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God's glorious Name, and wonderful Works, we are employed like the Angels in Heaven, and, by thefe heavenly Exercises, are qualifying ourfelves to join with those bleffed Spirits in their eternal Hallebjabs; and at the fame Time fitting ourfelves for the feveral Duties of this Life. When we address ourselves to God as the Poffeffor of all Perfections, the Fountain of all Good, the Author of all that Happiness that we have, or expect; as a Being in whom are all the Excellencies that we admire in this World, and from whom every thing that is amiable and attracting flow as fo many Rivulets from his inexhaustible Fountain of Beauty and Goodness, as many Emanations from his infinite Fulness; I fay, a Habit of addreffing ourselves to him under this pleafing and engaging, but awful, Character, cannot fail of working in us a fettled Fear, and Love, and Gratitude. We fhall fear him, because he is dreadful, even in his moft amiable Perfections, because they are infinite; we must love him, not only because he is the moft amiable Being, but because he exercifes all his Perfections for the Good of his Creatures; and our Hearts must be tenderly affected with the Senfe of his communicating to us all the Good and Happiness that we enjoy. This triple Cord of Fear, Love, and Gratitude, will bind us to an Imitation of his Nature, and Obedience to his Commands. This conftant Intercourfe with God in Prayer will imprint upon our Minds an habitual Senfe of his Prefence, which must needs have an Influence upon every Part of our Beha

viour; be a perpetual Check upon us; keep the Confcience always awake, and tender; it will fix in us fuch a thorough Belief of God's govern ing Providence, as will greatly help to preferve an Evennefs and Compojure of Temper; it will correct any unbecoming Levity of Mind, and all intemperate Mirth; it will fpiritualize the Thoughts and Inclinations of the Carnal and SenJual; cure the Worldly-minded of their Ambition and Avarice; it will humble the Proud, and make the Vain more Modeft: For, can a Man be proud, and vain, who daily appears before his Judge in the Capacity of a Sinner that has forfeited his Life! Before his Creator, as a Beggar that conftantly fubfifts upon his univerfal Bounty Can a Man be elated on account of any perfonal Excellencies, who daily acknowledges his own many Imperfections, and the infinite Perfections of That God to whom we owe every thing that is excellent in us! By daily Prayer a Man daily acknowledges that we are all, in the main, as Men, and as Chriftians, upon a Level; and can he overvalue himself, and dif dainfully treat others, on account of fome little, external Advantages that diftinguish us as Mem bers of civil Society! But, I fhall inlarge upon fome Particulars which will fully fhew, not only the great Advantage, but even the Neceffity, of Prayer, in order to make us good Chriftians.

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ift, It is plain from the Holy Scriptures, and confefs'd on all hands, that we ought to be beavenly-minded; to let our Affections on Things above, and not on Things on the Earth. Now,

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this is utterly impoffible for us to do, unless we practise the Duty of Prayer: For, we find, by daily Experience, that, by reafon of the great Corruption of our Nature, the great Variety of fenfual Objects, and the ftrong Impreffions which fuch Objects make upon us, our Souls are gro veling in the Duft; we are, in our Affections, as it were, chained to the Earth; we feem to regard little elfe but temporal Things; accumu lating Wealth, either upon the impertinent Scheme of hoarding it up, and making no Ufe of it, or upon a worfe Motive, That of confuming it upon our Lufts; at beft, providing a reputable Subfiftence for our Families, Relations, or Friends, without a due Attention to our own, or others eternal Welfare in the next Life. It is with the utmost Difficulty that ever we raise our Minds to Heaven, and force them to contemplate upon God, and the fpiritual Comforts of dwelling with him in Glory. No fooner do we lift up our Hearts, but the dead Weight of Infir mities, and Sins, and earthly Concerns, preffes us down again, fo that we are quite averfe to the fublime Joys of meditating upon the best Objects. Now, this Unwillingness to think upon God, to feparate ourselves from this prefent World, that we may with the greater Freedom tafte of the more refined Pleasures of Religion, cannot be cured but by the Exercife of Prayer; which, the more it is ufed, does the more powerfully, and with the greater Eafe, raise our Thoughts aloft, and carry them up beyond the Rubbish and Drofs of fenfual Concerns. Our Converfe

with God by Prayer does by infenfible Degrees, firft, create, and then quicken in us an Appetite after immaterial, and immortal Pleafures; it kindles within us warm Defirès after what is really noble, and good; and fills us with fuch an ardent Zeal for Objects of this kind, as will caufe us heartily to love them, and eagerly to pursue them. Prayer is the very Food of our Souls, and fupports them in their spiritual Life; it gives them Heat and Vigour in their Chriftian Course, and without it they are fluggish and inactive. This is evident to the most careless Obferver of Mankind; they who neglect Prayer are negligent about every thing relating to another Life. Tell them how they may acquire worldly Advantages; open to them a Profpect of getting Preferment; propofe to them a Scheme of Amusement, and they will foon hear you; they are all Attention; their Defires are immediately upon the Wing; their Imaginations upon the Stretch, the whole Man all alive; but tell them of dying, and going into the other World, and you ftrike them to the Heart, they are in the utmoft Confufion, their Spirits fink, their Coun tenance changes, they are in a manner dead: Their Souls are wholly poffeffed and actuated, by the good Things of this Life; They are their only Felicity, their only Principle of Life, and Action. But, fuch as converfe with God by Prayer do thereby fpiritualize their Souls; they refine their Appetites; they grow in Love with the Life to come; they truly relifh every Thing that is fubfervient to that grand View; they prepare

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prepare themfelves, by Devotion, for the Imployment of Angels in Heaven; and begin, or, at leaft, have a Foretafte of, their future Joys, in the bleffed Intercourfe between God, and their own Souls. This is the Difference between a natural Man, and a spiritual Man; the natural Man delights in temporal Things, and his Love towards them increafes perpetually, by his perpetual Acquaintance with them. But, the pine cipal Delight of the Jpiritual Man confifts chiefly in fpiritual Things. He hath quite different Principles and Appetites, and in the Exercife of his fpiritual Faculties, his fpiritual Life confifts. Now, as the bodily Appetites must ceafe unlefs fupported with daily Food, fo will the Appetites of the Soul be deftroyed, and the Soul lofe all Senfe of fpiritual Pleasure, unless, by the Exercise of Frayer, they be fed, and nourish'd, and thereby preferved, in Vigour, and Activity: As an Intimacy with worldy and fenfual Enjoyments inflames our Love for them, and our Eftrangement from them cools our Affections for them, to a frequent Converfation with God by Prayer makes us take the more Delight in him; and our Abfence from him, by omitting our Prayers, our leaving off, or difcontinuing, this friendly Intercourfe with him, gradually creates a Strangeness, and cools our Affections; and we lofe that Heavenly-mindedness, which is our abfolute Duty, and a neceffary Qualification for our Employment and Happinefs among the bleffed Inhabitants above.

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