Directions for Prayer
§ 1. Prayer is a matter of great difficulty and great importance to our usefulness, — and bas a greater influence even on preaching than many are shall first suggest some general directions relating to your improvement in the gift and grace of prayer.
§ 2, Furnish yourselves with a variety of matter proper for prayer; — for this purpose, converse much with your own hearts, — get well acquainted with the state of your souls, — attend to your spiritual wants and weaknesses, — frequently recollect the mercies you receive from God, and inquire what returns you have
80 LECTURES Ofl PREACHING.
made. — Study the ^lature, works, and ways of God;, make yourselves familiarly conversant with his word, — and let what yon read there or in other good books, be considered in particular as affording matter for prayer. — Pray over what you have been reading, and seldom close your Bible, or lay a book of practical divinity out of your hands, without a short col* lect at least formed upon it.
§ 3. Make a serious business of secret and family prayer. — Have your stated times for more private exercises of devotion, and be careful in them. — ^Do’not hurry them over m a few careless words, nor be satisfied unless you have daily some communion with God in them.-^Labour hard to bring your hearts to a serious frame, when approaching to God in them.
§ 4. In all your prayers avofd the extremes of too mean and too pompous a siyle. A pom» pons style shews a mind too full of self and too little affected with a sense of divine things
Who would regard a beggar telling a free
story of his calamities? — Kit, on the other hand, take heed of too mean and paltry phra* ses, low images, and saucy femiliarities with the blessed God. A guard against these should be always maintained; but especially in public. Let all be grave and simple; and appear to aim at nothing but pouring out the soul before God in the most genuine language of a humble and devout temper. Avoid splendid borrowed expressions, which are sore to be remembered by those irho bare read them.
§ 5, Guard against’ sentences excessively long when you pray with others, lest they should not understand you. Better have them too short, though the sound of the period be injured, as this is but a small matter compared with the former.,
§ 6. Be generally careful to observe a method in your prayers. — The principal parts of prayer are Invocation with Adoration, — Confession, — Petition, — Intercession with Thanksgiving, — which may be connected by proper transitions; but it is not necessary they should always succeed each other in this order. Thanksgiving may full as well come before confession, and the several parts may sometimes be tariously intermingled and combined. Thus invocation needs not always be confined to the beginning of prayer; but may properly be repeated by way of preface to some of the principal petitions, remembering to make mention of the inost suitable divine attributes; and the like mixture there may be of confession or thanksgiving with petition.
7. Be not too solicitous to introduce novelties into your prayers. Desire not to pray as nobody ever prayed before, or will probably ever pray again. — Novelties may sometimes mmuse, but in prayer they more frequently disgust; besides, they have the appearance of too much art; and as new things are generally the produce of the imagination, they are not 4*
SO proper for prayer as preaching, and even in that they must moderate.
§ 8. Remember it is the peculiar office of the Spirit of God to help in prayer. Engage in it, therefore, in dependance upon him; and maintain a continual dependance on the intercession and influence of Christ.
§ 9. I shall now give you some directions which relate more immediately to public prayer.
^10. 1. Begin with a solemn recollection of spirit. Think seriously of the majesty of that Being to whom you are addressing yourselves, and of the importance of the business in which you are engaging. Think how near you and those who join with you, are to the tribunal of God, and lift up your hearts in devout ejaculations to him for such degrees of present assistance, as he shall think proper to bestow.
.§11. 2.. Begin rather lower than you intend to proceed, and somewhat slower, — and as you get warm, take heed of being transported into raptures, even though you should be melted into tears. Always keep up a solemnity of spirit and behaviour ,* avoid and abhor a pcrUodiccd tone. — Use but little action, and that chiefly the holding up, and sometimes a little stretching out of the hand. Whether yoa should keep your eyes shut, is to be referred to your own judgment. — If you can be composed it is better to keep them open, but generally fixed; especially, do not look about up-Lect. 13.] DiREcmoNs for prayer. 83
on the people, nor seem to take notice who oofiies in.
12. 3. Remember to introduce the most applicable of the subjects you have lately heard or read, and any peculiar scriptures that have been the subject of your late meditations or discourse. — And for this purpose keep notes of them in your pocket-book, that they may be often reviewed at little intervals. But whatever scheme you may form, do not adhere to it so exactly as to neglect proper thoughts and expressions that rise; or be very uneasy if you lose sight of it.
^13. 4. Make frequent pauses in prayer, that you may think a little before you speak; and that your hearers may recollect their thoughts, and review yours. Observe this rule, then expletives will be less necessary.
14. 5. Endeavour to have an unity of design running through your scheme of prayer, — and let one petition be connected with another by natural, but never laboured transition. — It is better there should be no connexion at all, than any that seems forced and affected.
§ 15. 6. Insist chiefly on those parts of prayer that suit best with your frame and state, — not entirely, however, to the neglect of oth* ers; — and endeavour to keep up a constant sense of your own concern in what yon ask.
§ 16. 7. Forget not the public, — but pray for them with seriousness. — Plead for Heathens, Jews, Mahometans, Papists, and persecuted Protestants. — Pray for your own country with cordial love and esteem. — Remember
that praying for the £jDg is part of the condition on which our toleration is granted.- — Forget not magistrates, — and ministers. — Recollect of what great importance their character and conduct is, — and observe scripture expressions that may be properly applied to any of these uses.
§ 17. 8. Remember the particular cases of your hearers, and the immediate concerns of the congregation. — Here pray- for the aged and the young, and particularly for the children of the flock. — Pray for the heads of families, and thus remind them of their duty; the conscientious -discharge of which is of such vast importance to religion. Pray for unconverted sinners, as seeing them upon the brink of helL — Plead earnestly for them; this is of* ten the means of awakening them; and in this respect, while we are yet speaking, God appears to hear. Remember the afflicted and tempted tenderly, and let particular cases have a moderate share in your addresses; this engages the affections of the people greatly, and is often the means of administering sufrt.
§ 18. 9. Let the blessed work of praise have a large share in your prayers. This made up much of the ancient liturgies, and is so suited to the Lord’s day, that it is a pity it is not more regarded. — Labour to affect your hearts with a sense of God’s mercies to you at all times, and then you will always be in a frame ibr this.
19. 10. Use many scripture expressions in prayer. They are peculiarly affecting, and
very proper; and the hearers also from the begianiog of them will know what they are to expect; and thus one great objection against extempore prayer will be removed.
§ 20. 11. Take care yon are not too long in prayer before Sermon. For this purpose it is best to throw what relates to the public into the last prayer, — especially when preaching in or about London; — twenty minutes is generally enough, — nor is fifleen too little. — Let the last prayer be agreeable to the Sermon; introduce the principal thoughts and heads, — - but do not turn it into a preaching prayer, nor repeat any peculiarly fine passages of the Sermgn, lest you should seem too fond of them. Rather introduce some additional thoughts, which you had not time to introduce in your Sermon. And if you pray at any time afler any of your brethren have been preaching, suit your prayer as much as possible to what you hare heard; — and, on the whole, make it a kind of specimen to the people of the manner in which Sermons ought to be prayed over by them.