land will be numbered in the roll of the greatest
provocations, because there is no real and spiritual conviction of sin
among us, custom hath now taken away the solemnity, and there remaineth
nothing but the very name. Is this the fast that the Lord chooseth? No,
believe it, this shall add to your provocation, and rather hasten
lingering judgment than keep it off. We would beseech you this day, pray
for pardon of former abused fasts. If you had no more to mourn for, this
might spend the day and our spirits both, and exhaust all our present
supplications--even the wall of partition that stands between God and
Scotland, which all our former solemn humiliations hath built up, a great
deal higher than other sins could reach.

"There is none that calleth upon thy name." Did not this people make many
prayers (Isa. i. 15), before the captivity? And did they not cry, which
noteth some fervency in it, and fast, a little before it in Jeremiah's
time, (chap. xi. 11, and xiv. 12,) and in the time of it, Ezek. vii. 18,
Mic. iii. 4, Zech. vii. 3? How, then, is it that the prophet, now on the
watch tower, looking round about him to take up the people's condition,
and being led by the Spirit so far as to the case of the captives in
Babel, can find no prayer, no calling? And was not Daniel so too? Dan. ix.
13. Lo, then, here is the construction that the Spirit of God putteth on
many prayers and fastings in a land, "There is none calleth on thy name,"
there is none that prayeth faithfully and fervently, few to count upon
that prayeth any. It may be there are many public prayers, but who prayeth
in secret, and mourneth to God alone? There are many prayers, but the
inscription is, "To the unknown God," to a nameless God; your praying is
not a calling on his name, as a known God and revealed in the word.

This, then, we would say unto you, that there may be many prayers in your
account, and none in God's. There are many prayers of men that God
counteth no more of than the howling of a dog.

_First_, The cry of men's practices is often louder than their prayers,
and goeth up to heaven, that the cry of prayer cannot be heard. When men's
conversation is flat contrary to their supplications, supplication is no
calling on his name, but charming rather. Sodom's abominations had a cry
up to God, Gen. xviii. 21. So Abel's blood had a cry for vengeance, which
Cain's prayers could not outcry. Thus the Lord would not hear many
prayers, Isa. i. 15, b