XV. *Now prayer never so corrects and amends the heart as when we extend it to all the particulars of our state, enumerating all our wants, infirmities, and disorders; not because God needs to be informed of them, but because by this means we inform ourselves, and make our hearts in the best manner acquainted with our true condition. When our prayers thus descend to all the circumstances of our condition, they become a faithful glass to us; and so often as we pray, so often we see ourselves in a true light.
Don’t be content therefore with confessing yourself to be a sinner, or with praying against sin in general: for this will but a little affect your mind; it will only shew you to yourself in such a state as all mankind are in: but if you find yourself out; if you confess and lay open the guilt of your own particular sins; if you pray constantly against such particular sins as you find yourself most subject to, the frequent sight of your own sins, and your constant deploring of their guilt, will give your prayers entrance into your hearts, and put you upon measures how to amend.
If you confess yourself only to be a sinner, you confess yourself to be a man; but when you describe and confess your own particular guilt, then you find cause for your own particular sorrow; then you give your prayers all the power they can have to affect and wound your heart. In like manner, when you pray for God’s grace, don’t be satisfied with a general petition, but make your prayers suitable to your defects; and continue to ask for such gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit as you find yourself most defective in: for this will give life to your petitions, and make your heart go along with them.
XVI. Lastly, this particularity in our prayers is the greatest trial of the truth of our hearts. A man perhaps thinks he prays for humility, because he has the word humility in his prayers; but if he was to branch out humility into all its particular parts, he would perhaps find himself not disposed to pray for them. If he was to represent to himself the several particulars which make a man poor in spirit, he would find his heart not desirous of them. So that the only way to know our hearts, and whether we really pray for any virtue, is to have all its parts in our prayers, and to ask for it in all its instances. If the proud man was to pray daily for humility in all its kinds, and to beg of God to remove him from all occasions of such pride, as is common to his particular state, and to disappoint him in all his attempts that were contrary to humility, he would find that such prayers would either conquer his pride, or his pride would put an end to his prayers. For it would be impossible to live long in any instances of pride, if his daily and frequent prayers were petitions against those particular instances.
XVII. Let me now only add this one word more, that he who has learned to pray, has learned the greatest secret of a holy and happy life. Which way soever else we let loose our hearts, they will return unto us again empty and weary. Time will convince the vainest and blindest minds, that happiness is no more to be found in the things of this world, than it is to be dug out of the earth. But when the motions of our hearts are motions of piety, tending to God in constant acts of devotion, then have we found rest unto our souls; then is it that we have conquered the misery of our nature: and neither love nor desire in vain: then is it that we have found out a good that is equal to all our wants: that is, a constant source of comfort and refreshment, that will fill us with peace and joyful expectations here, and eternal happiness hereafter. For he that lives in the spirit of devotion, whose heart is always full of God, lives at the top of human happiness, and is the farthest from all the vanities and vexations which disturb the minds of men devoted to the world.
CHAP. VII.
All Christians are required to imitate the life and example of Jesus Christ.
I.OUR religion teaches us, that as we have borne the image of the earthly, so we shall bear the image of the heavenly; that after our death we shall rise to a state of life and happiness, like to that life and happiness which our blessed Saviour enjoys at the right hand of God. Since therefore we are to be fellow-heirs with Christ, it is not to be wondered at, that we are to be like Christ in this life, that we may enter into that state of happiness which he enjoys in the kingdom of heaven.
II. Not that we are called to the same outward manner of life with his; but to the same spirit and temper, which was the spirit and temper of our blessed Saviour. We are to be like him in heart, to act by the same rule, to look towards the same end, and to govern our lives by the same spirit. This is an imitation of Jesus Christ which is as necessary to salvation as it is to believe in his name. This is the sole end of all the doctrines of Christ, to make us like himself, to fill us with his spirit and temper, and make us live according to the rule and manner of his life. As no doctrines are true, but such as are according to the doctrines of Christ, so no life is right, but such as is according to the life of Christ. For he lived as infallibly as he taught; and it is as wrong to vary from his example, as from his doctrines. To live as he lived, is as certainly the one way of living as we ought, as to believe as he taught is the one way of believing as we ought. There is no other way besides this; nothing can possibly bring us to God in heaven, unless we are now one with Christ, and walk as he also walked. For we may as well expect to go to a heaven where Christ is not, as to go to that where he is, without his spirit and temper. If Christians would but suffer themselves to reflect upon this, their own minds would soon convince them of it. For who can find the least reason, why he should not imitate the life of Christ? Or why Christians should think of any other rule of life? It would be as easy to shew that Christ acted amiss, as that we need not act after his example.