and its internal grace and efficacy. Of the first sort, earnestness, fer- vency, importunity, constancy, and perseverance, are the principal. No man can attend unto these, or any of them, in a way of duty, but in the exercise of his mind and understanding. Without this, what* ever looks like any of them is brutish fury or obstinacy.