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Direct. XIII. After all your instructions make them briefly give you an account in their own words of what they understand and remember of all; or else the next time to give account of the former. And encourage them for all that is well done in their endeavours.

Direct. XIV. Labour in all to keep up a wakened, serious attention, and still to print upon their hearts the greatest things. And to that end, for the matter of your teaching and discourse, let nothing be so much in your mouths, as, 1. The nature and relations of God. 2. A crucified and a glorified Christ, with all his grace and privileges. 3. The operations of the Spirit on the soul. 4. The madness of sinners, and the vanity of the world. 5. And endless glory and joy of saints, and misery of the ungodly after death. Let these five points be frequently urged, and be the life of all the rest of your discourse. And then for the manner of your speaking to them, let it be always with such a mixture of familiarity and seriousness that may carry along their serious attentions, whether they will or no. Speak to them as if they or you were dying, and as if you saw God, and heaven, and hell.

Direct. XV. Take each of them sometimes by themselves, and there describe to them the work of renovation, and ask them, whether ever such a work was wrought upon them. Show them the true marks of grace, and help them to try themselves; urge them to tell you truly, whether their love to God or the creature, to heaven or earth, to holiness or flesh-pleasing, be more; and what it is that hath their hearts, and care, and chief endeavour: and if you find them regenerate, help to strengthen them; if you find them too much dejected, help to comfort them; and if you find them unregenerate, help to convince them, and then to humble them, and then to show them the remedy in Christ, and then show them their duty that they may have part in Christ, and drive all home to the end that you desire to see; but do all this with love, and gentleness, and privacy.

Direct. XVI. Some pertinent questions which by the answer will engage them to teach themselves, or to judge themselves, will be sometimes of very great use. As such as these; "Do you not know that you must shortly die? Do you not believe that immediately your souls must enter upon an endless life of joy or misery? Will worldly wealth and honours, or fleshly pleasures, be pleasant to you then? Had you then rather be a saint, or an ungodly sinner? Had you not then rather be one of the holiest that the world despised and abused, than one of the greatest and richest of the wicked? When time is past, and you must give account of it, had you not then rather it had been spent in holiness, and obedience, and diligent preparation for the life to come, than in pride, and pleasure, and pampering the flesh? How could you make shift to forget your endless life so long? or to sleep quietly in an unregenerate state? What if you had died before conversion, what think you had become of you, and where had you now been? Do you think that any of those in hell are glad that they were ungodly? or have now any pleasure in their former merriments and sin? What think you would they do, if it were all to do again? Do you think, if an angel or saint from heaven should come to decide the controversy between the godly and the wicked, that he would speak against a holy and heavenly life, or plead for a loose and fleshly life? or which side think you he would take? Did not God know what he did when he made the Scriptures? Is he, or an ungodly scorner, to be more regarded? Do you think every man in the world will not wish at last that he had been a saint, whatever it had cost him?" Such kind of questions urge the conscience, and much convince.

Direct. XVII. Cause them to learn some one most plain and pertinent text, for every great and necessary duty, and against every great and dangerous sin; and often to repeat them to you. As Luke xiii. 3, 5, "Except ye repent, ye shall all perish." John iii. 5, "Except a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." So Matt. xviii. 3; Rom. viii. 9; Heb. xii. 14; John iii. 16; Luke xviii. 1, &c. So against lying, swearing, taking God's name in vain, flesh-pleasing, gluttony, pride, and the rest.

Direct. XVIII. Drive all your convictions to a resolution of endeavour and amendment, and make them sometimes promise you to do that which you convinced them of; and sometimes before witnesses. But let it be done with these necessary cautions: 1. That you urge not a promise in any doubtful point, or such as you have not first convinced them of. 2. That you urge not a promise in things beyond their present strength; as you must not bid them promise you to believe, or to love God, or to be tender-hearted, or heavenly-minded; but to do those duties which tend to these, as to hear the word, or read, or pray, or meditate, or keep good company, or avoid temptations, &c. 3. That you be not too often upon this, (or upon one and the same strain in the other methods,) lest they take them but for words of course, and custom teach them to contemn them. But seasonably and prudently done, their promises will lay a great engagement on them.

Direct. XIX. Teach them how to pray, by forms or without, as is most suitable to their ease and parts; and either yourself, or some that may inform you, should hear them pray sometimes, that you may know their spirit, and how they profit.

Direct. XX. Put such books into their hands as are meetest for them, and engage them to read them when they are alone; and ask them what they understand and remember of them. And hold them not without necessity so hard to work, as to allow them no time for reading by themselves; but drive them on to work the harder, that they may have some time when their work is done.

Direct. XXI. Cause them to teach one another when they are together. Let their talk be profitable. Let those that read best, be reading sometimes to the rest, and instructing them, and furthering their edification. Their familiarity might make them very useful to one another.

Direct. XXII. Tire them not out with too much at once; but give it them as they can receive it. Narrow-mouthed bottles must not be filled as wider vessels.

Direct. XXIII. Labour to make all sweet and pleasant to them; and to that end sometimes mix the reading of some profitable history; as the "Book of Martyrs," and "Clarke's Martyrology," and his "Lives."

Direct. XXIV. Lastly, entice them with kindnesses and rewards. Be kind to your children when they do well, and be as liberal to your servants as your condition will allow you. For this maketh your persons acceptable first, and then your instructions will be much more acceptable. Nature teacheth them to love those that love them, and do them good, and to hearken willingly to those they love. A small gift now and then, might signify much to the further benefit of their souls.

Direct. XXV. If any shall say, that here is so much ado about these directions, as that few can follow them; I entreat them to consult with Christ that died for them, whether souls be not precious, and worth all this ado? And to consider how small a labour all this is, in comparison of the everlasting end; and to remember, that all is gain and pleasure, and a delight to those that have holy hearts; and to remember, that the effects to the church and kingdom, of such holy government of families, would quite over-compensate all the pains.

CHAPTER XXIII.
DIRECTIONS FOR PRAYER

Tit. 1. Directions for Prayer in General

He that handleth this duty of prayer as it deserveth,⁵³ must make it the second part in the body of divinity, and allow it a larger and exacter tractate than I here intend: for I have before told you, that as we have three natural faculties, an understanding, will, and executive power, so these are qualified in the godly, with faith, love, and obedience; and have three particular rules: the creed, to show us what we must believe, and in what order: the Lord's prayer, to show us what, and in what order, we must desire and love: and the decalogue, to tell us what, and in what order, we must do (though yet these are so near kin to one another, that the same actions in several respects belong to each of the rules). As the commandments must be believed and loved, as well as obeyed; and the matter of the Lord's prayer must be believed to be good and necessary, as well as loved and desired; and belief, and love, and desire, are commanded, and are part of our obedience; yet for all this, they are not formally the same, but divers. And as we say, that the heart or will is the man, as being the commanding faculty; so morally the will, the love or desire, is the christian; and therefore the rule of desire or prayer, is a principal part of true religion. The internal part of this duty I partly touched before, part i. chap. iii. And the church part I told you, why I passed by, part ii. it being not left by the government where we live, to private ministers' discussion (save only to persuade men to obey what is established and commanded). Therefore because I have omitted the latter, and but a little touched upon the former, I shall be the larger on it in this place, to which (for several reasons) I have reserved it.

Direct. I. See that you understand what prayer is; even the expressing or acting of our desires before another, to move or some way procure him to grant them. True christian prayer is, the believing and serious expressing or acting of our lawful desires before God, through Jesus our Mediator, by the help of the Holy Spirit, as a means to procure of him the grant of these desires. Here note, 1. That inward desire is the soul of prayer. 2. The expressions or inward actings of them, is as the body of prayer. 3. To men it must be desire so expressed, as they may understand it; but to God the inward acting of desires is a prayer, because he understandeth it.⁵⁴ 4. But it is not the acting of desire, simply in itself, that is any prayer; for he may have desires, that offereth them not up to God with heart or voice; but it is desires, as some way offered up to God, or represented, or acted towards him, as a means to procure his blessing, that is prayer indeed.

Direct. II. See that you understand the ends and use of prayer. Some think that it is of no use, but only to move God to be willing of that which he was before unwilling of; and therefore because that God is immutable, they think that prayer is a useless thing. But prayer is useful, 1. As an act of obedience to God's command. 2. As the performance of a condition, without which he hath not promised us his mercy, and to which he hath promised it. 3. As a means to actuate, and express, and increase our own humility, dependence, desire, trust, and hope in God, and so to make us capable and fit for mercy, who else should be uncapable and unfit. 4. And so, though God be not changed by it in himself, yet the real change that is made by it on ourselves, doth infer a change in God by mere relation or extrinsical denomination; he being one that is, according to the tenor of his own established law and covenant, engaged to disown or punish the unbelieving, prayerless, and disobedient, and after engaged to own or pardon them that are faithfully desirous and obedient: and so this is a relative, or at least a denominative change. So that in prayer, faith and fervency are so far from being useless, that they as much prevail for the thing desired by qualifying ourselves for it, as if indeed they moved the mind of God to a real change: even as he that is in a boat, and by his hook layeth hold of the bank, doth as truly by his labour get nearer the bank, as if he drew the bank to him.

Direct. III. Labour above all to know that God to whom you pray. To know him as your Maker, your Redeemer, and your Regenerator; as your Owner, your Ruler, and your Father, Felicity, and End; as all-sufficient for your relief, in the infiniteness of his power, his wisdom, and his goodness; and to know your own dependence on him; and to understand his covenant or promises, upon what terms he is engaged and resolved either to give his mercies, or to deny them. "He that cometh to God, must believe that He is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him," Heb. xi. 6. "He that calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved: but how shall they call on him, on whom they have not believed?" Rom. x. 13, 14.

Direct. IV. Labour when you are about to pray, to stir up in your souls the most lively and serious belief of those unseen things that your prayers have respect to; and to pray as if you saw them all the while; even as if you saw God in his glory, and saw heaven and hell, the glorified and the damned, and Jesus Christ your Mediator interceding for you in the heavens. As you would pray if your eyes beheld all these, so strive to pray while you believe them: and say to yourselves, Are they not as sure as if I saw them? Are they not made known by the Son and Spirit of God?

Direct. V. Labour for a constant acquaintance with yourselves, your sins and manifold wants and necessities; and also to take an actual, special notice of your case, when you go to prayer. If you get not a former constant acquaintance with your own case, you cannot expect to know it aright upon a sudden as you go to pray: and yet if you do not actually survey your hearts and lives when you go to prayer, your souls will be unhumbled, and want that lively sense of your necessities, which must put life into your prayers. Know well what sin is, and what God's wrath, and hell, and judgment are, and what sin you have committed, and what duty you have omitted, and failed in, and what wants and corruptions are yet within you, and what mercy and grace you stand in need of, and then all this will make you pray, and pray to purpose with all your hearts. But when men are wilful strangers to themselves, and never seriously look backwards or inwards, to see what is amiss and wanting, nor look forwards, to see the danger that is before them, no wonder if their hearts be dead and dull, and if they are as unfit to pray, as a sleeping man to work.⁵⁵

Direct. VI. See that you hate hypocrisy, and let not your lips go against or without your hearts; but that your hearts be the spring of all your words: that you love not sin, and be not loth to leave it, when you seem to pray against it; and that you truly desire the grace which you ask, and ask not for that which you would not have: and that you be ready to use the lawful means to get the mercies which you ask; and be not like those lazy wishers, that will pray God to give them increase at harvest, when they lie in bed, and will neither plough or sow; or that pray him to save them from fire, or water, or danger, while they run into it, or will not be at the pains to go out of the way. Oh what abundance of wretches do offer up hypocritical, mock prayers to God! blaspheming him thereby, as if he were an idol, and knew not their hypocrisy, and searched not the hearts! Alas, how commonly do men pray in public, "that the rest of their lives hereafter may be pure and holy," that hate purity and holiness at the heart, and deride and oppose that which they seem to pray for! As Austin confesseth of himself before he was converted, that he prayed against his filthy sin, and yet was afraid lest God should grant his prayers. So many pray against the sins which they would not be delivered from, or would not use the means that is necessary to their conquest and deliverance. "Let him that nameth the name of Christ, depart from iniquity," 2 Tim. ii. 19. "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me," Psal. lxvi. 18; see Ezek. xiv. 3, 4, 14. Alas, how easy is it for an ungodly person to learn to say a few words by rote, and to run them over, without any sense of what he speaketh; while the tongue is a stranger to the heart, and speaketh not according to its desires!

Direct. VII. Search your hearts and watch them carefully, lest some beloved vanity alienate them from the work in hand, and turn away your thoughts, or prepossess your affections, so that you want them when you should use them. If the mind be set on other matters, prayer will be a heartless, lifeless thing; alas, what a dead and pitiful work is the prayer of one that hath his heart insnared in the love of money, or in any ambitious or covetous design! The thoughts will easily follow the affections.

Direct. VIII. Be sure that you pray for nothing that is disagreeable to the will of God, and that is not for the good of yourselves or others, or for the honour of God; and therefore take heed, lest an erring judgment, or carnal desires, or passions, should corrupt your prayers, and turn them into sin. If men will ignorantly pray to God to do them hurt, it is a mercy to them if God will but pardon and deny such prayers, and a judgment to grant them. And it is an easy thing for fleshly interest, or partiality, or passion, to blind the judgment, and consequently to corrupt men's prayers. An ambitious or covetous man will easily be drawn to pray for the grant of his sinful desires, and think it would be for his good. And there is scarce an heretical or erroneous person, but thinketh that it would be good that the world were all reduced to his opinion, and all the opposers of it were borne down: there are few zealous antinomians, anabaptists, or any other dividers of the church, but they put their opinions usually into their prayers, and plead with God for the interest of their sects and errors; and it is like that the Jews, that had a persecuting zeal for God, Rom. x. 2, did pray according to that zeal, as well as persecute; as it is like that Paul himself prayed against the christians, while he ignorantly persecuted them. And they that think they do God service by killing his servants, no doubt would pray against them, as the papists and others do at this day. Be especially careful therefore that your judgments and desires be sound and holy, before you offer them up to God in prayer. For it is a most vile abuse of God, to beg of him to do the devil's work; and, as most malicious and erroneous persons do, to call him to their help against himself, his servants, and his cause.

Direct. IX. Come always to God in the humility that beseemeth a condemned sinner, and in the faith and boldness that beseemeth a son, and a member of Christ: do nothing in the least conceit and confidence of a worthiness in yourselves; but be as confident in every lawful request, as if you saw your glorified Mediator interceding for you with his Father. Hope is the life of prayer and all endeavour, and Christ is the life of hope. If you pray and think you shall be never the better for it, your prayers will have little life. And there is no hope of success, but through our powerful Intercessor. Therefore let both a crucified and glorified Christ be always before your eyes in prayer; not in a picture, but in the thoughts of a believing mind. Instead of a crucifix, let some such sentence of holy Scripture be written before you, where you use to pray, as John xx. 17, "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." Or Heb. iv. 14, "We have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God;" ver. 15, 16, "that was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin: let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy," &c. Heb. vi. 9, 20, "Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and that entereth into that within the vail; whither the forerunner is for us entered." Heb. vii. 25, "He is able to save to the uttermost them that come to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." John xiv. 13, 14, "If ye ask any thing in my name, I will do it." Christ and the promise must be the ground of all your confidence and hope.

Direct. X. Labour hard with your hearts all the while to keep them in a reverent, serious, fervent frame, and suffer them not to grow remiss and cold, to turn prayer into lip-labour, and lifeless formality, or into hypocritical, affected, seeming fervency, when the heart is senseless, though the voice be earnest. The heart will easily grow dull, and customary, and hypocritical, if it be not carefully watched, and diligently followed and stirred up. "The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much," James v. 16. A cold prayer showeth a heart that is cold in desiring that which is prayed for, and therefore is unfit to receive the mercy: God will make you know that his mercy is not contemptible, but worthy your most earnest prayers.

Direct. XI. For the matter and order of your desires and prayers, take the Lord's prayer as your special rule; and labour to understand it well.⁵⁶ For those that can make use of so brief an explication, I shall give a little help.

A Brief Explication of the Method of the Lord's Prayer

So that it is apparent that the method of the Lord's prayer is circular, partly analytical, and partly synthetical; beginning with God, and ending in God: beginning with such acknowledgments as are prerequisite to petition, and ending in those praises which petition and grace bestowed tend to: beginning our petitions for God's interest and the public good, according to the order of estimation and intention, till we come to the mere means, and then beginning at the lowest, and ascending according to the order of execution. As the blood passing from the greater to the smaller numerous vessels, is there received by the like, and repasseth to its fountain; such a circular method hath mercy and duty, and consequently our desires.

Tit. 2. Some Questions about Prayer answered

The rest of the general directions about prayer, I think will be best contrived into the resolving of these following doubts.

Quest. I. Is the Lord's prayer a directory only, or a form of words to be used by us in prayer?

Answ. 1. It is principally the rule to guide our inward desires, and outward expressions of them; both for the matter, what we must desire, and for the order which we must desire first and most. 2. But this rule is given in a form of words, most apt to express the said matter and order. 3. And this form may fitly be used in due season by all, and more necessarily by some. 4. But it was never intended to be the only words which we must use, no more than the creed is the only words that we must use to express the doctrine of faith, or the decalogue the only words to express our duty by.⁵⁷

Quest. II. What need is there of any other words of prayer, if the Lord's prayer be perfect?

Answ. Because it is only a perfect summary, containing but the general heads: and it is needful to be more particular in our desires; for universals exist in particulars; and he that only nameth the general, and then another and another general, doth remember but few of the particulars. He that shall say, "I have sinned, and broken all thy commandments," doth generally confess every sin; but it is not true repentance, if it be not particular, for this, and that, and the other sin; at least as to the greater which may be remembered. He that shall say, "I believe all the word of God, or I believe in God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," may know little what is in the word of God, or what these generals signify, and therefore our faith must be more particular. So must desires after grace be particular also: otherwise it were enough to ask for mercy in the general. If you say, that God knoweth what those general words signify, though we do not; I answer, this is the papists' silly argument for Latin prayers, God knoweth our desires without any expressions or prayers at all, and he knoweth our wants without our desires. But it followeth not that prayers or desires are unnecessary. The exercise of our own repentance and desire doth make us persons fit to receive forgiveness, and the grace desired; when the impenitent, and those that desire it not, are unfit. And it is no true repentance, when you say, "I am sorry that I have sinned," but you know not, or remember not, wherein you have sinned, nor what your sin is; and so repent not indeed of any one sin at all. And so it is no true desire, that reacheth not to the particular, necessary graces, which we must desire; though I know some few very quick, comprehensive minds can in a moment think of many particulars, when they use but general words; and I know that some smaller, less necessary things, may be generally passed over; and greater matters in a time of haste, or when we, besides those generals, do also use particular requests.

Quest. III. Is it lawful to pray in a set form of words?

Answ. Nothing but very great ignorance can make you really doubt of it.⁵⁸ Hath God any where forbid it? You will say, that it is enough that he hath not commanded it. I answer, that in general he hath commanded it to all whose edification it tendeth to, when he commandeth you, that all be done to edification; but he hath given no particular command, nor prohibition. No more hath he commanded you to pray in English, French, or Latin; nor to sing psalms in this tune or that, nor after this or that version or translation; nor to preach in this method particularly or that; nor always to preach upon a text; nor to use written notes; nor to compose a form of words, and learn them, and preach them after they are composed, with a hundred such like, which are undoubtedly lawful; yea, and needful to some, though not to others. If you make up all your prayer of Scripture sentences, this is to pray in a form of prescribed words, and yet as lawful and fit as any of your own. The psalms are most of them forms of prayer or praise, which the Spirit of God indited for the use of the church, and of particular persons. It would be easy to fill many pages with larger reasonings, and answers to all the fallacious objections that are brought against this; but I will not so far weary the reader and myself.

Quest. IV. But are those forms lawful which are prescribed by others, and not by God?

Answ. Yea; or else it would be unlawful for a child or scholar to use a form prescribed by his parents or master. And to think that a thing lawful doth presently become unlawful, because a parent, master, pastor, or prince doth prescribe it or command it, is a conceit that I will not wrong my reader so far as to suppose him guilty of. Indeed if an usurper, that hath no authority over us in such matters, do prescribe it, we are not bound to formal obedience, that is, to do it therefore because he commandeth it; but yet I may be bound to it on some other accounts; and though his command do not bind me, yet it maketh not the thing itself unlawful.

Quest. V. But is it lawful to pray extempore without a premeditated form of words?

Answ. No christian of competent understanding doubteth of it. We must premeditate on our wants, and sins, and the graces and mercies we desire, and the God we speak to; and we must be able to express these things without any loathsome and unfit expressions. But whether the words are fore-contrived or not, is a thing that God hath no more bound you to by any law, than whether the speaker or hearers shall use sermon-notes, or whether your Bibles shall be written or in print.

Quest. VI. If both ways be lawful, which is better?

Answ. If you are to join with others in the church, that is better to you which the pastor then useth: for it is his office and not yours to word the prayers which he puts up to God. And if he choose a form, (whether it be as most agreeable to his parts, or to his people, or for concord with other churches, or for obedience to governors, or to avoid some greater inconvenience,) you must join with him, or not join there at all.⁵⁹ But if it be in private, where you are the speaker yourself, you must take that way that is most to your own edification (and to others, if you have auditors joining with you). One man is so unused to prayer, (being ignorantly bred,) or of such unready memory or expression, that he cannot remember the tenth part so much of his particular wants, without the help of a form, as with it; nor can he express it so affectingly for himself or others; nay, perhaps not in tolerable words. And a form to such a man may be a duty; as to a dim-sighted man to read by spectacles, or to an unready preacher to use prepared words and notes. And another man may have need of no such helps; nay, when he is habituated in the understanding and feeling of his sins and wants, and hath a tongue that is used to express his mind even in these matters, with readiness and facility, it will greatly hinder the fervour of such a man's affections, to tie himself to premeditated words: to say the contrary, is to speak against the common sense and experience of such speakers and their hearers. And let them that yet deride this as uncertain and inconsiderate praying, but mark themselves, whether they cannot if they be hungry beg for bread, or ask help of their physician, or lawyer, or landlord, or any other, as well without a learned or studied form as with it? Who knoweth not that it is true which the new philosopher saith: Cartes. de Passion. part i. art. 44. Et cum inter loquendum solum cogitamus de sensu illius rei, quam dicere volumus, id facit ut moveamus linguam et labra celerius et melius, quam si cogitaremus ea movere omnibus modis requisitis ad proferenda eadem verba; quia habitus quem acquisivimus cum disceremus loqui, &c. Turning the thoughts too solicitously from the matter to the words, doth not only mortify the prayers of many, and turn them into a dead form, but also maketh them more dry and barren even as to the words themselves. The heavy charge, and bitter, scornful words which have been too common in this age, against praying without a set form by some, and against praying with a book or form by others, is so dishonourable a symptom or diagnostic of the church's sickness, as must needs be matter of shame and sorrow to the sounder, understanding part. For it cannot be denied, but it proves men's understandings and charity to be both exceedingly low.