The divine life in three treatises

4. In holy, faithful, fervent Prayer a Christian hath very much of his converse with God. For Prayer is our approach to God, and calling to mind his presence and his attributes, and exercising all his graces in a holy motion towards him, and an exciting all the powers of our souls to seek him, attend him, & reverently to worship him: It is our treating with him about the most important businesses in all the world: a begging of ⟨p. 176⟩the greatest mercies, and a deprecating his most grievous judgments; and all this with the nearest familiarity that man in flesh can have with God. In prayer the Spirit of God is working up our hearts unto him, with desires expressed in sighs and groans: It is a work of God as well as of man: He bloweth the fire, though it be our hearts that burn and boil. In Prayer we lay hold on Jesus Christ, and plead his merits and intercession with the Father: He taketh us as it whereby the hand, and leadeth us unto God, and hideth our sins, and procureth our acceptance, and presenteth us amiable to his Father, having justified and sanctified us, and cleansed us from those pollutions, which rendered us loathsome and abominable. To speak to God in serious prayer, is a work so high, and of so great moment, that it calleth off our minds from all things else, and giveth no creature room or leave to look into the soul, or once to be observed: The mind is so taken up with God, and employed with him, that creatures are forgotten, and we take no notice of them (unless when through the diversions of the flesh, our prayers are interrupted and corrupted, and so far degenerate, and are no prayer; so far I say as we thus turn away from God.) So that the soul that is most and best at Prayer, is most and best at walking with God, and hath most communion with him in the Spirit: And to withdraw from Prayer, is to withdraw from God: And to be unwilling to pray, is to be unwilling to draw near to God. Meditation or Contemplation is a duty in which God is much enjoyed: But Prayer hath Meditation in it, and much more. All that is upon the mind in Meditation, is upon the mind in Prayer, and that with great advantage, as being presented before God, and pleaded with him, and so animated by the apprehensions of his observing presence, and actuated by the desires and pleadings of the soul.

4. In holy, faithful, servent Prayer a Christian hath very much of his converse with God. For Prayer is our approach to God, and calling to mind his presence and his attributes, and exercising all his graces in a holy motion towards him, and an exciting all the powers of our souls to seek him, attend him, & reverently to worship him: It is our treating with him about the most important businesses in all the world: a beging of