The Return of Prayers

¹2 Prayers answered ⟨p. 167⟩will enlarge thy heart with thankfulness, and thus usually they do; self-love makes us more forward to pray, than to give thanks; for nature is all of the craving and taking hand: but where grace is, there will be no eminent mercy gotten with much struggling, but there will be a continued particular thankful remembrance of it a long while after, with much enlargement: and As prayers abounded, so will thanksgiving abound also. Hannah, she makes a Song, 1. Sam. 1. 2. Great blessings that are won with prayer, are worn with thankfulness: such a man will not ⟨p. 168⟩ask new, but he will withal give thanks for old. Thankfulness, of all duties, proceeds from pure grace, therefore if the spirit stirs thee unto it, it is a sign he made the prayer; What thanks shall I render to God, for the joy I have in you, saith S. Paul, 1. Thess. 3. 9, 10? So in all his other Epistles, all those he writes to, as he prays for them, so he tells them, he gives thanks for them, and for their graces which he had prayed for. And if answering prayers for others, makes S. Paul so thankful, what when for himself? Prayer and thanks, are like the double motion of the lungs, ⟨p. 169⟩the air that is sucked in by prayer, is breathed forth again by thanks: Is thy heart afresh enlarged, as to mourn for past sins long since committed, so in like manner, to give thanks for past mercies won with long prayers, and this for a long while after? it is a sign that they were obtained by prayer.

¹2 Prayers answered ⟨p. 167⟩will inlarge thy heart with thankefulnesse, and thus usually they doe; selfe-love makes us more forward to pray, than to give thankes; for nature is all of the craving and taking hand: but where grace is, there will be no eminent mercie gotten with much strugling, but there will be a continued particular thankfull remembrance of it a long while after, with much inlargement: and As prayers abounded, so will thanksgiving abound also. Hannah, shee makes a Song,