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your meditation, then it will be best to break through all hinderances, and without further preparation attend to the duty of prayer, only with premeditation of God to whom, and of Christ by whom, through the Spirit, you must pray.

If for all this you do not find satisfaction in these holy exercises; yet give them not over: for God is many times best pleased with your services, when, through an humble sense of your failings, you are displeased with yourself for them. Yet more, if when you have wrestled and striven with God and your own heart in prayer, you are forced to go halting away, with Jacob, Gen. xxxii. 25 - 31, in the sense of your infirmities; yet be not discouraged, for it is a good sign that you have prevailed with God as Jacob did, Gen. xxxii. 28.

God uses, when he is overcome by prayer, to work in them that do overcome some sense of weakness, to let them know, that they prevail with him in prayer, not by any strength of their own or by any worthiness of their prayer, when they have prayed best; but from the goodness of God's free grace, from the worthiness of Christ's intercession, by whom they offer up their prayers, and from the truth of his promise made unto them that pray. If it were not thus, many, when they have their hearts' desire in prayer, would ascribe all to the goodness of their prayers, and not to the free grace of God; and would be proud of their own strength, which, in truth, is none at all.