23. Again, as all men stand in a near relation to God, so they have still so much of his image stamped on them, as may excite us to love them. In some this image is more conspicuous, and we can discern the lovely tracts of wisdom and goodness. And though, in others, it be miserably sullied and defaced, yet it is not altogether erased. Some lineaments still remain: all men are endowed with rational and immortal souls, with understandings and wills capable of the most excellent things. And if they be at present disordered and put out of tune by wickedness and folly, this may indeed move our compassion, but ought not to extinguish our love. When we see a person of a rugged humour and perverse disposition, full of malice and dissimulation, very foolish, and very proud, it is hard to fall in love with an object that presents itself unto us, under an idea so little grateful and lovely. But when we consider these evil qualities as the diseases of a soul, which in itself is capable of all that wisdom and goodness, wherewith the best of saints have ever been adorned, this will turn our aversion into pity, and make us behold him with such resentments, as we have when we look on a beautiful body that is mangled with wounds, or disfigured by some loathsome disease. And however we hate the vices we shall not cease to love the man.
_Prayer another instrument of religion; the advantages of mental prayer._
24. There remains yet another help; and that is, fervent prayer. Holiness is the gift of God; indeed the greatest gift he doth bestow, or we are capable to receive, and he hath promised his Holy Spirit to those that ask it of him. In prayer we make the nearest approaches to God, and lie open to the influences of heaven: then it is that the sun of righteousness doth visit us with his directest rays, and dissipateth our darkness, and imprinteth his image on our souls. I cannot now insist on the advantages of this exercise, or the dispositions wherewith it ought to be performed; I shall only tell you, that as there is one sort of prayer, wherein we make use of the voice, which is necessary in public; and may sometimes have its advantage in private; and another wherein, though we utter no sound, yet we conceive the expressions, and form the words in our mind; so there is a third kind of prayer, wherein the soul takes a higher flight, and having collected all its forces, by long and serious meditation, it darteth itself (if I may so speak) towards God, in sighs and groans, and thoughts too big for expression.
This mental prayer is one of the most powerful instruments of the divine life; and it may be the apostle hath a peculiar respect unto it, when he saith, that _the Spirit helpeth our infirmities, making intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered_.
_The use of the holy sacrament._
25. I shall recommend but one more help; and that is, the conscientious use of that holy sacrament, which is peculiarly appointed to nourish and increase the spiritual life, when once it is begotten in the soul. All the instruments of religion meet together in this ordinance; and while we address ourselves to it, we are put to practise all the rules which were mentioned before. Then it is that we make the severest survey of our actions, and lay the strictest obligations on ourselves: then are our minds raised to the highest contempt of the world, and every grace doth exercise itself with the greatest activity and vigour. All the subjects of contemplation there present themselves unto us with the greatest advantage; and then, if ever, doth the soul make its most powerful sallies towards heaven, and assault it with a holy and acceptable force. And certainly the neglect, or careless performance of this duty, is one of the chief causes that be-dwarfs our religion, and make us continue of so low a size.