1. As the univerfal and abfolute Monarch of all the creation, and the only one, 1 Chron. xxix. 11. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majefty for all that is in heaven and in the earth, is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. Univerfal and abfolute fovereignty are the flowers of the imperial crown of he iven, and belong to no other. There are many kings on earth, but they are all limited monarchs, and vaffals to the King of heaven, who can have no competitor: Lord, thine is the kingdom.

2. As the Omnipotent, and only Omnipotent, ibid. The power of men and angels is but a fhadow of power, weakness in comparison with God's. None of them all are capable to do what they are capable to will. But his power and will are of equal extent.

3. As the chief end of all things, ibid. and the only chief end. It is the peculiar prerogative of God to fay, For mine own fake, even for mine own fake, will I do it, I. xlviii. 11. All perfons and things are for God, God is for himself; and the glory of all redounds to him, and will do for evermore.

This teaches us, That in our prayers we fhould praise God, as well as petition him. Praife is a comely mixture in all the parts of divine worship. It is moft directly tending to God's honour; and it is the piece of worship that will last longeft; when prayers, &c. are laid by in heaven, praife will be there for ever.

Obfer. This pattern of prayer begins with praife, and ends. with it too. For it is neceffary in the entrance, that we have our hearts awed with the divine glory, that fo we may be the fitter to pray on: and in the end, that we may carry away high thoughts of God, for the better regulating of our life, in the intervals of duty.

Secondly, Let us confider the pleading arguments in prayer; and they are all taken from God himfelf, For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever.

Cbfer. This teaches us to take our encouragement from God only in prayer, to draw our arguments from the confideration of what God is. This is a large field, to fill our mouths with arguments, and to furnifh us with fuitable pleas in prayer.

Queft. May we not plead with God upon any thing in ourfelves? Anf. (.) We may not plead upon any worthiness in ourfelves or any other creature, Dan. ix. 18. We do not present cur fupplications before thee for our righteoufnefes, but for thy great mercies. 1 Tim. ii. 5. For there is one God, and one Medi

ator between God and men, the man Chrift Fefus. (2.) Though in our pleading we may bring in both our evil and our good, yet the force of the plea or argument is not to be laid on either of them, but on fomething in God himself anfwerable thereto. David brings in the greatnefs of his fin, in his plea for pardon; but the ftrefs of the plea lies not there, but on God's own name, to be magnified greatly by the pardon of great fin, Pfal. xxv. 11. For thy name's fake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity ; for it is great. Hezekiah brings in his upright walking in the plea for prolonging his life, If. xxxviii. 3. Remember now, O Lord, fays he, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy fight. But the ftrefs of it lay on God's faithfulness in that promife, 1 Kings viii. 25. Therefore now, Lord God of lfracl, keep with thy fervant David my father that thou promisedft him, faying, There fball not fail thee a man in my fight to fit on the throne of Ifrael; fo that thy children take heed to their way, that they walk before me as thou hast walked before me.

Now the plea for hearing, here put in our mouths, is threefold.

1. The kingdom is the Lord's. The firefs of the argument from this is, Therefore thou mayft do it, thou haft full authority to grant us whatsoever thou wilt, Matth. xx. 15. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?

2. The power is the Lord's. Therefore thou canst do whatfoever we afk, over the belly of all oppofition, and however hopeless it be in itself, Eph. iii. zo. He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.

3. The glory is the Lord's. Therefore thou wilt do it, fince thou loveft thy glory, and wilt have glory for evermore from anfwering our petitions, Jofh. vii. 9. What will thou not do unto thy great name?

III. Let us confider the concluding word, Amen. It imports two things. (1.) Our defire to be heard. g. d. So be it, Rev. xxii. 20. Amen. Even fo come, Lord Jefus. And the believer ufes this word properly as a teftimony of his defire, when by faith he is enabled and emboldened to plead with God, that he would fulfil his requests, 2 Chron. xx. 6. 11. (2.) Our confidence and affurance that we fhall be heard: q. d. So certainly it fhall be, Rev. i. 7. Even fo. Amen. And the fincere Chriftian ufes the word with great propriety in the conclufion of his prayers, in teftimony of his affurance to be heard, when he is by faith emboldened quietly to reft upon the Lord, that he will fulfil the defires of his heart, 2 Chron. xiv. 11.

I conclude all with a very few inferences.

Inf. 1. Be fervent and importunate with God in prayer, and fet yourselves to plead and pray, as men that are in the deepest earnest about a thing on which their highest interests are fufpended, Jam. v. 16. If earneftness and importunity are any where required, here they are highly, nay abfolutely requifite.

2. Let not complaints juftle out praifes from your prayers, but still remember that every day affords you as much matter of praife as of requeft. God's mercies are new every morning; let therefore the facrifice of praise be a part of the daily facrifiçe ye offer unto God. Never bow a knee unto God for fupplicating a mercy from him, without praifing him for what mercies ye enjoy. This is a very promifing way of obtaining the requests ye make at the throne of grace in the confidence of faith.

3. Deeply confider what a God he is with whom you have to do, to fill your mouth with arguments. Pleas in prayer may be fetched, and faith will fetch them, from every divine attribute and perfection; and faith will improve thefe pleas in fuch a manner as to procure the good things it applies to the throne for. What wilt thou not do unto thy great name? is a standing plea for faith; which can never be rejected. Mercy, holinefs, juftice, truth, &c. all magnified by the obedience and fatisfaction of Chrift, will be never-failing pleas in the mouth of the prayer of faith.

4. Laftly, Ufe not Amen fuperficially at the end of your prayers, but with earneftnefs and faith. As for those who think it fuperftition to fay Amen, they are ignorant of the word of God; and I would recommend to them to confult their Bible and catechifm, in order to cure them of that fenfelefs conceit.

And thus, by the good hand of God upon me, I have finifhed what I intended by way of illuftration of the great doctrines of the Chriftian religion, with refpect to faith and prac tice, as compendized, from the holy fcriptures, in our Shorter Catechifm. I am fenfible of many defects in the profecution of fuch a large work: for who is fufficient for these things but I have endeavoured, according to the measure of grace given unto me, to declare unto you what I am perfuaded is truth, agreeable to the word of God, the rule and standard of all religious truth. And I would now ask you, What entertainment have ye given to the great and important truths laid before you, from the Lord's word, in the course of these

fermons, in which I have been engaged a confiderable part of feveral years? Do ye now believe? Have ye embraced these doctrines with a divine faith, a faith of the operation of God? have ye received the truths into your hearts, ́and are your hearts moulded into the image of them? Are they be come the food and nourishment of your fouls, fo as ye are made to esteem them more than the food that is neceffary for the fupport of your natural life? Are they written on your hearts, and impreffed on your confciences, fo as to become an effective principle of new obedience? Is the effect of them the fanctification of your hearts and lives? and is the refult of the whole an earnest defire to know the truth more fully and clearly, and to regulate every motion and defire of your hearts, every word of your mouths, and every action of your lives, by the truth, fo as ye may be enabled through grace to do the whole will of God? If thefe catechetical difcourfes have not produced fome fuch effects upon you, or any of you, alas! they have been all loft as to any faving benefit to your fouls, and will be a fwift and terrible witnefs against you in the day of the Lord Jefus. O Sirs, confider, bethink yourselves, recollect the great and important truths I have been laying before you, drawn from the pure and uncorrupted fountain of the Lord's word, and let them have a fuitable and lafting influence on your hearts and lives. If ye imprifon the truth, and hold it in unrighteoufnefs, by refifting and opposing is effect, which is fanctification, John xvii. 17. and refufing to let it rule over you, and raifing up your lufts against it, and fo unrighteously fmothering and fuppreffing it, ye do fo at a terrible rifk: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven a gainst all ungodliness, and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteoufnefs, Rom. i. 18. It is very probable, that many of you at leaft have acquired more knowledge of the principles of religion, than ye had formerly; and I am obliged to own; that your knowledge of the truths thereof is as much generally, as ever I obferved in other places. But is it fanctifying faving knowledge, or only merely fpeculative, floating in your heads, without having a due and efficacious influence upon your hearts? Alas! I muft fay, that truth is held prifoner with a witnefs among us, and that our lives are not an fwerable to our light, and I am much afraid it bring wrath on the place. I therefore carneftly befeech and exhort one and all of you to study to know the truth as it is in Jefus, to have a heart experimental knowledge thereof, a real feeling and fenfation of the fweetnefs, virtue, and excellency thereof, in your minds, fo as ye may tafte indeed that the Lord is good.

This knowledge alone will be available to your falvation, while all other knowledge is quite ufelefs and unprofitable as to any falutary effect. For fays our Lord, John xvii. 3. This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jefus Chri,t whom thou haft fent. But the further preffing of this experimental knowledge of Chrift, I must defer to another occafion, with which I fhall conclude this work.

A Difcourfe on the experimental Knowledge of Chrift.

PHILIPPIANS iii. 10.

That I may know him.

MERE fpeculative knowledge of Chrift, and of the great doctrines of the gofpel, however laboriously acquired and extenfive it may be, is of f.n... importance in itself, and quite vain and ineffectual, if it be not fanctified, and iffue in an experimental knowledge of Christ, and a real feeling of the beauty, excellency, and efficacy of divine truth on the heart. A man may have a competent, nay a very extensive acquaintance with the whole doctrines of the Chriftian religion, as laid down in the holy fcriptures, and of which we have an excellent compend in the Shorter Catechifm, which I have been endeavouring to explain to you for a feries of years; yet if you have not the experimental knowledge of Chrift, all your knowledge is in vain as to the falvation of your fouls. I therefore come, as a conclufion of the whole, to prefs this experimental knowledge upon you, as what alone will be available for any faving purposes.

.

In the preceding verfe the apoftle speaks of the gain he received in Chriftianity in point of juftification, flowing from the foul's clofing with Chrift, and renouncing all other; and here he fpeaks of that gain in point of fanctification. And first more generally, That I may know him. Might not the Philippians hereupon have faid, And do not you know Chrift, who have preached him fo long? There are two ways of knowing, one by hearing of a thing, another by fight and feeling; one by the relation of another, another by experience, as one knows honey and all the virtues of it by report, which he believes, another by tafting it himself. The apoftle knew Chrift by faith, when he first believed in him; and here he would have the fpiritual feeling and experience of