XV. PRAYER MUST BE QUOTIDIAN.

AMONGST other arguments enforcing the necessity of daily prayer, this not the least, that Christ enjoins us to petition for daily bread. New bread we know is best; and in a spiritual sense, our bread, though in itself as stale and mouldy as that of the Gibeonites, 156is every day new, because a new and hot blessing, as I might say, is daily begged, and bestowed of God upon it.

Manna must daily be gathered, and not provisionally be hoarded up. God expects that men every day address themselves unto him, by petitioning him for sustenance.

How contrary is this to the common practice of many. As camels in sandy countries are said to drink but once in seven days, and then in praesens, praeteritum, et futurum, for time past, present, and to come, so many fumble this, last, and next week’s devotion all in a prayer. Yea, some defer all their praying till the last day.

Constantine had a conceit, that because baptism washed away all sins, he would not be baptized till his death-bed, that so his soul might never lose the purity thereof, but immediately mount to heaven. But sudden death preventing him, he was not baptized at all, as some say, or only by an Arian bishop, as others affirm. If any erroneously, on the same supposition, put off their prayers to the last, let them take heed, lest long delayed, at last they prove either none at all or none in effect.