in such a way as is most agreeable to our state, and most easy to our apprchension, he speaks such language as we can understand, and invites us to humble conferenee with him in the same way. Come, says God to his people, by Isaiah his prophet, Come now, and let us reason together, Isa. i. 18. And he often in holy seripture, represents himself as moved and influeneed by the prayers and pleadings of his afflieted saints; and he has ordained before hand, that the day when he prepares their hearts to pray, shall be the day when his ear shall hear the desire of the humble, and shall be the season of their deliverence, Psal. x. 17.
If you inquire, how a Christian pleads with his God, and whence does he borrow his arguments; I answer, that according to the various sorrows and difficulties which attend him, so various may his pleadings be for the removal of them. There is not a circumstance which belongs to his affliction, but he may draw some argument from it to plead for mercy; there is not one attribute of the divine nature, but he may use it with holy skill, and thereby plead for grace; there is not one relation in which God stands to his people, nor one promise of his covenant, but may at some time or other afford an argument in prayer. But the strongest and sweetest argument that a Christian knows, is the
