that which is ordinary, uninspired, and the mere Product of the human Mind. Innumerable have been the Miftakes which have arifen from applying things, which are in their Nature peculiar to the Inspired State of the Church, to the ordinary and uninspired. How well composed foever our Prayers may be, and how fincere foever we are in offering them up, if we know them to be only the Work of our own or other Mens Imagination, or if we cannot be affured that they are the Dictates of the Divine Spirit, or that he does in our own Breasts intercede with God for us, it would be the greatest Folly and Prefumption imaginable to place any such Faith or Truft in them, as Men might reasonably do, where they had fuch Affurance and Conviction.

But tho' ordinary Prayer can have -no fuch Efficacy, nor lay in any Claim to the Promifes made to that which

VOL. II.

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is

is extraordinary; yet it is not without its proper Fruits and Effects.

Could we fuppofe, that the Creator of the World, had from the Beginning difpofed Causes and Effects in a certain neceffary and invariable Order, fo that all Events from first to last must come out in one manner only; that all things were predetermin'd, and conducted by the strictest Neceffity in the mere material World; (which is fuch a Constitution, as is of all that are conceivable, the most difcouraging to Prayer; for it might be ask'd in this Cafe, to what purpose fhould we pray, when Events must be the fame with, or without our praying;) I fay, even under fuch a Suppofition as this, Prayer would have this Efficacy; That it would greatly influence our moral Behaviour, which we know is not, cannot be constrained. The Defire of maintaining an inward Purity of Mind and an outward Recti

tude

tude of Manners, the bringing the fupreme Being frequently into our view, a conftant walking in his awful PrePrefence, has in it a natural Power to purify the Mind and reform our Manners; we cannot but know and feel their Efficacy; and that when we neglect to recollect fuch Thoughts and excite fuch Defires, that our Minds grow dark and impure, and our Manners irregular; and that we are unhappy within our felves, and injurious to others. Moral Righteousness or Unrighteousness are things as plainly to be perceived and known by us, as bodily Pain or Pleafure; and as we cannot well err in our Petitions, as long as they are confined to moral Cafes (for no Man ever defired God to make him more vicious, or to affift him in Sin) fo I fay, was there no divine Concurrence, yet Prayer would by its mere natural Efficacy in moral things be of great Ufe to us. The

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Defire

Defire of Virtue frequently excited and repeated must be a natural Cause of our Advance in Virtue. So that tho' fuch a Conftitution of things, as we have for the prefent fuppofed, would render Prayer for temporal Bleffings abfurd, because all things without us would be carried on by a rigid Neceffity; yet allowing our internal Nature to be what it is and we know it to be, even ordinary Prayer must have a great moral Efficacy and

Power.

But Secondly, If we fuppofe the material World is under a moral Government and Difpofition; that the Laws of Nature are not fo predetermined, but that things may be varied and applied differently according to the feveral Merits and Exigency of moral Agents; and that the great and wife Author of the whole is thus in Mercy and Justice continually modeling and directing it; then Prayer must

of

of course be of still greater Efficacy and Virtue. And that this is really the Conftitution of things is most

certain.

We know our own Freedom of Action, as well as we know that we are. We experience certain Powers over the material World, tho' they are limited ones. Tho' we cannot alter the general Laws of Naturę, yet we can apply them variously: We can combine and feparate them at our Pleasure, which would be impoffible, were natural Caufes directed by the before mentioned Neceffity. We have great Power over the Creatures beneath us, and over one another; and in Particulars of the utmost Importance we can give Pleasure and Pain, and even preferve or destroy their Being. To fay that we are not free in thefe Inftances, and that these Powers are under the common neceffary Direction, is to take away all Difference betwixt Liberty and Neceffity; for we

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are