gogues every Sabbath-day. For, what is the hope of the bypocrite? faith Job:-Will God bear his cry, when trouble cometh upon bim?-If I regard iniquity in my heart, fays David, the Lord will not hear met. -And fo faid the Spirit of the Lord by the mouth of Solomon: When diftrefs and anguifh cometh upon you; then shall ye call. upon me, but I will not answer; ye shall Seek me early, but ye shall not find me.And Ifaiah: When you spread forth your bands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when you make many prayers, I will not bear; your hands are full of blood |.So the prophet Jeremiah: When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt-offerings and oblations, I will not accept them: For they have loved to wander, they have not refrained their feet, therefore the Lord will not accept them; he will remember their iniquity, and vifit their fins ++.—Upon these and many * Job xxvii. 8, 9. ++ Jer. xiv. 10, 12. +Pfalm Ixvi. 18, Ifaiah i. 15. other other authorities, it grew into a proverb and established maxim, God heareth not finners. But, to reduce this doctrine to a method; there are feveral things, which more efpecially hinder our prayers: THE FIRST that I fhall mention, is unmercifulness. A man cannot pray without mercy. There are abundance of prayers sent forth by men, which God never attends to, but as to fo many fins; becaufe the men live in a courfe of rapine, or tyranny, or oppreffion, or uncharitableness, or fomething that is moft contrary to God, because it is unmerciful. God fometimes puts us, by refemblance, into his own ftead. We beg of him for mercy; and our brother begs it of us: And therefore, let us deal equally with God and all the world. We fee ourselves fall by too frequent infirmity, and still we beg for pardon, and hope for pity: Our brother that offends us, he hopes fo too, and would fain have the fame measure, and would be as glad we would pardon C4 him, him, as we would rejoice in our own for giveness. We are troubled when God rejects our prayer, or, instead of hearing our petition, fends a judgement: Is not our afflicted brother fo to us? does he not tremble. at our rebuke, and is of an uncertain foul till we speak kindly unto him? When he begs of us for mercy, his vehemence is greater, his neceffities more urgent, and his cafe dreffed up with all the circumftances of pity, and, from a fellow-feeling of his condition, we ourselves can better apprehend it, than we ufually perceive the earneftness of our own prayers to God. And if we regard not our brother whom we fee, whofe cafe we feel, whofe circumftances can afflict us, and whofe needs are proportioned to our capacities; how fhall God regard our diftant prayer, or be melted with our weak defires, or moved by our unrepenting foul? If we be fad, we feek for comfort, and go to God and to the ministry of his creatures for it; and is it not just in God to stop his own fountains, fountains, and feal up the benefit of his creatures from us, who shut our hands, and turn away the bowels of our compaffion from our brother, who would as fain be comforted as we would. As we do to others, it fhall be done to us. Even in the matter of pardon and bounty, of gentlenefs and remiffion, of bearing each others burdens, and kind interpretation. Forgive us our trefpaffes, as we forgive them that trefpafs against us, fo we pray. The final fentence in this affair is recorded by St. James, He shall have judgement without mercy, that hath Shewed no mercy. As our poor brother hath groaned, under our cruelty and ungentle nature, without remedy; fo fhall we before the throne of God. We shall pray, and plead, and call, and beg again, and, in the midft of our despairing cries, be carried into the regions of forrow, which never did, and never fhall, feel a mercy. God can never hear the prayers of an unmerciful man. † James ii. 13. ANOTHER ANOTHER thing that especially hinders prayer from obtaining its effect, is anger; which is a violent ftorm in the spirit of him that prays. For anger fets the houfe on fire, and all the fpirits are busy upon trouble, and intend offence, difpleasure, or revenge. It is a fhort madness; and an eternal enemy to discourse, and fober counfels, and fair converfation. It purfues its object with all the earneftnefs of perception, or activity of defign, and a quicker motion of a too warm and diftempered blood. It is a fever in the heart, and a giddinefs in the head, and a fire in the face, and a sword in the hand, and a fury all over; and therefore can never fuffer a man to be in a difpofition to pray. For prayer is an action and a state of intercourfe and defire, exactly contrary to this character of anger. Prayer is an action of likeness to the Holy Ghost, the spirit of gentleness and dove-like fimplicity; an imitation of the holy Jefus, whofe characteristick is, that he is meek and lowly in heart; and a conformity to God, whose anger is always juft, and marches flowly, |