a view of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the abounding mercy of God in Christ.  Your reading of the Scriptures should be strictly devotional.  Your prayers should be very particular, mentioning everything relating to the object of your desires, and all the hindrances you have met in seeking after it.  Carry all your burdens to the foot of the cross, and there lay them down.  Your thanksgiving, also, should be very minute and particular, mentioning every mercy and blessing which you can recollect, with your own unworthiness, and every circumstance which may tend to show the exceeding greatness of God’s love, condescension, and mercy.

4. Come to the work with a preparation of heart. The best preparation at all times is to maintain an habitual spirit of prayer, according to the first direction.  But this is not all that is necessary.  We are unavoidably much occupied with the things of this world.  But when we come before the great Jehovah, to ask his favor and seek his grace, our minds should be heavenly.  When you go into your closet, shut out the world, that you may be alone with God.  Bring your mind into a calm and heavenly frame, and endeavor to obtain a deep sense of the presence of God, “as seeing him who is invisible.”  Think of the exalted nature of the work in which you are about to engage.  Think of your own unworthiness, and of the way God has opened to the mercy seat.  Think of your own wants, or of the wants of others, according to the object of your visit to the throne of grace.  Think of the inexhaustible fulness treasured up in Christ.  Think of the many precious promises of God to his children, and come with the spirit of a little child to present them before him.

5. Persevere in prayer. If you are seeking for any particular object, which you know to be agreeable to the will of God, and your prayers are not heard, you may be sure of one of two things:  (1.) You have been asking amiss. Something is wrong in yourself.  Perhaps you have been selfish in your desires; you have not desired supremely the glory of God; you have not felt your dependence:  you have not humbled yourself sufficiently to receive a blessing; or perhaps you regard iniquity in your heart, in some other way.  Examine yourself, therefore, in all these particulars.  Repent, where you find your prayers have been amiss.  Bow very low before God, and seek the influences of his Spirit to enable you to pray aright. (2.) Or, perhaps the Lord delays an answer for the trial of your faith.  Consider then the encouragements which he has given us to be importunate in prayer.  In the eleventh chapter of Luke, our Lord shows us that our friends may be prevailed upon to do us a kindness because of our importunity, when they would not do it on account of friendship.  And in the eighteenth chapter, he shows us that even an unjust judge may be persuaded by importunity to do justice.  Hence he argues the importance of persevering in prayer; and adds with