other. Nor will he count all this course of prayer burdensome and wearisome. To enjoy the presence of God is his happiness, and therefore he longs to live in the continual practice of prayer. Your views of devotional exercise, as a task or as a privilege, are a test by which you may judge of your progress in religion, if not of its reality.

And while there will, in the advanced Christian, be a constant attention to all these kinds of prayer, he will especially attend to the spirit in which each is performed. It will not be sufficient to satisfy his mind that he has gone through the mere act of devotion; he labours for the inward feeling, as well as the outward expression. He longs for a spirit of prayer, which is not the mere business of this or that hour, but the continual panting and breathing of the heart after God (Ps. xlii, 1, 2.) at all times.

Ardent love to God is, indeed, the true spring of genuine prayer. Where this is, all other graces will follow. "Love," says one, "renders prayer delightful to ourselves, and acceptable to our Maker. It makes us willing to ask, and willing to receive."

Andrew Gray also observes, "the spirit of prayer consists more in the voice of the affections, than the voice of words." He suggests the following queries to detect the want of the spirit of prayer.-Do you know what it is to go to prayer on an internal principle of love, and the grace of Christ constraining you ?-Do you know what it is by prayer to attain greater conformity to God, and the mortification of your lusts ?-Do you know what it is to distinguish between absence and presence? -Do you know what it is to sit down and lament over absence from Christ, and think this an insupportable want?

I have endeavoured, under each kind of prayer, to give such hints as might assist you in attaining this spiritual worship; it may not be useless to sum up these hints in a few practical rules applicable to prayer in general. Only let the reader again remember, what we are apt perpetually to forget, but what should both humble, direct, and comfort us, that no knowledge of rules is of itself sufficient to enable us to pray; it is the Holy Spirit alone, impressing the rule on the heart, that can enable us rightly to worship God.

"To maintain a devotional Spirit, two things," says Mrs. More," are especially necessary :-babitually to cultivate the disposition, and habitually to avoid whatever is unfavourable to it."-We will first point out some things which hinder your attaining the spirit of devotion, and then add some directions which may help you to attain it.

SECT. I.—Rules relating to Hinderances to Prayer.

1. RENOUNCE ALL KNOWN SIN, AND SENSUAL INDULGENCE. The allowed practice of any sin is utterly inconsistent with devotional feelings. If you live in habitual sin, or in the indulgence of evil tempers, or if any ́corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, you cannot at the same time enjoy communion with God. 1 John i, 6; iii, 21-23. His Spirit is grieved, and withdraws its influence. "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart." Ps. xxiv, 3, 4. Any sin indulged, raises those fears, doubts, disorders, and tumults in the mind, which make it averse to, and incapable of, fervent affectionate prayer. An instance or two may confirm this remark. St. Paul exhorts us to "pray

every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath or doubting." I am sure, if you have any Christian experience, you know that it is necessary, that "all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice," if you would gain the spirit of prayer. An unforgiving temper, also, not only hinders the spirit of devotion, but also prevents the acceptance of your petitions. Our Lord says, "Go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Matt. v. 24. Bishop Taylor, in a beautiful figure, shews the evil effects of anger as an impediment to devotion. "Anger is a perfect alienation of the mind from prayer, directly contrary to that disposition which makes our prayers acceptable to God. Thus, the lark rising from his bed of grass, soars upward, singing as he rises, but the poor bird is beaten back by the sudden blast of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular, and inconstant, descending more, at every breath of the tempest, than it can recover by the libration of its wings, till the little creature is forced to sit down, and pant, and stay till the storm is over, and then it makes a more prosperous flight, and rises still, and sings, as if it has learned music and motion from an angel." Again; immoderate, or unnecessary indulgence of ease, appetite, sleep, &c. are serious obstacles to the attaining a devotional spirit. The man of self-denial will, like Daniel, (ch. i, 12.) be the man of prayer. Chap. vi, 10. "Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life," is a solemn admonition of the Lord, before he gave the charge, Watch ye, therefore, and pray always. Our sins are one great reason why our prayers are not oftener heard. "When you spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from

you; yea, when you make many prayers I will not hear; your hands are full of blood. Remember St. John's remark: "If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God; and whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things which are pleasing in his sight." See farther passages, Ps. iv, 3. xxvi, 6; xxxiv, 15, 17; Prov. viii, 29; James v, 16; John ix, 31. Yet remember, the meaning of these passages is not that we must not pray if we have committed actual sin; for then none would pray: but that we are not to go to our prayers with the love of sin, or with a purpose to go on sinning still. See pages 27, 30.*

We hope

2. BE NOT CONFORMED TO THE WOrld. that the happy day is coming on, when "all the ends of the earth shall remember, and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before him ;" but, at present, who can go much into the world, unless his duties call him there, without suffering from it. For a Christian to enter into worldly company, and join in vain amusements, is, as if a man were to put a torch into cold water; the flame of devotion will be, must be extinguished. Those who go into a large manufactory, filled with people and machines, find it difficult, when in

* Sir Matthew Hale, in his Treatise on the Knowledge of God, well remarks-" A frequent, solemn, and serious use of the duty of prayer interrupts a custom of sin, by degrees weakens the old man, and will in time make a strangeness between our lusts and our souls. And let a man be sure of these TWO TRUTHS: that as be that comes upon his knees with a secret purpose to hold confederacy with any sin, he shall be the worse, the more hardened, and the more neglected by that God which searches the heart; so whosoever he be that comes to his Maker in the integrity of his heart, though sin adhere as close to that heart of bis, as his skin does to his flesh, shall find that employment will make those lusts that were most dear unto him, by degrees to become strange and loose to his soul."

the midst of such a scene, to converse with each other; but those who go much into the bustle of company, find it still more difficult to hold converse with God. It is only when compelled to be there in the way of duty, and not otherwise, that they may expect that, as his special grace preserved Daniel in the spirit of prayer even in Babylon, so it will preserve them. Being immoderately engaged in worldly business is another hinderance, filling a man with the cares of this life. He whose whole time is incessantly occupied in worldly affairs, finds his heart entirely distracted, and utterly unfitted for holy and retired duties. The Apostle says, "Be careful for nothing;" and then adds, "but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." O believe me, it is far better to have a small income, with a quiet conscience, and a devout heart, than the largest income without God's blessing.

3. RESIST THE TEMPTATIONS OF SATAN. There is a powerful spiritual adversary of man," who goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." Here is your great enemy. Other things are but his engines.His object in other things is to keep you from or hinder you in prayer. "Be not ignorant of his devices." He will suggest that prayer is a dull and gloomy service, or useless and vain. If these do not succeed, he will suggest the putting off the duty to another opportu nity, on account of some other employment: some favourite book to be read, some letter perhaps to be written, or some other business which he will propose to your mind, important perhaps in itself, but not good for this time. Consider every thing which would tempt you to neglect prayer, in its appointed season, whether it be any of those objections which have been answered already, (see p. 25, &c.) or the fear of man's