and of the widows in the apostolical age, who therefore vowed to remain in the state of widowhood, because concerning them who married after the entry into religion, St. Paul" says, "they have broken their first faith" and such were they of whom our blessed Saviour affirms, that "some make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven," that is, such who promise to God a life of chastity. And concerning the success of prayer, so seconded with a prudent and religious vow, besides the instances of scripture", we have the perpetual experience and witness of all Christendom; and in particular our Saxon kings have been remarked for this part of importunity in their own chronicles. Oswy P got a great victory with unlikely forces against Penda the Dane after his earnest prayer, and an appendent vow and Ceadwalla obtained of God power to recover the Isle of Wight from the hands of infidels, after he had prayed and promised to return the fourth part of it to be employed in the proper services of God and of religion. This can have no objection or suspicion in it among wise and disabused persons; for it can be nothing but an increasing and a renewed act of duty, or devotion, or zeal, or charity, and the importunity of prayer, acted in a more vital and real expression. 21. First: All else that is to be considered concerning prayer is extrinsecal and accidental to it. Prayer is public, or private: in the communion or society of saints, or in our closets: these prayers have less temptation to vanity; the other have more advantages of charity, example, fervour, and energy. In public offices we avoid singularity, in the private we avoid hypocrisy: those are of more edification, these of greater retiredness and silence of spirit: those serve the needs of all the world in the first intention, and our own by consequence; these serve our own needs first, and the public only by a secondary intention: these have more pleasure, they more duty: these are the best instruments of repentance, where our confessions may be more particular, and our shame less scandalous; the other are better for eucharist and instruction, for edification of the church, and glorification of God. 22. Secondly: The posture of our bodies in prayer had as great variety as the ceremonies and civilities of several nations came to. The Jews most commonly prayed standing: so did the pharisee and gloria, non omnibus in æternum victuris, Eccles. v. 4, 5; Psalm cxxxii. 1, 2; Deut. xxiii. 21; Acts xviii. 18. P Oswy vovit filiam in servitutem religionis et vitam cœlibem, simulque duodecim possessiones ad construendas ædes sacras.-[Bed. Hist. eccl., lib. iii. cap. 24. tom. iii. col. 73.] Reddere victimas Nos humilem feriemus agnum.-Hor. [Od. ii. 17. lin. 30.] 4 [Bed. Hist. eccl., lib. iv. cap. 16. tom. iii. col. 98. j the publican in the temple. So did the primitive Christians, in all their greater festivals and intervals of jubilee; in their penances they kneeled. The monks in Cassians sate when they sung the psalter. And in every country, whatsoever by the custom of the nation was a symbol of reverence and humility, of silence and attention, of gravity and modesty, that posture they translated to their prayers. But in all nations bowing the head, that is, a laying down our glory at the feet of God, was the manner of worshippers; and this was always the more humble and the lower, as their devotion was higher; and was very often expressed by prostration, or lying flat upon the ground; and this all nations did, and all religions. Our deportment ought to be grave, decent, humble, apt for adoration, apt to edify; and when we address ourselves to prayer, not instantly to leap into the office, as the judges of the Areopage into their sentence, "without preface or preparatory affections";" but considering in what presence we speak, and to what purposes, let us balance our fervour with reverential fear and when we have done, not rise from the ground as if we vaulted, or were glad we had done; but as we begin with desires of assistance, so end with desires of pardon and acceptance, concluding our longer offices with a shorter mental prayer, of more private reflection and reverence, designing to mend what we have done amiss, or to give thanks and proceed if we did well and according to our powers. : 23. Thirdly: In private prayers it is permitted to every man to speak his prayers, or only to think them, which is a speaking to God. Vocal or mental prayer is all one to God, but in order to us they have their several advantages. The sacrifice of the heart, and the calves of the lips, make up a holocaust to God: but words are the arrest of the desires, and keep the spirit fixed, and in less permissions to wander from fancy to fancy. And mental prayer is apt to make the greater fervour, if it wander not; our office is more determined by words, but we then actually think of God when our spirits only speak. Mental prayer, when our spirits wander, is like a watch standing still because the spring is down; wind it up again, and it goes on regularly: but in vocal prayer, if the words run on, and the r Nehem. ix. 5; Mark xi. 25; Luke xviii. 11. s [Inst. Cœnob., lib. ii. cap. 5. p. 23.] + Adoraturi sedeant, dixit Numa Pompilius, apud Plutarch. [vid. Num. cap. xiv. tom. i. p. 277.] id est, sint sedato animo. Εt καθῆσθαι προσκυνήσοντας dictum proverbialiter ad eundem sensum. Vide S. Aug. de Cur. pro mort. [cap. 5. tom. vi. col. 520.] Depositisque suis ornamentis pretiosis, - prono sacram vultu prostratus ad aram, Corpus frigoreæ sociavit nobile terræ. S. Roswit. de Henr. Imper. et de Othon [p. 717.] ■ Aveν πроoμíοv кal Tabŵv. [vid. Meurs. Areop., cap. vii.] spirit wanders, the clock strikes false, the hand points not to the right hour, because something is in disorder, and the striking is nothing but noise. In mental prayer, we confess God's omniscience; in vocal prayer, we call the angels to witness. In the first, our spirits rejoice in God; in the second, the angels rejoice in us. Mental prayer is the best remedy against lightness and indifferency of affections; but vocal prayer is the aptest instrument of communion. That is more angelical, but yet fittest for the state of separation and glory; this is but human, but it is apter for our present constitution. They have their distinct proprieties, and may be used according to several accidents, occasions, or dispositions. THE PRAYER. O holy and eternal God, who hast commanded us to pray unto Thee in all our necessities, and to give thanks unto Thee for all our instances of joy and blessing, and to adore Thee in all Thy attributes and communications, Thy own glories and Thy eternal mercies; give unto me Thy servant the spirit of prayer and supplication, that I may understand what is good for me, that I may desire regularly, and choose the best things, that I may conform to Thy will, and submit to Thy disposing, relinquishing my own affections and imperfect choice. Sanctify my heart and spirit, that I may sanctify Thy name, and that I may be gracious and accepted in Thine eyes. Give me the humility and obedience of a servant, that I may also have the hope and confidence of a son, making humble and confident addresses to the throne of grace; that in all my necessities I may come to Thee for aids, and may trust in Thee for a gracious answer, and may receive satisfaction and supply. II. Give me a sober, diligent, and recollected spirit in my prayers, neither choked with cares, nor scattered by levity, nor discomposed by passion, nor estranged from Thee by inadvertency, but fixed fast to Thee by the indissoluble bands of a great love and a pregnant devotion: and let the beams of Thy holy Spirit descending from above enlighten and enkindle it with great fervours, and holy importunity, and unwearied industry; that I may serve Thee, and obtain Thy blessing by the assiduity and zeal of perpetual religious offices. Let my prayers come before Thy presence, and the lifting up of my hands be a daily sacrifice, and let the fires of zeal not go out by night or day; but unite my prayers to the intercession of Thy holy Jesus, and to a communion of those offices which angels and beatified souls do pay before the throne of the Lamb, and at the celestial altar; that my prayers, being hallowed by the merits of Christ, and being presented in the phial of the saints, may ascend thither where Thy glory dwells, and from whence mercy and eternal benediction descends upon the church. III. Lord, change my sins into penitential sorrow, my sorrow to petition, my petition to eucharist; that my prayers may be consummate in the adorations of eternity, and the glorious participation of the end of our hopes and prayers, the fulness of never-failing charity, and fruition of Thee, O holy and eternal God, blessed Trinity, and mysterious Unity, to whom all honour, and worship, and thanks, and confession, and glory, be ascribed for ever and ever. Amen. DISCOURSE XIII. Of the third additional precept of Christ; viz., of the manner of fasting. 1. FASTING, being directed in order to other ends, as for mortifying the body, taking away that fuel which ministers to the flame of lust, or else relating to what is past, when it becomes an instrument of repentance, and a part of that revenge which St. Paul affirms to be the effect of "godly sorrow," is to take its estimate for value, and its rules for practice, by analogy and proportion to those ends to which it does co-operate. Fasting before the holy sacrament is a custom of the Christian church, and derived to us from great antiquity; and the use of it is, that we might express honour to the mystery, by suffering nothing to enter into our mouths before the symbols. Fasting to this purpose is not an act of mortification, but of reverence and venerable esteem of the instruments of religion, and so is to be understood. And thus also, not to eat or drink before we have said our morning devotions, is esteemed to be a religious decency; and preference of prayer and God's honour before our temporal satisfaction, a symbolical attestation that we esteem the words. of God's mouth more than our necessary food. It is like the zeal of Abraham's servant, who would not eat nor drink till he had done his errand. And in pursuance of this act of religion, by the tradition of their fathers it grew to be a custom of the Jewish nation that they should not eat bread upon their solemn festivals before the sixth hour, that they might first celebrate the rites of their religious solemnities before they gave satisfaction to the lesser desires of nature. And therefore it was a reasonable satisfaction of the objection ▾ Per universum orbem mos iste observatur, ut, in honorem tanti sacramenti, in os christiani prius dominicum corpus intraret quam cæteri cibi.-S. Aug. [Ep. liv. § 8. tom. ii. col. 126.] made by the assembly against the inspired apostles in Pentecost, "These are not drunk, as ye suppose, seeing that it is but the third hour of the day":" meaning, that the day being festival, they knew it was not lawful for any of the nation to break their fast before the sixth hour; for else they might easily have been drunk by the third hour, if they had taken their morning's drink in a freer proportion. And true it is that religion snatches even at little things; and as it teaches us to observe all the great commandments and significations of duty, so it is not willing to pretermit any thing which, although by its greatness it cannot of itself be considerable, yet by its smallness it may become a testimony of the greatness of the affection which would not omit the least minutes of love and duty. And therefore when the Jews were scandalized at the disciples of our Lord for rubbing the ears of corn on the sabbath day as they walked through the fields early in the morning, they intended their reproof not for breaking the rest of the day, but the solemnity; for eating before the public devotions were finished. Christ excused it by the necessity and charity of the act; they were hungry, and therefore having so great need they might lawfully do it: meaning, that such particles and circumstances of religion are not to be neglected, unless where greater cause of charity or necessity does supervene. 2. But when fasting is in order to greater and more concerning purposes, it puts on more religion, and becomes a duty, according as it is necessary or highly conducing to such ends to the promoting of which we are bound to contribute all our skill and faculties. Fasting is principally operative to mortification of carnal appetites, to which feasting, and full tables, do minister aptness, and power, and inclinations. "When I fed them to the full, then they committed adultery, and assembled by troops in the harlots' houses." And if we observe all our own vanities, we shall find that upon every sudden joy, or a prosperous accident, or an opulent fortune, or a pampered body and highly spirited and inflamed, we are apt to rashness, levities, inconsiderate expressions, scorn and pride, idleness, wantonness, curiosity, niceness, and impatience. But fasting is one of those af flictions which reduces our body to want, our spirits to soberness, our condition to sufferance, our desires to abstinence and customs of denial'; and so, by taking off the inundations of sensuality, leaves * Plebs autem non assentiebatur horum orationibus; et proculdubio exorta fuisset seditio, nisi concionem solvisset sexta hora superveniens, quæ nostris ad pran dium vocare solet sabbatis.-Joseph. in vita sua. [§ 54. p. 931.] x Jer. v. 7. ? — Ἐν κενῇ γὰρ γαστρὶ τῶν καλῶν ἔρως Extraordinarios motus in cippo claudit jejunium.-S. Cypr. [sive Arnold. Carnot. De jejun. et pass. Christ. p. 35. in Append. ad opp. S. Cypr.] Jejunia enim nos contra peccata faciunt fortiores,.. concupiscentias vincunt, tentationes repellunt, superbiam inclinant, iram mitigant, et omnes bonæ vo |