pardon, and grace, and preservation, you are undone and lost for ever. Remember that necessity is upon you, and heaven or hell are at the end, and you are praying for more than a thousand lives. 10. Study well the unspeakable excellency of those mercies which you pray for: O think how blessed a life it would be, if you could know God more, and love him more, and live a blameless, heavenly life, and then live with Christ in heaven for ever! Study these mercies till the flames of love put life into your prayers. 11. Study well the exceeding encouragements that you have to pray and hope; if your hope decay your fervour will decay. Think of the unconceivable love of God, the astonishing mercy showed to you in your Redeemer, and in the helps of the Holy Spirit, and how Christ is now interceding for you. Think of these till faith make glad your heart; and in this gladness, let praise and thanksgiving have ordinarily no small share in your prayers; for it will tire out the heart to be always poring on its own distempers, and discourage it to look on nothing but its infirmities; and then, a sad, discouraged temper will not be so lively a temper, as a thankful, praiseful, joyful temper is: for _lætitia loquax res est, atque ostentatrix sui_; Gladness is a very expressive thing, and apt to show itself.[68] But _tristes non eloquentes sunt: maxime si ad ægritudinem animi accedat corporis ægritudo_. Hieron. Epist. 31. ad Theoph. Alexand. Sad men are seldom eloquent; especially if the body be sick as well as the mind. 12. Let the image of a praying and a bleeding Christ, and of his praying saints, be (not on a wall before your eyes, but) engraven on your minds. Is it not desirable to be conformed to them? Had they more need to pray importunately than you? 13. Be very cautelous in the use of forms, lest you grow dull and customary, and before you are aware your tongues use to go without your hearts. The heart is apt to take its ease when it feeleth not some urgent instigation. And though the presence of God should serve the turn without the regard of man, yet with imperfect men the heart is best held to its duty when both concur. And therefore most are more cautelous of their words, than of their thoughts; as children will learn their lesson better, when they know their masters will hear them it, than when they think he will not. Now in the use of a form of prayer, a sleepy heart is not at all discerned by man, but by God only; for the words are all brought to your hand, and may be said by the most dull and careless mind; but when you are put to express your own desire, without such helps, you are necessitated to be so mindful of what you do, as to form your desires into apt expressions, or else your dulness or inattentiveness will be observed even by men; and you will be like one that hath his coach, or horse, or crutches taken off him, that if he have legs must use them, or else lie still. And to