V. Both these things are highly worthy of observation—first, that whoever engages in prayer, should apply all his faculties and attention to it, and not be distracted, as is commonly the case, with wandering thoughts; nothing being more contrary to a reverence for God than such levity, which indicates a licentious spirit, wholly unrestrained by fear. In this case our exertions must be great in proportion to the difficulty we experience. For no man can be so intent on praying, but he may perceive many irregular thoughts intruding on him, and either interrupting, or by some oblique digression retarding, the course of his devotions. But here let us consider what an indignity it is, when God admits us to familiar intercourse with him, to abuse such great condescension by a mixture of things sacred and profane, while our thoughts are not confined to him by reverential awe; but as if we were conversing with a mean mortal, we quit him in the midst of our prayer, and make excursions on every side. We may be assured, therefore, that none are rightly prepared for the exercise of prayer, but those who are so affected by the Divine Majesty as to come to it divested of all earthly cares and affections. And this is indicated by the ceremony of lifting up the hands, that men may remember that they are at a great distance from God, unless they lift up their thoughts on high. As it is also expressed in the psalm, “Unto thee do I lift up my soul.”[267] And the Scripture frequently uses this mode of expression, “to lift up one’s prayer;” that they, who desire to be heard by God, may not sink into lethargic inactivity. To sum up the whole, the greater the liberality of God towards us, in gently inviting us to disburden ourselves of our cares by casting them on him, the less excusable are we, unless his signal and incomparable favour preponderate with us beyond every thing else, and attract us to him in a serious application of all our faculties and attention to the duty of prayer; which cannot be done unless our mind by strenuous exertion rise superior to every impediment. Our second proposition is, that we must pray for no more than God permits. For though he enjoins us to pour out our hearts before him,[268] yet he does not carelessly give the reins to affections of folly and depravity; and when he promises to “fulfil the desire”[269] of believers, he does not go to such an extreme of indulgence, as to subject himself to their caprice. But offences against both these rules are common and great; for most men not only presume, without modesty or reverence, to address God concerning their follies, and impudently to utter at his tribunal whatever has amused them in their reveries or dreams, but so great is their folly or stupidity, that they dare to obtrude upon God all their foulest desires, which they would be exceedingly ashamed to reveal to men. Some heathens have ridiculed and even detested this presumption, but the vice itself has always