We may provide against this inconstancy of our hearts, by having at hand such forms of prayer, as may best suit us when our hearts are in their best state, and also be most likely to stir them up, when they are sunk into dulness.
10. The first thing you are to do, when you are upon your knees, is, with a short silence, let your soul place itself in the presence of God; use this, or some other method, to separate yourself from all common thoughts, and make your heart as sensible as you can of the divine presence.
Now, if this recollection of spirit is necessary, as who can say it is not? How poorly must they perform their devotions, who are always in a hurry; who begin them in haste, and hardly allow themselves time to repeat their very form, with attention? Theirs is properly saying prayers, instead of praying.
If you was to use yourself, as far as you can, to pray always in the same place; if you was to reserve that place for devotion, and not allow yourself to do any thing common in it; if you was never to be there yourself, but in times of devotion; if any little room, or, if that cannot be, if any particular part of a room was thus used, this kind of consecration of it, as a place holy unto God, would much assist your devotion.
11. It may be of use to you to observe this farther rule: when at any time, either in reading the scripture, or any book of piety, you meet with a passage, that more than ordinarily affects your mind, turn it into the form of a petition, and give it a place in your prayers.
At all the stated hours of prayer, it may be of benefit to you, to have something fixed, and something at liberty, in your devotions.
You may have some fixed subject to be the chief matter of your prayer at that particular time; and yet have liberty to add such other petitions, as your condition may then require.
For instance; as the morning is to you the beginning of a new life; as God has then given you a new enjoyment of yourself, and a fresh entrance into the world, it is highly proper that your first devotions should be praise and thanksgiving to God, as for a new creation; and that you should devote body and soul, all you are, and all you have, to his service and glory.
Receive therefore every day, as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life; meet every rising sun with such sentiments of God’s goodness, as if you had seen it, and all things, new created upon your account; and under the sense of so great a blessing, let your heart praise and magnify so good and glorious a Creator.
Therefore praise and thanksgiving, and oblation of yourself to God, may be the fixed subject of your first prayers in the morning; and then take the liberty of adding such other devotions, as the accidental difference of your state, or the accidental difference of your heart, shall direct.