and conversation, and fo render him a fuitable and proper object of God's fpecial care and love. For as prayer is an addrefs or application of a dependant being to his fupreme governour, and original benefactor; fo when this duty is perform'd with seriousness and application of mind, it naturally tends to work in men an awful sense of the being and attributes of God, of our dependence upon him, and of the many obligations we are under to ferve him. It tends to awake in us a lively fenfe of the fovereignty and power, of the knowledge and wisdom, of the holiness, truth, and righteousness, of the mercy, goodness and loving-kindness of the Lord. It naturally draws forth our fouls in filial fear, in hope and truft, in love, delight, and joy in God; and creates in us a juft concern to please him, and to approve ourfelves in his fight; and confequently to put on that purity and piety, humility and charity, which is the fpirit and practice of true christianity. And as this is God's end in appointing this duty; fo for this end he requires the frequent returns of it, that the mind of the petitioner may be habitually feafoned with a fenfe of himfelf. It is when we forget God, when God is not in all our thoughts, that we do amifs; then our minds and lives are corrupted and defiled. But when we keep alive in ourselves (which is done by frequent ferious prayer) an awful and an affecting fenfe of the great and fupreme mind; when with David we fet God always before us, when he is at our righthand, then it is that we fhall not be moved, Pfalm xvi. 8. This I take to be God's end in appointing the duty of prayer, and the frequent re turns of it, viz. that it may create and keep alive in men's minds fuch an awful and affecting fenfe of himself, as may produce in them fuitable affections,

féctions, a fuitable frame and temper of mind, and draw forth from them a fuitable practice and converfation. Secondly, Of men's ends in practifing this duty. And thefe may likewife be confidered in twe refpects; first, what ends they do propofe; and, fecondly, what ends they may or ought to propofe in the exercise of this duty. I fhall only confider this matter, as it refpects the latter, viz. what ends men may or ought to propofe to themselves in this performance: And these are several; as, first, that they may fhew their refpect, and do homage to their fupreme governour and original benefactor. And this

end is beft ferved in publick prayer. Secondly, That they may pay obedience to God's command. For as God hath required the practice of this duty, fo certainly we may and ought to perform it with this view, and to this end, that God's law may be observed by us, and to fhew our ready compliance with it. Thirdly, That we may approve ourselves to God in that performance. For as God approves of, and is well pleased with, the fervice and obedience of his creatures; fo his creatures may very justly propose this as the end of their services, that they may recommend themselves to God's favour by it. Fourthly, That they may obtain the things prayed for. This is fuppofed in the very performance; for, to addrefs God for the obtaining a thing, and yet not to propofe the obtaining that thing as the end of that addrefs, is abfurd. Fifthly, Men may and ought to make that the end of this performance, which was God's end in the appointing of it, viz. that they may be made better by it, that they may become the per objects of God's kindnefs. For as this was God's fole end in appointing it, fo, I think, with fubmiffion, it ought to be man's chief end in the

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ufe of it. When we pray, for this end, that we may become fuitable objects of God's care and love; and when we fo pray, as that this end is answered upon us, then it is moft likely and probable that our prayers will be accepted in God's fight. Thus I have confidered what are the ends of prayer.

Fourthly, and laftly, I am to enquire what prayers will be accepted and answered? By accepted, I mean God's approbation of them ; and by anfwered, I mean a giving the petitioner the things prayed for. I make a distinction betwixt thefe, because there are fome petitions which God accepts and approves, tho' he does not grant the thing prayed for; and there are others, which God grants, or gives the petitioner the thing prayed for, and yet does not accept or approve of the petition.

First, What prayer will be accepted? Here I obferve, that the ground or reafon of God's approving or difapproving of any action, is the state and condition of the action itself, and not the ftate and condition of the perfon that performs it, antecedent to that performance. For if a good man performs a bad action, as the nature of the action is not changed by the ftate of the perfon which performed it, that is, a bad action does not become good by its being performed by a good man; fo God's difpofition (which is the holiness and rectitude of his nature) to difapprove bad actions, is not changed by the bad actions being done by a good man; for tho' probably the ftate and condition of a good man may the better difpofe him for God's mercy, upon his repentance, when he is become guilty of a bad action, yet God disapproves of that act equally as much, as if it had been committed by a man whofe state and condi

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tion was bad, antecedent to that action. David was a good man, a man after God's own heart; a man so highly favoured of God, that he fhewed kindness to David's pofterity for his fervant David's fake. But when David did evil, in the fight of the Lord, as in the cafe of Uriah the Hittite, all his goodness did not change the nature of his bad acts, nor yet change God's difpofition to disapprove them. They were as bad, and God disapproved them as much in David, as in any other man. So on the other fide, if a bad man performs a good action, as the state of the perfon does not change the nature of that action, so neither does it, nor can it, change God's difpofition (which is the holiness and rectitude of his nature, as I faid before) to approve that action; because God always approves that which is the proper object of his approbation, as all good actions are, let them be performed by good or bad men. Thus Ahab was a very bad man, a man that fold himself to work wickedness in the fight of the Lord; and yet when he performed a good action, as in the cafe when he humbled himself before the Lord, at the divine threat, all his wickednefs did not make this good action bad, neither did it change God's difpofition to approve it; for as his action was good in itself, fo God approved it even in wicked Ahab, and averted the evil threatened for its fake, 1 Kings xxi. 29. Now the reafon of all this is evident, for as God's approving or difapproving of actions is not founded upon an arbitrary will in God, but upon the holiness and rectitude of his nature, whence he is naturally dif posed to approve and difapprove things, as they are the proper and fuitable objects of his approbation or diflike; fo the ftate and condition of men's actions, for good or evil, is not founded

upon the state and condition of their perfons; but on the contrary, the state of their perfons; for either of thefe, is wholly founded upon the state and condition of their actions; fo that a good action is not good, because it is done by a good man, but on the contrary, a good man is a good man, because he performs good actions; and a bad action is not bad, becaule it is performed by a bad man; but on the contrary, a bad man is a bad man, because he performs bad actions. Men likewise are good or bad to that degree, as their actions are fo. If a good man performs a bad action, he is in that action a bad man; and if a bad man performs a good action, he is in that particular a good man; tho' men are denominated bad or good, not from a particular; but from the generality of their actions.

This being obferved, I fay, that when men put up fuch petitions to God, as are good and lawful in themselves, and when they do it feriously, and with fuch earneftnefs as is fuitable to the value and importance of the things prayed for, and when they do it for the good and lawful ends before-mention'd, with a willing mind to do all that is neceffary on their part toward the attaining the things prayed for (as, when we pray that God will give us day by day our daily bread, we have a willing mind to ufe our honeft daily endeavour for its attainment) with a defire to be heard upon the account, and for the fake of Chrift Jefus our Lord; and with a modeft refignation to God's will, in all thofe cafes wherein we are uncertain that the things prayed for are fit for God to give, or for us to receive; and more efpecially, when we fo pray as that God's end in appointing this duty is anfwered upon us: I say, when our petitions are thus qualified, as they are

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