But now, _Theophilus_, I beg we may return to that very point concerning prayer, where we left off. I think my heart is entirely devoted to God: and that I desire nothing but to live in such a state of prayer, as may best keep me under the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit. Assist me therefore, in this important matter; give me the fullest directions that you can; and if you have any _manual_ of devotion, that you prefer, or any method that you would put me in, pray let me know it. _Rusticus._ I beg leave to speak a word to _Academicus_. Ask not _Academicus_, for a book of prayers; but ask your heart what is within it, what it _feels_, how it _stirs_, what it _wants_, what it would have altered, what it desires; and then, instead of calling upon _Theophilus_ for assistance, stand in the same form of petition to God. For this turning to God according to the inward _feeling_, _want_, and _motion_ of your own heart, in love, in trust of having from him all that you want, and wish, is the best form of prayer in the world.――――*Now no man can be ignorant of the state of his own heart, or a stranger to those tempers, that are stirring in him; and what should be the form of his prayer, but that which the state of his heart demands? If you know of no trouble, feel no burden, want nothing to be altered, or removed, nothing to be increased or strengthened in you, how can you pray for any thing of this kind? But if your heart knows its own plague, feels its inward evil, knows what it wants to have removed, will you not let your distress form the manner of your prayer? Or will you pray in a form of words, that have no more agreement with your state, than if a man walking above-ground, should beg every man he met, to pull him out of a deep pit? For prayers not formed according to the _real state_ of your heart, are but like a prayer to be pulled out of a deep well, when you are not in it. Hence you may see, how unreasonable it is to make a mystery of prayer, or an art, that needs so much instruction; since every man is, and only can be, directed by his own inward state, and condition, when and how, and what he is to pray for, as every man’s outward state shews him what he outwardly wants. _Academicus._ I did not imagine, _Rusticus_, that you would have so openly declared against _manuals_ of devotion, since you know not only the most learned, but the most pious doctors of the church, consider them as necessary helps to devotion. _Rusticus._ If you was obliged to go a long journey on _foot_, and yet through a weakness in your legs could not set one foot before another, you would do well to get the best travelling crutches that you could.