too much to ourselves; if pleasure seduce, and pious works excite our pride; if health arouse the passions, and sickness nourish either lukewar nines s or murmurings: in a word, if, since the fall of nature, every thing in, or around us, be a fresh danger to be dreaded; in a situation so deplorable, what hope of salvation, O, my God! could there be still remaining to man, if, from the bottom of his wretchedness, he had it not in his power to make his lamentations to be continually mounting toward the throne of thy mercy, in order to prevail that thou thyself may come to his aid; that thou may interfere to put a check upon his passions, to clear up his errors, to sustain his weakness, to lessen his temptations, to abridge his hours of trials, and to save him from his backslidings?
The Christian is therefore a man of prayer; his origin, his situation, his nature, his wants, his place of abode, all inform him that prayer is necessary. The church herself, in which he is incorporated through the grace of regeneration, a stranger here below, is always plaintive and full of lamentation; she recognizes her children only through their sighs, which they direct toward their country; and the Christian who does not pray, cuts himself off from the assembly of the holy, and is worse than an unbeliever.
How comes it then, my brethren, that a duty not only so essential, but even so consoling for man, is at present so much neglected? How comes it that it is considered either as a gloomy and tiresome duty, or as appropriated solely for retired souls; insomuch, that our instructions upon prayer scarcely interest those who listen to us, who seem as if persuaded that they are more adapted to the cloister than to the court?
Whence comes this abuse, and this universal neglect in the world of prayer? From two pretexts, which I now mean to overthrow. First, they do not pray, because they know not, say they, how to pray; and, consequently, that it is lost time. Secondly, they do not pray, because they complain that they find nothing in prayer but wanderings of the mind, which render it both insipid and disagreeable. First pretext, drawn from their ignorance of the manner in which they ought to pray. Second pretext, founded on the disgusts and difficulties of prayer. You must be taught, therefore, how to pray, since you know it not. And, secondly, the habit of prayer must be rendered easy to you, since you find it so troublesome and difficult.
Part I. — " The commandments which I command you," said formerly the Lord to his people, " are neither above your strength nor the reach of your mind; they are not hidden from you, nor far off, that you should say, who shall go up for us to heaven and bring them unto us, that we may hear them and do them? Nor are they beyond the sea, that you should say, who shall go over the sea for us and bring them unto us, that we may hear them and do them? But the word is very nigh unto you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it."
Now, what the Lord said in general of all the precepts of the
