ocate them from impertinent wanderings
and fix them upon the present object of our worship. This is to worship
him in spirit who is a Spirit.

The other thing that composes the sweet temper of prayer, is reverence.
And what more suitable, whether you consider him or yourselves? "If I be
your Father, where is my honour? and if I be your Master, where is my
fear?" Mal. i. 6. While we call him Father, or Lord, we proclaim this
much, that we ought to know our distance from him, and his superiority to
us. And if worship in prayer carry not this character, and express not
this honourable and glorious Lord, whom we serve, it wants that congruity
and suitableness to him that is the beauty of it. Is there any thing more
uncomely, than for children to behave themselves irreverently and
irrespectively towards their fathers, to whom they owe themselves? It is a
monstrous thing even in nature, and to nature's light. O how much more
abominable must it be, to draw near to the Father of spirits, who made us,
and not we ourselves, in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our
ways; in a word, to whom we owe not only this dust, but the living spirit
that animates it, that was breathed from heaven, and finally, "in whom we
live, and move, and have our being," and well-being; to worship such an
one, and yet to behave ourselves so unseemly and irreverently in his
presence, our hearts not stricken with the apprehension of his glory, but
lying flat and dead before him, having scarcely him in our thoughts whom
we speak to. And finally, our deportments in his sight are such, as could
not be admitted in the presence of any person a little above ourselves,--to
be about to speak to them, and yet to turn aside continually to every one
that cometh by, and entertain communication with every base creature.
This, I say, in the presence of a king, or nobleman, would be accounted
such an absurd incivility, as could be committed. And yet we behave
ourselves just so with the Father of spirits.

O the wanderings of the hearts of men in divine worship! While we are in
communication with our Father and Lord in prayer, whose heart is fixed to
a constant attendance and presence, by the impression of his glorious
holiness? Whose Spirit doth not continually gad abroad, and take a word of
every thing that occurs, and so mars that soul correspondence? O that this
word (Psal. lxxxix. 7.) were written with great letters on our hearts,
"God is greatly to be feare