_Direct._ III. Labour above all to know that God to whom you pray. To know him as your Maker, your Redeemer, and your Regenerator; as your Owner, your Ruler, and your Father, Felicity, and End; as all-sufficient for your relief, in the infiniteness of his power, his wisdom, and his goodness; and to know your own dependence on him; and to understand his covenant or promises, upon what terms he is engaged and resolved either to give his mercies, or to deny them. "He that cometh to God, must believe that He is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him," Heb. xi. 6. "He that calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved: but how shall they call on him, on whom they have not believed?" Rom. x. 13, 14. _Direct._ IV. Labour when you are about to pray, to stir up in your souls the most lively and serious belief of those unseen things that your prayers have respect to; and to pray as if you saw them all the while; even as if you saw God in his glory, and saw heaven and hell, the glorified and the damned, and Jesus Christ your Mediator interceding for you in the heavens. As you would pray if your eyes beheld all these, so strive to pray while you believe them: and say to yourselves, Are they not as sure as if I saw them? Are they not made known by the Son and Spirit of God? _Direct._ V. Labour for a constant acquaintance with yourselves, your sins and manifold wants and necessities; and also to take an actual, special notice of your case, when you go to prayer. If you get not a former constant acquaintance with your own case, you cannot expect to know it aright upon a sudden as you go to pray: and yet if you do not actually survey your hearts and lives when you go to prayer, your souls will be unhumbled, and want that lively sense of your necessities, which must put life into your prayers. Know well what sin is, and what God's wrath, and hell, and judgment are, and what sin you have committed, and what duty you have omitted, and failed in, and what wants and corruptions are yet within you, and what mercy and grace you stand in need of, and then all this will make you pray, and pray to purpose with all your hearts. But when men are wilful strangers to themselves, and never seriously look backwards or inwards, to see what is amiss and wanting, nor look forwards, to see the danger that is before them, no wonder if their hearts be dead and dull, and if they are as unfit to pray, as a sleeping man to work.[55]