to feast, and to get thanks of God, must invite the poor; and yet he that invites the rich, in that he sins not, though he hath no reward of God for that. So that prayer perishes to which the man gives no degree of actual attention, for the prayer is as if it were not; it is no more than a dream, or an act of custom and order, nothing of devotion; and so accidentally becomes a sin, (I mean there, where, and in what degrees it is avoidable,) by taking God's name in vain. 3. It is not necessary to the prevalency of the prayer, that the spirit actually accompany every clause or word; if it says a hearty Amen, or in any part of it attests the whole, it is such an attention which the present condition of most men will sometimes permit. 4. A wandering of the spirit, through carelessness, or any vice, or inordinate passion, is in that degree criminal as is the cause, and it is heightened by the greatness of the interruption. 5. It is only excused by our endeavours to cure it, and by our after-acts, either of sorrow, or repetition of the prayer, and reinforcing the intention. And certainly, if we repeat our prayer, in which we have observed our spirits too much to wander, and resolve still to repeat it, (as our opportunities permit,) it may in a good degree defeat the purpose of the enemy, when his own arts shall return upon his head, and the wandering of our spirits be made the occasion of a prayer, and the parent of a new devotion. 6. Lastly, according to the degrees of our actual attention, so our prayers are more or less perfect: a present spirit being a great instrument and testimony of wisdom, and apt to many great purposes; and our continual abode with God being a great endearment of our persons, by increasing the affections.

17. Secondly: The second accessory is "intention of spirit," or fervency; such as was that of our blessed Saviour, who prayed to his Father with strong cries and loud petitions, not clamorous in language, but strong in spirit. St. Paul also, when he was pressed with a strong temptation, prayed thrice, that is, earnestly; and St. James affirms this to be of great value and efficacy to the obtaining blessings, "The effectual fervent prayer of a just person avails much;" and Elias, though "a man of like passions," yet by earnest prayer he obtained rain, or drought, according as he desired. Now this is properly produced by the greatness of our desire of heavenly things, our true value and estimate of religion, our sense of present pressures, our fears; and it hath some accidental increases by the disposition of our body, the strength of fancy, and the tenderness of spirit, and assiduity of the dropping of religious discourses; and in all men is necessary to be so great, as that we prefer heaven and religion before the world, and desire them rather, with the choice of our wills and understanding: though there cannot always be that degree of sensual, pungent, or delectable affections towards religion, as towards the desires of nature and sense; yet ever we must

f Τὸ δὲ ζητούμενον ἁλωτὸν ἐκφεύγει τ' ἀμελούμενον. -SOPHOCL. Edip.

5 Τῇ προσευχῇ προσκαρτεροῦντες, Rom. xii. 12. Quod olim erat Levitarum et sacerdotum proprium.

prefer celestial objects, restraining the appetites of the world, lest they be immoderate, and heightening the desires of grace and glory, lest they become indifferent, and the fire upon the altar of incense be extinct. But the greater zeal and fervour of desire we have in our prayers, the sooner and the greater will the return of the prayer be, if the prayer be for spiritual objects. For other things our desires must be according to our needs, not by a value derived from the nature of the thing, but the usefulness it is of to us, in order to our greater and better purposes.

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18. Thirdly: Of the same consideration it is, that we persevere and be importunate" in our prayers, by repetition of our desires, and not remitting either our affections or our offices, till God, overcome by our importunity, give a gracious answer. Jacob wrestled with the angel all night, and would not dismiss him till he had given him a blessing: "Let me alone," saith God, as if he felt a pressure and burden lying upon him by our prayers, or could not quit himself, nor depart, unless we give him leave. And since God is detained by our prayers, and we may keep him as long as we please, and that he will not go away till we leave speaking to him; he that will dismiss him till he hath his blessing, knows not the value of his benediction, or understands not the energy and power of a persevering prayer. And to this purpose Christ" spake a parable, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint."h "Praying without ceasing," St. Paul calls it; that is, with continual addresses, frequent interpellations, never ceasing renewing the request till I obtain my desire. For it is not enough to recommend our desires to God with one hearty prayer, and then forget to ask him any more; but so long as our needs continue, so long, in all times, and upon all occasions, to renew and repeat our desires: and this is "praying continually." Just as the widow did to the unjust judge; she never left going to him, she troubled him every day with her clamorous suit; so must pray always," that is, every day, and many times every day, according to our occasions and necessities, or our devotion and zeal, or as we are determined by the customs and laws of a church; never giving over through weariness or distrust, often renewing our desires by a continual succession of devotions, returning at certain and determinate periods. For God's blessings, though they come infallibly, yet not always speedily; saving only that it is a blessing to be delayed, that we may increase our desire, and renew our prayers, and do acts of confidence and patience, and ascertain and increase the blessing when it comes. For we do not more desire to be blessed than God does to hear us importunate for blessing; and he weighs every sigh, and bottles up every tear, and records every prayer, and looks through the cloud, with delight to see us upon our knees, and, when he sees his time, his light breaks through it, and shines upon us.

we

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h Luke xviii. 1.

Only

Χρῆ ἀδιαλείπτως ἔυχεσθαι τῆς περὶ τὸ θεῖον θρησκείας. PROCLUS ad Timæum.

we must not make our accounts for God according to the course of the sun, but the measures of eternity. He measures us by our needs, and we must not measure him by our impatience. "God is not slack, as some men count slackness," saith the apostle; and we find it so, when we have waited long. All the elapsed time is no part of the tediousness; the trouble of it is past with itself: and for the future, we know not how little it may be; for aught we know, we are already entered into the cloud that brings the blessing. However, pray till it comes: for we shall never miss to receive our desire, if it be holy, or innocent, and safe; or else we are sure of a great reward of our prayers.

19. And in this, so determined, there is no danger of blasphemy, or vain repetitions: for those repetitions are vain which repeat the words, not the devotion, which renew the expression, and not the desire; and he that may pray the same prayer tomorrow which he said to-day, may pray the same at night which he said in the morning, and the same at noon which he said at night, and so in all the hours of prayer, and in all the opportunities of devotion. Christ, in his agony, "went thrice, and said the same words," but he had intervals for repetition; and his need and his devotion pressed him forward and whenever our needs do so, it is all one if we say the same words or others, so we express our desire, and tell our needs, and beg the remedy. In the same office, and the same hour of prayer, to repeat the same things often hath but few excuses to make it reasonable, and fewer to make it pious: but to think that the prayer is better for such repetition, is the fault which the holy Jesus condemned in the gentiles, who in their hymns would say a name over a hundred times. But in this we have no rule to determine us in numbers and proportion, but right reason.i God loves not any words the more for being said often; and those repetitions which are unreasonable in prudent estimation, cannot in any account be esteemed pious. But where a reasonable cause allows the repetition, the same cause that makes it reasonable makes it also proper for devotion. He that speaks his needs, and expresses nothing but his fervour and greatness of desire, cannot be vain or long in his prayers; he that speaks impertinently, that is, unreasonably and without desires, is long, though he speak but two syllables: he that thinks for speaking much to be heard the sooner, thinks

¡Ohe jam desine deos, uxor, gratulando obtundere

Tuam esse inventam gnatam: nisi illos tuo ex ingenio judicas, Ut nil credas intelligere nisi idem dictum est centies.

TER. Heaut.

Λαλεῖν ἄριστος, ἀδυνατώτατος λέγειν.
Τεκμήριον δὲ τοῦδε τὸν Ὅμηρον λάβε
Οὗτος γὰρ ἡμῖν μυρίαδας ἐπῶν γράφει
̓Αλλ' ούδε εἰς Ομηρον εἴρηκεν μακρόν.-PHILEM.
Χωρις τό, τ ̓ εἰπεῖν πολλὰ, καὶ τὰ καίρια.
SOPHOCL. Edip. 2.

In re trepidà Tullus Hostilius duodecim vovit salios fanaque Pallori et Pavori.-LIVIUS. Ego me majore religione quàm quisque fuit ullius voti obstrictum puto.-CICER. ad Atticum.

Solebant autem et vota fieri gratitudinis indicia.
Voveram dulces epulas et album

Libero caprum propè funeratus

Arboris ictu.-HORAT. lib. iii. Od. 8.

k

20. As a part and instance of our importunity in prayer, it is usually reckoned and advised, that in cases of great, sudden, and violent need, we corroborate our prayers with a vow of doing something holy and religious in an uncommanded instance, something to which God had not formerly bound our duty, though fairly invited our will; or else, if we choose a duty in which we were obliged, then to vow the doing of it in a more excellent manner, with a greater inclination of the will, with a more fervent repetition of the act, with some more noble circumstance, with a fuller assent of the understanding, or else adding a new promise to our old duty, to make it become more necessary to us, and to secure our duty. In this case, as it requires great prudence and caution in the susception, lest what we piously intend obtain a present blessing and lay a lasting snare; so if it be prudent in the manner, holy in the matter, useful in the consequence, and safe in all the circumstances of the person, it is an endearing us and our prayer to God by the increase of duty and charity, and therefore a more probable way of making our prayers gracious and acceptable. And the religion of vows was not only hallowed by the example of Jacob at Bethel, of Hannah praying for a child, and God hearing her, of David vowing a temple to God, and made regular and safe by the rules and cautions in Moses's law; but left by our blessed Saviour in the same constitution he found it, he having innovated nothing in the matter of vows: and it was practised accordingly in the instance of St. Paul at Cenchrea; of Ananias and Sapphira,' who vowed their possessions to the use of the church; 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 Non est meum- -ad miseras preces Decurrere, et votis pacisci,

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Ne Cypria Tyriæque merces

Addant avaro divitias mari.-Id. lib. iii. Od. 29. Et læta quidem in præsens omnia: sed benignitati deorum gratiam referendam, ne ritus sacrorum inter ambigua culti per prospera obliterarentur.-TACIT. Ann. lib. xi.

Ananias et Sapphira ideo condemnati, quia post votum abstulerunt quasi sua.-S. HIERON. Ep. 8. ad Demet. Quid enim est, fidem primam irritam fecerunt? voverunt, et non reddiderunt.-S. AUGUST.

In vita nam æterna est quædam egregia gloria, non omnibus in æternum victuris, sed quibusdam ibi tribuenda; cui consequendæ parùm est liberatum esse à peccatis, nisi aliquid liberatori voveatur, quod non sit criminis non vovisse, sed vovisse ac reddidisse sit laudis.-Idem, de S. Virgin. c. 14.

regularly, and choose the best things, that I may | conform to thy will, und 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.

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 or 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 made by the assembly against the inspired apostles in Pentecost, "These are not drunk, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day :"b 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,

1. FASTING, being directed in order to other ends, as for mortifying the body, taking away that fuel

a Per universum orbem mos iste observatur, ut, in honorem tanti sacramenti, in os Christiani priùs Dominicum corpus intraret quàm cæteri cibi.-S. AUG. Ep. 18.

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,

b Plebs autem non assentiebatur horum orationibus; et proculdubio exorta fuisset seditio, nisi concionem solvisset sexta hora superveniens, quæ nostris ad prandium vocare solet sabbatis.-JOSEPH. in Vità suà.

|

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."c 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 afflictions which reduces our body to want, our spirits to soberness, our condition to sufferance, our desires to abstinence and customs of denial;d and so, by taking off the inundations of sensuality, leaves the enemies within in a condition of being easier subdued. Fasting directly advances towards chastity; and, by consequence and indirect powers, to patience, and humility, and indifference. But then it is not the fast of a day that can do this; it is not an act, but a state of fasting, that operates to mortification. A perpetual temperance and frequent abstinence may abate such proportions of strength and nutriment, as to procure a body mortified and lessened in desires. And thus St. Paul "kept his body under," using severities to it for the taming its rebellions and distemperatures. And St. Jerome reports of St. Hilarion, that when he had fasted much, and used coarse diet, and found his lust too strong for such austerities, he resolved to increase it to the degree of mastery, lessening his diet, and increasing his hardship, till he should rather think of food than wantonness.e times the fastings of some men are ineffectual, because they promise themselves cure too soon, or make too gentle applications, or put less proportions into their antidotes. I have read of a maiden, that, seeing a young man much transported with her love, and that he ceased not to importune her with all the violent pursuits that passion could suggest, told him, she had made a vow to fast forty days with bread and water, of which she must discharge herself before she could think of corresponding to any other desire; and desired of him, as a testimony of his love, that he also would be a party in the same vow. The young man undertook it, that he might❘ give probation of his love: but, because he had been used to a delicate and nice kind of life, in twenty days he was so weakened, that he thought more of death than love; and so got a cure for his

< Jer. v. 7.

And many

4 Εν τῇ κενή γαστρὶ τῶν παλῶν ἔρως οὐκ ἔστι· πεινῶσιν KÚTρIS TIKρά.-ACHEUS apud Athenæum.

Extraordinarios motus in cippo claudit jejunium.-S. CYP. Jejunia enim nos contra peccata faciunt fortiores, concupiscentias vincunt, tentationes repellunt, superbiam inclinant, iram mitigant, et omnes bonæ voluntatis affectus ad maturitatem totius virtutis enutriunt.-S. LEO, Serm. 4. de Jejun. Saginantur pugiles qui xerophagiis invalescunt. -TERTUL. de Jejun.

S. Hieron. in Vita. S. Hilarion.

Parcus cibus et venter semper esuriens triduana jejunia superant.-S. HIERON. Ep. 8. ad Demetriad.

intemperance, and was wittily cozened into remedy. But St. Jerome's counsel in this question is most reasonable, not allowing violent and long fasts, and then returns to an ordinary course; for these are too great changes of diet to consist with health, and too sudden and transient to obtain a permanent and natural effect: but "a belly always hungry," a table never full, a meal little and necessary, no extravagance, no freer repast, this is a state of fasting, which will be found to be of best avail to suppress pungent lusts and rebellious desires. And it were well to help this exercise with the assistances of such austerities which teach patience, and ingenerate a passive fortitude, and accustom us to a despite of pleasures, and which are consistent with our health. For if fasting be left to do the work alone, it may chance either to spoil the body, or not to spoil the lust. Hard lodging, uneasy garments, laborious postures of prayer, journeys on foot, sufferance of cold, paring away the use of ordinary solaces, denying every pleasant appetite, rejecting the most pleasant morsels; these are in the rank of "bodily exercises," which though, as St. Paul says, of themselves, "they profit little," yet they accustom us to acts of self-denial in exterior instances, and are not useless to the designs of mortifying carnal and sensual lusts. They have “ a proportion of wisdom" with these cautions, viz. "in will-worship," that is, in voluntary susception, when they are not imposed as necessary religion; h "in humility," that is, without contempt of others that use them not; "in neglecting of the body," that is, when they are done for discipline and mortification, that the flesh, by such handlings and rough usages, become less satisfied, and more despised.

3. As fasting hath respect to the future, so also to the present; and so it operates in giving assistance to prayer. There is a " kind of devil that is

not to be ejected but by prayer and fasting," that is, prayer elevated and made intense by a defecate and pure spirit, not laden with the burden of meat and vapours. St. Basil affirms, that there are certain angels deputed by God to minister, and to describe all such in every church who mortify themselves by fasting; as if paleness and a meagre visage were that " mark in the forehead," which the angel observed when he signed the saints in Jerusalem to escape the judgment. Prayer is the wings of the soul, and fasting is the wings of prayer. Tertullian calls it" the nourishment of prayer." But this is a discourse of christian philosophy; and he that chooses to do any act of spirit, or understanding, or attention, after a full meal, will then perg Coloss. ii. 23. Λόγον σοφίας.

Η Ει τις ἐπίσκοπος, &c. γάμου, καὶ κρεῶν καὶ ὄινου, οὐ δι' ἄσκησιν, ἀλλὰ διὰ βδελυρίαν ἀπέχεται, ἢ καθαιρείσθω. Can. Apost. 50.

i Serm. 5. de Jejun.

k Jejunium animæ nostræ alimentum, leves ei pennas producens.-S. BERN. Serm. in Vigil. S. Andreæ.

̓Ακρίδας ἐσθίοντα Ἰωάννην, καὶ πτεροφυήσαντα τὴν ψυ Xh, dixit S. Chrysost.

1 Jejuniis preces alere, lacrymari, et mugire noctes diesque ad Dominum. -TERTUL.