XV. *Now prayer never so corrects and amends the heart as when we extend it to all the _particulars_ of our state, enumerating all our wants, infirmities, and disorders; not because God needs to be informed of them, but because by this means we inform ourselves, and make our hearts in the best manner acquainted with our true condition. When our prayers thus descend to all the circumstances of our condition, they become a faithful glass to us; and so often as we pray, so often we see ourselves in a true light.
Don’t be content therefore with confessing yourself to be a _sinner_, or with praying against sin in _general_: for this will but a little affect your mind; it will only shew you to yourself in such a state as all mankind are in: but if you find yourself out; if you confess and lay open the guilt of your own _particular sins_; if you pray constantly against such particular sins as you find yourself most subject to, the _frequent sight_ of your own sins, and your _constant deploring_ of their guilt, will give your prayers entrance into your hearts, and put you upon measures how to amend.
If you confess yourself only to be a _sinner_, you confess yourself to be a _man_; but when you describe and confess your _own particular_ guilt, then you find cause for your own _particular sorrow_; then you give your prayers all the power they can have to affect and wound your heart. In like manner, when you pray for God’s grace, don’t be satisfied with a general petition, but make your prayers suitable to your defects; and continue to ask for such gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit as you find yourself most defective in: for this will give life to your petitions, and make your heart go along with them.
XVI. Lastly, this particularity in our prayers is the greatest trial of the _truth_ of our hearts. A man perhaps thinks he prays for humility, because he has the word _humility_ in his prayers; but if he was to branch out humility into all its _particular parts_, he would perhaps find himself not disposed to pray for them. If he was to represent to himself the several particulars which make a man _poor in spirit_, he would find his heart not desirous of them. So that the only way to know our hearts, and whether we really pray for any virtue, is to have all its parts in our prayers, and to ask for it in all its instances. If the _proud_ man was to pray daily for humility in all its kinds, and to beg of God to remove him from all occasions of _such pride_, as is common to his _particular state_, and to disappoint him in all his attempts that were contrary to humility, he would find that such prayers would either conquer his pride, or his pride would put an end to his prayers. For it would be impossible to live long in any instances of pride, if his daily and frequent prayers were petitions against those particular instances.
XVII. Let me now only add this one word more, that he who has learned _to pray_, has learned the greatest secret of a holy and happy life. Which way soever else we let loose our hearts, they will return unto us again _empty_ and _weary_. Time will convince the _vainest_ and _blindest_ minds, that happiness is no more to be found in the things of this world, than it is to be dug out of the earth. But when the motions of our hearts are motions of piety, tending to God in constant acts of devotion, then have we found rest unto our souls; then is it that we have conquered the misery of our nature: and neither love nor desire in vain: then is it that we have found out a good that is equal to all our wants: that is, a constant source of comfort and refreshment, that will fill us with peace and joyful expectations here, and eternal happiness hereafter. For he that lives in the spirit of devotion, whose heart is always full of God, lives at the _top_ of human happiness, and is the farthest from all the vanities and vexations which disturb the minds of men devoted to the world.