soul with words, while thou wantest and art an utter stranger to the very vital and living spirit of prayer. Now, our Publican had and did exercise the very spirit of prayer in prayer. He prayed sensibly, seriously, affectionately, hungering, thirsting, and with longing after that for which with his mouth he implored the God of heaven: His heart and soul was in his words, and it was that which made his prayer PRAYER; even because he prayed in PRAYER; he. prayed inwardly as well as outwardly.

David tells us, that God heard the voice of his supplication, the voice of his cry, the voice of his tears, and the voice of his roaring. For indeed are all these acceptable. Affection and fervent desire make them sound well in the cars of God. Tears, supplications, prayers, cries may be all of them done in formality, hypocrisy, and from other causes, and to other ends, than that which is honest and right in God's sight; For God would search and look after the voice of his tears, supplications, roarings, prayers, and cries.

And if men had less care to please men, and more to please God in the matter and manner of praying, the world would be at a better pass than it is. But this is not in man's power to help, and to amend. When the Holy Ghost comes upon men with great conviction of their state and condition, and of the use and excellency of the grace of sincerity and humility in prayer, then, and not till then, will the grace of prayer be more prized, and the specious, flouting, complimentary lips of flatterers, be more laid aside. I have said it already, and will say it again, that there is now-a-days a great deal of wickedness committed in the very duty of prayer; by words of which men have no sense, by reaching after such conclusions and clenches therein, as make their persons to be admired; by studying for, and labouring after such enlargements as the spirit accompanieth not the heart in. O Lord God, make our hearts upright in us, as in all points and parts of our profession, so in this solemn appointment of God! "If I regard iniquity

in

in my heart," said David, "the Lord will not hear my prayer." But if I be truly sincere, he will, and then it is no matter whether I kneel or stand, or sit, or lie, or walk; for I shall do none of these, nor put up my prayers under any of these circumstances, lightly, foolishly, and idly, but to beautify this gesture with the inward working of my mind and spirit in prayer; that whether I stand or sit, walk, or lie down, grace and gravity, humility, and sincerity, shall make my prayer profitable, and by outward behaviour comely in his eyes, with whom (in prayer) I now have to do.

And had not our Publican been inwardly seasoned with these, Christ would have taken but little pleasure in his modes and outward behaviour: But being so honest inwardly, and in the matter of his prayer, his ges tures by that were made beauteous also; and therefore it is that our Lord so delightfully dilateth upon them, and draweth them out at length before the eyes of

others.

I have often observed, that which is natural, and so comely in one, looks odiously when imitated by another. I speak as to gestures and actions in preaching and prayer. Many, I doubt not, but will imitate the Publican, and that both in the prayer and gestures of the Publican, whose persons and actions will yet stink in the nostrils of him that is holy and just, and that searcheth the heart and the reins.

Well, the Publican stood and prayed; he stood afar off, and prayed, and his prayers came even to the ears of God.

"And the Publican standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven," &c.

We are now come to another of his posturess. "He would not," says the text, "so much as lift up his eyes to heaven." Here therefore was another gesture added to that which went before; and a gesture that a while before had been condemned by the Holy Ghost himself. "Is it such a fast that I have chosen, a day for a man

to

to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush," Isa. lviii. 5.

But why condemned then, and smiled upon now? Why! Because done in hypocrisy then, and in sincerity now. Hypocrisy, and a spirit of error, that he shall take no pleasure in them; but sincerity, and honesty in duties, will make even them comely in the sight of men. May I not say before God, The Recabites were not commanded of God, but of their father, to do as they did? but, because they were sincere in their obedience thereto, even God himself maketh use of what they did, to condemn the disobedience of the Jews; and moreover doth tell the Recabites, at last, that they should not want a man to stand before him for ever. "And Jeremiah said to the house of the Recabites, thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, because ye have obeyed the commandment of Jonadan your father, and kept all his precepts, and done according to all that he hath commanded you; therefore, thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, Jonadab, the son of Racab, shall not want a man to stand before me for ever."

"He would not lift up his eyes to heaven." Why? Surely because shame had covered his face. Shame will make a man blush and hang his head like a bulrush; shame for sin is a virtue, a comely thing; yea, a beauty-spot in the face of a sinner that cometh to God for mercy.

God complains of the house of Israel, that they could sin, and that without shame; yea, and threateneth them too with sore repeated judgments, "because they were not ashamed," it is in Jer. viii. Their crimes in general were, they turned every one to his course, as the horse runneth into the battle. In particular, they were such as rejecteth God's word; they loved this world, and set themselves against the prophet's crying, Peace, peace, when they cried Judgment, judgment: "And were not ashamed when they had committed abomination; nay, they were not ashamed, neither could they blush: there

T

fore

fore shall they fall among them that fall in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the Lord," ver. 12. Oh! to stand, or sit, or lie, or kneel, or walk before God in prayer, with blushing cheeks for sin, is one of the most excellent sights that can be seen in the world. Wherefore the church taketh some kind of heart to herself in that she could lie down in her shame; yea, and makes that a kind of argument with God, to prove that her prayers did come from her heart, and also that he would hear them, Jer. iii. 22.—25.

Shame for sin argueth sense of sin, yea, a right sense of sin, a godly sense of sin; Ephraim pleads this when uuder the hand of God: "I was (saith he) ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the sins of my youth." But what follows? "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still; therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord," Jer. xxxi. 18, 19, 20,

I know that there is a shame that is not the spirit of an honest heart; but that rather floweth from sudden surprisal, when the sinner is unawares taken in the act, in the very matter. And thus, sometimes the house of Israel was taken; and then, when they blushed, their shame is compared to the shame of a thief. "As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes and priests, and their prophets."

But where were they taken, or about what were they found? Why they were found saying to a stock, "Thou art my father," and to a stone, thou hast brought me forth." God catched them thus doing, and this made them ashamed, even as the thief is ashamed, when the owner doth catch him stealing of his horse.

But this was not the Publican's shame; this shame brings not a man into the temple to pray, to stand willingly, and to take shame before God in prayer. This shame makes one rather fly from his face and

to

to count one's self most at ease, when farthest off from God, Jer. ii. 26, 27.

The Publican's shame, therefore, which he demonstarted by hanging down his head, was godly and holy, and much like that of the prodigal, when he said, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." Luke xv. 21. I suppose that his postures were much the same with the Publican's, as were his prayers, for the substance of them. O however grace did work in both to the same end, they were both of them, after a godly manner ashamed of their sins!

"He would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven.

He could not, he would not: which yet more fully makes it appear, that it was shame, not guilt only, or chiefly (though it is manifest enough that he had guilt) by his crying" God be merciful to me a sinner." I say, guilt was not the chief cause of hanging down his head, because it saith, he would not; for when guilt is the cause of stooping, it lieth not in the will, or in the power thereof to help one up.

David tells us, that when he was under guilt, his iniquities were gone over his head; "As an heavy burthen, they were too heavy for him;" and that with them he was bowed down greatly. Or, as he says in another place, "Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up," Psal. xxxviii. xl. I am not able to do it; guilt disableth the understanding and conscience, shame makes all willingly fall at the feet of Christ.

He

* Wicked men have great reason to blush at their evil deeds, and to fear least they should be made evident to the world; but this is a natural, not a godly fear and shame: thus they regard the approbation and displeasure of their fellow-worms, more than that of the Most High, But Christ's disciples, on the contrary, act and live as in the sight of God, whom they reverence not only for his greatness and goodness, but on account of his primitive justice, and take shame to themselves in secret before the Lord, when they transgress his righteous commands.