conceive how any man can pray, or be obliged to pray, who expects nothing from his prayers; but who is perfuaded, at the time he utters his request, that it cannot poffibly produce the fmalleft impreffion upon the being to whom it is addreffed, or advantage to himfelf. Now the efficacy of prayer imports that we obtain fomething in confequence of praying, which we fhould not have received without prayer; against all expectation of which, the following objection has been often and ferioufly alleged-" If "it be moft agreeable to perfect wisdom and justice that we fhould receive what we defire, God, as perfectly wife and juft, will give it to us without asking; if it be not agreeable to thefe "attributes of his nature, our entreaties cannot "move him to give it us, and it were impious. "to expect that they fhould." In fewer words, thus: "If what we requeft be fit for us, we shall have it without praying; if it be not "fit for us, we cannot obtain it by praying." This objection admits but of one anfwer, namely, that it may be agreeable to perfect wisdom to grant that to our prayers, which it would not have: been agreeable to the fame wifdom to have given. us without praying for. But what virtue, you will afk, is there in prayer, which should make a fa a favour confiftent with wifdom, which would not have been fo without it? To this queftion, which contains the whole difficulty attending the fubject, the following poffibilities are offered in reply. 1. A favour granted to prayer may be more apt, on that very account, to produce good effects upon the perfon obliged. It may hold in the divine bounty, what experience has raifed into a proverb in the collation of human benefits, that what is obtained without afking, is oftentimes received without gratitude. 2. It may be confiftent with the wisdom of the Deity to withhold his favours till they be afked for, as an expedient to encourage devotion in his rational creation, in order thereby to keep up and circulate a knowledge and fenfe of their dependency upon him. 3. Prayer has a natural tendency to amend the petitioner himself; and thus to bring him within the rules, which the wifdom of the Deity has prefcribed to the difpenfation of his favours. If thefe, or any other affignable fuppofitions, ferve to remove the apparent repugnancy between the fuccefs of prayer and the character of the Deity, it is enough; for the queftion with the petitioner is not from which, out of many mo VOL. II. D tives, tives, God may grant his petition, or in what particular manner he is moved by the fupplications of his creatures; but whether it be confiftent with his nature to be moved at all, and whether there be any conceivable motives, which may difpofe the divine will to grant the petitioner what he wants, in consequence of his praying for it. It is fufficient for the petitioner, that he gain his end. It is not neceffary to devotion, perhaps not very consistent with it, that the circuit of caufes, by which his prayers prevail, fhould be known to the petitioner, much lefs that they should be prefent to his imagination at the time. All that is neceffary is, that there be no impoffiblity apprehended in the matter. Thus much must be conceded to the objection; that prayer cannot reasonably be offered to God with all the fame views, with which we oftentimes address our entreaties to men views which are not commonly or eafily feparated from it), viz. to inform them of our wants or defires; to teafe them out by importunity; to work upon their indolence or compaffion in order to perfuade them to do what they ought to have done before, or ought not to do at all. But : But fuppofe there exifted a prince, who was known by his fubjects to act, of his own accord, always and invariably for the beft; the fituation. of a petitioner, who folicited a favour or pardon from fuch a prince, would fufficiently resemble ours and the queftion with him, as with us, would be, whether, the character of the prince being confidered, there remained any chance that he should obtain from him by prayer, what he would not have received without it. I do not conceive, that the character of fuch a prince would neceffarily exclude the effect of his fubjects' prayers; for, when that prince reflected, that the earneftnefs and humility of the fupplication had generated in the fuppliant a frame of mind, upon which the pardon or favour afked would produce a permanent and active fenfe of gratitude; that the granting of it to prayer would put others upon praying to him, and by that means preferve the love and fubmiffion of his fubjects, upon which love and fubmiffion their own happiness, as well as his glory, depended; that, befide that the memory of the particular kindness would be heightened and prolonged by the anxiety with which it had been fued for, prayer had in other refpects so disposed and prepared the mind of the petitioner,, as to render D 2 render capable of future fervices him who be fore was unqualified for any: might not that prince, I fay, although he proceeded upon no other confiderations than the ftrict rectitude and expediency of the measure, grant a favour or pardon to this man, which he did not grant to another, who was too proud, too lazy, or too bufy, too indifferent whether he received it or not, or too infenfible of the fovereign's abfolute power to give or to withhold it, ever to ask for it; or even to the philofopher, who, from an opinion of the fruitleffnefs of all addreffes to a prince of the character which he had formed to himself, refused in his own example, and difcouraged in others, all outward returns of gratitude, acknowledgments of duty, or application to the fovereign's mercy or bounty; the difufe of which (feeing affections do not long fubfift which are never expreffed) was followed by a decay of loyalty and zeal among his fubjects, and threatened to end in a forgetfulness of his rights, and a contempt of his authority? Thefe, together with other af fignable confiderations, and fome perhaps in-. fcrutable, and even inconceivable by the perfons upon whom his wil was to be exercifed, might pafs in the mind of the prince, and move his counfels, whilft nothing, in the mean time, dwelt |