PRAYER, a solemn address to God, which, when it is of any considerable length, consists of adoration, confession, supplication, intercession, and thanksgiving.

By adoration we express our sense of God’s infinite perfections, his power, wisdom, goodness, and mercy; and acknowledge that our constant dependence is upon Him by whom the universe was created and has been hitherto preserved. By confession is meant our acknowledgment of our manifold transgressions of the divine laws, and our consequent unworthiness of all the good things which we enjoy at present, or expect to be conferred upon us hereafter. In supplication we entreat our omnipotent Creator and merciful Judge, not to deal with us after our iniquities, but to pardon our transgressions, and by his grace to enable us to live henceforth righteously, soberly, and godly, in this present world; and by Christians this intreaty is always made in the name and through the mediation of' Jesus Christ, because to them it is known that there is none other name under heaven given unto men whereby they may be saved. To these supplications for mercy, we may likewise add our prayers for the necessaries of life, because if we seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, we are assured that such things shall be added unto us. Intercession, signifies those petitions which we offer up for others, for friends, for enemies, for all men, especially for our lawful governors, whether supreme or subordinate. And thanksgiving is the expression of our gratitude to God, the giver of every good and perfect gift, for all the benefits enjoyed by us and others, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. Such are the component parts of a regular and solemn prayer, adapted either for the church or for the closet. But an ejaculation to God, conceived on any emergency, is likewise a prayer, whether it be uttered by the voice, or suffered to remain a mere affection of the mind; because the being to whom it is addressed discerneth the thoughts of the heart.

That prayer is a duty which all men ought to perform with humility and reverence, has been generally acknowledged as well by the untaught barbarian as by the enlightened Christian; and yet to this duty objections have been made by which the understanding has been bewildered in sophistry and affronted with jargon. “If God be independent, omnipotent, and possessed of every other perfection, what pleasure, it has been asked, can he take in our ac knowledgment of these perfections? If he knows all things past, present, and future, where is the propriety of our confessing our sins unto him? If he is a benevolent and merciful Being, be will pardon our sins, and grant us what is needful for us without our supplications and entreaties; and if he be likewise possessed of infinite wisdom, it is certain that no importunities of ours will prevail upon him to grant us what is improper, or for our sakes to change the equal and steady laws by which the world is governed.

Shall Durning Aetna, if a sage requires Forget to thunder, and recal her fires? On air or sea new motions be imprest, O blameless Bethel, to relieve thy breast? When the loose mountain trembles from on high, Shall gravitation cease, if you go by?

Or some old temple, nodding to its fall, For Chartres’ head reserve the hanging wall?

Such are the most plausible objections which are usually made to the practice of prayer; and though they have been set off with all the art of the metaphysical wrangler, and embellished with all the graces of the poetry of Pope, they appear to us such gross sophisms as can operate only on a very unthinking head, or on a very corrupt heart. For if God certainly exists, and there is not a mathematical theorem capable of more rigid demonstration, it is obvious that no man can think of such a Being without having his mind strongly impressed with the conviction of his own constant dependence upon him; nor can he “contemplate the heavens, the work of God’s hands, the moon and the stars which he has ordained,” without forming the most sublime conceptions that he can of the Divine power, wisdom, and goodness. But such conviction, and such conceptions, whether clothed in words or not, are to all intents and purposes what is meant by adoratiòn; and are as well known to the Deity [7:18:505]whilst they remain the silent affections of the heart, as after they are spoken in the beginning of a prayer. Our adoration, therefore, is not expressed for the purpose of giving information to God, who understands our thoughts afar off; but merely, when the prayer is private, because we cannot think any more than speak without words, and because the very sound of words that are well chosen affects the heart, and helps to fix our attention. And as the Being who sees at once the past, present, and to come, and to whom a thousand years are but as one day, stands not in need of our information; so neither was it ever supposed by a man of rational piety, that he takes pleasure on his own account in hearing his perfections enumerated by creatures of yesterday; for being independent, he has no passions to be gratified, and being self-sufficient, he was as happy when existing alone as at that moment “when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” Adoration is therefore proper only as it tends to preserve in our minds just notions of the Creator and Governor of the world, and of our own constant dependence upon him; and if such notions be useful to ourselves, who have a part to act in the scale of existence, upon which our happiness depends, a proposition which no theist will controvert, adoration must be acceptable to that benevolent God, who, when creating the world, could have no other end in view than to propagate happiness.

By the same mode of reasoning, it will be easy to show the duty of confession and supplication. We are not required to confess our sins unto God, because he is ignorant of them; for he is ignorant of nothing. If he were, no reason could be assigned for our divulging to our judge actions deserving of punishment. Neither are we required to cry for mercy, in order to move him in whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. The Being that made the world, governs it by laws that are inflexible, because they are the best; and to suppose that he can be induced by prayers, oblations, or sacrifices, to vary this plan of government, is an impious thought, which degrades the Deity to a level with man. One of these inflexible laws is the connection established between certain dispositions of mind and human happiness. We are enjoined to pursue a particular course of conduct under the denomination of virtue, not because our virtuous actions can in any degree be of advantage to him by whom we are created, but because they necessarily generate in our own minds those dispositions which are essential to our ultimate happiness. A man of a malignant, arrogant, or sensual disposition, would have no enjoyment in that heaven, where all are actuated by a spirit of love and purity; and it is doubtless for this reason amongst others, that the Christian religion prohibits malice, arrogance, and sensuality, among her votaries, and requires the cultivation of the opposite virtues. But a person who has deviated far from his duty cannot think of returning, unless he be previously convinced that he has gone astray. Such conviction, whenever he obtains it, will necessarily impress upon his mind a sense of his own danger, and fill his heart with sorrow and remorse for having transgressed the laws established by the most benevolent of all Beings for the propagation of universal felicity This conviction of error, this sense of danger, and this compunction for having transgressed, are all perceived by the Deity as soon as they take place in the mind of the sinner; and he is required to confess his sins, only because the act of confession tends to imprint more deeply on his mind his own unworthiness, and the necessity of returning immediately into the paths of that virtue of which all the ways are pleasantness, and all the paths are peace.

In the objection, it is taken for granted, that if God be a benevolent and merciful Being, he will pardon our sins, and grant us what is needful for us, whether we supplicate him or not; but this is a gross and palpable mistake, arising from the objector’s ignorance of the, end of virtue and the nature of man. Until a man be sensible of his sins and his danger, he is, for the reason already assigned, incapable of pardon, because his disposition is incompatible with the happiness of the blessed. But whenever he acquires this conviction, it is impossible for him not to form a mental wish that he may be pardoned; and this wish being perceptible to the all-seeing eye of his Judge, forms the sum and substance of a supplication for mercy. If he clothe it in words, it is only for a reason similar to that which makes him adore his Creator and confess his sins in words, that just notions may be more deeply imprinted on his own mind. The same reasoning holds good with respect to those prayers which we put up for temporal blessings, for protection and support in our journey through life. We are told by high authority, that “the Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.” This, however, is not because he is attracted or delighted by their prayers and entreaties, but because those prayers and entreaties fit such as öfter them for receiving those benefits which he is at all times ready to pour upon all mankind. In his essence God is equally present with the righteous and with the wicked, with those who pray, and with those who pray not; for “the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” But as the atmosphere equally surrounds every person upon this globe, and yet in its state of greatest purity does not affect the asthmatic as it affects those who are whole; so the Divine presence, though essentially the same everywhere, yet does not protect the impious as it protects the devout, because the impious are not in a state capable of the Divine protection. The end for which God requires the exercise of prayer as a duty, is not his benefit, but ours; because it is a mean to generate in the petitioner such a disposition of mind as must render him a special object of that love and that providential care which extend over the whole creation.

That part of the objection which results from the consideration of the fixed laws of nature, and which the poet has so finely illustrated, presents, it must be confessed, consider·, able difficulties; but none which to us appear insurmountable. If, indeed, we suppose that in the original constitution of things, when the laws of nature were established, a determinate duration was given to the top of the mountain and the nodding temple, without any regard to foreseen consequences, it would undoubtedly be absurd and perhaps impious to expect the law of gravitation to be suspended by the prayers of a good man, who should happen to be passing at the instant decreed for the fall of these objects. But of such a constitution there is so far from being evidence, that it appears not to be consistent with the wisdom and goodness of the Author of nature. This world was undoubtedly formed for the habitation of man and of other animals. If so, we must necessarily suppose, that in the establishing of the laws of nature, God adjusted them in such a manner as he saw would best serve the accommodation of those sentient beings for whose accommodation alone they were to be established. Let it then be admitted, that all the human beings who were ever to exist upon this globe, with all their thoughts, words, and actions, were at that important moment present to the divine intellect, and it will surely not be impossible to conceive that in consequence of the foreseen danger and prayers of a good man, the determinate duration of the mountain and the tower might be either lengthened or shortened to let him escape. This idea of providence, and of the efficacy of prayer, is thus illustrated by Mr. Wollaston. “Suppose Μ (some man) certainly to foreknow, by some means or other, that, when he should come to be upon his death-bed. L w ould petition for particular legacy, in a manner so earnest and humble, and with such a good disposition, as would render it proper to grant his request; and upon this, Μ makes his last will, by which he devises to L that which was to be asked, and then locks up the will ; and all this many years [7:18:506]before the death of Μ, and whilst L had yet no expectation or thought of any such thing. When the time comes, the petition is made and granted ; not by making any new will, but by the old one already made, and without alteration; which legacy had, notwithstanding that, never been left, had the petition never been preferred. The grant may be called the effect of a future act, and depends as much upon it as if it had been made after the act. So, if it had been foreseen, that L would not so much as ask, and he had been therefore left out of the will, this praeterition would have been caused by his carriage, though much later than the date of the will. In all this nothing is hard to be admitted, if Μ be allowed to foreknow the case. And thus the prayers which good men offer to the all-knowing God, and the neglect of prayers by others, may find fitting effects already forecasted in the course of nature.”

This solution of the difficulty presents indeed to the mind a prodigious scheme, in which all things to come are, as it were, comprehended under one view, and estimated and compared together. But when it is considered what a mass of wonders the universe is in other respects; what an incomprehensibly great and perfect being God is; that he cannot be ignorant of any thing, no not of the future wants and deportments of particular men; and that all things which derive their existence from him must be consistent with one another, it must surely be confessed that such an adjustment of physical causes to moral volitions is within the compass of infinite power and perfect wisdom.

To that part of a prayer which we have termed intercession, it has been objected, that “to intercede for others is to presume that we possess an interest with the Deity upon which their happiness and even the prosperity of whole communities depends.” In answer to this objection, it has been observed by an ingenious and useful writer (Mr. Paley), that “how unequal soever our knowledge of the Divine economy may be to a complete solution of this difficulty, which may require a comprehension of the entire plan, and of all the ends of God’s moral government, to explain it satisfactorily, we can yet understand one thing concerning it, that it is, after all, nothing more than the making of one man the instrument of happiness and misery to another; which is perfectly of a piece with the course and order that obtain, and which we must believe were intended to obtain, in human affairs. Why may we not be assisted by the prayers of other men, as well as we are beholden for our support to their labour ? WTry may not our happiness be made in some cases to depend upon the intercession as it certainly does in many upon the good offices of our neighbours? The happiness and misery of great numbers we see oftentimes at the disposal of one man’s choice, or liable to be much affected by his conduct; what greater difficulty is there in supposing, that the prayers of an individual may avert a calamity from multitudes, or be accepted to the benefit of whole communities.”

These observations may perhaps be sufficient to remove the force of the objection, but much more may be said for the practice of mutual intercession. If it be one man’s duty to intercede for another, it is the duty of that other to intercede for him; and if we set aside the particular relations which arise from blood, and from particular stations in society, mutual intercession must be equally the duty of all mankind. But there is nothing (we speak from our own experience, and appeal to the experience of our readers), which has so powerful a tendency to generate in the heart of any person good-will towards another, as the constant practice of praying to God for his happiness. Let a man regularly pray for his enemy with all that seriousness which devotion requires, and he will not long harbour resentment against him. Let him pray for his friend with that ardour which friendship naturally inspires, and he will perceive his attachment to grow daily and daily stronger. If, then, universal benevolence, or charity, be a disposition which we ought to cultivate in ourselves, mutual intercession is undeniably a duty, because nothing contributes so effectually to the acquisition of that spirit which an apostle terms the end of the commandment.

When it is said, that by interceding for kings, and all in authority, Ave seem to consider the prosperity of communities as depending upon our interest with God, the objector mistakes the nature and end of these intercessions. In the prosperity of any community consists great part of the happiness of its individual members; but that prosperity depends much upon the conduct of its governors. When, therefore, individuals intercede for their governors, the ultimate object of their prayers must be conceived to be their own good.

Having evinced the duty of adoration, confession, supplication, and intercession, ave need not surely waste our readers’ time with a formal and laboured vindication of thanksgiving. Gratitude for benefits received is so universally acknoAvledged to be a virtue, and ingratitude is so detestable a vice, that no man who lays claim to a moral character will dare to affirm that Ave ought not to have a just sense of the goodness of God. (π.h h.h)