An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, and thirty-seventh chapters of…

Thirdly, That's a vain prayer, when we pray merely to get ease, or deliverance from an affliction, not at all minding our profiting by, or the improvement of an affliction. 'Tis not faith in God, but sense of our own smart, which moves to pray, when we rather look how to get off our burdens,¹ than out of our sins, or to get out of the fire, than to get out our dross; when we pray more to have the plague taken away, than our hard and proud hearts, that is a vain prayer; 'tis like the prayer of Pharaoh, who begged that he might be delivered; but it was the plague of God for his sin, for his hard heart, that troubled him; his hard heart, his sinning against God never troubled him. Pharaoh-like prayers, are vain prayers.

Thirdly, That's a vaine prayer, when we pray meerly to get ease, or deliverance from an affliction, not at all minding our profiting by, or the improvement of an affliction. 'Tis not faith in God, but sense of our own smart, which moves to pray, when we rather look how to get off our burdens,¹ than out of our sins, or to get out of the fire, than to get out our dross; when we pray more to have the plague taken away, than our hard and proud hearts, that is a vaine prayer; 'tis like the prayer of Pharaoh, who begged that he might be delivered; but it was the plague of God for his sin, for his hard heart, that troubled him; his hard heart, his sinning against God never troubled him. Pharaoh-like prayers, are vaine prayers.

1. 1Tales clamores non fides, sed malorum sensus extorquer.

Fourthly, Those prayers are vain which we make in our own strength. What can those prayers be, which go forth in our strength, seeing we are told that we know not what to pray, much less then how to pray, but as the Spirit of God helpeth our infirmities, (Rom. 8.26