which says, If you happen to speak of the helplessness of man, he thinks you are alluding to some para. lytic; if of his dependence, to some hanger-on of a great man; if of his sinfulness, he adopts your opinion, for he reads the Newgate Calen. der; but of sin, as an inherent principle, of the turpitude of sin, except as it disturbs society, he knows nothing; but religion as a principle of action, but prayer as a source of peace or a ground of hope, he neither knows nor desires to know. The stream of life glides smoothly on without it; why should he ruffle its placid flow! why should he break in on the course of enjoy. ment with self-imposed austerities? He believes himself to be respected by his fellow-men, and the favour of God is not in all his thoughts. His real character the great day of decision will discover. Till then he will have two characters. 'Soul, take thine ease, thou hast much goods laid up for thee,' is perhaps the state of all others which most disqualifies and unfits for prayer. Not only the apostrophe excites the bodily appetite, but the soUL is called upon to contemplate, to repose on, the soothing prospect, the delights of that voluptuousness for which the much goods are laid up.' find, on a serious examination of their own hearts and lives, some irregularity in desire to be the cause of their discontent, and alleged punishment? We are more disposed to lay down rules for the regulation of God's government, than to submit our will to it as he has settled it. If we do not now see the efficacy of the prayer which he has enjoined us to present to him, it may yet be producing its effect in another way. Infinite wisdom is not obliged to inform us of the manner, or the time, of his operations; what he expects of us is to persevere in the duty. The very obedience to the command is no small thing whatever be its imperceptible effects. Under the apparent failure of our prayers, the source of our repinings must be looked for in the fact of our own blindness and imperfection; for the declarations of the Gospel are sure; their answer must be found in the grace of God in Christ Jesus, for his mercies are infallible. Wherever there is disappointment, we may be assured that it is not because he is wanting to us, but because we are wanting to ourselves. world? The prophet's expression, the iniquity of our holy things,' will not be thoroughly understood except by those who thus seriously dive into the recesses of their own heart, feel their deficiencies, mark their wanderings, detect and lament their But when the prosperous fool says, soul take vain imaginations and impertinent thoughts. It thine ease, thou hast much goods laid up for is to be regretted that these worldly trifles are thee,' the prosperous Christian says, 'soul far more apt to intrude on us in prayer, than tremble at thine ease-be on thy guard.-Thou the devout affections excited by prayer are to hast, indeed, much goods laid up for thee, but it follow us into the world. Business and pleasure is in a future world. Lose not a large inherit- break in on our devotions: when will the spiance for a paltry possession; forfeit not an un-rit of devotion mix with the concerns of the alienable reversion for a life interest,-a life which this very night may be required of thee.' Thus we see what restrains prayer in these two classes of character. The sceptic does not pray, because he does not believe that God is a hearer of prayer. The voluptuary, because he believes that God is such a one as himself, and because he has already gotten all that he wants of Him. His gold, and the means of gratifying his sensuality, would not be augmented by the dry duties of devotion; and with an exercise which would increase neither, he can easily dispense. CHAP. VII. Errors in Prayer It has lately been observed by a distinguished Christian orator, that many profess to believe the Bible to be true, who do not believe the truths in the Bible;' so may we not say, that all desire the gifts of God, but they do not desire God. If we profess to love Him, it is for our own sake; when shall we begin to love Him for himself? Many who do not go the length of omitting prayer, but pray merely from custom, or education, frequently complain that they find no benefit from prayer; others that they experience not the support and comfort promised to it. May not those who thus complain, and who, perhaps, are far from being enemies to religion, You who lament the disappointment of your requests, suffer a few friendly hints.-Have you not been impatient because you receive not the things that you asked for immediately? How do you know, but that if you had persevered, God might have bestowed them? He certainly would, had He not in His wisdom foreseen they would not have been good for you; and, therefore, in His mercy withheld them. Is there not some secret, unsuspected infidelity lurking be. hind such impatience? Is it not virtually saying, there is no God to hear, or that he is un. faithful to his promises? For is it not absolute impiety to insinuate an accusation that the Supreme Judge of men and angels is capable of injustice, or liable to error? God has pleasure in the prosperity of His children. He neither grants nor denies any thing which is not accurately weighed and measured; which is not exactly suited to their wants, if not to their requests. If we pray aright, it may please God, not only to grant that for which we pray, but that for which we do not pray. Supplicating for the best things as we before observed, we may receive inferior and unrequested things, as was the case with Solomon in his prayer for wisdom. God will not forget our labour of love. If he does not seem to notice it at present, he may lay it by for a time when it may be more wanted. In praver we must take care not to measure our necessities by our desires: the former are few, the latter may be insatiable. A murmur ploring his efficacious grace in changing your heart, as well as in pardoning your sins. Perhaps you think it is a sufficient qualifica tion for acceptable prayer, that you are always ing spirit is a probable cause why our petitions are not granted. He who murmurs, distrusts the truth of God; and from distrust to infidelity the distance is not great. The certain way to prevent our obtaining what we desire, or enjoy-forming good intentions; now, though these ing what we have, is to feel impatient at what we do not receive, or to make an improper use of what has been granted to our prayers. Or you may perhaps address God with sinis. ter and corrupt views; as if you had left his omniscience out of his attributes; as if he might be entrapped with the secret ambush of a specious prayer. Your design in the application of the boon you solicit may not be for his glory. It may be the prayer of ambition, cloaked under the guise of more extensive usefulness; it may be the prayer of covetousness, under the pretext of providing for your family. It may be the prayer of injustice, a petition for success in some undertaking for yourself, to the circumvention of another's fairer claim. God, in mercy to our souls, refuses the gift which would endanger them. Thus, then, if we ask and receive not, because we ask deceitfully or blindly, we must not wonder if our prayers are not answered. Or if we obtain what we solicit, and turn it to a bad account, or to no account at all, we must not be surprised if Divine grace is withheld, or withdrawn. The same ill results may be expected if we ask formally or carelessly. Who has not felt, that there is a kind of mechanical memory in the tongue which runs over the form, without any aid of the understanding, without any concurrence of the will, without any consent of the affections? For do we not sometimes implore God to hear a prayer, to which we ourselves are not attending? And is not this presumptuously to demand from him that attention, which we ourselves are not giving to our own requests, even while we are in the act of making them? make up the value of good actions, yet good in. tentions, not acted upon, when occasion invites and duty calls, will not lessen, but inflame the reckoning. For does it not look as if you had resisted the offer of that Holy Spirit, which had originally prompted the intention; and may it not induce Him to withdraw His blessed influ ences, when they have been both invited and rejected? Do you never, by unwholesome reading, fill the mind with images unfavourable to serious exercises? The children of the pure and holy God should feed on the bread of their Father's house, and not on the husks of the prodigal. Do you never use profanely or lightly that name which is above every name? He who made the ear, shall He not hear? and, if He has heard during the day His awful name used by the thoughtless as an expletive, or by the impious as an interjection, or by the presumptuous as an imprecation, will He in the morning be called on as a Saviour, and in the evening as an Intercessor ? But it cannot be too frequently repeated, that no profession of faith, however orthodox; no avowal of trust in Christ, however confident; no entreaty for the aid of the Spirit, however cus. tomary, will avail, if it be not such an influential faith, such a practical trust, such a living devotedness, as shall be productive of holiness of heart and life, as shall tend to produce obedience to the commands, and submission to the will of God. This is an infallible test, by which you may try every doctrine, every principle of the Gospel. We do not mean the truth of them, for that is immutable; but your own actual belief, your own actual interest in them. If no such A mere superficial form, by lulling the con- effects are visible, wo deceive ourselves, and the science, hardens the heart. The task is per-principles we profess are not those by which we formed; but in what manner, or to what result, is not enquired. Genuine prayer is the homage Prayer is so obviously designed to humble the of the soul to God, and not an expedient to pa- proud heart of the natural man, by giving him a cify Him. feeling sense of his misery, his indigence, and If you observe the form, but forget the dispo-his helplessness, that we should be unwilling to sitions it is intended to produce, it is evident the end of such prayer is not answered. Yet be not so far discouraged by feeling no sensible effect from prayer as to discontinue it; it is still a right thing to be found in the way of duty. But, perhaps, you neglect to implore the Spirit of Christ towards the direction of your pray. ers, and His intercession for their acceptance. As there is no other name through which we can be saved, so there is no other through which we can be heard: we must not sever his mediation from His atonement. All His divine offices are not only in perfect harmony, but in inseparable union. Or, perhaps, you have used the name of the Redeemer for form's sake, or as an accustomed close to your petitions, without imWe observe with regret, that, in many public forms of prayer, the aid of his mediation is much more frequent ly implored, than the benefits of his death and merits. He is, indeed, our divine Intercessor, but his mere intercession is not the whole source of our dependence on Him. are governed. believe, that even the proudest man can carry his pride to the Throne of Grace, except to sup. plicate deliverance from it: yet such a character is actually drawn by Him who knew the thoughts and intents of the heart of man; and a long consideration will teach us, that the two men who went up into the temple to pray' were not intended as individual portraits, but as specimens of a class. The proud man does not, perhaps, always thank God that he is not guilty of adultery or extortion, to which vices he may have little temptation; nor does he glory in paying tithe and taxes, to which the law would compel him Yet is he never disposed, like the Pharisee, to proclaim the catalogue of his own virtues? to bring in his comparative claims, as if it were a good thing to be better than the bad? Is he never disposed to carry in his eye, (as if he would remind his Maker of his superiority,) certain persons who are possibly less the objects of Di always praising God for what she possesses; patience is always justifying him for what she suffers. The cultivation of the one effectually prepares us for the exercise of the other. But these dispositions are not inherent in the human heart. How are they generated? By the influences of the Holy Spirit. How are they kept alive? By heart felt devotion. vine displeasure than he, by his pride and sel- evil from the hand of the Lord, as well as good?' fishness, may have rendered himself; although-This is the language of patience. Content is his regularity in the forms of devotion may have made him more respectable in the world, than the poor reprobated being whom he praises God he does not resemble? It is the lowly abasemont, the touching self-condemnation, the avow ed poverty, the pleaded misery, of the destitute beggar that finds acceptance. It is the hungry whom God's mercy fills with good things, it is the rich in his own conceit whom His displeasure sends away empty. Whenever you are tempted to thank God that you are not like other men, let it be in comparing your own condition with that of the afflicted and bereaved among your own friends; compare yourself with the paralytic on his couch; with the blind beggar by the way-side; with the labourer in the mine; think on the wretch in the galleys; on the condemned in the dungeons of despotic governments. Above all, think, and this is the intolerable acme of sin in the inflictor, and of misery in the sufferer,-think on the wretched negro chained in the hold of a slaveship! Think seriously on these, and put pride into your prayer if you can.-Think on these, not to triumph in your own superiority, but to adore the undeserved mercy of God, in giving you blessings to which you have no higher claim, and let your praise of yourself be converted into prayer for them. For there are no dispositions of the heart which are more eminently promoted by prayer than contentment and patience. They are two qualities of the same colour, but of different shades, and are generally, when found at all, found in the same breast. Both are the offspring of genuine religion, both nurtured by cordial prayer. The cultivation of the one, under easy circumstances, prepares for the exercise of the other in more trying situations. Both emanate from the same Divine principle, but are drawn out by different occasions and exercised under varying circumstances. Content is the tranquillity of the heart, prayer is its aliment: it is satisfied under every dispensation of Providence, and takes thankfully its allotted portion, never inquiring whether a little more would not be a little better; knowing that if God had so judged, it would have been as easy for him to have given the more as the less. That is not true content, which does not enjoy as the gift of Infinite Wisdom what it has, nor is that true patience, which does not suffer meekly the loss of what it had, because it is not His will that it should have it longer. The language of the patient man under trials is, It is the Lord. Shall a living man complain? is his interrogation. A good man,' says Solomon, 'is satisfied from himself. Here the presumptuous might put in his claim to the title. But his pretension arises from his mistake, for his satisfaction is with himself, that of the Christian with Providence; it arises from the grace of God shed abroad in his heart, which is become a perennial spring of consolation and enjoyment; and which by persevering prayer, is indented into his very soul. Content knows how to want and how to abound; this is the language of equanimity: Shall I not receive VOL. II. 2 L Perhaps the impediment which hinders the benefit of prayer in characters apparently correct, may be the fatal habit of indulging in some secrect sin, the private cherishing of some wrong propensity, the fondly entertaining of some evil imagination. Not being accustomed to controul at other times, it intrudes when you would willingly expel it; for a guest which is unreservedly let in at other seasons, and cor. dially entertained, will too frequently break in when you desire to be alone. The Scriptures are explicit on this subject. It is not merely the committing actual sin that ruins the comfort growing out of prayer; the Divine prohibition runs higher; its interdiction is more intimately interior; it extends to the thoughts and intents of the heart. The door of heaven is shut against prayer under such cir. cumstances. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.' A cherished cor. ruption in the mind is more likely to interpose between God and the soul, because it does not assume the shape and bulk of crime. A practical offence, the effect of sudden temptation, is more likely to be followed by keen repentance, deep self-abasement, and fervent application for pardon; whereas to the close bosom-sin, knowing that no human charge can be brought against it, the soul secretly returns with a fondness facilitated by long indulgence, and only whetted by a short separation. It was, perhaps, this acute experimental feeling which led David to pray to be deli vered from secret sins;' these, he was proba bly conscious had led to those presumptuous sins,' which had entangled his soul and em bittered his life; and whose dominion he so frequently and fervently deprecates. This, it is to be feared, may be the case with some, whose language and exterior cause them to be ranked with the religious; these are, at least, the dangers to which they are most exposed. It is, therefore, that our Lord connects, in indissoluble union, watching with prayer. Perhaps when the conscience is more than usually awakened, you pray with some degree of fervour to be delivered from the guilt and punishment of sin. But if you stop here your devotion is most imperfect. If you do not also pray to be delivered from its power and dominion over your heart and life, you do not go much farther than the heathens of old. They seem to have had a strong feeling of guilt, by their fond desire of expiating it by their sacrifices and lustrations. But such is the love of present ease, and the desire of respite, that you think, perhaps, it is better not to be tormented before the time.' How many now in a state of irreversible misery wish they had been tormented sooner, that they might not be tormented forever! But with you it is not yet too late. With you the day of grace, which to them is over, is not yet past. Use it, then, without delay, instead of persisting in laying up fresh regrets for eternity. But too many deceive themselves, by imagin. ing, that when they have pronounced their prayer the duty is accomplished with the task; the occult medicine being taken, the charm is to work of itself. They consider it as a duty quite distinct and unconnected with any other. They forget that it is to produce in them a principle which is to mix with all the occurences of the day. Prayer, though not intended as a talis. man, is yet proposed as a remedy. The effect of its operation is to be seen in subduing the passions, assisting to govern the temper, in bridling the tongue, in checking not only calumny, but levity; not only impure, but vain conversa. tion. of resistance then, far surpass every gratification now, which the three confederate enemies of our souls may present to us? It is not merely by our prayers that we must give glory to God. Our Divine Master has expressly told us wherein His Father is glorified; it is when we bring forth much fruit.' It is by our works we shall be judged, and not by our prayers. And what a final consummation is it that obedience to the will of God, which is our duty here, shall be our nature hereafter! What is now our prayer shall then be our possession; there the obligation to obey shall become a necessity, and that necessity shall be happiness ineffable. The various evils here enumerated, with many others not touched upon, are so many dead weights on the wings of prayer; they cause it to gravitate to earth, obstruct its ascent, and hinder it from piercing to the throne of God. The Lord's Prayer. CHAP. VIII. But we have a wonderful talent at deceiving ourselves. We have not a fault for which we do not find an apology. Our ingenuity on this head is inexhaustible. In matters of religion men complain that they are weak; a complaint they are not forward to urge in worldly matters. They lament that their reluctance to pray arises from being unable to do what God, in his word, expects them to do. But is not this virtual re-titions for their subjects to present to thembellion, only with a smooth face and a soft name? God is too wise not to know exactly what we can do, and too just to expect from us what we cannot. This pretence of weakness, though it looks like humility, is only a mask for indolence, and a screen for selfishness. We certainly can refuse to indulge ourselves in what pleases us, when we know it displeases God. We can obey his commandments with the aid of the infused strength which He has promised, and which we can ask. It is not He who is unwilling to give, but we who are averse to pray. The temptations to vice are strengthened by our passions, as our motives to virtue are weakened by them. Our great spiritual enemy would not be so potent, if we ourselves did not put arms into his hands. The world would not be so powerful an enchantress, if we did not assist the enchantment, by voluntarily yielding to it; by insensibly forsaking him who is our strength. We make apologies for yielding to both by pleading their power and our own weakness. But the inability to resist is of our own making. Both enemies are indeed powerful, but they are not irresistible. If we assert the contrary, is it not virtually saying 'Greater are they that are against us than He that is for us?' But we are traitors to our own cause: we are conquered by our own consent; we surrender not so much because the conqueror is powerful, as because the conquered is willing. It is not customary for kings to draw up pe selves; much less do earthly monarchs consider the act of petitioning worthy of reward, nor do they number the petitions so much among the services done them, as among the burthens imposed on them. Whereas it is a singular benefit to our fallen race that the King of kings both dictates our petitions, and has promised to recompense us for making them. In the Lord's prayer may be found the seminal principle of all the petitions of a Christian, both for spiritual and temporal things; and however in the fulness of his heart he will necessarily depart from his model in his choice of expressions: into whatever laminæ he may expand the pure gold of which it is composed, yet he will still find the general principle of his own more enlarged application to God, substantially contained in this brief but finished compendium. Is it not a striking proof of the divine condescension, that knowing our propensity to err, our blessed Lord should himself have dictated our petitions, partly perhaps as a corrective of existing superstitions, but certainly to leave behind Him a regulator by which all future ages should set their devotions; and we might perhaps establish it as a safe rule for prayer in general, that any petition which cannot in some shape, be accommodated to the spirit of some part of the Lord's prayer may not be right to be adopted. The distinction between the personal nature of Faith, and the universal character of Charity, Without diminishing any thing of His grace as it is exercised in prayer, is specifically ex. and glory to whom every good thought we think,hibited in the two pronouns which stand at the every victory over sin we obtain, is owing, may it head of the Creed and of the Lord's Prayer. not add to our happiness, even in heaven, to look We cannot exercise faith for another, and thereback on every conquest we here obtained by fore can only say I believe. But when we offer prayer over our grand spiritual enemy, every up our petitions, we address them to our Father, triumph over the world, every victory over our-implying that he is the Author, Governor, and selves? Will not the remembrance of one actSupporter, not of ourselves only, but of his whole rational creation. It conveys also a beautiful bly pleaded for a little of their redundant bread, idea of that boundless charity which links all he was received as a pardoned, reconciled, bemankind in one comprehensive brotherhood. loved child. The plural us, continued through the whole prayer, keeps up the sentiment with which it sets out, tends to exclude selfishness, and to excite philanthropy, by recommending to God the temporal as well as spiritual wants of the whole family of mankind. The nomenclature of the Divinity is express. ed in Scripture by every term which can convey ideas of grandeur or of grace, of power or of affection, of sublimity or tenderness, of majesty or benignity; by every name which can excite terror or trust, which can inspire awe or consolation. Our Lord's Introduction, Pray ye therefore after this manner,' neither forbids digression nor amplification. The recollection that His dwelling-place is in Heaven, is calculated to remind us of the immeasurable distance between the petitioner and his God, and to encourage us to communicate with the Father of Spirits: with Him who is glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders;' and which of His wonders is more astonishing than this incon ceivably marvellous condescension? Christianity, we must repeat, is a practical religion, and in order to use aright the prayer our Lord has given us, we must model our life by it as well as our petitions. If we pray that the name of God may be hallowed, yet neglect to hallow it ourselves, by family as well as personal devotion, and a con. scientious attendance on all the ordinances of public worship, we defeat the end of our pray. ing, by falling short of its obligation. The discrepancies between our prayers and our practice do not end here. How frequently are we solemnly imploring of God, that 'His kingdom may come,' while we are doing nothing to promote his kingdom of grace here, and consequently His kingdom of glory here. after. But of all compellations by which the Supreme Being is designated in his holy word, there is not one so soothing so attractive, so in. teresting, as that of FATHER; it includes the idea of reconcilement, pardon, acceptance, love. It swallows up his grandeur in His beneficence. It involves, also, the inheritance belonging to our filial relation. It fills the mind with every image that is touching, and the heart with every feeling that is affectionate. It inspires fear softened by love, and exhibits authority miti. gated by tenderness. The most endearing image the Psalmist could select from the abundant store-house of his rich conceptions, to convey the kindest sentiment of God's pity towards them that fear Him, was that it resembles the If we pray that God would give His Son the pity of a father for his own children.' In di-heathen for His inheritance,' and yet make it a recting us to pray to our Father, our Divine matter of indifference, whether a vast proportion Master does not give the command without the of the globe should live heathens or die Chrisexample. He every where uses the term he re- tians; if we pray that the knowledge of the commends. I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of Lord may cover the earth, as the waters cover heaven and earth! And in the 17th of St. John the sea,' yet act as if we were indifferent whe he uses this tender name no less than seven ther Christianity ended as well as began at times. home. If we pray that the sound may go out into all lands, and their words unto the ends of the world,' and yet are satisfied to keep the sound within our own hearing, and the words within our own island, is not this a prayer which goeth out of feigned lips? When we pray that His will may be done,' we know that His will is, that all should be saved, that no one should perish.' When, therefore, we assist in sending the Gospel to the dark and distant corners of the earth, then, and not till then, may we consistently desire of God in our prayers, that His saving health may be known to all nations.' 'Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth us,' was the ill-understood prayer of the inquiring disciples. To us this petition is granted before it is made. Does he not show himself to all as a Father, in the wonders of his creation, in the wonders of our being, preservation, and support? Has He not, in a more especial manner revealed Himself to us as a Father in the sublime wonder of His word, in the unsearchable riches of Christ, and the perpetual gift of the Holy Spirit? Does He not show Himself our Father, if, when we have done evil, He withholds His chastening hand; if, when we have sinned, He still bears with us; if, when we are deaf to His call, He repeats it; if, when we delay, He waits for us; if, when we repent, He pardons us; if, when we return, He receives us; if, when in danger, He preserves us from falling; and if, when we fall, He raises us? We have a beautiful illustration of the good ness of God as a merciful and tender Father in the deeply affecting parable of the Prodigal Son. Though the undone spendthrift knew that he had no possible claim on the goodness he had so notoriously offended, yet he felt that the endearing name of Father had an eloquence that might plead for forgiveness of his offence, though he feared, not for restoration to affection and favour. But while he only meekly aspired to a place among the servants, while he only hum · In praying, therefore, that 'His kingdom may come, do we not pray that all false religions, all idolatrous worship may be universally abolished, and the kingdom of Messiah be established throughout the world? If praying for our daily bread' is a petition expressing our dependence, it is also a petition of temperance. It teaches us to subordinate our desires after worldly things, and to ask for them in great moderation. It is worth observing, that requests for temporal blessings and spiritual mercies are so interwoven in this perfect form, that in repeating it, we cannot pray for our daily bread' without imploring 'forgive. ness of our trespasses.' |