thren, for things of little or no confequence. However extenfive the divine knowledge may be, how intimately foever God may be acquainted with our wants before we cry unto him, yet we must not expect that he will interest himself in our behalf, until we fhew by Prayer, that we are known not only to him, but also to ourfelves, the most difficult but most neceffary of all knowledge, which should always accompany, and can scarce fubfift, without the performance of this duty.

But, fay they again, though it may be reasonable and neceffary to pray to a Being of infinite knowledge, furely it cannot be fo to pray to a Being of perfect Goodness, who is readier to hear than we to pray, readier to forgive our fins, and relieve our wants, than we are even to acknowledge them.

Those who argue thus have very mistakken notions of the divine nature; they confider God's Attributes abftractedly from,

nay,

nay, in oppofition to each other, and thereby make him inconfiftent with himself. We ought always to confider the perfections of the deity as compatible with each other, as moving in the most perfect harmony, as being but fo many rays derived from, and centered in the fame Body of Light and Perfection.

His Mercy is not inconfiftent with his Justice, neither does his wifdom exclude, or is it excluded by his goodness; he is infinitely merciful, in fuch a manner as to be, at the fame time, infinitely just; infinitely wife, in fuch a manner as to be infinitely good. We must not therefore entertain fuch. high notions of any one Perfection, as to exalt it at the expence of any other; we must not, as thofe do who make God's goodness an argument against prayer, magnify his goodness at the expence of his wifdom.

For whatever goodness it might fhew, yet certainly it would be no mark of WifC 2

dom

dom to confer Bleffings on us, whatsoever we flood in need of, without our petitioning for them. Those perfons can never be the proper objects of God's goodness who are above praying for the effects of it.

The tendereft Father breathing, although he plainly difcerns in the whole behaviour of an offending Child that he is heartily forry for his offence, doth not extend to him the ufual expreffions of his Love and Favour, till he makes acknowledgment of his crime, and afks pardon for it; neither will God, how great foever his delight is in mercy and goodness, exert those amiable attributes in our behalf, till we call upon him by Prayer and fupplication.

If our wants were to be redreffed, and our defires fulfilled without any thing done on our parts, we might impute fuch bleffings to any rather than the true caufe, and fo deprive God of the glory of his difpenfations; whereas now, when they are made, as it were, the confequence of our Prayers, we

cannot

cannot but be sensible, that to God we owe them, and to God we ought to be thankful for them.

But, fay they, though it may be reasonable, and neceffary to pray to a Being of infinite knowledge and goodness, furely it cannot be fo, to pray to a Being of absolute immutability, who is not a Man that he fhould lie, nor the fon of Man, that he should repent; in whom there is no variableness, nor fhadow of turning; fo that our prayers cannot have any effect to the changing of his purpose, and reverfing his decrees.

God's threats and promifes have always a regard to the Behaviour of Men, and have a condition implicd if not expreft; fo that those who fall off from virtue unto vice, inftead of being heirs to his promifes, become liable to his threats; and those who return from vice to virtue, instead of being obnoxious to his threats become entitled to his promifes; the change is not in God, but in us; his fixt and immutable purpose is to purfue

C 3

purfue vice with punishment, and virtue with reward, through all the varying scenes of man's behaviour; and therefore, upon a change in that, he alters his measures, not thereby becoming mutable, but continuing constant to his first resolution, of punishing the wicked, and rewarding the good.

It is therefore no diminution to the divine immutability to liften to the Petitions of his Creatures, and grant them those bleffings upon their praying to him, which he had withheld from them upon their neglecting to do it; to fupply or prevent those wants which he had brought or determined to bring upon them, when they acknowledge their dependance and confidence in his goodness, together, with those other virtues, which Prayer does naturally fuppofe, and outwardly exprefs.

Trifling as these objections are found on examination, they are by much the strongest and moft plaufible that the enemies of Prayer have been able to advance; they are of

fuch