Short-sighted wretch! endure thy care,
Nor heave th’ impatient sigh:
Heav’n hears thee, but perhaps thy pray’r
’Tis mercy to deny.
Reflection.
How ignorant and stupid are some people, who form their notions of the Supreme Being from their own poor shallow conceptions; and then, like froward children with their nurses, think it consistent with infinite wisdom and unerring justice to comply with all their whimsical petitions. Let men but live as justly as they can, and just Providence will give them what they ought to have. Of all the involuntary sins which men commit, scarce any are more frequent, than that of their praying absurdly and improperly, as well as unseasonably, when their time might have been employed so much better. The many private collections, sold up and down the nation, do not a little contribute to this injudicious practice: Which is the more to be condemned, in that we have so incomparable a public liturgy; one single address whereof (except the Lord’s Prayer) may be pronounced to be the best that ever was compiled; and alone preferable to all the various manuals of occasional devotion, which are vended by hawkers and pedlars about our streets. It is as follows:—
Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, who knowest our necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking; we beseech thee to have compassion upon our infirmities; and those things, which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask, vouchsafe to give us, for the worthiness of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
