Pastor's Personal Piety, Particularly in Prayer and Pondering Scripture

I did try for at least a minute to come up with another "P"

I've been reading a work on Andrew Fuller and thus far, have enjoyed it. It isn't a traditional biography, but if you are unfamiliar with Fuller, this would be a good place to start to get an idea of who the man was and why he is important. One such glimpse of the man was a section talking about his ministry. Brewster writes, then quotes:

"The ministers of the Northamptonshire Baptist Association were a close knit group. One of the appealing aspects of Fuller’s move to Kettering was that from that central location, he could attend the association’s weekly ministers’meeting. At one of these meetings, the conversation revealed the premium Fuller and his friends placed on prayer and Scripture reading in the life of the pastor: 

"Today we had a ministers’meeting at Northampton. I preached on being Of one spirit with Christ and heard bro. Sutcliff on Divine Sovereignty from Rom. 9, and bro. Skinner on Psalm 139 Search me and try me. But the best part of the day was, I think, in conversation. A question was put and discussed, to the following purport: To what causes in ministers may much of their want of success be imputed? The answer much turned upon the want of personal religion, particularly the want of close dealing with God in closet prayer. Jeremiah 10:21 was here referred to, “Their pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the Lord; therefore they shall not prosper, and their flocks shall be scattered.”Another reason assigned was the want of reading and studying the Scriptures more as Christians, for the edification of our own souls. We are too apt to study them merely to find out something to say to others, without living upon the truth ourselves. If we eat not the book, before we deliver its contents to others, we may expect the Holy Spirit will not much accompany us. If we study the Scriptures as Christians, the more we shall feel their importance; but, if otherwise, our familiarity with the word will be like that of soldiers and doctors with death—it will wear away all sense of its importance from our minds. To enforce this sentiment, Proverbs 22:17,18, was referred to, “Apply thine heart to knowledge—the words of the wise will be pleasant if thou keep them within thee; they shall withal be fitted in thy lips.”To this might have been added Psalm 1:2,3.65"