can in a moment think of many particulars, when they use but general words: and I know that some smaller, less necessary things, may be generally passed over; and greater matters in a time of haste, or when we, besides those generals, do also use particular requests.

Quest. III. Is it lawful to pray in a set form of words?

Answ. Nothing but very great ignorance can make you really doubt of it". Hath God any where forbid it? You will say, that it is enough that he hath not commanded it. I answer, That in general he hath commanded it to all whose edification it tendeth to, when he commandeth you, that all be done to edification; but he hath given no particular command, nor próhibition. No more he hath commanded you to pray in English, French, or Latin; nor to sing psalms in this tune or that; nor after this or that version or translation; nor to preach in this method particularly or that; nor always to preach upon a text; nor to use written notes; nor to composé a form of words, and learn them, and preach them after they are composed, with a hundred suchlike, which are undoubtedly lawful; yea, and needful to some, though not to others. If you make up all your prayer of Scripture sentences, this is to pray in a form of prescribed words, and yet as lawful and fit as any of your own. The psalms are most of them forms of prayer or praise, which the Spirit of God indited for the use of the church, and of particular persons. It would be easy to fill many pages with larger reasonings, and answers to all the fallacious objections that are brought against this; but I will not so far weary the reader and myself.

Quest. IV. But are those forms lawful which are préscribed by others, and not by God?'

Answ. Yea; or else it would be unlawful for a child or scholar to use a form prescribed by his parents or master. And to think that a thing lawful doth presently become unlawful, because a parent, master, pastor, or prince doth prescribe it or command it, is a conceit that I will not wrong my reader so far, as to suppose him guilty of. Indeed if an usurper, that hath no authority over us in such matters,

" See Selden ubi supra, proving that the Jews had a form of prayer since Ezra's time; therefore it was in Christ's time. Yet he and his apostles joined with them, and never contradicted or blamed them for forms.

do prescribe it, we are not bound to formal obedience, that is, to do it therefore because he commandeth it; but yet I may be bound to it on some other accounts; and though his command do not bind me, yet it maketh not the thing itself unlawful.

Quest. v. But is it lawful to pray extempore without a premeditated form of words?'

Answ. No Christian of competent understanding doubteth of it. We must premeditate on our wants, and sins, and the graces and mercies we desire, and the God we speak to; and we must be able to express these things without any loathsome and unfit expressions. But whether the words are fore-contrived or not, is a thing that God hath no more bound you to by any law, than whether the speaker or hearers shall use sermon-notes, or whether your Bibles shall be written or in print.

Quest. VI. If both ways be lawful, which is better?'

Answ. If you are to join with others in the church, that is better to you which the pastor then useth: for it is his office and not yours to word the prayers which he puts up to God. And if he choose a form, (whether it be as most agreeable to his parts, or to his people, or for concord with other churches, or for obedience to governors, or to avoid some greater inconvenience,) you must join with him, or not join there at all. But if it be in private, where you are the speaker yourself, you must take that way that is most to your own edification, (and to others, if you have auditors joining with you). One man is so unused to prayer (being ignorantly bred,) or of such unready memory or expression, that he cannot remember the tenth part so much of his particular wants, without the help of a form, as with it; nor can he express it so affectingly for himself or others: nay, perhaps not in tolerable words. And a form to such a man may be a duty; as to a dim-sighted man to read by spectacles, or to an unready preacher to use prepared words and notes. And another man may have need of no such helps; nay, when he is habituated in the understanding and feeling of his sins and wants, and hath a tongue that is used to ex

Three or four of these cases as to church‐prayers are more largely answered afterward, Part iii. Socrates alius Cous deorum precationes, invocationesque conscripsit. Diog. Laert. in Socrate. lib. ii. sect. 47. p. 109.

press his mind even in these matters, with readiness and facility, it will greatly hinder the fervor of such a man's affections, to tie himself to premeditated words: to say the contrary, is to speak against the common sense and experience of such speakers and their hearers. And let them that yet deride this as uncertain and inconsiderate praying, but mark themselves, whether they cannot if they be hungry beg for bread, or ask help of their physician, or lawyer, or landlord, or any other, as well without a learned or studied form, as with it? Who knoweth not that it is true which the new philosopher saith; Cartes. de Passion. part i. art. 44. Et cum inter loquendum solum cogitamus de sensu illius rei, quam dicere volumus, id facit ut moveamus linguam et labra celerius et melius, quam si cogitaremus ea movere omnibus modis requisitis ad proferenda eadem verba; quia habitus quem acquisivimus cum disceremus loqui,' &c. Turning the thoughts too solicitously from the matter to the words, doth not only mortify the prayers of many, and turn them into a dead form, but also maketh them more dry and barren even as to the words themselves. The heavy charge and bitter, scornful words which have been too common in this age, against praying without a set form by some, and against praying with a book or form by others, is so dishonourable a symptom or diagnostic of the church's sickness, as must needs be matter of shame and sorrow to the sounder, understanding part. For it cannot be denied, but it proveth men's understandings and charity to be both extremely low.

Quest. VII. Must we always pray according to the method of the Lord's prayer, and is it a sin to do otherwise?'

Answ. 1. The Lord's prayer is first a rule for your desires and it is a sin, if your desires follow not that method. If you do not begin in your desires with God, as your ultimate end, and if you first desire not his glory, and then the flourishing of his kingdom, and then the obeying of his laws, and herein the public welfare of the world, before and above your particular benefit. And it is a sin if you desire not your daily bread (or necessary support of nature), as a lower mercy in order to your higher spiritual mercies; and if you desire not pardon of sin, as a means to your future sanctity, duty, and felicity; and if you desire not these, as a means to the glory of God, and take

not his praises as the highest part of your prayers. But for the expressing of these desires, particular occasions may warrant you ofttimes to begin in another order: as when you pray for the sick, or pray for directions, or a blessing before a sermon or some particular work, you may begin and end with the subject that is before you, as the prayers of holy men in all ages have done. 2. You must distinguish also, as between desires and expressions, so between an universal and a particular prayer. The one containeth all the parts of prayer, and the other is but about some one subject or part, or but some few; this last being but one or few, particular petitions cannot possibly be uttered in the method of an universal prayer which hath all the parts. There is no one petition in the Lord's prayer, but may be made a prayer itself; and then it cannot have the other petitions as parts. 3. And you must distinguish between the even and ordinary case of a Christian, and his extraordinary case, when some special reason, affection, or accident calleth him to look most to some one particular. In his even and ordinary case, every universal prayer should be expressed in the method of the Lord's prayer; but in cases of special reason and inducement it may be otherwise.

Quest. VIII. Must we pray always when the Spirit moxeth us, and only then, or as reason guideth us??

Answ. There are two sorts of the Spirit's motions; the one is by extraordinary inspiration or impulse, as he moved the prophets and apostles, to reveal new laws, or precepts, or events, or to do some actions without respect to any other command than the inspiration itself. This Christians are not now to expect, because experience telleth us that it is ceased; or if any should pretend to it as not yet ceased, in the prediction of events, and direction in some things otherwise indifferent, yet it is most certain that it is ceased as to legislation; for the Spirit itself hath already given us those laws, which he hath declared to be perfect, and unchangeable till the end of the world. The other sort of the Spirit's working, is not to make new laws or duties, but to guide and quicken us in the doing of that which is our duty before by the laws already made. And these are the motions that all true Christians must now expect. By which you may see, that the Spirit and reason are not to be here disjoined, much

less opposed. As reason sufficeth not without the Spirit, being dark and alseep; so the Spirit worketh not on the will but by the reason: he moveth not a man as a beast or stone, to do a thing he knoweth not why, but by illumination giveth him the soundest reason for the doing of it. And duty is first duty before we do it; and when by our own sin we forfeit the special motions or help of the Spirit, duty doth not thereby cease to be duty, nor our omission to be sin. If the Spirit of God teach you to discern the meetest season for prayer, by considering your affairs, and when you are most free, this is not to be denied to be the work of the Spirit, because it is rational, (as fanatic enthusiasts imagine). And if you are moved to pray in a crowd of business, or at any time when reason can prove that it is not your duty but your sin, the same reason proveth that it was not the Spirit of God that moved you to it for the Spirit in the heart is not contrary to the Spirit in the Scripture. Set upon the duty which the Spirit in the Scripture com mandeth you, and then you may be sure that you obey the Spirit: otherwise you disobey it. Yea, if your hearts be'cold, prayer is a more likely means to warm them, than the omission of it. To ask whether you may pray while your hearts are cold and backward, is as to ask whether you may labour or come to the fire before you are warm. God's Spirit is more likely to help you in duty, than in the neglect of it. Quest. 1x. May a man pray that hath no desire at all of the grace which he prayeth for?'

Answ. No; because it is no prayer but dissembling; and dissembling is no duty. He that asketh for that which he would not have, doth lie to God in his hypocrisy. But if a man have but cold and common desires (though they reach not to that which will prove them evidences of true grace), he may pray and express those desires which he hath.

Quest. x. May a man pray that doubteth of his interest in God, and dare not call him father as his child?'

Answ. 1. There is a common interest in God, which all mankind have, as he is good to all, and as his mercy through Christ is offered to all: and thus those that are not regenerate are his children by creation, and by participation of his mercy; and they may both call him father and pray to