wn with every wind, it is
double-minded; now one way, then another, now in one mind, and shortly
changed; and indeed the soul is like the sea, capable of the least or
greatest commotion, James i. 6-8. I know not any thing that will either
fix your hearts from wandering in prayer, or establish your hearts from
trouble and disquiet after it, nothing that will so exoner(219) and ease
your spirits of care as this, to lay hold on God as all-sufficient, and
lay that constraint on your hearts, to wait on him and his pleasure, to
cast your souls on his promises, that are so full and so free, and abide
there, as at your anchor-hold, in all the vicissitudes and changes of
outward or inward things. In spiritual things that concern your salvation,
that which is absolutely necessary, you may take the boldness to be
absolute in it, and as Job, "though he should slay me, yet will I trust in
him;" and as Jacob, "I will not let thee go till thou bless me." But
either in outward things, that have some usefulness in them, but are not
always fittest for our chiefest good; or in the degrees of spiritual
gifts, and measures of graces, the Lord calls us without anxiety to pour
out our hearts in them unto him. But withal we would do it with submission
to his pleasure, because he knows best what is best for us. In these, we
are not bound to be confident to receive the particular we ask, but rather
our confidence should pitch upon his good-will and favour, that he will
certainly deny nothing that himself knows is good for us. And so in these
we should absolutely cast ourselves without carefulness upon his loving
and fatherly providence, and resign ourselves to him to be disposed of in
them as he sees convenient. There is sometimes too much limitation of God,
and peremptoriness used with him in such things, in which his wisdom
craves a latitude both in public and private matters, even as men's
affections and interests are engaged. But ordinarily it is attended and
followed with shame and disappointment in the end. And there is, on the
other hand, intolerable remissness and slackness in many, in pressing even
the weightiest petitions of salvation, mortification, &c. which certainly
ariseth from the diffidence and unbelief of the heart, and the want of
that rooted persuasion, both of the incomparable necessity and worth of
the things themselves, and of his willingness and engagement to bestow
them.

The word is doubled here, "Abba, Father," the Syri