but he was answered, "it could never be done, he might as well imprint characters upon the face of a torrent, or a rapid river, or himself fly in the air, as alter the persuasion of a hearty and an honest Christian;" I would to God it were so now in all instances, and that it were so hard to draw men from the severities of a holy life, as of old they could be cozened, disputed, or forced out of their faith. Some men are vexed with hypocrisy, and then their hypocrisy was punished with infidelity and a wretchless spirit. Demas, and Simon Magus, and Ecebolius, and the lapsed confessors, are instances of human craft or human weakness: but they are scarce a number that are remarked, in ancient story, to have fallen from Christianity by direct persuasions, or the efficacy of abusing arguments and discourses. The reason of it is the truth in the text: God did so avoid hearing sinners in this affair, that he never permitted them to do any miracles, so as to do any mischief to the souls of good men ; and therefore it is said, the enemies of Christ came "in the power of signs and wonders, able to deceive (if it were possible) even the very elect;" but that was not possible; without their faults it could not be; the elect were sufficiently strengthened, and the evidence of Christ's being heard of God, and that none of his enemies were heard of God to any dangerous effect, was so great, that if any Christian had apostatized or fallen away by direct persuasion, it was like the sin of a fallen angel, of so direct a malice, that he never could repent, and God never would pardon him, as St. Paul twice remarks in his Epistle to the Hebrews. The result of this discourse is the first sense and explication of the words "God heareth not sinners," viz. in that in which they are sinners: a sinner in his manners may be heard in his prayer, in order to the confirmation of his faith; but if he be a sinner in his faith, God hears him not at all in that wherein he sins; for God is truth, and cannot confirm a lie, and whenever he permitted the devil to do it, he secured the interest of his elect, that is, of all that believe in him and love him, "lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting."

2. That which yet concerns us more nearly is, that "God heareth not sinners;" that is, if we be not good men, our prayers will do us no good: we shall be in the condition of them that never pray at all. The prayers of a wicked man

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are like the breath of corrupted lungs; God turns away from such unwholesome breathings. But that I may reduce this necessary doctrine to a method, I shall consider that there are some persons whose prayers are sins, and some others whose prayers are ineffectual: some are such who do not pray lawfully; they sin when they pray, while they remain in that state and evil condition; others are such who do not obtain what they pray for, and yet their prayer is not a direct sin the prayer of the first is a direct abomination, the prayer of the second is hindered; the first is corrupted by a direct state of sin, the latter by some intervening imperfection and unhandsome circumstance of action; and in proportion to these, it is required, 1. that he be in a state and possibility of acceptation; and, 2, that the prayer itself be in a proper disposition. 1. Therefore we shall consider, what are those conditions, which are required in every person that prays, the want of which makes the prayer to be a sin? 2. What are the conditions of a good man's prayer, the absence of which makes that even his prayer return empty? 3. What degrees and circumstances of piety are required to make a man fit to be an intercessor for others, both with holiness in himself and effect to them he prays for? And, 4. as an appendix to these considerations, I shall add the proper indices and signification, by which we may make a judgment whether God hath heard our prayers or no.

1. Whosoever prays to God while he is in a state or in the affection to sin, his prayer is an abomination to God. This was a truth so believed by all nations of the world, that in all religions, they ever appointed baptisms and ceremonial expiations, to cleanse the persons, before they presented themselves in their holy offices. "Deorum templa cum adire disponitis, ab omni vos labe puros, lautos, castissimosque præstatis," said Arnobius to the gentiles: "When you address yourselves to the temples of your God, you keep yourselves chaste, and clean, and spotless." They washed their hands and wore white garments, they refused to touch a dead body, they avoided a spot upon their clothes as they avoided a wound upon their head, μὴ καθαρῷ γὰρ καθαροῦ ἐφάπτεσθαι μὴ οὐ θεμιτὸν ᾖ, That was the religious ground they went upon; "an impure thing ought not to touch that

which is holy," much less to approach the prince of purities; and this was the sense of the old world in their lustrations, and of the Jews in their preparatory baptisms; they washed their hands to signify, that they should cleanse them from all iniquity, and keep them pure from blood and rapine; they washed their garments; but that intended, they should not be spotted with the flesh; and their follies consisted in this, that they did not look to the bottom of their lavatories; they did not see through the veil of their ceremonies. "Flagitiis omnibus inquinati veniunt ad precandum, et se pie sacrificasse opinantur, si cutem laverint, tanquam libidines intra pectus inclusas ulla amnis abluat, aut ulla maria purificent," said Lactantius; "They come to their prayers dressed round about with wickedness, ut quercus hederá; and think, God will accept their offering, if their skin be washed ; as if a river could purify their lustful souls, or a sea take off their guilt." But David reconciles the ceremony with the mystery, "I will wash my hands, I will wash them in innocency, and so will I go to thine altar." "Hæ sunt veræ munditiæ (saith Tertullian) non quas plerique superstitione curant ad omnem orationem, etiam cum lavacro totius corporis aquam sumentes. This is the true purification, not that which most men do, superstitiously cleansing their hands and washing when they go to prayers, but cleansing the soul from all impiety, and leaving every affection to sin; then they come pure to God:" and this is it which the apostle also signifies, having translated the gentile and Jewish ceremony into the spirituality of the gospel, "I will therefore, that men pray every where, levantes puras manus, lifting up clean hands," so it is in the vulgar Latin; díous xegas, so it is in the Greek, holy hands; that is the purity, that God looks for upon them, that lift up their hands to him in prayer: and this very thing is founded upon the natural constitution of things, and their essential proportion to each other.

1. It is an act of profanation for any unholy person to handle holy things, and holy offices. For if God was ever careful to put all holy things into cancels, and immure them with acts and laws and cautions of separation; and the very sanctification of them was nothing else but the solemn separating them from common usages, that himself might be distinguished from men by actions of propriety; it is na

turally certain, he that would be differenced from common things, would be infinitely divided from things that are wicked. If things that are lawful may yet be unholy in this sense, much more are unlawful things most unholy in all senses. If God will not admit of that which is beside religion, he will less endure that which is against religion. And therefore if a common man must not serve at the altar, how shall he abide a wicked man to stand there? No: he will not endure him, but he will cast him and his prayer into the separation of an infinite and eternal distance. "Sic profanatis sacris peritura Troja perdidit primum Deos;-So Troy entered into ruin when their prayers became unholy, and they profaned the rites of their religion."

2. A wicked person, while he remains in that condition, is not the natural object of pity: Ελεός ἐστι λύπη ὡς ἐπὶ ἀναξίως xaxoяabour, said Zeno; "Mercy is a sorrow or a trouble at that misery, which falls upon a person which deserved it not.” And so Aristotle defines it, it is λύπη τις ἐπὶ τῷ πονηρῷ Toũ ȧvažíou Tuyxáver, "when we see the person deserves a better fortune," or is disposed to a fairer entreaty, then we naturally pity him and Simon pleaded for pity to the Trojans, saying,

-Miserere animi non digna ferentis,

For who pitieth the fears of a base man, who hath treacherously murdered his friend? or who will lend a friendly sigh, when he sees a traitor to his country pass forth through the execrable gates of cities? and when any circumstance of baseness, that is, any thing that takes off the excuse of infirmity, does accompany a sin (such as are ingratitude, perjury, perseverance, delight, malice, treachery), then every man scorns the criminal, and God delights and rejoices in, and laughs at the calamity of such a person. When Vitellius with his hands bound behind him, his imperial robe rent, and with a dejected countenance and an ill name, was led to execution, every man cursed him, but no man wept. "Deformitas exitus misericordiam abstulerat," saith Tacitus, "The filthiness of his life and death took away pity." So it is with us in our prayers; while we love our sin, we must nurse all its children; and when we roar in our lustful beds,

and groan with the whips of an exterminating angel, chastising those royaorgious Duμías (as Aretas calls them), "the lusts of the lower belly," wantonness, and its mother intemperance, we feel the price of our sin, that which God foretold to be their issues, that which he threatened us withal, and that which is the natural consequence, and its certain expectation, that which we delighted in, and chose, even then when we refused God, and threw away felicity, and hated virtue. For punishment is but the latter part of sin; it is not a new thing and distinct from it: or if we will kiss the hyæna, or clip the lamia about the neck, we have as certainly chosen the tail, and its venomous embraces, as the face and lip. Every man that sins against God and loves it, or, which is all one, continues in it, for by interpretation that is love, hath all the circumstances of unworthiness towards God; he is unthankful, and a breaker of his vows, and a despiser of his mercies, and impudent against his judgments; he is false to his profession, false to his faith; he is an unfriendly person, and useth him barbarously, who hath treated him with an affection not less than infinite; and if any man does half so much evil, and so unhandsomely to a man, we stone him with stones and curses, with reproach, and an unrelenting scorn. And how then shall such a person hope that God should pity him? For God better understands, and deeper resents, and more essentially hates, and more severely exacts, the circumstances and degrees of baseness, than we can do; and therefore proportionably scorns the person and derides the calamity. Is not unthankfulness to God a greater baseness and unworthiness than unthankfulness to our patron? And is not he as sensible of it and more than we? These things are more than words; and therefore if no man pities a base person, let us remember, that no man is so base in any thing as in his unhandsome demeanour towards God. Do we not profess ourselves his servants, and yet serve the devil? Do we not live upon God's provision, and yet stand or work at the command of lust or avarice, human regards and little interests of the world? We call him Father when we desire our portion, and yet spend it in the society of all his enemies. In short, let our actions to God and their circumstances be supposed to be done towards men, and we should scorn ourselves; and how then can we expect God should