Aids to devotion Author:Isaac Watts Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AIDS TO DEVOTION. PART 1. GENERAL VIEWS OF PRAYER. Selected from Bickersleth's Treatise on Prayer. SECTION 1. THE NATURE OF PRAYER. It is the natur... more »e of prayer, that it gives to needy and sinful men, in the limited time of this life, every day, yes, every hour, the great privilege of access to the King of kings and Lord of lords, to the Most High, and the Most Holy, and this with the utmost freedom and confidence; the access not merely qf a servant to a master, or a subject to a king: but'of a child to a tender parent. Prayer is, then, a holy intercourse with God.— "It is,' as the martyr Bradford expresses it, 'a simple, unfeigned, humble, and ardent offering of the heart before God, wherein we either ask things needful, or give thanks for benefits received." Acceptable prayer is the desire of the heart offered up to God through the inluence of his Spirit, in th Bame of his Son Jesus Christ, for things according A 2 to his will, and in confidence that he hears us, and will answer us. There is no prayer without the exercise of holy and suitable dispositions and affections. " The true worshippers,' says our Lord, ' shall worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him." Prayer is not the mere posture of the body.—A man may kneel till he wear out the stones; like the Mahomedans, he may put himself into every variety of posture, throw himself on the earth and lie in the dust; like Ahab, he may put on sackcloth and ashes; or, like the monks of modern times? kneel till his knees become horny, and yet never pray at all. ft is not the mere expression of the mouth.—A man may repeat a hundred times in a day, that comprehensive and affecting prayer which our Lord has taught us to use; or he may say, " My spul thirsteth for thee,...« less