_Academicus._ I did not imagine, _Rusticus_, that you would have so openly declared against _manuals_ of devotion, since you know not only the most learned, but the most pious doctors of the church, consider them as necessary helps to devotion.
_Rusticus._ If you was obliged to go a long journey on _foot_, and yet through a weakness in your legs could not set one foot before another, you would do well to get the best travelling crutches that you could.
But if, with sound and good legs, you would not stir one step, till you had got _crutches_ to hop with; surely a man might shew you the folly of not walking with your own legs, without being thought an enemy to crutches, or the makers of them. Now a _manual_ is not so good an help, as _crutches_, and yet you see crutches are only proper, when our legs cannot do their office. It is, I say, not so good an help as crutches, because that which you do with the crutches, is that very same thing, that you should have done with your legs: you _really_ travel; but when the heart cannot take one step in prayer, and you therefore read your manual, you do not do that very same thing, which your heart should have done, that is, _really_ pray. A fine manual therefore is not to be considered as a means of praying, or as something that puts you in a state of prayer, as crutches help you to travel; but its chief use to a dead and hardened heart, that has no prayer of its own, is to shew it, what a _state_ and _spirit_ of prayer it _wants_, and at what a sad distance it is from feeling all that variety of humble, penitent, grateful, fervent, resigned, loving sentiments, which are described in the manual, that so, being touched with a view of its own miserable state, it may begin its own prayer to God for help. But I have done. _Theophilus_ may now answer your earnest request.
_Theophilus._ Your earnest desire, _Academicus_, to live in the spirit of prayer, and be truly governed by it, is a most excellent desire; for to be a man of prayer is that which the apostle means by _living in the Spirit, and having our conversation in heaven_. It is to have done, not only with the confessed vices, but with the allowed follies and vanities of this world. To tell such a soul of the innocency of levity, that it need not run away from idle discourse, vain gaiety, and trifling mirth, as being the harmless relief of our heavy natures, is like telling the flame, that it need not ascend upwards. But here you are to observe, that this spirit of prayer is not to be taught you by a book, or brought into you by an art from without; but must arise from within, from the _painful_ sense and feeling of what you are. And its first prayer is nothing else but a sense of penitence, self-condemnation, confession, and humility. It feels nothing but its own misery, and so is all humility. This prayer of humility is met by the divine love, the mercifulness of God embraces it; and then its prayer is changed into hymns, and songs, and thanksgivings. When this state of fervour has done its work, has melted away all earthly passions and affections, and left no inclination in the soul, but to delight in God alone, then its prayer changes again. It is now come so near to God, has found such union with him, that it does not so much pray as live in God. Its prayer is not any particular faculty, not confined to times, or words, or place, but is the work of his whole being, which continually stands in fulness of faith, in purity of love, in absolute resignation, to do, and be, what and how his beloved pleaseth. This is the last state of the spirit of prayer, and is its highest union with God in this life. Each of these states has its time, its variety of workings, its trials, temptations, and purifications, which can only be known by experience in the passage through them. The _one infallible_ way to go safely through all the difficulties, trials, temptations, or opposition, of our own evil tempers is this: to expect nothing from ourselves, to trust to nothing in ourselves, but in every thing expect, and depend upon God. Keep fast hold of this thread, and then let your way be what it will, darkness, temptation, or the rebellion of nature, you will be led through all, to an union with God: for nothing hurts us in any state, but an expectation of something in it, and from it, which we should only expect from God. We are looking for our own virtue, our _own_ piety, our _own_ goodness, and so live on and on in our _own_ poverty and weakness; to-day pleased and comforted with the seeming strength and firmness of our own pious tempers; to-morrow, fallen into our own mire, we are dejected, but not humbled; we grieve, but it is only the grief of pride, at seeing our perfection not to be such as we vainly imagined. And thus it will be, till the _whole turn_ of our minds is so changed, that we as fully see and know our inability to have any goodness of our own, as to have a life of our own.