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THE

MOUNT OF OLIVES,

AND OTHER

LECTURES ON PRAYER.

BY THE

REV. JAMES HAMILTON,
i»

NATIONAL SCOTCH CHURCH, REGENT'S SQUARE.

Author of "Harp on the Willows," "Life in Earnest," &c.

THIRD EDITIO]

nirnnr

«MT

.

NEW-YORK:
ROBERT CARTER, 58 CANAL-STREET.

PITTSBURGH '. 56 MARKET-STREET.

1847.

TO THE

KIRK SESSION AND CONGREGATION

OF THE

NATIONAL SCOTCH CHURCH,
REGENT SQUARE.

MY DEAR FRIENDS. — Of all ministerial employments
— and some of them are exceedingly delightful — there
is none in which I am so happy, nor so sure that I am
profitably engaged, as when meditating over, and writing
down, the truths of the Bible for your benefit. These
sometimes come out to view with a vividness and beauty
which words cannot perpetuate, but still with a radiance
which, to my own memory, lingers on many texts, ana
has left an entrancement round days and places devoted
to their study. And just as I rejoice when a day of un-
invaded leisure secures some fresh materials for the
edification and comfort of that beloved people whose wel-
fare lies nearest my heart ; so I have sometimes had to
mourn when personal exhaustion, or stormy weather, or
some adverse incident on Sabbath, frustrated the medi-
tation of the week. There is the two-fold sadness, that

one's thoughts have perished, and that another opportu-
nity of doing good is gone for ever.

And yet the mere wish to preserve a fragment of these
Saturday musings would not be a sufficient reason for
printing them. I feel that something like the following
pages is a needful supplement to a tract with which you
are already acquainted.* Besetting as the sin of indo-
lence is, we shall find many persons diligent who are
not devout. Perhaps some of these may read this little
book, and, by the blessing of God, may see. prayer in a
new light, and be led themselves to practise it.

Except that in the third and seventh Lectures three
discourses have been condensed into one, and several
have been omitted altogether, I have not made many al-
terations. I thought it best to retain the sermonic style,
as well as the homely illustrations so hazardous in print.
This is not a treatise on prayer. Those who desire
something fuller and more systematic will find a variety
of excellent works already provided. None is more
comprehensive, or more enriched by Scriptural truth,
and extensive acquaintance with Christian literature, or
by its tone more calculated to awaken devotional feeling,
than the well-known treatise of my revered and beloved
friend Mr. Bickersteth. I lately read with much plea-
sure a small volume by Mr M'Gill, of Hightae, " Enter
into thy closet." It is judicious, systematic, and practi-
cal. For original and elevated sentiment, delicate ob-
servation, and experimental wisdom, conveyed in the
happiest style, we have few books comparable to Mr
Sheppard's " Thoughts on Private Devotion."

I have a friend, — many will know him when I say
that his large accomplishments and lofty mind intended

* Life in Earnest.

him for authorship, — but his unweariable benevolence
and consummate taste have hitherto kept him busy as
the referee and coadjutor of all his book-making acquain-
tance. When he discovered what I was about, he lent
me a manuscript volume of notes of the late Mr. Foster's
Lectures, — several of them on the subject of prayer.
Had there been room I should have quoted more freely
from them, in the hope that their gnarled vigour would
lend a strength and solidity to the text ; but this book is
already too long, and the notes are worthy of being printed
separately. And now that I am acknowledging obliga-
tions, I cannot refuse to my grateful feelings the satis-
faction,— and I hope he will not be angry at it, — of
mentioning how much I owe, in the way of suggesting
subjects and trains of thought to the conversations of
another friend, — one to whose eminent professional tal-
ents and personal kindness I owe numberless obligations,
and to whom I am indebted for my first acquaintance
with more than one field of theological authorship.
Amongst others, he induced me to read the writings of
Alexander Knox, — an author from whom I have, per-
haps, learned the more, all the rather that, in many
things, I am constrained to differ from him.

It would have made the course, — such as it is, — more
complete, had the Lecture on " Social and United Prayer5'
been added. The especial blessing attached to consenta-
neous prayer is one peculiarity of the New Testament
dispensation, and its abundant exercise is a delightful
token of Christian vitality. This year is likely to be
ushered in with a larger amount of united supplications
than opened any year since the commencment of the
Christian era ; and I doubt not this agreement in prayer
is the harbinger of better days in the Church's history.
1*

VI

Our own prayer-meeting on Monday evening has often
been a season of refreshing When conducted by our
brethren, the elders and deacons, it is the minister's
Sabbath, and, like yourselves, I have nothing to do but
to worship. And whenever I see a goodly attendance,
I am led to hope that the previous day has been a day of
profit, and that the remainder of the week will reap the
blessing of that prayerful hour.

My beloved hearers, amidst many misgivings occa-
sioned by want of time for revising it, I send this little
book to you. I know that you will receive it kindly for
the truth's sake and for the author's sake ; and, as it is,
I am glad to think that you have in this more permanent
form, and with all your friendly prepossessions, words
which were some of them spoken in weakness, but
which, even when dead, I should still desire to speak.
Should you derive any profit from perusing them, —
" Brethren, pray for us."

Ever most affectionately yours,

JAMES HAMILTON.

January 1, 1846.

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I.

THE MOUNT OF OLIVES.

Mountains of Scripture. Olivet. The Saviour's
Compassion. The Agony in Gethsemane. The
Saviour's Example in Prayer. Submission. Per-
severance. Preparation for suffering. The Sa-
viour's Love to his Own .... Page 11

LECTURE II.

THE PARTING PROMISE AND THE PRESENT SAVIOUR

Climbing Plants. The Tree of Life. Reasons why
Men do not love the Lord Jesus. The Saviour
neither dead, nor distant, nor different from what
he was. Christ ever present with his people.
His presence sanctifying and sustaining. Paul
and Nero. Christ's presence comforting. The
Short Journey. Bunyan in Prison, and Ruther-
ford in banishment. The Infant Dreamer. " For
ever with the Lord.5' * Page 25

Vlll CONTENTS.

LECTURE III,

THE HEARER OF PRAYER. THE INTERCESSOR ABOVE
THE PROMPTER WITHIN.

Prayer has actual Power. The Petitionless Prayer.
The Efficacy of Prayer revealed. It is Matter
of Fact. JL priori Objections irrelevant. The
Declarations of God himself. The Saviour's
Testimony. Instances of answered Prayer. New-
ton's Experience. The Inhabitant of Jupiter,
and the Husbandman. God is the Hearer of
Prayer, for he is the Living God, the Almighty,
and the God of Love. The Mediation of Christ.
The Work of the Spirit. Guilt on the Conscience.
Dull Perception. The Dog and the Naturalist.
Cold Affections. The Intermitting Fountain.
The Disposition to ask Wrong Things, and to ask
Right Things in a Wrong Way. . . Page 44

LECTURE IV.

THE PRIVILEGE OF PRAYER.

Athenian Curiosity. A Supposition. Another.
Affliction. The Shipwrecked Mariner. Per-
plexity. Mentor. Solomon's request. The
Important undertaking. The Warrior and the
broken Buckle. Henry IV. Michael Angelo.
The Spiritual Inquirer. The Blind 'Man of
'Bethsaida Page 70

CONTENTS,, IX

LECTURE V.

THE OPEN REWARD OF SECRET PRAYER

The Closet. Abraham. Isaac. David. Corne-
lius. John Welsh. Peden. The stated Place.
The secret Reward. Jacob at Jabbok. The
Talisman. Presence of Mind. Nehemiah. Boer-
haave. Spirituality. The Smell of the Ivory
Palace. The open Reward .of the great Day.
Prayers self-registering .... Page 90

LECTURE VI.

REASONS WHY PRAYER IS NOT ANSWERED.

The blank Petition. The wrong Channel. The
Serpent asked. The wrong Motive. The Prayer
countermanded by the contrary Sin. Unbelief.
The Answer comes unawares .' . Page 104

LECTURE VII

CONFESSION, ADORATION, AND THANKSGIVING.

Confession. Remorse and Silence. The Psalmist.
Sullenness. Callousness The Fountain opened.
The Scape-Goat. — Adoration. The bestowment
of the Affections. Platonism. Mysticism. As-
ceticism. Christianity. Refuge and Solace in the
Divine Perfections. — Thanksgiving. Interposi-
tions. The best Gifts. Joseph Alleine. The
joyful Life . . . , . Page 114

CONTENTS.

LECTURE VIII

BIBLE INSTANCES.

History. Enoch. Moses. David. Matthew. Henry
Cornelius Winter. Bishop Heber. Dr. Williams.
Count Zinzendorf. S. Pearce. President Ed-
wards. Daniel. A Praying Atmosphere. The
Diving Water Spider , Page 134

LECTURE IX.

CONCLUSION.

What is Prayer ? Communion with God. Peace
and Joy. Exotic blessings. The Branch run-
ning over the Wall. Intercession. M. J.
Grahame .... Page 149

UIIT2BSITT

LECTURE I.

THE MOUNT OF OLIVES.

" And he went, as he was wont, to the Mount of
01ives."—LTTKE xxii. 39.

THE mountains are Nature's monuments.
Like the islands they dwell apart, and like them
they give asylum from a noisy and irreverent
world. Many a meditative spirit has found in
their silence leisure for the longest thought, and
in their Patmos-like seclusion the brightest vi-
sions and largest projects have evolved ; whilst
by a sort of over-mastering attraction, they have
usually drawn to themselves the most memorable
incidents which variegate our human history.
And, as they are the natural haunts of the high-
est spirits, and the appropriate scenes of the most
signal occurrences, so they are the noblest ceno-
taphs. Afar off they arrest the eye ; and though
their hoary chronicle tells its legend of the past,
their heaven-pointing elevations convey the spirit
onward towards eternity. We do not wonder
that excited fancy has sought relics of the ark on
the top of ARARAT, and in the grim solitude of
SINAI it is solemn to remember and easy to be-
lieve that the voice of Jehovah has spoken here.

12 LECTURE I.

Elijah has made CARMEL all his own, and the
death of Moses must be ever FISGAH:S diadem.
The words of Jesus seem still to linger on the
hills of Galilee, their lilies forbidding " thought
lor raiment," and their twittering little birds " no
uiought for to-morrow," whilst every grassy tuft
and scented flower is breathing its own beatitude.
Hut though heavenly wisdom spake on that
mountain-side, and excellent glory lighted up the
top of TABOR, there is another height to which
discipleship reverts with fonder memory, and
which it treads with softer step — that mountain
where beyond any spot in Palestine " GOD was
manifest in FLESH" — where the great Intercessor
was wont to pray, where Jesus wept over Jeru-
salem, on whose slopes he blessed the Apostle-
band, and sent his message of mercy to mankind
— the mountain at whose base lay Bethany and
Gethsemane — on whose gentle turf his feet last
stood, and where they yet may stand again — the
Sabbatic, pensive, and expectant MOUNT OF
OLIVES.

Round this Incarnation-monument let our
thoughts this day revolve. To learn the mind
which was in Christ, and so the mind which is
in God, let us confine our view to that little spot
and ponder those scenes in the Saviour's history
and those words in the Saviour's ministry of
which the theatre was Olivet. And whilst we
do this for purposes of general piety, to get ma-
terials for our foith and love, let us, as the best
introduction to a few discourses on Prayer, keep
an especial eye to the suppliant Saviour. That
we may know the Intercessor above, there is no

, LECTURE I.' 13

way so excellent as to get acquainted with that
same Jesus while he sojourned here below.

1. Olivet reminds us of the Saviour's pity for
such as perish. It was a pleasant evening in
spring, and the Holy Land looked happy. The
rapid verdure — the bright blush of the pomegra-
nate, and the tender scent of the budding vines —
the nestling dove in her murmuring joy, and the
colt and lamb in their crazy gambols — all felt the
gush of vernal glee. And people felt it. It was
the sundy paschal tide, and the waysides re-
sounded with shouting pilgrims on their journey
to Jerusalem. From Hermon to Zion it was one
long stream of music and merry hearts, and even
round the Man of Sorrows it looked like a dawn
of joy. They seem at last to guess his mission
and suspect his glory. They are conducting him
in triumph. They are rending down the palm-
branches and cleaving the welkin with their
shouts, " Hosannah to the Son of David," and
proud is he on whose mantle the pacing colt of
their new monarch sets his elated foot. — But why
this solemn pause ? this slackened gait, this quiv-
ering lip, this tearful eye ? Jerusalem is full in
sight — straight over yon narrow vale, so near that
you may count each stone of the glistening tem-
ple, and catch from the teeming streets this even-
ing's tune of mingled gladness. Is it not a
goodly sight ? yon gorgeous fane, the true Jeho-
vah's sanctuary, yon crowding population — God's
ancient people — and more than all, the thought
of happy meetings and blessed homes on which
this evening's sun will set? But the Saviour
another crowd, and heard another shout
2

14 LECTUREl.

Through the darkened noon he saw the erected
cross, and round it heard the frantic mob ex-
claiming, " Away with him, away with him —
Crucify him, crucify him — His blood be on us
and our children." The Saviour saw another
sight. Across the gulf of forty years he looked
as clearly as then he looked across the valley of
Jehoshaphat, and saw the dismal prayer fulfilled.
He saw another passover, and another multitude,
and another evening like this — but saw that there
should never be the like again. He beheld the
Roman eagle swoop down on his quarry, and in
the straitness of that siege saw things from which
the piteous soul of Immanuel shrunk away. He
saw another sight. He saw these goodly stones
all tumbled down, and barley growing in silent
fields where now so many footsteps nimbly trip-
ped it — no temple, no ephod, no priest, nb passo-
ver. And, oh ! he saw yet another sight. He
saw another \vorld, and in its sullen gloom and.
endless weeping recognized many a one whose
beaming face and sparkling eye lit up that even-
ing's festival. As if already in the place of woe
he looked on many round him ; and though their
voices were that moment merry and shouting in
his train, he knew that they would despise his
blood and hate his Heavenly Father, and their
present mirth made Jesus weep the more. " He
beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou
hadst known, even thou, in this thy day, the
things which belong unto thy peace ! but no\v
they are hid from, thine eye?."

Every tear that Jesus wept is a mystery, and
this solemn incident in the Redeemer's history

LECTURE I. 15

no one can entirely explain. But, my dear-,
friends, it teaches this awful lesson — that some.,
may share a Saviour's tears who never profit by
a Saviour's blood. It shows that his pity for
sinners is far beyond their pity for themselves.
O Christless sinner ! these tears of the Saviour
speak to thee. They ask, Do you know to what
a hell you are going, and what a heaven you are
losing ? You may be merry now — but so was
Jerusalem then — and yet its mirth made Jesus
weep the more. You may be light-hearted and
lovely to your friends — and so were many of
those whose ungodly souls and dark hereafter
made Jesus weep. You may be in the midst of
mercy and surrounded with the means of grace
— and so were they; but mercy so near them and
grace rejected only made the Saviour's tears flow
faster. " Would that thou hadst known in this
thy day, the things that belong to thy peace."
And you may have even some interest about the
Saviour. Under some erroneous impression, or
on a holiday triumph, you may join the jubilant
company and shout Hosannah — but oh ! if you
despise his blood or join the world that crucifies
him, /you are one of those whose cup of wrath
will only be embittered by a pitying Saviour's
slighted tears. You who never come to a com-
munion— you who have never got such faith in
a dying Saviour, or such love to him as rto do
this in remembrance of him — you who do noth-
ing to identify yourselves with the Nazarene —
the Crucified, — whose zeal is all expended on the
road from Jericho to Jerusalem — who never fol-
low to the guest-chamber, to Gethsemane, to the

16 LECTURE I.

cross, to the tomb, and back into a scorning world
—you who are not moved by a Saviour's blood,
will you not be melted by a Saviour's tear ?
That tear fell from an eye which had looked into
eternity, and knew the worth of souls. It fell
from an eye which was not used to weep for
nothing, and which must have seen something
very sad before it wept at all. It fell from an
eye which, O sinner ! would glisten with ecstasy
if it saw thy dry lids moistening and thy dry
heart melting — an eye which would sparkle in
affection over thee if it saw thee weeping for thy-
self, and weeping for the pierced One.

2. The Mount of Olives reminds us of the
Redeemer's agony to save. At the foot of the
mountain, and between two paths, both of which
lead over the hill to Bethany, is a little enclosure
called Gethsemane.^ To this day it contains
some singularly large and very ancient olive-
trees. Being on the way-side to Bethany, and
at a convenient distance from the noise and in-
terruption of Jerusalem, "Jesus ofttimes resorted
thither with his disciples ;" and when he crossed
the brook and got in, either alone or with his
little company, under the soft shelter of the, olive
branches, and the city gates were closed, and no
footfall was heard on either path, he enjoyed
" communion high and sweet " with his Hea-
venly% Father. And this holy fellowship en-
deared the place. It was not the dewy stillness
— though that was welcome at the close of the
jaded day, — nor the sweet moonlight, and the

* See Narrative of a Mission to the Jews, by Messrs.
Bonar and M'Che^ne, chap. 3.

LECTDREI. 17

gentle fall of tiny flakes from the blossoming"
trees, and the murmur of the brook, and the song
of evening birds — though, after the rough jeering
and blasphemy of men, the inarticulate music of
the loyal universe was ihrice welcome to the Sa-
viour's ear; but because in that seclusion He and
the Father were alone together. Intercourse
such as he enjoyed while as yet in the Father's
bosom he tasted here, and it so gladdened and
strengthened his soul that he-'ofttimes resorted
thither. Others would go home to sleep, but
Jesus would go here to pray. Every man went,
at evening, to his own place ; but Jesus " went
to the Mount of Olives."^ And, as it had been
the scene of his highest delights, he selected it
as the fittest place for his deepest sorrow. The
Son of Man had no dwelling of his own ; but
Gethsemane was the Saviour's "closet."^ It
was there that, in secret, he had so often prayed
to his Father ; and as the memory of blessed
moments, and the sunshine of heaven opened,
rested on it, now that grief was near, he, as it
were, entered into it and shut to the door. But
oh ! how changed ! 'Tis no longer the same
Gethsemane. All his days of flesh the Surety
had been bearing his people's sin, and at all
times carrying in his bosom the vial of indigna-
tion due to their sin. But it was not wrath
poured out ; it was wrath in a vial. Now, how-
ever, the vial burst, and his inmost soul was
drenched in its burning fury. He was sore
amazed. To be made ua curse" was a new
thing to Immanuel. To be brought into such

* John vii. 53 ; viii. 1. * Matt. vi. 6.

2*

18 LECTURE I.

horrid contact with the thing which his soul
hated — to be numbered with transgressors, and
to bear the sin of many — was a strange and ap-
palling thing to the Holy One of God. He was
sore amazed ! A cup was put into his harmless
hand ; and, as he gazed at this cup of trembling,
it was not the sharp anguish of the flesh, nor the
taunts of ruffian men, nor the malignity of hide-
ous fiends, — but it was guilt which made its bit-
ter dregs and the Father's wrath its flaming
overflow. And though his hand was too gentle
and filial to fling that cup away, separateness
from sin, and the joyful sense of his Father's
love, were, to Jesus dearer than life ; and though
his omnipotent hand still clasped the cup, his
holy soul revolted from it, and in ecstasy of pain
— in the agony of a bloody sweat — he prayed
that it might pass from him. But had he not
drunk it, that cup must have journeyed on, and
all his people, in a lost eternity, must have drunk
it for themselves ; and though the fainting flesh
prompted him to let it pass, and the hatred of the
accursed thing, and the instinct after the Father's
smile, seconded the prayer of the feeble flesh,
love to man still held it fast, and love to the Fa-
ther enabled him to drink it all. And when at
last, from its paroxysm of woe, he wakened up
in the strengthening angel's arms, the work was
well-nigh done, justice was all but satisfied, and
the Church all but saved; and, for the joy so
much nearer now, the cross had no terror and
the sepulchre no gloom ; and, now that the bit-
terness of death was past, Judas and his torch-lit
band could not come too quickly.

LE C TURE I. 19

Oh, what wonders love hath done !

But how little understood !
. God well knows, and God alone,

What produc'd that sweat of blood :
Who can thy deep wonders see,
Wonderful Gethsemane !

There my God bore all my guilt :
This through grace can be believed .

But the horrors which he felt,
Are too vast to be conceived :

None can penetrate through thee,

Doleful, dark Gethsemane !*

3. The Mount of Olives is identified with the
supplications and intercessions of Immanuel, and
so suggests to us the Lord Jesus as the great ex-
ample in prayer. The supplications which
ascended on those solitary nights, when, of his
people, there was none with him, survive in no
human record ; yet, doubtless, to the end of time
our world will be indebted to the lonely hours
when the Man of Sorrows watched and prayed
upon the Mount of Olives. The petitions offered
in Gethsemane the pen of Inspiration has pre-
served ; and the seventeenth of John records a
long and fervent prayer offered, in all likelihood,
in some calm spot near the same venerable moun-
tain's base. In these supplications the heavenly
High Priest was not only his people's mediator
and intercessor, but their model and their guide.
And from these we learn —

(1.) Submission in prayer. In praying for his
people, the Mediator's prayer was absolute :
" Father, I will" But in praying for himself,

* Hart's Hymns.

20 LECTURE I.

how altered was the language ! " Father, if it
be possible, let this cup pass from me : neverthe-
less, not as I will, but as thou wilt.' " Now is
my soul troubled, and what shall I say ? Fa-
ther, save me from this hour ; but for this cause
came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy
name."

(2.) Perseverance in prayer. The Evangel-
ist^ tells that there was one prayer which Jesus
offered three times, and from the Epistle to the
Hebrews we find that this prayer prevailed.!
Although the more palpable sufferings did not
pass away, the more exquisite and inward an-
guish, which made his soul exceeding sorrowful
even unto death, did pass away. In answer to
his " strong crying and tears," he was saved from
this deadly and soul-crushing grief.

(3.) The best preparation for trial is habitual
prayer. Long before it became the scene of his
agony, Gethsemane had been the Saviour's
oratory. " He ofttimes resorted thither." But
when the hour of darkness came, and he trod the
wine-press alone, he found that even He had not
been there too often. And, brethren, it will be
the best preparation for your own days of dark-
ness and scenes of trial, to resort ofttimes thither
in anticipatory prayer. Days of bodily weak-
ness or sad bereavement will come abated, and
the day of death will come less startling, if in
prayer you have oft repaired to it beforehand, and
bespoken almighty help against its time of need.

4. The Mount of Olives recalls to us the Sa-
viour's affection for his own. I fear that the

* Matt. xxvi. 44. f Heb. v. 7.

LECTURE I. 21

love of Christ is little credited even by those who
have some faith in his finished work, and some
attachment to his living person. There are sev-
eral relations which link souls on earth together,
and the affection, the instinct of endearment cre-
ated by that relation is in some instances in-
tensely strong ; but, O disciple ! do you believe
that your Saviour's love is stronger? A brother
knows how he loves his brother — but their love
to one another will not explain a Saviour's love
to them — for Jesus is " a friend who sticketh
closer than a brother ;" a friend whose love will
stand severer shocks and enter into finer feelings.
A mother knows how she loves the infant in her
arms, how little she would grudge the hours
spent in watching his feverish slumber, and the
health she lost in restoring his ; but that will not
tell her how a Saviour loves his own. She may
forget, but Jesus will not forget his ransomed.
And in regard to the most sacred of all relations,
the Bible says, " Husbands, love your wives,
even as. Christ also loved the Church, and gave
himself for it, that he might sanctify it." Not
that it is possible to have the same high and self-
devoting and transforming love ; but the nearer
approach to it the nearer a perfect affection. But
though the Word of God employs these three
comparisons to shadow forth the Saviour's feel-
ing towards his own, the labouring words and
disappointed metaphors leave us to infer that
there is something in the heart of Immanuel to-
wards his people — something more specific —
more solicitous — more bent on their happiness
and more bound up in their holiness — more ten-

22 LECTURE I.

der and more transforming than anything which
the dim affections and drossy emotions of earth
can rightly represent. Oh, disciple ! do you
credit this ? Have you not been rather wont to
regard yourself as occupying in the Saviour's
mind such a place as a star in the firmament, or
a symbol in a formula, or a leaf in the forest, or
at best a sheep in the uncounted fold ? If these
be your notions go back to Olivet. Hear the Di-
vine Intercessor at its foot exclaiming, " Neither
pray I for these alone, but for all who shall here-
after believe through their word ;" and hear him
promising, ere his feet sunder from its grassy
slopes, " And lo, I am with you alway, even to
the end of the world ;" and recollect that he who
prayed thus and who promised thus is He to
whom " all power is given in heaven and in
earth " — the Alpha and Omega, who is, and was,
and is to come — the Almighty. Remember that
in his comprehensive eye you as truly had a
place as Peter and John, and in his all-sufficient
love you have a place as specific if not as large
as they. You are one of those over whom he
stretched his uplifted hands, and pronounced his
parting blessing. You are one of those to whom
he has promised another Comforter, and whom
he has engaged to be with alway ; and though
formal teaching may forget it, and your own cold
heart may contradict it, if you belong to Christ at
all, however much you may be prized and cher-
ished by some around you, there is One unseen
who loves you more, and who having loved you
from the first will love you to the end.

Except his bodily absence, there is no altera-

LECTURE I. 23

lion in the Friend of Sinners. It was ineffable
love to the souls of men that brought him. to the
manger, and that love was nothing less when he
hasted to Jerusalem, impatient for the cross.
The bloody sweat of Gethsemane did not ex-
haust that love — the desertion of disciples did
not damp it, and the soldiers' buffeting and the
rabble's shouts did not disgust it. It was love to
men, which in the ransomed thief for a moment
brightened his dying hour, which gave him
breath to cry, " Father, forgive them," and
strength to bow the head and give up the ghost.
Love to man was the last thing which left the
heart of Jesus, and the first thing that throbbed
in it when it was a living heart again. The
darkness of Golgotha had not eclipsed it, nor in
Joseph's sepulchre had the tomb-damp tarnished
it. No sooner was he risen indeed, than this
love glowed again so fervent that that resurrec-
tion evening it made two faithful hearts on their
way to Emmaus burn within them, and after
lighting up one little company after another for
forty days, in a burst of concentrated kindness,
in a blaze of final blessing it vanished from them
into heaven. And in the same manner as they
saw him go, we shall see him. come ; the same
mighty yet benignant Saviour, as full of grace
when he returns the Man of Joys as when he
first and for ever ceased to be the Man of Sor-
rows. And, oh ! brethren, do you learn it — do
you believe it. Let the Mount of Olives be your
incarnation monument. Let the road from Jeri-
cho be the record of a Saviour's pity. Let
Gethsemane be the measure of a Saviour's de-

24 LECTURE II.

sire for souls, and let Bethany be the token how
much he loves his own ; and like the men of
Galilee, let the last and habitual aspect of the
Saviour be that look which lingered on their
memory till one by one they passed away to see
him as he is — that look which spake more love
than even his melodious blessing, and which,
after the cloud had closed him from their view,
made them loath to quit the Mount of Olives.

LECTURE II.

THE PARTING PROMISE, AND THE PRESENT
SAVIOUR.

" And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of
the world." — MATT, xxviii. 20.

THERE are some plants which grow right up
— erect in their own sturdy self-sufficiency, and
there are some feeble ones which take hold with
their hands and clasp and climb. The soul of
man is like these last. Even in his best estate
he was not meant to grow insulated and stand
alone. He is not strong enough for that. He
has not within himself resources sufficient to fill
himself. He is not fit to be his own all-in-all.
The make of his mind is an out-going, exploring,
petitionary make. The soul of man is a clasp-
ing, clinging soul, seeking to something over
which it can spread itself, and by means of which
it can support itself. And just as in a neglected
garden you may see the poor creepers making
shift to sustain themselves as best they can ; one
convolvolus twisting round another, and both
draggling on the ground ; a clematis leaning on
the door which will bye and bye open and let the
whole mass fall down ; a vine or a passion-flower
wreathing round a prop which all the while is
3

26 LECTURE II.

poisoning it * so in this fallen world it is mourn-
ful to see the efforts which human souls are mak-
ing to get some efficient object to lean upon and
twine around. One clasps a glittering prop, and
it poisons him. The love of money blasts his
soul, and it hangs round its self-chosen stay a
blighted, withered thing. Another spreads him-
self more amply over a broad surface of creature-
comfort, — a snug dwelling, and a well-furnished
library, and a pleasant neighbourhood, with the
command of everything that heart can wish, and
a steady income buy, — but death opens the door,
and, with nothing but vacancy to lean upon, he
falls over on the other side all helpless and de-
jected. And a still greater number, groping
about along the ground, clutch to one another,
and intertwine their tendrils mutually, and by
forming friendships and congenial intimacies, and
close relations, try to satisfy their leaning loving
nature in this way. But it answers little end.
The make of man's soul is upward, and one
climber cannot lift another off the ground. And
the growth of man's soul is luxuriant, and that
growth must be stifled, checked and scanty, if he
have no larger space over which to diffuse his
aspirations, his affections, and his efforts, than the
surface of a fellow-creature's soul. But, weedy
as this world-garden is, the Tree of Life still
grows in the midst of it, — erect in his own omni-
potent self-sufficiency, and inviting every weary
straggling soul to lay hold of his everlasting
strength, and expatiate upwards along the infinite
ramifications of his endless excellencies and all-
invitiug love.

IECTUREII. 27

God has formed the soul of man of a leaning,
dependant make; and for the healthy growth
and joyful development of that soul, it is essen-
tial that he should have some object far higher
and nobler -than himself to dispread his desires
and delights upon. That object is revealed in
the Gospel. That object is Immanuel. His
divinity is the Almighty prop — able to sustain the
adhering soul, so that it shall never perish nor
come into condemnation — the omnipotent support
which bears the clinging spirit loftily and secure-
ly, so that the whirling temptations which vex it
cannot rend it from the Tree of Life, and that the
muddy plash, which soils and beats into the earth
its sprawling neighbours, cannot tarnish the ver-
dant serenity and limpid glories of its flowering
head. And just as his divine strength is the
omnipotent prop of the adhering soul, so his di-
vine resources and his human sympathy make
him the all-sufficient object, over which each
emotion and each desire of regenerate humanity
may boundlessly diffuse itself. And however
delicate your feelings, however eager your affec-
tions, and however multitudinous the necessities
of your intricate nature, there is that in this
Heavenly Friend which meets them every one.
There are in his unimaginable compassions, and
in his benignant fellow-feelings, holds sufficient
for every craving tendril and eager clasper of the
human heart, to fix upon and wreath around.

This is what the Gospel does. It just offers
you a friend, who can both save and satisfy your
soul. Jesus, the Son of God, God manifest in
flesh, Immanuel, the Gospel offers this Friend to

28 LECTURE II.

you — not more tender than he is holy, not more
clivine than he is human. Instead of clutching
to props which cannot elevate you, or if they do
bear you up for a moment, must soon be with-
drawn again, — the Gospel bids you grow against
the Tree of Life, and just as you grow up into
Christ, you will grow up into holiness and into
happiness. And if you have not yet found an
object to your heart's content, — if you feel that
there is still something wrong with you, — that
you are neither leading the life which you would
like to lead, nor enjoying the comfort which you
think might be somehow got ; be advised. Take
the Lord Jesus for your friend. He is one in
whom you will find no flaw. He is one of whom,
— if you really get acquainted with him, — you
will never weary ; and one, who, if once you
really go to Him, will never weary of you. He
is a friend of whom no one had ever reason to
complain — a friend who has done so much for
you already, that he would have done enough
even though he were never to do any more, but
who is so generous, that his thoughts are all oc-
cupied with the great things he designs to do, —
a friend who is singularly kind and considerate,
for " he sticketh closer than a brother," — a friend
who does not vary, " for he is the same yester-
day, to-day, and for ever," — and, best of all, a
friend who is never far-away, for " Lo, I am with
you alway."

My dear friends, — There are many reasons
why men do not love the Lord Jesus. Some
feel no need of him. They understand that he
is a Saviour ; but a Saviour is what they do not

LECTURE II. 29

desire. Others have no congeniality with him.
They m derstand that his character is divine —
that his love of holiness is as intense as his hatred
of iniquity, — and as they love the world, and
love their own way, and love the pleasures of sin,
they feel that they cannot love the Lord Jesus.
But the hearts of some towards Christ are cold
for other reasons. Their conceptions regarding
him are sufficiently vague and dim ; but so far
as they can be reduced to anything definite, we
might say that they do not love the Lord Jesus,
because they habitually think of Him as a dead
Saviour, or a Saviour different from what he
was, or a distant Saviour — a Saviour far away.
I. Some look on the Lord Jesus as dead.
They read his history as of one who lived long
ago, but who is not living now. They read
Matthew's narrative, or John's, and they are in-
terested— for the moment moved. They feel that
these words are very beautiful — that this stroke
of kindness or tenderness was very touching —
that that interposition was very surprising. They
feel that the whole history of Jesus of Nazareth
is very affecting; and, just as they may have
wept at the death of Socrates, or when they read
the martyrdom of the saints at Lyons, so they
may have felt for him who had not the fox's
hole — they may have wept when they saw the
son of Mary hanging on the tree. And, if they
were visiting Palestine, they might linger over
many a silent spot with a solemn impression.
" Is this the grassy mount where he preached
that sermon ? Yon lake, rippling round its pebbly
margin, is it the one he so often crossed ? and
3*

30 LECTURE II.

are these the very rocks which echoed the strong
crying of his midnight prayers ?" But there they
feel as if it ended. They look on it all as a tale
that is past. They take for granted that it all
closed on Calvary — that the cross was the con-
clusion of that life — the most wonderful life that
the world ever saw — but still its conclusion. To
them Christ is dead, not living ; and therefore no
wonder that they do not love him. You may
revere the character of those long ago departed ;
but love is an affection reserved for the living.
You will only love the Lord Jesus when you
come to believe in him as a living Saviour — one
who once was dead, but who, once dead, dieth
no more. Jesus lives. He was not more alive
when he sat at Jacob's well than he is alive this
moment. He was not more alive when he poured
the water into the basin and washed their feet —
not more alive when he took the cup and made
a beginning of the Remembrance-feast — not more
alive when he rose from table and sang the part-
ing hymn, and went out among them to the
Mount of Olives, than he is living now. The
Lord Jesus lives. He is alive for evermore.

II. Some do not love the Lord Jesus because
they look on him as an altered Saviour — as differ-
ent now from what he once was. Earthly friends
are apt to change, and if they do not change, they
die. When a visitor comes from a foreign land
where you once sojourned, you ask eagerly about
the different acquaintances you once had there.
"And did you see such a one?" "Yes; but yon
would not know him, he is so greatly altered."
" Did he remember me ?" " Well, I rather think

LECTURE II. 31

he was asking for you, but I cannot be very sure.
He has got other things to occupy his thoughts
since you and he were wont to meet." " And
what of such another ?" " Ah, times are sadly
changed with him. You would be sorry to see
him now. I believe he has the same kind heart
as ever ; but he has not in his power to show it
as he used to do." " And our old neighbour,
who lived next door?" " Your old neighbour?
dear good man, he is safe in Abraham's bosom.
I found his house shut up, and all his family
gone away." And it is very seldom, after years
of absence, that you hear of one whose outward
circumstances are nowise different from what
they were, and rarer still to hear of one whose
dispositions are quite unchanged.

However, One there is who wears our nature,
but is not liable to the variations of mortality.
" Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and
for ever." The concurring testimony of those
who have seen him from time to time, along a
reach of some thousand years, goes to prove that
the Alpha and Omega, the friend of sinners, can-
not change. He who talked with our first pa-
rents in the cool of the day is the same holy yet
condescending one that he ever was, and loveth
righteousness, and hateth iniquity, as much as
when the first sinners ran, away from his pure
and sin-repelling presence. The heavenly high
priest is still as accessible to prayer, and as ready
to yield to his people's entreaty, as when he six
times conceded to Abraham's intercession. The
God of Bethel is still the faithful keeper of his
people and their families as when he heard Jacob

32 LECTURE1I.

in the day of his distress, and was with him in
the way which he went.^ And anything which
has been heard of him since he went back to his
glory, goes to prove that he is the same Saviour
now as during the continuous years he sojourned
with us.

It is true, there are some circumstantial differ-
ences, but no intrinsic change. There is more
of the oil of gladness on him than when the Fa-
ther first anointed him, and crowns are on his
head which have been planted there since the
work given him to do was finished. His satis-
factions are fuller, as he continues to see the
travail of his soul ; and, doubtless, there are out-
bursts of his glory yet to come, more dazzling
than any which have yet astonished heaven.
But still the mind of the Lord Jesus is the same
as it ever was ; and when the last saint sits down
beside him on his throne — when the fulness of
" It is finished " comes to be understood, and
word is brought to the many mansions that death
is dead, and that time is now no more — the re-
deemed, as they bow beneath that exceeding
gloiy, will feel that it is still the glory of the
Lamb that was slain — the glory of the friend who
sticketh closer than a brother.

III. But the feelings of others towards the
Lord Jesus are vague and comfortless, because
they think of him as a distant Saviour — a Saviour
far away. The Lord Jesus is omnipresent. He
is not far from any one of us. His flame-
bright eye follows the Sabbath-breaker through
the fields, and is on the drunkard as he reels into

* Gen. xxxv. 3.

LECTURE II. 33

the tavern. It reads the thought of the liar as
he forges his falsehood, and looks through and
through that heart which is full of its corrupt
imaginings. It notices the worldly professor at
the communion-table, and sees the unbeliever
tumbling, night after night, into his prayerless
bed. But though the Lord Jesus be everywhere
present, he is present with his own people in a
peculiar relation. He is with them as a Saviour,
a shepherd, a friend. His divine presence fills
immensity ; but his gracious and reconciled pre-
sence— his loving and interested presence — his
Saviour-presence — is exclusively with his own.
So constantly is the Lord Jesus present with his
people that, in order to get the full good of it,
they have only to remember the fact. From the
moment that a man becomes a disciple of Christ,
" Lo, I am with you alway " becomes a promise
to that man — a promise, the performance of which
is never for a moment suspended by the Saviour,
but the existence of which is often forgot by the
disciple. But, forgotten or remembered, it is
every moment true ; and, to enjoy the full bles-
sedness of this assurance you have only to re-
member, to realize it. Sometimes, without any
effort on your part, the conviction will dawn
gently, or flash brightly, on the mind, and you
will feel for a moment that Jesus is with you.
But why not feel it alway? for it is always
equally true.

A glance from heaven, with sweet effect,
Sometimes my pensive spirit cheers ;

But ere I can my thoughts collect,
As suddenly it d: sappears.

34 LECTURE II.

So lightning in the gloom of night

Affords a momentary day ;
Disclosing objects full in sight,

Which, soon as seen, are snatch'd away.

The lightning's flash did not create
The opening prospect it reveal'd ;

But only show'd the real state

Of what the darkness had conceaPd.*

These lightning-bursts, these momentary
gleams, are just the hints of truth which the
Holy Spirit darts into the mind from time to time,
revealing matters as they really are. But we
ought to recollect, that even during the dark the
solid landscape has not vanished, but is only hid.
And even so, when Christ's sensible presence is
withdrawn, we should remember that he is near
as ever, and it is the believer's wisdom to go on
in the joyful strength of the assurance, " Lo, I
am with you."

Let me mention some benefits of Christ's per-
petual presence with his people, especially when
that presence is recollected and realized.

1 . It is sanctifying. The company of an earthly
friend is often influential on character. If he be
one of a very pure and lofty mind, and, withal,
one who has gained an ascendancy over your
own soul, his very presence is a talisman. If an
angry storm be gathering in your bosom or lower-
ing in your countenance, the unexpected sunshine
of his heavenly aspect will disperse it all again.
If mean or unworthy thoughts were creeping into
your mind, the interruption of his noble presence
will chase them all away. If you are on the

* Newton.

LECTURE II. 35

point of declining some difficult enterprise, or
evading some incumbent duty, the glance of his
remonstrating eye will at once shame away your
indolence or cowardice, and make you up and
doing. So the Saviour's recollected presence is
a constant reproof and a ceaseless incentive to an
affectionate disciple. Is he provoked? Is his
temper ruffled ? Is he about to come out with
some sharp or cutting sarcasm, or to deal the in-
dignant blow ? One look from the Lamb of
God will calm his spirit — will cool the flush of
fury in his burning cheek — will make his swell-
ing heart beat softly. Are you tempted? Do
evil thoughts arise in your heart ? One glance
from these holy eyes can chase away a whole
legion of devils, and banish back into the pit each
foul suggestion. Are you seized with a lazy or
selfish fit ? Are you wearying of work which
for some time you were doing, or refusing work
which God is now giving you to do ? Are you
angry at an affliction, or averse to a given task?
Lo ! he puts to his hand and offers to help you
with this cross, and you observe that it is a
pierced hand; and he offers to go before and
show you the way, and you notice that the foot-
prints are bleeding, and it wounds you to think
that you should have needed such an admonition.
Or you have just come away from a scene of
guilt — from a company where you have denied
him — where you have just been saying by your
conduct, by your silence, or your words, " I know
not the man ;" and as you encounter the eye of
Jesus, whom they are leading away to crucify,
O Peter, do you not go forth and weep bitterly ?

36 LECTURE II.

2. Christ's presence is sustaining. The Apos-
tles were wonderfully calm and collected men.
People, considering that they were, many of
them, unlearned and ignorant, were amazed at
their dignified composure in most difficult cir-
cumstances. It was scarcely possible to alarm
or agitate them. When brought before kings
and rulers, it was usually their judges who trem-
bled, but they themselves were tranquil. And
Paul tells us the secret of it. When he himself
was brought before Caesar , it was an agitating
occasion. Nero was a cruel prince, and the peo-
ple looked on his palace much as .they would
have looked on a leopard's den. An order has
arrived to bring the Gallilean prisoner to the em-
peror's judgment-hall. The Apostle had just
time to warn a few friends, and like enough they
came and condoled with him ; but they thought
it prudent not to go with him into court. It
might compromise their own safety, and it could
do him no effectual good ; — and he did not urge
them. The soldiers arrived, and he went away
cheerily with them — the old weather-beaten man
— without his cloak, for he had left it at Troas ;
without his friends, for he had left them behind
at his own hired house — as forlorn as ever pri-
soner stood before Caesar. And how was it that
the infirm old man passed, with so serene a look,
the clashing swords and scowling sentries at the
palace-front ? How was it that he trod the
gloomy gateway with a step so full of merry inno-
cence and martyr-zeal, and never noticed Nero's
lions snuffling and howling in their hungry den ?
And how was it that in the dim and dangerous

LECTURE II. 37

presence-chamber, where cruelty sat upon the
throne of luxury, — how was it that, with that
wolf upon the judgment-seat and those blood-
hounds all around him — with none but pagans
present, and not one believing friend to bear thee
company — how was it, O Paul ! that in such an
hour of peril, instead of pleading not guilty, and
falling down on suppliant knees, thou didst com-
mit the very crime they charged against thee —
the crime of loyalty to Jesus — and urge Christ's
claims on Csesar ? Why the secret of this
strange courage was, " At my first answer no
man stood with me, but all frfrsook me. Not-
withstanding, THE LORD stood with me and
strengthened me, that by me the preaching might
be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might
hear ; and I was delivered out of the mouth of
the lion."

And you, my .friends, will all be brought into
agitating circumstances. It is not likely that it
will be said to you, " Fear not, for thou must
stand before Csesar." But you may be arraigned
before terrible tribunals — the tribunal of public
opinion — the tribunal of private affection — the
tribunal of worldly interest — for Christ's name's
sake. From time to time you may be con-
strained to pass through ordeals which will make
you understand how Paul felt when passing in at
the palace-gate. When called to give your tes-
timony for Christ, the flesh may be weak, and
the willing word may be like to expire in your
choking utterance. Wordly wisdom may beckon
you back, and, like Paul's fearful friends, cau-
tious or carnal Christians may refuse to support
4

38 LECTURE II.

you, It is not Nero's hall, but a quiet parlour
you are entering ; but before you come out again
you may be a poor man, or a friendless one.
The Yes or No of one faithful moment may have
spurned the ladder of promotion from under your
feet, and dashed your brightest hopes on this side
the grave. Or, by the time the letter you are
now penning is closed and sealed and posted, and
the sinful assent, or the compromising proposal,
or the resolute refusal is written, the Lord Jesus
will have said, " I know thy works, that thou
hast a name that thou livest and art dead ;" or,
" I know thy works, that thou art neither cold
nor hot;" or, "I know thy works; behold, I
have set before thee an open door, and no man
can shut it ; for thou hast a little strength, and
hast kept my word, and hast not denied my
name. I also will keep thee." In such fiery
trials of love and fidelity, there is nothing so
sure to overcome as the recollected presence of
" Lo ! I am with you." And oh ! it is sweeter,
like the three holy children, to pace up and down
beneath the furnace' flaming vault, arm in arm
with the Son of Man, than to tread the green
pastures of an earthly promotion or a carnal tran-
quillity purchased by the denial of Jesus, and so
with the wrath of the Lamb.

3. Comforting. You have noticed the differ-
ence in travelling the same road solitary and in
pleasant company. " What ! we are not here
already ! It takes three hours to do it, and we
have not been half that time. Well, I could not
have believed it ; but then I never before travel-
led it with you." No douh Cleopas and his

LECTURE II. 39

comrade used to think the road from Jerusalem
to Emmaus long enough, and were very glad
when they reached the fiftieth furlong. But that
evening when the stranger from Jerusalem joined
them, they grudged every waymark which they
passed ; and as in the progress of his expositions,
Moses and all the prophets beamed with light
from heaven, and their own hearts glowed warmer
and warmer, they would fain have counted the
mile-stones back again. u How vexing ! This
is Emmaus ; but you must not go on. * Abide
with us, for the day is far spent.'" Anyroad
which you travel solitary is long enough, and
any stage of life's journey where no one is with
you, will be dreary and desolate. But you need
have no such companionless stages — no such
cheerless journeys. If you be a disciple, the
Lord Jesus always is with you. And whether
they be the silent weeks which you spend in search
of health in some far away and stranger-looking
place, or the long voyage in the sea-roaming ship,
or the shorter journey in the rattling stage or
railway car — if, in reading, or musing, or lifting
up your heart, you can realize that Saviour's
presence, who is about your path and compasses
all your ways, you will be almost sorry when
such a journey is ended, and when such a soli-
tude is exchanged for more wonted society. I
can almost believe that John* Bunyan left Bed-
ford jail with a sort of trembling, fearing that he
might never find again such a Bethel as he had
found in that narrow cell for the last twelve
years ; and I can understand how Samuel Ruth-
erford wrote from his place of banishment,

40 LECTURE II.

' Christ hath met me in Aberdeen, and my ad-
versaries have sent me here to be feasted with
his love. I would not have believed that there
was so much in Jesus as there is. But ' Come
and see,' maketh Christ be known in his excel-
lency and glory."

The presence of Christ can turn a dark night
into a night much to be remembered. Perhaps
it is time to be sleeping, but the November wind
is out, and as it riots over the misty hills, and
dashes the rain-drift on the rattling casement,
and howls like a spirit distracted in the fireless
chimney, it has awakened the young sleeper in
the upper room. And when his mother enters,
she finds him sobbing out his infant fears, or with
beating heart hiding from the noisy danger in the
depths of his downy pillow. But she puts the
candle on the table, and sits down beside the
bed; and as he hears her assuring voice, and
espies the gay comfort in her smiling face, and
as she puts her hand over his, the tear stands
still upon his cheek, till it gets time to dry, and
the smoothing down of the panic furrows on his
brow, and the brightening of his eye announce
that he is ready for whatever a mother has got to
tell. And as she goes on to explain the mysteri-
ous sources of his terror — " That hoarse loud
roaring is the brook tumbling over the stones ;
for the long pouring rains have filled it to the
very brim. It is up on the green to-night, and
had the cowslips been in blossom they would all
have been drowned. Yes — and that thump on
the window. It is the old cedar at the corner
of the house, and as the wind tosses his stiff

L E C TU R E II. 41

branches they bounce and scratch on the panes
of glass, and if they were not very small they
would be broken in pieces." And then she goes
on to tell how this very night there are people
out in the pelting blast, whilst her little boy lies
warm in his crib, inside pf his curtains ; and how
ships may be upset on the deep sea, or dashed to
pieces on rocks so steep that the drowning sailors
cannot climb them. And then perhaps she ends
it all with breathing a mother's prayer, or he
drops asleep beneath the cradle-hymn.

And why describe all this? Because there is
so much practical divinity in it. In the history
of a child, a night like this is an important night,
for it has done three things. It has explained
some things which, unexplained, would have
been a source of constant alarm — perhaps the
germ of superstition or insanity. It has taught
some precious lessons— sympathy for sufferers,
gratitude for mercies, and perhaps some pleasant
thought of Him who is the hiding-place from the
storm and the covert from the tempest. And
then it has deepened in that tender bosom the
foundations of filial piety, and helped to give that
parent such hold and purchase on a filial heart
as few wise mothers have ever failed to win, and
no manly son has ever blushed to own.

Then for the parallel. " As one whom his
mother comforteth, so the Lord comforteth his
people." It is in the dark and boisterous night
of sorrow or apprehension that the Saviour re-
veals himself nigh. And one of the first things
he does is to explain the subject matter of the
grief, to show its real nature and amount. " It

im

42 LECTURE II.

is but a light affliction. It lasts but for a mo-
ment. It is a false alarm. It is only the rain-
drift on the window — wait till the day dawns and
shadows flee away. Wait till morning and you
will see the whole extent of it." And then the
next thing that he does is to teach some useful
lesson. And during those quiet hours, when the
heart is soft, the Saviour's lessons sink deep.
And last of all, besides consolation under the trial
and peaceful fruits that follow it, by this com-
forter-visit, the Saviour unspeakably endears him-
self to that soul. Paul and Silas never knew
Christ so well nor loved him so much as after
that night which he and they passed together in
the Macedonian prison. And the souls on which
the Lord Jesus has taken the deepest hold, are
those whose great tribulations have thrown them
most frequently and most entirely into his own
society.

But we hasten to a close. We have seen the
meaning of the words so far — Lo, I am with you
alway ; I am with you to succour in temptation,
to strengthen in duty, to guide in perplexity, to
comfort in sorrow. From the instant you become
a disciple I am with you all along. I am with
you every day. All your life I am with you —
and at death ? — at death you are with me. That's
the difference. At present I am always with you,
but you are not always with me. At present
Jesus is constantly near his own, but his own do
not constantly desire to be near him. Here it is
only by faith that believers enjoy his presence.
There they shall see him as he is. Now the
Lord Jesus follows his own whithersoever they

LECTURE II. 43

go, but they do not always follow him. Then it
will be different, for they will follow the Lamb
whithersoever he goeth. And all that is wanting
to complete the promise is what death's twinkling
will supply. Now it is, " Lo, I am with you al-
way," — and then it is, " And so shall we be ever
with the Lord."

" Ever with the Lord." At once and for
ever. At once — for absent from the body, we
are present with Him. So near is Jesus now,
that, like the infant waking from its dream, it
looks up, and lo ! she sits beside it — waking up
from this life-dream, the first sight is Jesus as he
is. At once — no flight through immensity — no
pilgrimage of the spheres — for the everlasting
arms are the first resting-place of the disem-
bodied soul — it will be in the bosom of Imman-
uel that the emancipated spirit will inquire,
" Where am I ?" and read in the face of Jesus
the answer, " For ever with the Lord." For
ever — To be with him for a few years, as one
way with another John and Peter were — to be
with him one Lord's day as the beloved disciple
subsequently was — to be with him a few mo-
ments, as Paul caught up into the third heavens
was — how blessed ! But to be ever with the
Lord — not only to-day, but to-morrow — nay
neither to-day nor to-morrow, but now, now
one everlasting now !

For ever with the Lord !

Amen ! so let it be ;
Life from the dead is in that word—
5Tis immortality.

LECTURE III.

THE HEARER OF PRAYER I

THE INTERCESSOR ABOVE!

THE PROMPTER WITHIN.

te Oh thou that hearest prayer." — PSALM Ixv. 2.

" Jesus is able to save them to the uttermost that come
unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make inter-
cession for them. — HEB. vii. 25.

" The Spirit helpeth our infirmities ; for we know not
what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit
himself maketh intercession for us with groanings
which cannot be uttered." — ROM. viii. 26.

THE only proper object of worship is God —
the living and true God — Triune Jehovah. Fa-
ther, Son, and Holy Spirit. According to the
nature of the blessings implored or the mercies
acknowledged, we have instances of prayer ad-
dressed to all the Persons of the blessed God-
head ; but the tenor of Scripture shows that in
the economy of grace, prayer is usually addressed
to the Father through the Son, and by the Holy
Ghost. God in Christ is the object of Christian
worship, and the author of that worship is the
Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of Christ.

I. God is the hearer of prayer.

Dear friends, I am not sure that you all have
a distinct conviction of the power of prayer. I

LECTUREIII. 45

am not sure that you all have that confidence in
its efficacy, which makes prayer an interesting
exercise on ordinary occasions, or a natural and
hopeful resource on occasions of perplexity and
alarm. As the result of your own musings, or ot
others' reasonings, you may either have ceased
to pray, or you may pray despondingly, as very
doubtful if prayer has any power at all, or your
so-called prayer may be a series of devout ascrip-
tions without containing a single earnest suppli-
cation. I shall read a prayer found among the
papers of one of the most amiable of worldly
philanthropists as well as one of the most tal-
ented of modern jurists. In the single element ot
gratitude for temporal blessings, it so far sur-
passes the prayers of many Christians, that we
cannot but grieve that it wants what no Chris-
tian prayer should want — " The offering of de-
sires unto God in the name of Christ."

" Almighty God ! Creator of all things ! the
source of all wisdom, and goodness, and virtue,
and happiness, I bow down before thee — not to
offer up prayers, for I dare not presume to think
or hope that thy most just, unerring, and supreme
will can be in any degree influenced by any sup-
plications of mine — nor to pour forth praises and
adorations, for I feel that I am unworthy to offer
them — but in all humility, and with a deep sense
of my own insignificance, to express the thanks
of a happy and contented being, for the innumer-
able benefits which he enjoys. I cannot reflect
that I am a human being, living in civilized so-
ciety, born the member of a free state, the son of
virtuous and tender parents, blest with an ample

46 LECTURE III.

fortune, endowed with faculties which have ena-
bled me to acq-uire that fortune myself, enjoying
a iair reputation, beloved, by my relations,
esteemed by my friends, thought well of by most
of my countrymen to whom my name is known,
united to a kind, virtuous, enlightened, and most
affectionate wife, the father of seven children, all
in perfect health, and all giving by the goodness
of their dispositions, a promise of future excel-
lence, and though myself far advanced in life,
yet still possessed of health and strength which
seem to afford me the prospect of future years of
enjoyment. I cannot reflect on all these things
and not express my gratitude to thee, O God !
from whom all this good has flowed. I am sin-
cerely grateful for all this happiness. I am
sincerely grateful fi>r the happiness of all those
who are most dear to me, of my beloved wife,
of my sweet children, of my relations, and of
my friends.

" I prostrate n)yself, 0 Almighty and Omnis-
cient God, before thee. In endeavouring to con-
template thy divine attributes, I seek to elevate
my soul towards thee ; I seek to improve and en-
noble my faculties, and to strengthen and quicken
my ardour for the public good ; and I appear to
myself to rise above my earthly existence, while
1 am indulging the hope that I may at some time
prove an humble instrument in the divine work
of enlarging the sphere of human happiness."^

This is the thankful but melancholy prayer
of a man as virtuous, and, we may add, as de-
vout as any man can be who has not the clear

* " Life of Sir S. Romilly," vol. iii., p. 76.

LECTURE III. 47

convictions and lively hopes of a believer in
Jesus. But even in this act of devotion he does
not venture to offer up a single petition, — for he
dares not think that the will of the Almighty can
in any way be influenced by any supplication of
his. And what this gifted lawyer wrote in his
meditative retirement, others tacitly think, or
openly avow. They feel as if the creation were
so vast, and its concerns so multifarious, that it
is impossible that even Omniscience can have an
ear for all their petitions. Or they feel that the
Creator is so exalted, — his throne so high and
lifted up, — that it is not fit for them to approach
it. Or they feel that the laws of nature are so
fixed, and the decrees of the Eternal so determin-
ate, that it is only presumption to expect that any
earnestness or importunity of theirs can alter
them. Such thoughts do arise in some men's
hearts. By some they are sported flippantly, by
others they, are felt painfully ; but they are as
erroneous as they are fatal to hope and effort, as
preposterous as they are paralyzing ; and a few
considerations, carefully pondered, may, by the
blessing of God, set your minds conclusively at
rest on this and like misgivings.

And first of all, it must be remembered, that
the human mind has a much greater talent at
asking questions than at answering them, and
many minds have a greater propensity to raise
doubts and start difficulties, than to repose in that
scanty measure of truth which is already ascer-
tained and infallible. I am speaking not of
things ?iecessary, but of things contingent ; and
by truth ascertained and infallible, I mean know-

48 LECTUREIII.

ledge which does not rest on mere opinion, but
knowledge which comes to us in the shape of in-
formation. Anything which I am told by a
credible witness is information, and so is any-
thing which comes to my knowledge through
any of my own five senses, and so is any know-
ledge that I gain directly by attending to the pro-
cesses and feelings of my own mind. But any
notion which does not come from one or other of
these three legitimate sources, — sensation, con-
sciousness, or competent testimony, — is good for
nothing. It may be an ingenious hypothesis, or
a plausible opinion, but it is not matter of fact ;
it is not information. Till it assume a positive
form it is not knowledge, and I have no security
for its eventual truth.

INow, excepting mathematical truth, which has
no connexion with the present subject, we re-
peat, that the human mind can attain no sure
and infallible knowledge, except that which it
gets in the positive form ; that knowledge for
which it has the evidence of its own senses or
personal consciousness, or the senses and con-
sciousness of others. Beyond this the human
mind cannot go. If they be not the limited facts
which we have discovered for ourselves, for all
beyond we are at the mercy of others who know
better than ourselves — that is, of others who have
seen and felt and handled what we have not —
and to expect to come at absolute knowledge in
any other way is to expect an impossibility. —
The hawk may fly higher than the sparrow, and
the eagle, again, may soar above them both, but
none of them can rise beyond the atmosphere.

LECTURE III. 49

An European may know more than a savage,
and a scholar may know more than either ; but
none of them can know for certain anything ex-
cept facts, which they have observed for them-
selves, or facts which have been revealed to them
by others.

But whilst these are the limits of human cer-
tainty, they are not the limits of human curiosi-
ty. In our anxiety to be wise, beyond what is
ascertainable, we have invented a transcendental
Metaphysics, — a science on which the acutest of
human intellects have bestowed themselves, and
to whose literature some of the most eloquent
argument and finest fancy of ancient times and
modern has been contributed — but a science
which, amidst all its curious questions and doubt-
some answers — the accumulation of two thousand
years — has not added a single atom to the do-
main of ascertained truth or actual knowledge.
If you could conceive the fowls of heaven sud-
denly seized with a strong desire to get away
from this globe altogether, — if you could imagine
them all at different elevations in the atmosphere,
according to the strength of their pinions, or the
lightness of their forms, but all, beak uppermost,
struggling and fluttering, and screwing their way
a little and a little higher in the rarified medium,
you would have a very exact idea of- the object
of metaphysical inquiry, and the position of its
several votaries. Its object is to ascertain truths
regarding which we have no information, and
there may doubtless be many such truths, — but
are they ascertainable ? There are other planets
besides this one, and we have supposed the case
5

50 LECTURE III.

of the fowls of heaven wishing to reach them, —
but are they accessible ? A bird of powerful
pinion, or singular lightness, may rise a mile
above his fluttering competitors, and as an affair of
aerial gymnastics, the fruitless effort may be good
practice ; but the wing which is farthest above
the surface is still a thousand times farther from
the next nearest world ; and so in the metaphy-
sical contest to get away from the regions of ab-
solute information — the terra firma of positive
truth, there has been a wonderful display of men-
tal power and buoyancy, but the subtile spirit
which has mounted the highest above the ascer-
tained and the actual of our restricted humanity,
is still infinitely distant from the next nearest
domain of knowledge. As some one has truly
remarked, " To know more, we first must be
more."^

It is not a popular doctrine, but it is one to
which the world is slowly coming round — of con-
tingent truth we can know nothing regarding
which we have not positive information, and be-
yond these limits to wonder what things there
are, or how such and such things can be, is to
vex ourselves in vain. Those things which I
have observed for myself, and those which others
have told me, make up a solid basis of truth, — a
terra firma of fact. If I am dissatisfied with its
narrow limits, I may fling myself over into the
abyss of speculation, and finding in every deep a
deeper still, perish at last in total scepticism ; or
I may try to soar upwards into a transcendental
region, and after fruitless efforts to be wise be-

* Lewes' " History cf Philosophy."

LECTURE III. 51

yond my nature's capacity, be content to fold my
weary pinions at last on the homely landing-place
of common sense and tangible truth. There, and
there only, on the solid ground of information,
on the firm footing of what I have observed for
myself, or others have told me, can I find a per-
manent rest for my spirit, and a secure starting-
point for eternity.

Applying these principles to the case before us,
we do not ask what anterior probabilities are
there that prayer is heard and answered ? But
what proof? Can we say from our own experi-
ence, or have we reason to believe, on competent
authority, that prayer has actual power ?

Now, it is conclusive on the entire subject, that
for the efficacy of prayer we have the assurance
of God himself. " The eyes of the Lord are
over the righteous, and his ears are open unto
their prayers." " Delight thyself in the Lord,
and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart."
" Commit thy way unto the Lord ; trust also in
him, and he shall bring it to pass." " Call upon
me in the day of trouble, and I will answer thee."
And lest we should desire more definite informa-
tion we have it. " No man hath seen God at
any time, — the only-begotten Son, who is in the
bosom of the Father, he hath declared him."
There was once amongst us one who knew pre-
cisely the reception which prayers are wont to
meet with in the Court of Heaven. There was
once on earth one who could testify, on this mat-
ter, what he had seen, and who could tell dis-
tinctly whether the prayers of earth are audible
in the upper sanctuary, and how far the high and

52 LECTURE III.

Holy One is disposed to regard and answer them ;
and nothing can be more encouraging than the
language of this Faithful Witness. " When thou
prayest, enter into thy closet ; and when thou
hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in
secret; and thy Father who seeth in secret shall
reward thee openly." " I say unto you, that if
two of you shall agree on earth, as touching any-
thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them
of my Father who is in heaven." " Whatsoever
ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the
Father may be glorified in the Son." " Ask,
and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall
find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you :
for every one that asketh receiveth ; and he that
seeketh findeth ; and to him that knocketh it
shall be opened."

So conclusive are these and similar declara-
tions, that no farther warrant should be needful
to give precision and hopeful earnestness to our
petitions. We have the living God himself as-
suring us that he is prepared to accept, and con-
sider, and answer them ; and we have the Son
of God himself come down from the bosom of the
Father, the appointed medium of communication
betwixt heaven and earth ; we have the Interces-
sor himself declaring, that no petition passes
through his hand but it brings back its blessing ;
and farther assurances than these should scarcely
be needful to make the man who is conscious of
sincerity in prayer secure of an answer. But
farther assurance is given. It should be enough
that we have historic evidence that the Lord has
promised to answer prayer; but, over and above,

LECTURE III. 53

we have historic evidence that, times almost un-
numbered, he has answered it. In the lives of
Abraham and Abraham's servant, of Lot, of Ja-
cob, of Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Manoah and
Samson, of Hannah and of Samuel, of David the
king and Solomon his son, Hezekiah and Manas-
seh, of the prophets Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah,
Daniel, and Ezekiel; then, again, in the history
of the apostles and the early Church,^ we have
abundant evidence that, whatever may have be-
come of our own, others have directed prevailing
supplications to the Heavenly Majesty, and that
singular mercies have been, from time to time,
bestowed in answer to believing prayer.

And here you would not wonder though we
should close the case. Having God's promise
and the Saviour's assurance of the prevalency of
prayer, and having, both in the sacred narrative
and later histories, so many cases recorded of
accepted and answered supplications, there is
enough to justify the conclusion, that men ought
always to pray, and not to faint. But there is an
evidence, to most minds more satisfactory than
the most harmonious testimony — I mean, the
evidence of personal consciousness — the proof
they have from their own experience. There
have been persons who possessed this proof ; and
I believe almost every Christian could make, at
some stage of his progress, the same entry in his
journal as John Newton,t when he wrote : —

* See Fincher's " Achievements of Prayer," — a de-
lightful work containing in the words of Scripture the
different prayers with their answers as recorded there.

f Quoted in M'Gill on " Closet Prayer."
5*

54 LECTURE 1 1 1.

" About this time I began to know that there is a
God who hears and answers prayer." We be-
lieve that, to most real Christians here present,
the whole discussion of this morning will be su-
perfluous, and, so far as they are personally con-
cerned, uninteresting; for their short argument
in favour of the practice, and conclusive answer
to all objections, is the Psalmist's own : — " But
verily God hath heard me ; he hath attended to
the voice of my prayer." The efficacy of prayer
is with them no longer a matter of probability or
a subject for reasoning. It is now a matter of
fact — an ascertained and positive truth — a truth
not even of others' testimony, but a fact of their
own consciousness. And so, brethren, if you
wish to have your minds set conclusively at rest
on the subject, like the Psalmist, pray — pray till,
like the Psalmist, you can sing — " I love the
Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my
supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear
unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long
as I live."

And now, having put on its proper footing, as
a matter of fact, the truth that God is the hearer
of prayer, the speculative difficulties with which
some have perplexed the subject need give us no
pain. If the truth be ascertained, and the mind
of the man who has discovered it be sound and
vigorous, no difficulties will disturb his faith.
To use the words of a clear thinker,*" — " Before
a confessed and unconquerable difficulty, the
mind, if in a healthy state, reposes as quietly as

* Arnold's " Sermons on Interpretation of Scripture,"
p. 147.

LECTURE III. 55

when in possession of a discovered truth — as qui-
etly and contentedly as we are accustomed to
bear that law of our nature which denies us the
power of seeing through all space, or of being
exempt from sickness and decay." Allow that
some serious objections could be started against
the efficacy of prayer, these objections do not
touch the evidence on which we believe that God
has promised to hear prayer, nor that other evi-
dence on which we believe that he has actually
heard and answered it. The greatness of crea-
tion and the littleness of man, the decrees of God
and the immutability of natural laws, would not
stop his prayer, nor startle from his knees the
man who could say — " Verily, God hath heard
me : he hath attended to the voice of my peti-
tion ;" but, superior to all speculative difficulties,
because secure in his experimental knowledge,
that wise and happy man would still pray on.
And, to see the wisdom of this course, you have
only to put a parallel case. In the infinite varie-
ty of this universe, there may be a world where
the processes of growth, and decay, and repro-
duction, so familiar to us, are utterly unknown.
Suppose that the inhabitant of such a world were
transported to our own, and that he witnessed
the husbandman's operations in spring. He
might marvel what he meant. He might wonder
why he cast these grains of corn into the ground ;
and, when told that it was with a view to repro-
duce them a hundred-fold, the mysterious process
might at once assume the aspect of infatuation,
and he might begin to remonstrate with the la-
bourer on this crazy waste of useful corn ; and,

56 LECTURE III.

if this visitor from Jupiter or Saturn were as acute
a metaphysician as many in our own world are,
he might adduce many subtile arguments — too
subtile, perhaps, for a farmer to refute. " Is not
this a mad notion of yours ? Do you really mean
to affirm, that this particle of corn will grow into
a hundred more ? ^Nay, do you pretend to say
that you will put into that hole this hard and
husky atom, and come back in three months and
find it changed into the glossy stems, the waving
leaves, and rustling ears, of-the tall wheat-stalk ?
What resemblance, or what adequacy, is there
between that seed and a sheaf of corn ? Besides,
if a buried grain is to grow up a hundred-fold,
why don't you bury diamonds and guineas, and
get them multiplied after the same proportion ?
Besides, O simpleton ! do you not know that all
these matters have been fixed and settled from
everlasting ? It has been fore-ordained, either
that you are to have a crop next autumn, or that
you are to have none. In the former case, your
present pains are needless, for you will get your
harvest without all this ado. If the latter, your
pains are useless, for nothing will procure you a
crop where it is not the purpose of Omnipotence
that you should have one." Did the ploughman
listen to all this remonstrance, he might be much
perplexed with it. He might not be able to show
the precise way in which seeds exert an efficacy
on the future crop ; and he might not see at once
the reason why corn-grains should be reproduc-
tive, whilst diamonds and guineas are not ; and,
least of all, might he be able to dispose of the
fatalist objection. But he would deem it enough

LECTURE III. 57

to refute all this mystification to say — that he
had never known a harvest without a seed-time,
and that he had never sown sufficiently without
reaping something. And so, when a man comes
in from the prayerless world, and starts his objec-
tions, a praying man may not be able to discuss
them one by one — he may not even understand
them — " But this I know, God is the hearer of
prayer, and, verily, he hath heard myself."
And, like the farmer, who scatters his seed heed-
less of all that has ever been said on necessity,
and causation, and general laws, a wise believer
will, in the face of hypothetic difficulties, proceed
on ascertained facts, and, amidst objections and
cavils, will persist to pray, and continue to enjoy
the blessings which prayer procures.

Though hitherto I have not touched these
theoretic difficulties, I may now, in conclusion,
mention three simple truths, in whose successive
light every doubt and difficulty should melt
away. God is the hearer of prayer, —

1. Because he is the Living God.

2. Because he is Almighty.

3. And because he is the God of Love.

1. Jehovah is the Living God. " The ten-
dency of many minds is to regard the Deity as a
principle rather than as a person."^ They look
upon him as a power — a presence — a principle —
the most general of genera1 laws — not as the
great I AM, the Living God. No wonder that
they have little heart to pray. If Elijah had
known no other deity than the little cloud, or the
sea from which it ascended, or the sky in which

* Chalmers' " Natural Theology," vol. ii., p. 315.

5S LECTURE III.

it floated, or the electric action which condensed
more and more dark vapour round it, he would
scarcely have renewed his supplication seven
times. But he addressed himself not to clouds,
but to the Living God of Israel. When I go to
my friend's house to procure some favour from
him, I do not speak to his books or his furniture
• — I do not invoke his genius or guardian spirit ;
I do not apostrophise the abstract idea of benevo-
lence, or virtue, or friendship ; but I speak direct
to himself, a lowly friend, it may be, or an un-
worthy suppliant — but still a living man, I ad-
dress a living person. Prayer is not an appeal
to dead matter or to general laws. It is not a re-
quest to the rain to fall, or to the sun to stand
still. It is not imploring the principle of gravita-
tion to relax its rule on my behalf and disengage
my feet from the earth, or beseeching the fire to
forbear and not burn me. It is not to supplicate
such virtues as meekness and patience and forti-
tude to come down and take up their abode in my
bosom. But when I pray I address myself to
that Living God who has the elements of nature
at his control, and, what is to me, as an immortal
and accountable being, far more important, who
has at his disposal infinite resources for making
his creatures holy. He is the Living God ; and
if, in asking mercies from him, I may not be as
sanguine as a friend when he entreats a friend,
or a child when he importunes a father, I may
at least be as earnest and urgent as a subject is
when he has opportunity to ply his suit with his
living sovereign.

2. But some who restrain prayer do err from

LECTURE III. 59

not knowing the power of God. They feel as if
it were impossible even for Omniscience to attend
to every suppliant, and beyond the power even
of Omnipotence to bestow a separate boon in an-
swer to each petition. Or they feel as if they
were only the more important requests of the
more eminent suitors that are likely to be noticed
and conceded. But what is Omnipotence ? Is
it not the power of attending to all things undis-
tracted, as well as of doing the mightiest things
unexhausted ? The Almighty — is he not able to
attend to all the wants of all his creatures ? Is
there in creation aught that would lead us to sup-
pose that to his comprehensive eye any grandeur
is imposing, or any minuteness despicable ? Did
he only create the suns and larger planets, and
leave it to moons and little worlds to create them-
selves ? Or, coming down to this lower world,
did he bestow a higher finish on the bulkier ex-
istences, arid show little care for the lesser and
lower ? Was he rejoicing in the greatness of his
strength when he formed the oak and the lion,
and had his arm grown weary when it reached
the lily, and the nightingale ? Though there
were no Bible to proclaim it, there is evidence
enough — whether we look up into the heavens
with their circling worlds, or down into a drop of
water with its myriad of gay darting monads —
proof enough that He who made the whole ol
such a universe is able to attend to it all. There
is proof enough that no multitude of suppliants
can distract him and no magnitude of their re-
quests exhaust Him. There is proof enough that
if any prayer be unanswered, it is not because

60 LECTURE III.

the offerer was too little, nor because he asked
too much.

3. And others err, forgetting God's goodness.
True, Jehovah may be the Living God, and a
God of boundless power ; but what if he be a
hard master or an angry king ? What if we our-
selves have put him in an attitude of estrange-
ment, and the same breath which addresses him
in the language of entreaty, what if it has previ-
ously assailed the High and Holy One in tones
of hostility ? Here does come in a difficulty on
which conjecture could only throw a more per-
plexing light. The hearer of prayer, is he not
also the hater of sin ? And coming into his pre-
sence, instead of procuring blessings, may I not
be provoking a more swift displeasure ? Here is
indeed a difficulty — the gloomier alternative of
which our own guilty consciences too severely
favour, and from which we should have found no
sure escape, had not the heavenly High Priest,
reposing in the Father's love, and holding out to
his guilty brethren his hand of mediation, said,
" After this manner pray ye, ' Our Father, which
art in heaven.' "

Nothing shows so strikingly that God is wil-
ling to hear and answer prayer as the provision
he has made for its acceptable and effectual pre-
sentation. However worthless the suppliant, he
may present his petition in the name of God's be-
loved Son ; and however dim his ideal an.l pow-
erless his expressions, he may obtain as the insti-
gator of his desires and the guide of his devotion,
none other than the Spirit of God.

LECVURFIII. 61

II. Where prayer is offered in Jesus' name, he
maketh intercession with the Father.

Jesus sits on the Father's right hand, and there
he intercedes for his people. This is just the
sequel and continuation of Redemption. Just as
God's Providence is the preserving of his crea-
tion once he has formed it, so Christ's interces-
sion is the preserving of his Church now that he
has bought it. The Mediator's presence within
the veil secures the perseverance of his people
till they too be within it. For Christ maketh
intercession for us. He sees some Peter at this
moment about to be sifted as wheat, and he prays
that his faith fail not. He sees a child of light
walking in darkness, or some forlorn disciple like
to faint by the way, and he prays the Father,
and he sends the Comforter. He sees a band of
sore-tempted disciples. He espies a Lot in Sodom,
or a Daniel in the den — a Joseph in Egypt, or a
saint in Sardis, and he says, " Holy Father, keep
through thine own name those whom thou hast
given me. Keep them from the evil." He sees
a believer waxing formal and cold, restraining
prayer and disrelishing the word ; and he says,
" Sanctify them through thy truth; and then the
sickness comes which drives him back to the throne
of grace, or the sorrow which sends him to the
word again ; and finding out a multitude of un-
detected sins and lacking graces, the bbliever is
sanctified anew. And oh ! he rises eagerly from
his royal seat ; for yonder is a believer dying ;
he " stands "^ up at the right hand of God, for a
Stephen is about to fall on sleep, and the Inter-

* Acts vii. 56-
6

62 LECTURE III.

ressor cries, " Father, I will that they also whom
thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that
they may behold my glory." The Father wills,
and the Lord Jesus receives that spirit.

But although, so to speak, on the part of God,
" all things are ready ;" though he sits on his
throne of grace, and though the Mediator waits
with his golden censer to receive and then to
offer up the prayers of sinners here on earth — all
things are not ready on the part of the sinner.
Diffidence God ward, dimness of perception, cold-
ness of desire, perversity of will, and distraction
of spirit, are all so many " infirmities " under
which each petitioner labours ; and it is for the
"help of these "infirmities" that the God of
grace has provided not only an Advocate above
but a prompter within.

III. The Holy Spirit guides the thoughts and
instigates the desires — he helps the infirmities of
believers when they pray.

1. Guilt on the conscience is one great hin-
derance to prayer. When sin is recent — when,
like Adam skulking among the trees, the bitter-
sweet of the forbidden fruit is still present to his
taste, and his newly-opened eyes are aghast at
his own deformity — it is not natural for the self-
condemned transgressor to draw near to God.
And it is not till the Spirit of God directs his
view to the unnoticed sacrifice, and encourages
him to put on the robe of God's providing, that
the abashed and trembling criminal can venture
back into God's presence. And it is not till the
Spirit of God comes forth into his soul, and
begins to cry " Abba" there, that the soul goes

LECTURE III. 63

forth with alacrity to meet a reconciled God. To
reveal the great High Priest, the daysman betwixt
Infinite Holiness and human vileness — to open
heaven and display Jesus standing at the right
hand of God — to impart confidence in the finished
work, and so, amidst abounding guilt, to give
hope to prayer — is His work who, when he is
come, convinces not only of sin, but of righteous-
ness.*1

2. Another great hinderance to prayer is dim-
ness of spiritual perception. When a man of
taste or science climbs a mountain in a bright,
transparent day, he rejoices in its goodly pros-
pect or curious spoils ; but his dog feels no inte-
rest in them. He sees the philosopher peering
through his telescope, or exploring for the little
plants that grow near the summit, or splintering
the rocks and putting fragments in the bag ; but
it never occurs to the spaniel so much as to mar-
vel what his master is finding there. He sits
yawning and panting on a sunny knoll, or snaps
at the mountain-bee as it come", sailing past him,
or chases the conies back into their holes, and
scampers down, with noisy glee, as soon as the
sad durance is over. The disparity between the
philosopher and his irrational friend is hardly
greater than it is between the believer and the
worldling when you bring them together into the
domain of faith. " The natural man perceiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God," and on the
Pisgah of the same revelation whence the be-
liever descries a goodly land, and where he is
making the most interesting discoveries, the other

* John xvi. 8.

64 LECTUREIII.

sees nothing to arrest his attention. The word
of God and its promises — the throne of grace and
its privileges — the things of faith in all their va-
rieties— have no existence to worldly men. And
when constrained to bear others company in out-
ward ordinances, they are thankful when the
ended prayer or the closing sanctuary sends them
back to the world again. But just as the same
lover of nature might ascend his favourite emi-
nence on a future day, and find all his goodly
prospects intercepted by a baffling mist, so dense
that, except a pebble here and there, he can
alight on none of its rare productions, and with-
out any opening vista by which he can catch a
glimpse of the fair regions around : so the be-
liever may ascend the hill of God — he may open
his Bible or enter his closet — and find, alas ! that
it is a foggy day, the beauteous panorama blotted
out and himself left to grope chillily in the cold
and perplexing gloom. But, like a gale of sum-
mer wind upspringing and lifting all the fog from
the mountain -top, the breath of the Omnipotent
Spirit can scatter every cloud and leave the soul
on a pinnacle of widest survey, rejoicing in the
purest light of God.

3. A third infirmity of the saints, and a great
hinderance to prayer, is the feebleness of affection
Godward. Human affection is an intermitting
spring. Even though the covert streams which
feed it should be always flowing, it is only now
and then, when the fountain is filled up to the
brim, that there is a momentary overflow. There
may be a very deep attachment between the
members of a family ; and yet it is only on some

v

LECTUREIII. 65

casual occasion — the day of their re-union after
long separation, or the eve of parting, or one of
those propitious seasons when people realize how
happy is their lot — that the fountain overflows
and they give utterance to their irrepressible emo-
tions. But owing to this deficiency of ardour —
this infrequency of their fits of fervent affection
—it comes to pass that the members of a harmo-
nious family will be much together, and yet not
take full advantage of their opportunities of mu-
tual intercourse, nor grow remarkably in mutual
acquaintance or mutual endearment. This in-
firmity of human affection extends into the realm
of faith. There is a real affection on the part of
the believer toward his Father in heaven ; but it
is often latent — often languid — not always well-
ing up and flowing over — and it often requires
some special incident of mercy or of judgment to
swell it up to that point which makes himself
conscious of its presence. Just as separations,
threatened or actual, bring out the love of friends
to one another, so a decree, like that of Darius
interdicting prayer, or a flight, like that of David
from the house of God to the land of Jordan,
brings out the believer's love to his Heavenly
Father — reveals it to himself. And just as sud-
den acts of kindness surprise former friends into
a fonder and more outspoken affection, so the
unlooked-for arrival of some astounding mercy
will startle the believer into such thankfulness or
self-abasement as will transport him instantly to
the throne of grace. But, even apart from any
present visitation of judgment or mercy, there are
influences which will, from time to time, sur-

66 LECTURE III.

charge the believing soul with gratitude, or ado-
ration, or earnestness after God ; and, just as in
life's daily tenor there are auspicious moments
when memory or an open eye discloses, in all
the zest of novelty, the excellence of a familiar
friend, so there are genial hours in the believer's
history when the Spirit, the Enlightener and
Remembrancer, brings to view such attractions
in that all-sufficient Friend whom we so readily
forget, that the enraptured soul looks on and
wonders, and desires no greater blessedness.
Reverting to our original emblem : as the inter-
mitting fountain takes a long interval to fill it in
a dry and sultry season, but fills the faster and
overflows the oftener as the mountain is bathed
in abundant dews, and may at last, amidst the
plenteous rain, become a constant stream ; so, as
the believer's heart is filled with more rapid love
arid joy by the Spirit's plentiful downpouring, the
rare and intermitting spring of supplication flows
more frequently, till, anon, it becomes — not a
daily — but a constant emanation, and that full-
souled and heaven-replenished saint has learned
to " pray without ceasing."

4. Another infirmity of the saints is a disposi-
tion to ask wrong things. We know not what
to pray for as we ought. The blessings for
which it is most natural to pray, are those which
we least need — temporal mercies. There are
often an urgency and importunity for these
strangely disproportionate to the earnestness with
which we beg the better gifts. Sometimes the
believer prays the Lord that the thorn in the flesh
may depart from him, far more eagerly than he

LECTURE III. 67

asks that sufficient grace which will make the
thorn no longer painful, or even will enable him
to glory in infirmity. Again, amongst spiritual
mercies, believers do not always covet most
earnestly the best gifts, or the gifts which in their
circumstances would be best for them. It was
good for Peter and James and John to be on the
holy mount, and they prayed to tarry there. But
it was good for the world, and eventually good
for themselves, that they were obliged to come
down. It is natural for believers to covet rapture
and elevation more intensely than hard labour
and hazardous testimonies for Jesus, and a toil-
some pilgrimage through a hostile world — but for
both themselves and that world, it is better that
they should go down to active service — remem-
bering, however, what they heard and saw when
they were with Jesus on the mount.

But the Holy Spirit knows the actual state of
each. He knows what spiritual blessings the
suppliant really needs, and what temporal mer-
cies it would be no eventual blessing for him to
attain. If it be a dangerous temporal good, he
can wean the soul from the vehement desire of
it ; or by exhibiting some surpassing heavenly
good can awaken such longings after that as will
make the other be forgotten ; or by simply reconcil-
ing the soul to the adorable will of God, can make
it content to merge its own instinctive longings
in his majestic sovereignty. Then again he can
so reveal to the soul its actual necessities, that
praying time will not be expended in imploring
undesired mercies, or confessingurifelt deficiency.
He knows the things which accord with the will

68 LECTURE III.

of God, and teaches the petitioner to ask those
Dressings in asking which he can plead God's
precept or God's promise.

5. A fifth infirmity of the saints is that, even
when asking right things, they do not ask in a
manner agreeable to the will of God. Some are
haunted by worldly and frivolous thoughts in
prayer, and feel as if their minds were never so
silly and trifling, so cloddish and carnal, as when
they attempt to pray. It would seem as if all
the vanities of the week came crowding into their
minds — as if on signal given — the moment they
went upon their knees — and petitions for the
most stupendous blessings will be ascending,
without force or meaning, through a swarm of
idle fancies and vagrant thoughts. Or perhaps,
amidst greater composure of spirit, there may be
little or no longing after the blessing asked. The
suppliant begs it, not so much because he appre-
ciates or desires it, as because he thinks it dutiful
to make mention of it, and after a formal enume-
ration of unsought mercies, he goes his way
without having actually lodged one prevailing
request — one effectual fervent prayer before the
throne of grace. Or perhaps amidst considera-
ble earnestness and urgency, the believer is em-
barrassed and distressed by the unsuitableness of
his thoughts — his mean conceptions of those un-
speakable benefits for which he is entreating, and
his unworthy thoughts of that God with whom
he has to do. Now, for all these distractions in
sacred duties, the remedy lies with the Spirit
himself. We can shut to the door; but he can
shut the heart, and lock out the world and all its

LECTURE III. 69

phantoms. We can open the Bible and look at
the promises ; but he can open heaven and show
each promise in its glorious fulfilment. We can
lift our eyes towards the hills ; but he can show
us " Him who is invisible," and can enable our
souls to rest on him with the sweetest security
for the fulfilment of all that he has spoken. We
can task ourselves to stated times of devotion and
resolve that we shall spend a given space in
prayer ; but he can so enlarge the heart — he can
make the spirit so strong in the Lord and in the
power of his might — he can fill the mind with
such longings after angelic purity — such delight
in heavenly things — such vehement aspirations
after God ; he can intercede within us with those
yearnings and groanings which cannot be uttered,
so that hours and minutes shall not be counted,
and the untiring soul continues " instant in
prayer."

LECTURE IV.

THE PRIVILEGE OF PRAYER.

"Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing."
1 THESS. v. 16, 17.

" THE Athenians spent their time in nothing
else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing;"
and whatever may have become of the Attic ele-
gance and the Attic genius, modern society is not
deficient in the Athenian curiosity. Nor do we
blame it. The desire of novelty is not in itself
blameworthy ; but there is one form of it which
we would like to see more frequent. To freshen
old truths is nearly as important as to discover
new ones ; and instead of telling or hearing some
new thing, our time would often be as advanat-
geously occupied in thinking over, and bright-
ening up the meaning of some old thing.

Few expressions in theology are older than
that which speaks of the " privilege of prayer ;"
but nothing could be a greater novelty in the
history of some who now hear me, than to find
prayer an actual privilege. Am I wrong ? " The
privilege of prayer ! " Do not some feel that the
burden of prayer, — the obligation, the duty,
would be a truer name for it ? Do not some of
you feel, that to call it a privilege is just to give

LECTURE IV. 71

a pleasant name to an irksome thing? If so,
instead of initiating you in a new science, that,
individual would do you a better service who
should give you fresh light on this old truth, and
make you feel, that not only has prayer power
with God, but it is very nearly the highest privi-
lege of man.

Let us make a supposition.^ Suppose that
the individual in this kingdom, who combines in
himself the greatest wisdom and goodness, were
accessible to you. Suppose that when anything
pressed upon you, — a difficulty from which your
own sagacity could not extricate you, or an un-
dertaking which your own resources could not
compass, — you had only to send him a statement
of the case, and were sure, in good time, to get
• his best and kindest counsel, — would not you
deem this a great privilege ? Would not some-
thing of this sort just meet the case of many
here ? One is entering on a new course of occu-
pation, and in its very outset meets with problems
that fairly baffle him, but which a friend of a
little more experience or perspicacity could in-
stantly solve. Another is overtaken by a sea of
troubles, — a concourse of trials which quite over-
whelm him, but through which he perfectly
believes that a stronger arm or a more buoyant
spirit could carry him. But where shall he look
for that wiser friend, — that stronger arm ? Sup-
pose, again, that when in sudden danger or in
deep distress, there were some way by which

* This was suggested by a similar idea in a Lecture
of John Foster, as preserved in the MS. notes of aa
intelligent hearer.

72 LECTUREIV.

you could make known your situation, to a spirit
departed. That spirit is now far wiser than he
was when on earth. He has sources of knowledge
that are not open to you, and he has powers not
yet possessed by you. Suppose that in grief or
in difficulty you could invoke him. Suppose
that there were some process by which you could
arrest his ear among the glorified, and in the lapse
of a brief moment bring him though unseen to
your side ; and suppose that, to this spirit made
perfect, the spirit of your departed parent, or of
some one remarkable for his wisdom and sanctity,
you could detail the whole matter that grieves
and perplexes you, and though there should be
no response from the viewless shade, you knew
that he had heard you, and was away to inter-
pose effectively on your behalf, — would you not
feel much comforted and lightened ? Would you
not resume your own active exertions with far
greater hopefulness, — assured that there would
now attend them a power beyond what was proper
to them, or inherent in yourself? But farther,
suppose that instead of any wise or influential
personage on earth, or any glorified spirit in
paradise, it was possible for you to secure the ear
and engage the help of one of the principalities
or powers in the heavenly places; some being
of such bright intelligence, that he can smile at
all our wisdom, and such commanding might,
that he can do in a moment what would occupy
our race for a millennium ; could you for an in-
stant bespeak his attention, and gain assurance
of his willingness to help ; would you not feel
that your object was unspeakably promoted, or

LECTUREIV. 73

your burden amazingly lightened ? To have
enlisted such ability and skill upon your side, —
the few minutes spent in securing such superhu-
man help, — would you not feel that they were a
larger contribution towards eventual success than
a life-time of your personal efforts ? But rise a
step higher— an infinite step ! — and suppose that
it were possible to arrest the ear and secure the
help of God himself; suppose that you could, by
any possibility, gain the attention of the living
God, — that you could secure not the cold and
distant on-looking, but the interested regard and
the omnipotent interposition of Jehovah himself,
— would not this be a privilege? But this is
precisely what prayer is. Some have no friend
of extraordinary sagacity or power to go to. The
spirits of the departed cannot come to us ; and
neither to them nor to angels are we warranted
to pray. And even though we could evoke a
Samuel from the sepulchre, or bring down Gabriel
from above the sky, — the blessings which are
most needful for us are such as neither Samuel
nor Gabriel can give, — blessings of which the
treasure lies within the light inaccessible, and of
which Omnipotence alone preserves the key.
That. Almighty hand prayer moves. That in-
communicable key prayer turns. That unap-
proachable treasury prayer opens. The blessings
which Solomon in all his glory, and Abraham in
the bosom of his God, and the seraphs who over-
shadow the throne, — the blessings which these
have not to give, it is the privilege of prayer to
procure.

But set it in another light. Imagine that there

7

74 LECTURE1V.

had been certain limitations on prayer. Imagine
that there had only been one spot on the earth
from which prayer could arise with acceptance.
Imagine — by no means inconceivable, for there
was once something very like it — imagine that
the Lord had selected some little spot of earth —
a Mount Zion or a Holy Land — and said that
here, and here only, was the place to worship.
Imagine that from this hallowed spot alone there
had existed a passage into heaven for the prayers
of earth, and that all supplications, however ear-
nest, uttered on the profane soil of the common
globe, had gone for nothing. What a resorting
we should have seen to this place of only pre va-
lency! When there occurred some conjuncture
decisive of weal or woe to an individual or a
family, or when a man became so anxious about
his soul's salvation that nothing could content
him save light from above, we should have seen
the busy trader arranging for his protracted ab-
sence, and the cautious, untravelled husbandman
preparing for the perilous pilgrimage, and multi-
tudes, on their own behalf or on behalf of others,
resorting to the place where prayer is heard and
answered. And imagine, farther, that there had
just been one day in the year when prayer was
permitted ; that those who arrived at the appoint-
ed place too late, found the gate of access closed
for the next twelve months, and, however sudden
the emergency, and however extreme its exigency,
that it was impossible to do anything for it tiil the
weary year moved round, and brought back the
one propitious day ! — even thus restricted, would
not prayer have been felt to be a privilege worth

LECTURE IV. 75

a pilgrimage and worth a long on-waiting ? Just
fancy that in our earth's yearly revolution round
the sun there was disclosed a crevice in the sky!
— that on one night in the year, and on one moun-
tain top, there was a vista opened through the
encircling vault, and a sight of dazzling glories
revealed to all who gazed from the favoured sum-
mit ; — and fancy that through the brilliant gap
there fell a shower of gold and gems, and that
this recurred regularly on the self-same evening
every year, what a concourse to that Pisgah might
you count upon ! How many eager eyes would
strain the breathless hour beforehand till the first
streak of radiance betokened the bursting glory !
And how many emulous hand's would rush to-
gether to catch the flaming rubies and the dia-
mond-rain !

And just conceive — the only other supposition
we shall make — that certain costly or arduous
preliminaries were essential in order to success-
ful prayer; suppose that a day's strict abstinence,
or some painful self-punishment, were exacted ;
or that each worshipper were required to bring
in his hand some costly offering — the choicest of
his flock, or a large per centage on his income —
And who would say that this was unreasonable?
Would not access into God's own presence — a
favour so ineffable — would it not be wisely pur-
chased at any price, and might not sinful " dust
and ashes" marvel that after any ordeal or puri-
fying process it was admitted near such Ma-
jesty ?

But how stands the case ? Prayer is not a
consultation with the highest wisdom which this

76 LECTURE IV.

world can supply. It is not intercourse with an
angel or a spirit made perfect. But it is an ap-
proach to the living God. It is access to the
High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity. It
is detailing in the ear of Divine sympathy every
sorrow. It is consulting with Divine wisdom on
every difficulty. It is asking from Divine re-
sources the supply of every want. And this not
once in a life-time, or for a few moments on a
stated day of each year, but at any moment, at
every time of need. Whatever be the day of
your distress, it is a day when prayer is allowa-
ble. Whatever be the time of your calamity, it
is a time when prayer is available. However
early in the morning you seek the gate of access,
you find it already open ; and however deep the
midnight moment when you find yourself in the
sudden arms of death, the winged prayer can
bring an instant Saviour near. And this where-
soever you are. It needs not that you ascend
some special Pisgah or Moriah. It needs not
that you should enter some awful shrine, or put
off your shoes on some holy ground. Could a
memento be reared on every spot from which an
acceptable prayer has passed away, and on which
a prompt answer has come down, we should find
Jehovah-shammah — " the Lord hath been here" —
inscribed on many a cottage hearth and many ?
dungeon floor. We should find it noc only in
Jerusalem's proud temple and David's cedar gal-
leries, but in the fisherman's cottage by the brink
of Gennesaret, and in the upper chamber where
Pentecost bego.n. And whether it be the field
where Isaac went to meditate, or the rocky knoll

LECTURE IV. 77

where Jacob lay down to sleep, or the brook where
Israel wrestled, or the den where Daniel gazed
on the hungry lions and the lions gazed on him,
or the hill-sides where the Man of Sorrows prayed
all night, we should still discern the prints of the
ladder's feet let down from heaven — the landing-
place of mercies because the starting-point of
prayers. And all this whatsoever you are. It
needs no saint, no proficient in piety, no adept in
eloquent language, no dignity of earthly rank.
It needs but a simple Hannah, or a lisping Sam-
uel. It needs but a blind beggar, or a loathsome
lazar. It needs but a penitent publican, or a
dying thief. And it needs no sharp ordeal, no
costly passport, no painful expiation to bring you
to the mercy-seat ; or rather, I should say, it
needs the costliest of all ; but the blood of atone-
ment— the Saviour's merit — the name of Jesus —
priceless as they are, cost the sinner nothing.
They are freely put at his disposal, and instantly
and constantly he may use them. This access to
God in every place, at every moment, without
any price or any personal merit, is it not a privi-
lege ?

And yet this old truth, I am anxious, before
we part, that you should find in it new signifi-
cance ; and therefore, to make it somewhat more
specific, let me apply it to a few cases, probably
all represented here.

1. "Is any among you afflicted? Let hint
pray." " In agony nature is no atheist. The
mind which knows not where to fly, flies to
God."^ And to spring into the arms of Omni-

* Hannah More on Prayer, p. 153.

7*

78 LECTUREIV.

potence, to find refuge in the bosom of Mercy, is
to weep no longer. The drowning man whose
last sensation was the weltering brine ; who felt
the seething flood go over him, and as he settled
down among the trailing weeds, the memory of
home darted like a death-shot through his heart
and put an end to other anguish ; — when that
rescued man opens his eyes beneath some friend-
ly roof, and instead of the watery winding-sheet
and the crawling1 gulf-monsters, finds himself
on a couch of warm comfort, his chamber
glowing with the cheerful faggot, a friendly face
ready to greet his first waking, and see through
the window the ship that is waiting to bear him
back to his native isle, — it may be true that he
had treasures in the foundered vessel, and that
some curious or precious things he was carrying
home may never be fished up from the devour-
ing deep,— but how different his lot from the poor
castaway, whom the billows have landed on a
desolate rock, and who creeping about in his
dripping rags, can find no food but the limpets,
no fuel but the crackling sea-weed, no hovel to
shelter him, and no sail to waft him away. Both
have been wrecked, and both have lost their all;
but in the joy of his rescue the one forgets his
poverty, and in his wretched asylum from the
waves the other recognizes nothing but a prison
and a tomb. • Precisely similar is the case of the
afflicted man who prays, and of him who, when
afflicted, cannot pray — the man whom the bil-
lows land on the desolate rock of worldliness or
atheism, and the man who, from the stun of
drowning waters, wakes up in the pavilion of
God's own presence. Both may have suffered

LECTUREIV. 79

equal losses. Both may have left a treasuie in
the deep. Both may have been washed empty-
handed ashore. But the man of prayer is like
the man who comes to himself in the asylum
of the friendly home. The bliss of present
fellowship with God abates or banishes the
grief of recent loss. On the lee-shore, which
has shattered his frail bark, he is astonished to
lift up his eyes and find himself the inmate of a
beloved friend, and a familiar dwelling. He
knows that he will land safe at last, and is happy
even now. " Is any among you afflicted? Let
him pray."

2. Is any among you perplexed ? "If any
of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who
giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not ;
and it shall be given him."

There is. an instructive Greek story which
tells us of a noble youth who had a more than
mortal guide. The Prince was frank and manly
and docile ; but on account of his inexperience
often found himself in straits through which his
own sagacity could not steer him. On such oc-
casions, when in danger of falling into designing
hands or committing himself to disastrous coun-
sels, or when actually involved in distresses from
which he could not extricate himself, this faithful
friend was sure to speed to his rescue. What-
ever was the scene of anxiety or affright, he had
only to bethink himself of his kind and sagacious
counsellor, and that moment Mentor was beside
him. What Homer dreamed, the Gospel veri-
fies. It tells that veiled from our view only by
the curtain of this corporeal, but nearer to us
than that flesh and blood which hides us from

80 LECTURE IV.

our truest selves, there is an ever-present friend
who needs only to be remembered in order to
prove a present help. It tells us that amidst all
our embarrassments and sorrows, grief is never
so near but deliverance is nearer still. And it
tells us that all the confusion and blundering, the
foolish bargains and infatuated proceedings which
often make us so affronted or indignant at our-
selves might all have been avoided had we time-
ously resorted to that wonderful Counsellor who
encompasses all our ways. In other words, the
Bible assures us that, however much we may
suffer from the deficiency of our talents and the
darkness of our understandings, we suffer still
more from not taking advantage of that Wisdom
from above who can enlighten our darkness and
elevate all our powers. No man, by taking
thought, can add a faculty to his mind any more
than he can add a feature to his countenance or a
cubit to his stature. But the man who has
learned to pray, can, at the Throne of Grace,
procure what really is the enhancement of his
intellect, and the augmentation of his faculties ;
that Divine wisdom which will either supersede
or supplement his own.

His must be a very easy calling who has
never felt the need of more skill and prudence —
more wisdom than is indigenous to himself.
Take the most common instances. You are a
father or a mother — perhaps a widowed father or
a widowed mother. There are your children
rising around you. Allowing that their minds
are ever so susceptible and plastic, how impor-
tant are your every movement and entire de-

LECTUREIV. 81

meanour in their bearing on them ! A single
inconsistency, the most trivial inadvertency, com-
ing with all the sanction of a parent's example,
how influential for evil is it sure to be ! How
possible for a father, by mere inconsiderateness,
to perpetuate his own worst qualities in the per-
sons of many survivors ; and, just because they
loved him sa well, and copied him so closely,
how possible is it to transmit in his children's
characters the facsimile of his worser self — the
image of his frivolity, or peevishness, or indo-
lence. Nay, how possible is it to convert a child
into the perennial monument of a few occasional
follies — to prolong, in its habitual character, the
sayings and doings of a few unguarded mo-
ments ! Then, again, there may be among these
children more puzzling problems — some who are
neither affectionate nor docile — who are not
likely, by a mere moral imbibition, to take in the
good influences with which they are surrounded
— problems in whose management more than pa-
tience and tenderness is needful — refractory, self-
ish, or peculiar natures, on which nothing but
the decisive measures of a deep-seeing sagacity —
the bold strokes of a forceful nature — can make
any permanent impression. Whosoever occupies
a station of moral influence — a station where his
labour lies amongst the most perilous materials
with which man can intermeddle — the affections
and dispositions — the wills of other people, must
have amazing self-reliance, or a deplorable cal-
lousness, if he is not frequently crushed down by
the solemnity of his position. It was by one in
such a position that_a most considerate and mag-

82 LECTUREIV.

nanimous prayer was offered — a prayer whose
spirit every parent, and teacher, and pastor should
emulate, just as a similar answer is what every
parent, and teacher, and pastor who offers it is
encouraged to expect : — " In Gibeon the Lord ap-
peared to Solomon in a dream by night : and God
said, * Ask what I shall give thee.' And Solo-
mon said, ' Thou hast showed unto thy servant
David my father great mercy, according as he
walked before thee in truth and in righteousness,
and in uprightness of heart with thee : and thou
hast kept for him this great kindness, that thou
hast given him a son to sit on his throne as it is
this day. And now, O Lord my God, thou hast
made thy servant king instead of David my
father ; and I am but a little child : I know not
how to go out or come in. And thy servant is
in the midst of thy people which thou hast cho-
sen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor
counted for multitude. Give, therefore, thy ser-
vant an understanding heart to judge thy people,
that I may discern between good and bad : for
who is able to judge this thy so great a people ?'
And the speech pleased the Lord that Solomon
had asked this thing. And God said unto him,
' Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast
not asked for thyself long life ; neither hast asked
riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine
enemies ; but hast asked for thyself understand-
ing to discern judgment ; behold, I have done
according to thy words : lo, I have given thee a
wise and understanding heart, so that there was
none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall
any arise like unto thee. And I have also given

LECTUREIV. 83

thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches
and honour.' "^

3. Is any among you embarked in an impor-
tant undertaking ? " Commit thy way unto the
Lord, and He shall bring it to pass. In all thy
ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct thy
steps." Some feel as if it were presumption to
implore God's blessing on their daily toils and
secular callings. They feel as if spiritual mer-
cies were the only proper themes for prayer, and
as if it xvere a desecration of Jehovah's presence-
chamber to carry thither matters so mean as our
worldly undertakings and every-day concerns.
And assuredly if a man were to make nothing
else than his worldly welfare the subject of his
supplications, it would be much the same with
him as with those sordid spirits who had no other
use for the Temple than to make it a market-
place, and sell their oxen and doves; and " Let
not that earthly-minded man think that he shall
receive anything of the Lord." But if you be in
the habit of resorting to the Throne of Grace for
spiritual mercies, to that Throne you naturally
and lawfully resort for temporal mercies also.
And, indeed, no undertaking or employment of a
Christian can be altogether secular. The mere
fact that it is his gives it a certain sacredness, and
identifies it with the interests of God's kingdom
on earth. It is not a matter of no moment whe-
ther a servant who makes profession of religion
shall fulfil the duties of his station no better than
others who make no profession. It is not a mat-
ter of no religious moment whether a student pro-

* 1 Kings iii. 5—13.

84 LECTURE IV.

fessing piety shall not be more industrious and
successful than one who scoffs at the Bible. And
it is not a matter of no consequence whether the
business transactions and household arrange-
merits and personal exertions of Christian pro-
fessors shall not surpass the usual style of the
worldly. And so far as the glory of God and
the honour of the Divine Redeemer are impli-
cated, it is incumbent on every believer to bespeak
from above that help which will make him more
than a conqueror even in his worldly calling,
But more than this : there is nothing which can
be momentous to a child of God which is not also
interesting to his Heavenly Father. A gentle
parent is not only ready to snatch his child from
the fire, but to relieve him from lesser miseries.
He is not only willing to give him an ample edu-
cation or provide for his distant well-being ; but
if there be nothing wrong in it, he is ready to in-
dulge even his least desires — ready to help him
in his most trivial pursuits. And so, the peti-
tion, "Our Father, who art in heaven — give us
this day our daily bread," is to teach us that no-
thing affects the welfare or comfort of his feeblest
child, but it is ready to receive the consideration
of his Heavenly Father, and so is a fit subject
for prayer. And just as the Lord is ready to
hear prayer in such cases, so it is the wisdom of
every one to lighten his own labour and secure
his own success by timely supplication. Jacob's
prayer did more to propitiate Esau than Jacob's
present. Eliezer's petition, as he knelt by the
camel's side, did more to prosper his embassy
than his own and his master's precautions. And

LECTTJREIV. 85

Hezekfah's intercession rescued Jerusalem when
its walls were of little use, and nothing but the
arm of Jehovah could lay the invader low. We
know not the secret history of this world's mighti-
est transactions and its proudest monuments ;
but from the little that we know we can affirm
that the men who have prospered best are the
men who have taken time to pray. It was to
prayer that Henry IV. of France ascribed his
crown, and Gustavus owed his victories. The
father of the modern fine arts was wont, before
he began any new composition, to invoke His in-
spiration, who in other days taught Aholiab ; and
the Goliath of English literature felt that he
studied successfully when he had prayed ear-
nestly. And what Michael Angelo and Milton
and Johnson found so hopeful to their mighty ge-
nius cannot hinder us. You have read in our own
history of that hero who, when an overwhelming
force was in full pursuit, and all his followers
were urging him to more rapid flight, coolly dis-
mounted in order to repair a flaw in his horse's
harness. Whilst busied with the broken buckle,
the distant cloud swept down in nearer thunder ;
but just as the prancing hoofs and eager spears
were ready to dash down on him, the flaw was
mended, the clasp was fastened, the steed was
mounted, and like a swooping falcon he had van-
ished from their view. The broken buckle would
have left him on the field a dismounted and in-
glorious prisoner. The timely delay sent him
in safety back to his huzzaing comrades. There
is in daily life the same luckless precipitancy,
and the same profitable delay. The man who,
8

OO LECTURE1V.

from his prayerless waking, bounces off into the
business of the day, however good his talents
and great his diligence, is only galloping on a
steed harnessed with a broken buckle, and must
not marvel if in his hottest haste, or most haz-
ardous leap he be left inglorious in the dust;
and though it may occasion some little delay be-
forehand, his neighbour is wiser who sets all in
order before the march begins.

4. But covet most earnestly the best gifts. Is
any among you in earnest about his soul, but
distressed by reason of darkness ? " If ye being
evil know how to give good gifts unto your chil-
dren, how much more will your Heavenly Father
give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him ?''
If any one be in the outset of his religious in-
quiries, he will feel a special lack. The subjects
to which his thoughts are now turned are novel.
Till now, he has not paid much attention to them ;
and now, when they have become urgent, he
feels foreign in the midst of them. He takes up
the Bible, but it is altogether so peculiar, the
truths it handles are so far out of the ordinary
way of his thinking, and its very style is so alien
to his ordinary mode of expression, that he feels
much as a person might be supposed to feel who
had somehow been transported to another planet,
and not only saw forms of existence there totally
different from anything which his fancy had ever
conceived, but who had not been long among
them till he began to suspect that he was not com-
petent to understand them thoroughly. He has
not been long in this new world till he begins to
suspect that more than five senses are needed

LECTURE IV. 87

here. He notices appearances which indicate
that matters are transpiring which his ear cannot
detect, and into which his eye cannot penetrate.
He finds himself in a world of deepest interest,
but a world of distressing mystery. Enough
comes within his cognizance to make him wish
that he was able to know it all ; but enough to
convince him that its most characteristic things
are those which he does not know, and has not
the means for finding out. Or, to use a more
obvious illustration : Most persons, in the out-
set of their spiritual enlightenment, are in the
case of the blind man at Bethsaida when his sight
was half restored. He looked up arid saw men
like trees walking. He saw that he was in a
world of light, and verdure, and vivacity ; but it
was all a jumble of green men, and walking
trees — a medley of light and motion. He had
no clear perceptions — no sharp and definite ideas.
But — another touch of the same miraculous fin-
ger ! — he looked again, and the men walked and
the trees stood still, the boats winged their limpid
way over quivering Galilee, and lo ! Bethsaida
sleeping in the summer noon. At the com-
mencement of a religious inquiry, the man finds
himself in a region of deep interest, but withal, a
region of dim outlines and flickering obscurity.
His notions run into one another, and he has
rather a confused impression of the extent of the
landscape, than a clear perception of any one ob-
ject in it. Like the man who confounded walk-
ing people with growing trees, he is apt to con-
found one doctrine with another. He mistakes
faith for the Saviour. He blends together the

bb LECTUREIV.

Gospel and the Law, and thinks that there must
be a change in himself before he is entitled to
believe in Christ for salvation. And if, at this
stage, friendly counsellors come in with their dis-
tinctions and explanations, they answer much the
same purpose as a neighbour who should have
endeavoured to expound the landscape to the half-
enlightened Galilean. After all his well-meant
efforts, the scene would still have showed a med-
ley of glimmering colours and dancing blotches,
and nothing but another touch of the omnipotent
hand could project the whole into splendid dis-
tinctness. And, just as in the case of the dim-
seeing Galilean, it was not so much a sunshine
as a ghost of light which saluted his eye-balls —
so, in the outset of a spiritual earnestness, it is
not the warm and radiant Gospel which glads the
exploring vision, but a cold and hazy version of
it. It is not a Gospel over which the love of God
sheds its flood of endearment, but a Gospel in a
mist — a Gospel of conflicting attributes and am-
biguous meaning— a Gospel of dim love and
doubtful kindness. And it is not till a power
from on high imparts clearer perceptions and in-
tenser vision that, like the joyful scenes which
rushed on the fully-opened eyes of the Bethsai-
dan, the scheme of mercy stands out in assuring
distinctness, and then melts in upon the soul in
its genial beauty and overwhelming glories.

Now, my friends, if any of you are in this
case — if you have for some time wished a clear
theology and a soul-satisfying religion, this is the
way to get it. You have, perhaps, sought it in
books and in sermons. Perhaps you have sought

LECTUREIV. 89

it in the Bible, and in close thinking, and yet you
have not found it. Seek it " from above." Seek
it in prayer. Don't shut the Bible and forsake
the sanctuary. Don't fling away the book, or
cease to reflect and meditate, but seek the wis-
dom from on high. It is not plainer preaching —
certainly it is not a clearer Bible that you need ;
but it is a clearer eyesight— a power of sharper
discernment, and a more perspicacious insight in
yourself. This "opening of your eyes" — this
exaltation of your faculties, God alone can give.
But he will give it. You lack wisdom. Ask it
of God. With your reading, hearing, medita-
tion, mingle prayer ; and, in the brightening of
your views, and the strengthening of your faith,
you will find that God is sending out his light
and truth, and, by the illumination of his own
Spirit, is making you wiser than all your teachers.

LECTURE V.

THE OPEN REWARD OF SECRET PRAYEK.

* Thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and
when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father
which is in secret ; and thy Father which seeth in
secret, shall reward thee openly." — MATT. vi. 6.

WE do not need to enter the closet in order to
find the Lord. He is ever near to us. But we
enter it in order to escape from distractions, and
in order to regain those associations, and, it may
be, to surround ourselves with those mementos
which we formerly found helpful to our prayers.
One who has great powers of abstraction may
take refuge from surrounding bustle in the depths
of his own spirit, and pass along the crowded
streets in the perpetual hermitage of his own self-
seclusion, undiverted and undistracted by all that
is whirling round him. But few have this
talent of inward sequestration — this power to
make a closet of themselves ; and, in order to
find for their thoughts a peaceful sanctuary, they
must find for their persons a tranquil asylum. It
little matters where or what it is. Isaac went
out into the field, and Jacob plied his night-long
prayer beside the running brook. Abraham
planted a grove, and, in the cool shadow of his
oaks at Beersheba, he called on the name of the

LECTUREV. 91

Lord. Abraham's servant knelt down beside his
camel ; and it would appear, from some of his
psalrns, that a cave, a mountain fastness, or a
cavern in the rocks, was David's frequent ora-
tory. Peter had chosen for his place of prayer
the quiet and airy roof of his sea-side lodging,
when the messengers , of Cornelius found him.
It would seem that the open air — the noiseless
amplitude of the " solitary place " — the hill-side,
with the stars above, and the shadowy world be-
low— the fragrant stillness of the garden when
evening had dismissed the labourers, were the
places where the Man of Sorrows loved to pray.
It was in the old church of Ayr that John Welsh
was wont, all alone, to wrestle with the angel of
the covenant; and we have stood in the wild
rock-cleft where Peden found frequent refuge
from his persecutors, and whence he caused his
cry to ascend " unto the Lord most high." It
does not need four walls and a bolted door to
make a place of prayer. Retirement, and si-
lence, and a sequestered spirit will create it any-
where. By the shore of the sounding sea — in
the depths of the forest — in the remoteness of
the green and sunny upland, or the balmy peace-
fulness of the garden bower — nay, amidst the
dust of the dingy wareroom, or the cobwebs of
the owlet-haunted barn — in the jolting corner
of the crowded stage, or the unnoticed nook of
the travellers' room, you have only to shut
your eyes, and seclude your spirit, and you have
created a closet there. It is a closet wherever
the soul finds itself alone with God.

But, besides a still and silent place, it is im-

92 LECTURE V.

portant to have a stated place for prayer — " thy"
closet — thy familiar and frequented place. Al-
though places have not so much influence on us
as persons, their influence is great. There are
places where we would like to be when trial
comes — places where we should like to be if we
are to sicken and be laid aside — places where we
should like to die — and places where we find it
most congenial and delightful to pray. Homes
of the spirit they are ; places that seem to
understand us and be in sympathy with us ; places
that have, as it were, imbibed, and do still retain,
something of the joys we once tasted in them ;
places which make bereavement less awful,
loneliness less desolate, happiness more intense,
and heaven more near. When Elijah came to
Sarepta, and found the son of the widow dead,
he snatched the child from the bosom of the
weeping mother and carried him " to the loft
where he abode, and laid him on his own bed."
And there " he cried unto the Lord, O Lord,
my God, let this child's soul come into him
again." He felt as if this loft, where he had so
often prayed before, was the likeliest place for
prayer now — the placl where he might penetrate
into Jehovah's nearest presence and procure an
unprecedented blessing. And on this principle,
perhaps, it was that David, when tidings came
of the death of Absalom, hasted up to the " cham-
ber over the gate." His heart was breaking, and
lest it should split altogether in this unutterable
sorrow, he sped away to the place where he had
found lesser sorrows lightened ; and, as he stag-
gered up into this secret sanctuary, passionate

LECTUREV. 93

grief began to give place to prayer, " 0 my son
Absalom, my son, my son Absalom ! would
God I had died for thee, 0 Absalom, my son, my
son !" And this is tlie best consecration any
sanctuary or secret chamber can acquire — the
consciousnesss that there you have met with
God, and the hope instinctive that there you may
meet him yet again. Happy are you if there be
a house of prayer or a private dwelling, which
awakens in you, as you near it, a rush of holy
feelings or happy recollections — a sanctuary
round which a constant Sabbath shines and a
perpetual air of heaven reposes. And happy are
you if, in your residence, there be a room —
however sombre the stranger may think it —
which you cannot enter without a secret comfort
suffusing your spirit ; a room where, in dreariest
moments, you feel that you are not friendless,
and in darkest days that you are not hopeless ;
a room in which memory has built its Peniels
and Ebenezers — its memorials of ecstatic hours
and answered petitions ; a chamber which you
abandon with regret when called to quit the
dwelling, as if, in leaving it, you left the gate of
heaven — the closet where you used to shut to
the door and pray to your Father in secret, and
feel that he was hearing you.

And here I may just notice, that besides the
open return, there is a secret reward of secret
prayer. There is a peculiar and present joy in
communion with God. The deepest pleasures
are the purest ; and of all pleasures the purest is
the peace of God. To feel that he is love — to
draw so near him as to forget the world — so

94 LECTUREV.

near as to lose the love of sin — so near that all
sensual delights are drowned in the river of his
pleasures, and all holy joys enhanced in the
brightness of his smile — to bask, for ever so
brief a moment, in the light inaccessible, and
rejoice with loyalty of spirit in Jehovah's right-
eous sovereignty, and feel, through all recesses
of the soul, the sin-supplanting flow and bea-
tific thrills of infinite holiness and soul-trans-
forming love — to be this, and feel this, is, of all
pleasures the sweetest — of all blessedness the
purest and most profound. And next to this
high communion with God — next to this joy of
passions lulled, and sins slain, and self-forgotten
in adoring fellowship with the Father of Lights
— is their sedater comfort who can pour their
griefs into their Heavenly Father's bosom, or who
feel that they have bespoken help against com-
ing toils and trials at their Heavenly Father's
hand. To know that God is near — to know that
he is trusted, honoured, loved — to feel that you
are acting towards him as a reverential and affec-
tionate child, and that he is feeling towards you
as a gracious and compassionate Father — there
is in this, itself, an exquisite satisfaction, a pre-
sent reward.

The calm retreat, the silent shade,

With pray'r and praise agree ;
And seem by thy sweet bounty made

For those who follow thee.

There, if thy Spirit touch the soul,

And grace her mean abode ;
Oh ! with what peace, and joy, and love,

one communes with her God.

LECTUREV. 95

There, like the nightingale, she pours

Her solitary lays ;
Nor asks a witness of her song,
, Nor thirsts for human praise

But, besides this secret reward — this present
recompense, of which the praying soul alone is
conscious — there is an open reward of secret
prayer promised in the text, and verified wherever
secret prayer is practised.

1. And, first of all, we remark that the answer
is sometimes open when the prayer is secret.
The world sees the result when it little suspects
the effectual antecedent. When Jacob and Esau
met — on the one side the shaggy chieftain with
his four hundred swordsmen, and on the other
side the limping shepherd with his caravan of
children and cattle — a flock of sheep approaching
a band of wolves ; when the patriarch took his
staff in his hand and stepped forward to meet the
embattled company, and the anxious retinue
awaited the issue — they saw the tear start into
the rough huntsman's eye — they saw the sword
drop from Esau's hand — they saw his brawny
arms round Jacob's neck — they saw in the red
savage a sudden and unlooked-for brother.
They saw the result, but they had not seen the
prelude which led to it. They had not been
with Jacob at the ford of Jabbok the night before.
They had not viewed his agony and heard his
prayer ; and though they noticed the halting
limb, they did not know the victory whose token
it was. They saw the patriarch, the husband,
and the father ; but they knew not that he was a
prince with God, arid had gained Esau's heart

96 LECTURE V.

from him who has all hearts in his hand. The
halting thigh and the pacified foe were obvious ;
but the wrestling overnight was unknown. The
reward was open, but the prayer was secret.

And so there are many benefits which a be-
liever secures by prayer — benefits which the
world envies or wonders at, but of which the
world knows not the secret source. " This man
— there is some charm about him, for all things
answer with him. Things in which others fail,
he puts to his hand to them, and instantly they
take another turn — they swing right — they stand
fast — they prosper well. He has some magic —
for whatever be the mischief, he escapes it —
whatever be the calamity, it cannot come near
him. He has got the talisman which made the
wearer invisible, all except his shadow. When
any disaster comes down, it crushes that shadow
— any blow, it divides that shadow — any trap, it
only catches that shadow, — his truest self gets
always clear off." You are perfectly right. It
is a singular fact — a peculiar circumstance. " He
that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most
High, shall abide under the shadow of the Al-
mighty. He shall cover thee with his feathers,
and under his wings shalt thou trust. Thou
shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for
the arrow that flieth by day. A thousand shall
fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right
hand ; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only
with thine eyes shalt thou behold, and see the
reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made
the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High,
thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee,

LECTURE V. 97

neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
Thou shah call upon him, and he will answer
thee : he will be with thee in trouble. He will
deliver and honour thee."^ Prayer is the talis-
man. The secret of the Lord's presence is the
protecting charm. The eye of Omniscience de-
tects his dangers, and the hand of Omnipotence
clears his path, and finishes his work, and dis-
pels or reconciles his foes. The closet secured
it, but the world beholds it. The prayer was
secret but the reward is open.

Amongst these open rewards of secret prayer,
we would specify presence of mind and compo-
sure of spirit. There are some persons of a calm
temperament, who pass sedately through every
scene, and are seldom taken by surprise. They
are persons of ready wit and exhaustless re-
sources and constant self-command. But there
are others fearful and foreboding, easily stunned,
and easily agitated. They are perpetually ap-
prehending a lion in the street, and go about any
new undertaking with as much anxiety as would
suffice for the most arduous enterprise. They
will pass by the perilous house on which they
are plotting a visit, or at last address themselves
to the knocker with as much trepidation as if
they expected an ogre to dart from behind it.
And when any little incident occurs — any con-
juncture requiring promptitude or dexterity —
their wits, only agile in forsaking them, are sure
to be out of the way. The moment is flown —
the propitious instant is past — and it is only when
the opportunity is gone and for ever that they

. * Psalm xci

yo LECTUREV.

perceive the very thing they should have said or
done, but in their confusion it did not occur to
them. For this sore evil we know no better
remedy than the prescription of the text. Prayer
calms and fortifies the mind, and so prepares it
for the rapid incidents and sudden emergencies
of the day. But it does more than this. Just
as you may have noticed those who move in the
highest circles, and who are accustomed to the
loftiest society ; they not only continue calm and
collected when others are embarrassed or un-
hinged, but in circumstances of delicacy or dis-
tress to others, by a certain high-born address —
a certain conscious felicity — they not only save
themselves from awkwardness, but give a happy
extrication to all around them. So there are
certain persons belonging to the peerage of the
faithful — men of as old a family as Enoch's —
princely natures who are wont to converse even
with the King of kings — men who in their walk
with God have learned the happy art of possess-
ing their own souls and tranquillizing the souls
of others. Their hearts are fixed, and when they
hear of evil tidings, they not only are not them-
selves afraid, but their assurance comforts and
composes others. And beyond all this, the man
of prayer is preternatural ly prompted and
strengthened from above. Like the first disci-
ples, he needs to take no thought how or what
he shall say or do, for in the hour of exigency
the Holy Ghost will teach him. And hence, in
all high conjunctures, men of prayer have sur-
passed themselves, and have felt that a courage,
or prudence, or eloquence, was lent them, at

LECTUREV. 99

which they themselves wondered, and which they
only understood by recollecting that in their lack
of wisdom they had asked of God. And so,
brethren, if you would be carried bravely through
scenes of affright— dexterously through scenes of
difficulty — or triumphantly through scenes of
awful alternative, resort to your Father in secret.
When Neherniah was enabled to put the case of
his people so touchingly to the Assyrian monarch
• — the pathos of his statement — the unwonted
kindness of the king — and the prompt concession
of his prayer, were the open reward of a secret
ejaculation.^ And when Paul, on board the
foundering ship, played such a gallant part — the
prisoner superseding centurion, captain, pilot, and
all — the heroic coolness, the veteran sagacity,
and sublime composure which made him appear
a 'sort of deity, were the answer to fasting and
prayer. When his friends asked the great phy-
sician Boerhaave how he could possibly go
through so much work from day to day, and pass
tranquil through so many fretting scenes, he told
them that his plan was to devote the first hour
of every morning to prayer and meditation on
the word of God.

Another open reward of secret prayer is spiri-
tuality of mind. By a spiritual mind we do not
mean 'a severe mind, or a sombre. We do not
mean a peculiar phraseology, or an affected reli-
gionism ; but we mean that state of a mind right
with God, when it is all alive to the things of
God, — that vividness of faith when the things
unseen are very solid, and that vivacity of feel-

* Nehemiah ii. 4 — 6

100 LECTURE V.

ing when tnings sacred are congenial and inte-
resting and affecting. A spiritual mind is one to
which the Bible is something better than a Dic-
tionary, and to which the Sabbath, with its exer-
cises, does not bring the sense of drudgery. It
is a mind clear-seeing and keen-hearing ; a mind
of quick perceptions and prompt emotions ; a
mind to which the Saviour stands out a living
person, and for which heaven is waiting an ex-
pected home : a mind so sensitive, that sin makes
it writhe with agony, whilst it finds in holiness a
true deliciousness, and in God's conscious favour
an Elysian joy. Now, brethren, if you would
possess such a rnind you must keep it fresh and
vegete and lifesome by secret prayer. Some
professors are,, in this respect, deplorably want-
ing. Their religion is formality. Their conver-
sation rather quotes from past experience than
utters what they now realize and feel. True
piety is like the vestal fire, which was intended
to burn day and night, and never to go out, and
which never did go out, so long as they remem-
bered to replenish it day by day. The religious
profession of some people is like the yellow ashes
on a key-cold altar, which show that there once
were warmth and light and flame, but which also
show that they have neglected it and suffered it
to die. Brethren, do you, morning by morning,
pour on the oil of secret prayer, and add the
fresh fuel of some Bible-truth well pondered, and
your fire will not go out. The altar of your
heart will never subside to the clear-steel cold-
ness which will make him who comes in contact
with it shudder ; and you will always Lave, at

LECTURE V. 101

least, a little spark with which to kindle others
Or, using a homelier metaphor, religion, in the
soul of man, is like some precious thing in a ves-
sel of ill-seasoned timber. Not only does the
rough wear of this rude world sore batter it, but
the burning sun of secularity. the glow of daily
business, is enough to fill it full of flaws and fis-
sures ; and it is only by putting it to steep over-
night in the pool of Siloah, that the chinks will
close, and the cracked and leaky firkin be ren-
dered fit for another morning's use. But the
man who abounds in secret prayer will not only
preserve his own vitality, — he will carry away
from God's presence peace and joy and energy
enough to make him a benefactor to others. A
man, mighty in prayer, is a perpetual comfort, —
a continual cordial in a world like this. When
a prayerless professor tries to comfort the
afflicted, he defeats his own well-meant efforts.
When he enters the house of mourning, or sits
down by the sick man's side, it is like a traveller
coming in from a frosty atmosphere to the cham-
ber of a nervous invalid. Though enveloped in
frieze and in fur himself, he brings enough of
winter in his clothes to make the poor patient
chatter. But the man of prayer bears about with
him a genial clirne. Even in the dead season
of the year, when frost is black and fields are
iron, he carries summer in his person. " All his
garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia."
For his closet is the ivory palace, — the gay con-
servatory where flowers of paradise are blooming
all the year. There is a gladness in his coming,

102 LECTURE V.

for he never comes alone. He carries his Savi-
our with him.

Then comes the crowning recompense, — the
open reward of the great day. At that day no
man will be saved for his prayers. It will be
said to none, " You have been so holy and so de-
vout, you have prayed so much, and laboured so
hard, that on you the second death has no
power." But though it is entirely and solely for
the prayers, — the precious blood and perfect
righteousness of God's dear Son, — that any soul
can enter heaven ; there will, at that disclosing
day, be a rich reward of secret prayers. When
every one receives the things done in his body,
eminent intercessors will receive the final answer
to the prayers of a life-time. Of many of the
petitions offered now we know not what becomes.
Some are for places far away ; some for people
whom we never see again ; some for blessings
which, if bestowed, we can never know it. But
all these prayers are efficacious. If prayers of
faith, they all have prevalency. They have
effected something ; and they are all self-regis-
tering. They go into the Book of Kemembrance.
They keep account of themselves, or rather God
keeps it, and when the great day comes round,
and the throne is set, and the books are opened,
it will be seen how much every Christian has
prayed, what were the gifts he coveted most ear-
nestly, and what were the petitions he urged
most frequently. And strange things will come
to light that day. Here is one who was never
known on earth ; perhaps in all the right-hand
company none can recollect his name. He was

LECTURE V. 103

very poor. He had no money to give to the
cause of Christ, — hardly the two mites ; — and he
was very plain, simple, and unlearned. He
could not express himself. But his name is
Israel. He was a prince with God, and see how
often he has prevailed. And here is another
who was bed-rid many years, could not work,
could not visit, could not write, — but she could
pray. And see what a benefactress she has been.
See this long list of affectionate intercessions for
her relatives and neighbours and friends ; these
many supplications for the Church and the
world, for the unconverted, for Missions, for
mourners in Zion ! And see the answers !
What a Dorcas she has been, — though she could
make no garments for the poor ! What a Phoebe,
— though she could not stir a step ! What a
Priscilla, — though she could expound the way of
God to few, for her prayers often did it all !
And here is another. He had just escaped from
Papal darkness, and was beginning to enlighten
others, when he was put in prison, and after
months of languishing he went up from Smith-
field in his chariot of fire, — a martyr of Jesus
Christ. He never preached. He was refused
the use of ink and pen. He wrote nothing. He
printed nothing. He spake to no one, for thick
dungeon-walls enclosed him. But he prayed.
From the height of his sanctuary the Lord looked
down ; he heard the groaning of this prisoner ;
and in the Reformation sent the answer.

LECTURE VI.

REASONS WHY PRAYER IS NOT ANSWERED.

" Ask, and it shall be given you." — MATT. vii. 7.

" Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss." —
JAMES iv. 3.

SUPPOSE that a man takes up his pen and a
piece of parchment, and writes on the top of it,
" To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, the
humble petition of So and so," but there he
stops. He sits with the pen in his hand for half
an hour, but does not add another word, then
rises and goes his way. And he repeats this
process day after day — beginning a hundred
sheets of paper, but putting into them no express
request; sometimes, perhaps, scrawling down a
few sentences which nobody can read, not even
himself, but never plainly and deliberately set-
ting down what it is that he desires. Can he
wonder that his blank petitions and scribbled
parchments have no sensible effect on himself
nor on any one besides ? And has he any right
to say, " I wonder what can be the matter.
Other people get answers to their petitions, but I
am not aware that the slightest notice hns ever
been taken of one of mine. I am not conscious
of having got a single favour, or being a whit

LECTURE VI. 105

the better for all that I have written ?" Could
you expect it ? When did you ever finish a peti-
tion? When did you ever despatch and for-
ward one to the feet of majesty?

And so, my friends, there are many persons
who pass their days inditing blank petitions — or
rather petitionless forms of prayer. Every
morning they bend their knee, and continue a
few moments in the devotional attitude. They
address themselves to the Heavenly Majesty.
They call on the " great and dreadful name " of
God, and they go over a few words and sen-
tences, but such incoherent and unfelt sentences as
the child who cannot write would scrawl upon a
piece of paper. Or perhaps they say nothing.
They leave it a perfect blank. And after this
form of worship they go their way and wonder
why their prayers are not heard. Other people
get answers, but they are not conscious that any
prayer of theirs has ever produced the least
effect.

Now, of this we are very certain, that there is
no prayer but something comes of it. Leaving
out of view those vain and rambling repetitions
— those empty words which constitute the entire
devotions of some formalists — we are warranted
by the word of God to aver that there is no real
prayer which is not somehow disposed of — no re-
quest presented at the mercy-seat, which is not,
in Bible language, " considered," and either re-
fused or granted. Many appear to fancy that
prayers are like a flight of promiscuous missiles,
of which a few find the mark, but the greater
number alight nowhere and bring back nothing.

106 LECTURE VI.

This infidel and irrational view gets no counte-
nance from the word of God. There we learn,
that if it be a prayer at all — a sincere desire
offered to the living God in his appointed way —
it obtains an answer — whether that answer be a
full or partial compliance, or an entire refusal.
And it therefore becomes a question of the utmost
practical moment to know what those conditions
are that mar the efficacy, or impede the return of
prayers.

1. It is competent to the sovereign to fix the
channel through which he desires that his sub-
jects should transmit their petitions. Owing to
their elevated rank, some have a right to request
an immediate audience of majesty, and present
their applications in proper person and in their
own name ; but usually there is some fixed me-
dium through which the suits of common sub-
jects must come — a particular minister through
whom all memorials and supplications must be
transmitted. Now there is a celestial peerage
who come before the King of kings in their own
right. The sons of God — some orders of the
heavenly host — need" no mediator in drawing
near to God. They come with veiled faces and
lowly reverence, but still they come in virtue of
their birth-right — they come direct. It is not so,
however, with our world's population. Not so
much on account of our lowlier rank, as of our
personal demerit, there is no immediate entrance
for any son of Adam into the presence of the
heavenly majesty. But there is a day's-man
appointed ; and, so to speak, it is a standing order
in the court of heaven, that each petition from

LECTURE VI. 107

earth shall be transmitted through " the minister
of the new covenant " — through that divine per-
son on whose shoulder is devolved the govern
rnent of this our far-off colony. Now, what say
you ? Suppose that any one should try to over
leap this standing order — suppose that any one
should either in his proud stubbornness scorn it,
or in his carelessness forget it, and try to forward
his petition in his own name — can he wonder if
an omission so flagrant should ensure its rejec-
tion ? The petition may be very earnest and its
object may be perfectly right, but the mode of its
transmission is wrong. And this is no matter of
mere etiquette, like some of the court-arrange-
ments of earth, but a matter of high import, and
meant to fulfil exalted ends. It is designed in
honour of the Prince of Peace, to whose memo-
rable interposition it is owing that there is any
loyalty in this revolted world, and to whose ad-
ministration the entire of its affairs is now
entrusted, and to whose name it is but seemly
that every knee should bow. Whosoever would
present an acceptable petition and secure a return
to his prayer must remember that saying of the
Lord Jesus himself, " Whatsoever ye shall ask
the Father, in my name, that will I do, that the
Father may be glorified in the Son."^

2. But, secondly, besides asking in a self-
righteous spirit, a person may actually ask wrong
things. A child who has never seen a serpent
before and who looks at it through the glass-frame
may think it very beautiful. As it curls and
glides about in its folds of green and gold, and

* John xiv. 13.

108 LECTURE VI.

its ruby eyes sparkle in the sun, it looks far pret-
tier than more familiar objects, and the child may
long to grasp it : " But what man is there among
you who is a father, if his son ask a serpent, will
he give him the serpent ?" And supposing that
the fretful child should weep because he is not
allowed to fondle the asp, could worse befall him
than just to be allowed to smash the case and
clutch the envenomed reptile ? The Lord has
sometimes permitted his imperious and wayward
children thus to punish themselves ; but more
frequently and more mercifully, he refuses their
hearts' deceitful lust. One sets his eye on the
golden serpent, and prays that God would make
him rich. But the Lord still keeps the shining
serpent beyond his reach ; for should he have
succeeded in hugging it to his bosom, it might
have stung him with many sorrows, or even
plunged him in perdition. Another sets his eye
on the fiery flying serpent of fame, and wonders
after it, and wishes that he too could fix his re-
putation to it, and see his own name flickering
as a part of its meteor-train in its flight through
the firmament. But this wish is also refused —
and instead of a dizzy and dangerous renown, he
is appointed to a safe obscurity. And sometimes
requests, right or religious-looking, are refused.
When the mother of Zebedee's children came
and said, " Grant that these my two sons may sit,
the one on thy right hand and the other on thy
left, when thou comest in thy kingdom," — there
was a plausibility and a certain faith in the peti-
tion. It assumed that Christ had indeed a king-
dom, and was yet to come gloriously, and it said

LECTURE VI. 109

that the highest honour she could seek for, James
and John, was the highest office there. But the
request was ambitious. It was wrong and was
refused.

3. And this leads us to remark that a person
may ask right things with a wrong motive.
When Simon Magus besought the Apostles that
he might receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, he
asked a good thing ; emphatically the best thing ;
but he asked it with a bad motive, that he might
make it a source of personal gain ; and instead
of a blessing his prayer was answered with a
curse. " Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask
amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. "^
Even spiritual mercies are refused to you, because
you would employ them on carnal ends.

4. Such a sin may be cherished in the heart
as makes prayer unavailing. " If I regard ini-
quity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me."t
To keep a sin in the heart whilst there is a prayer
on the lips, is like going into the monarch's pre-
sence arm in arm with a rebel, or getting some
noted enemy of his to countersign our petition.
It is, as it were, courting a refusal. " It is effect-
ually saying to God, 'Thy greatest blessing I
am content to want. Holiness, deliverance from
sin, I am willing to do without ; but this particu-
lar boon, as it is thine to bestow, so I am reluct-
antly constrained to ask it from thee.' "t It is
as if the one hand held out a plea for God's fa-
vour, and the other a plea for God's frown. In
truth, it is the more honest part of the man con-
tradicting the other ; the sinner shouting Nay to

* James iv. 3. f Psalm Ixvi. 18. i Foster, MS.
10

110 LECTURE VI.

the Amen of the hypocrite, and drowning in his
louder voice the feeble muttering of the feigned
lips. . You have all heard of Augustine's prayer.
In the days of his licentiousness he had too much
conscience to live without prayer, and too much
love of sin to pray without a secret reservation ;
and so his prayer ran, " Lord convert me — oh,
convert me — but not to-day, Lord, not to-day."
And the same is the translated purport of many
a prayer. One prays, " Lead me not into temp-
tation," when he has already in his possession
the play-house ticket which he means to use that
evening ; or when he has already made an en-
gagement with some of his ungodly friends, and
is looking forward with eagerness to their society.
Another prays, " And forgive me my trespasses,"
when he has in his heart a scheme of revenge,
and is already in imagination glorying over his
humbled rival or his defeated adversary. And a
third prays, " Lord, let me die the death of the
righteous," when he has already made all the
arrangements for some nefarious transaction, and
when the very next act of self-denial which he is
called to exercise will be the triumph of sensuality
or self-indulgence. And a fourth cries, " As I to
others mercy show, I mercy beg from heaven ;"
and at that moment he is allowing some neces-
sitous kinsman to languish in neglected misery,
or with an ample fortune is contributing nothing
to the diffusion of that Gospel, which is the only
means of rescuing men from eternal ruin.

5. Some prayers are not heard because men
do not believe that God will grant them. Were
you writing a note to a friend, and saying, " I

LECTURE VI » Ill

would be" much the belter for such a thing " —
naming it'. " You can easily spare it, but I have
little expectation that you will do me such a fa-
vour." Would this be a likely way to compass
his object ? Though he had wished to fail, could
he have worded his application otherwise ? And
so, when a man gets down on his knees and prays
for pardon of his sins, or for the teaching of the
Holy Spirit, or for assurance of salvation, but
prays for them as if the Lord would grudge to
give them, can he wonder that he is not heard ?
Whatsoever the Lord has promised, that he is
willing to bestow, and " whatsoever things we
ask in prayer, believing that we have them, we
receive them."

6. Some prayers are not answered because,
though earnest at the time, the petitioner has
grown indifferent afterwards.

7. Some prayers are answered, but the an-
swer is a long time arrived before the petitioner
adverts to it. Like a man who despatches for
the physician one express after another, and at
last he arrives, and is actually in the house ; but
unapprised of his presence, the sick man sends
off another messenger to hasten his approach.
Or as you may have sent for some book or other
object which you were anxious to possess, but as
it is long of making its appearance, your anxiety
to see it begins to abate, and by-and-bye you have
almost forgotten it ; when some day you take up
a parcel that has long lain unopened in a corner
of the room, and find that it is the very thing you
were once so impatient to get. " And when did
this arrive ?" Oh ! months ago. " How strange,

112 LECTURE VI.

then, that I should never have noticed it till now !"
In extreme agony Jacob vowed a vow, and prayed
a prayer : " If God will be with me, and will keep
me in this way that I go, and will give me bread
to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again
to my father's house in peace ; then the Lord
shall be my God, and this stone which I have
set up for a pillar shall be God's house." It was
an earnest and importunate prayer. It was an-
swered. Every petition was fulfilled. All that
he asked, Jacob obtained. He got bread to eat ;
he got raiment to put on. He was delivered from
Esau his brother. He came back to his father's
house in peace, and in unimagined prosperity.
But it never occurred to Jacob that his prayer
was answered till the Lord himself reminded
him. He might have seen the answer in his
peaceful tent, in his grazing flocks and herds, in
his large and powerful family, and in himself —
the fugitive lad come home a prince and a patri-
arch. But it was not till the Lord appeared and
said, " Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there ;
and make there an altar unto God that appeared
unto thee when thou fleddest from Esau thy bro-
ther ;" it was not till then that Jacob recollected
the vow, or detected the answer ; and had the
Lord not reminded him, Bethel and its pillar
might have faded for ever from Jacob's memory.
And so, parents in the days of their children's in-
fancy often pray for their children's conversion,
and when they see their wayward freaks and
wicked tempers, the tear starts in their eye, and
they are ready to give up hope. But one by one
the Lord brings them to himself. The prayer is

LECTURE VI. 113

partly or wholly answered, and ere they are
gathered to their fathers, these parents find them-
selves surrounded by a godly seed. But it never
strikes them that here is an answer to prayer.
Or a company of Christians pray for a revival of
religion, and they fix their eye on a particular
spot of the horizon, nothing doubting but that it
is there the cloud must appear. And whilst they
kneel and pray and mourn that the sky continues
brass, they never notice that in the opposite quar-
ter the heavens are melting, and there is an abun-
dance of rain. Though not in the form nor in
the direction which they first desired, still the
blessing is come, and perhaps in measure it sur-
passes their fondest expectation and their largest
prayer.

tot

LECTURE VII.

CONFESSION, ADORATION, AND THANKSGIVING.

" I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord ;
and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.

" Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous : and
shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart." PSALM
xxxii. 5. 11.

ALTHOUGH prayer, in its strictest sense, be the
supplication of mercies for ourselves or others,
the devotional exercises of believers are not con-
fined to mere petitions. In the Psalms, and other
Bible-specimens of prayer, we find acknowledg-
ments of sin, the praises of the divine perfections,
and grateful ascriptions for good and perfect gifts
bestowed ; and, that our survey maybe the more
complete, we shall bestow the present discourse
on the three-fold subject of Confession, Adora-
tion, and Thanksgiving.

CONFESSION.

There are three things which often hinder con-
fession— callousness, sullenness, and remorse.
In the anguish of newly-committed sin, or in the
despair of a newly-awakened conscience, the
guilt is so ghastly that the sou. is afraid to ap-
proach it, even with a view to confession. Such

LECTURE VII. 115

was the Psalmist's case. His convictions were
so dreadful that he wished some time to elapse,
trusting that the interval might make it some-
what better. He " kept silence ;" but, like the
damper, which only makes the furnace draw the
fiercer, the fire kindled in his spirit flamed the
more furiously from his efforts to suppress it.
He kept silence, but, whilst he did so, his bones
waxed old, and his moisture was turned into sum-
mer's drought. But, after thus battling with his
agonies, he yielded. In a lull of this mental
fever — in a lucid interval of his remorseful frenzy,
he took another thought, and said, " I will con-
fess my transgressions unto the Lord ;" and no
sooner said than there was a great calm in his
spirit. His sin was confessed ; his trespass was
forgiven ; his convictions vanished ; the Lord's
hand withdrew; and, in the gayety of his con-
valescent spirit, he began to sing, " Blessed is he
whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is cov-
ered."— Then, there are others, who, without
anything of the Psalmist's sharp remorse, have a
sullen sense of wrong. They know that they
have offended, and that there is an unsettled con-
troversy betwixt themselves and God ; but, instead
of resorting at once to his mercy in Jesus Christ,
they wish to wear off their guilt by degrees.
They would like to work it off, or live it off.
They expect that its crimson hue will fade in the
course of time, and that its pricks will be blunted
in the lapse of years ; and, as they cannot brook
to assume the publican's attitude, or to come as
poor abjects to the fountain, they carry their sin
about with them, unacknowledged and uncon-

116 LECTURE VII.

fessed. Perhaps they go again and again to
prayer ; but there is no confidence in their worship,
and no earnestness in their petitions, for this sin is
constantly presenting itself, and they are as con-
stantly evading it. They are walking contrary
to God, and he walks contrary to them. Feel-
ing that their position is false, their air is em-
barrassed and uneasy. Their footing is inse-
cure, and their resistance to temptation feeble.
And, going about their daily occupations under
the Lord's frown they are constantly frustrated.
Perhaps their worldly business goes back ; most
probably they are getting into endless perplexities
and entanglements — vexing their friends when
the^- did not mean to offend them — lowering
themselves in the eyes of others when they did
nothing particularly wrong : and standing rue-
fully, because remorsefully amid the wreck of
many schemes, and the crash of many efforts ;
and proving by a costly experiment, the truth of
the saying — " He that covereth his sins shall not
prosper." Oh ! that they were wise enough to
turn round and prove the truth of that other al-
ternative— " But whoso confesseth and forsaketh
them shall have mercy." — And then, again, there
are some who are kept from confessing their sin,
neither by the violence of their remorse, nor the
sullenness of their spirits, but by the callousness
of their conscience. They have got so much into
the custom of sinning without compunction, that
they can scarcely understand how confession
could bring them any relief, or make them hap-
pier than they this moment are. A man who
has laboured under a disease for many years,

LECTURE VII. 117

comes at last to lay his account with it. If he
has no stound of exquisite anguish, or no unusual
feeling of pain or debility — if he be in his " frail
ordinary" — he is content. He expects no better.
The truth is, his nervous system has become
inured to a certain amount of habitual suffering,
and disease itself ceases to be pain. But if some
feat of medicine, or some sudden miracle should
expel the ailment from his system, and give him
at once absolute soundness, he would perceive a
world-wide difference betwixt the dull apathy of
disease and the joyous gush of health — betwixt
mere exemption from torture and positive sensa-
tions of salubrity and vigour. " By habit in sin
the stings of remorse may be blunted, yet peace
never will return. By repeating transgression a
great many times, we all come at last to feel a
general and settled uneasiness of heart, which is
a constant burden, but so constant that the sinner
comes to consider it as a necessary part of his
existence ; and when, at last, he comes and con-
fesses his sins, and finds peace and happiness, he
is surprised and delighted with the new and
strange sensation." ^

Were confession a mere act of self-mortifica-
tion— did it end in mere regrets and self-re-
proaches— it would answer little end. The rash
words which no compunction can recall — the
wasted Sabbaths which no wishes can redeem —
the broken hearts of distant days and departed
friends, which no churchyard sighs can heal,
and the demolished joys which no tears can cre-
ate anew :

* Abbot's " Young Christian."

118 LECTURE VI I .

For violets pluck'd, the sweetest showers
Can ne'er make grow again :

were confession merely the mental penance of
remembering and brooding over these, there were
no need to add it to the sum of human sorrow.
But evangelical confession — that discovery and
acknowledgment of the outstanding sins of his
history, and the conspicuous sins of his charac-
ter, as well as of the guilt of his original — which
the Word of God requires from each of us, is for
purposes totally different. Evangelical confes-
sion is the inlet to peace with God, and the, out-
set of new obedience.

The great object of self-examination should be
to search out the sin with the express view, and
on very purpose, to cast it into the sin-cancelling
Fountain opened in the House of David ; and
then the confession will bring comfort to the sin-
ner, when he thinks that the cleansing currents
of atoning blood have washed his guilt away.
Like the camp of Israel on the day of atonement.
They all met — the most solemn fast of their year
— before the tabernacle, in the morning very
early ; and after many other ceremonies, two
goats were brought up to the high-priest at the
altar. He placed himself between them, and
shook a box, in which were two little tablets, one
inscribed, " For Jehovah," the other, " For Aza-
zel.;j When he drew the one, he said with a
loud voice, " For Jehovah," and placed the tablet
on the head of the right-hand goat. Then he
confessed over it his own and the people's sins,
and slew it, and carried the blood into the Holy
Place as an atonement for his own sins and the

LECTURE VII. 119

people's. The high-priest then went to the goat
ik Azazel," and put his hands upon its head and
confessed over it again the sins of himself and
the people ; and, when this was done, an ap-
pointed person came forward and carried the goat
away to the wilderness, where it should wander
and be lost, or threw it over the rocks that it
might return no more. It needed the two-fold
emblem to shadow Him whose atonement is at
once the removal of guilt and the reparation for
it ; — whose blood cleanseth from sin, and whose
worthiness carrieth sin away. And, just as the
believing Israelite who could see the Lord's mean-
ing in the touching token — as that Israelite
would accompany, with earnest heart, the priest
as he made confession over the victim's head,
and would feel that his guilt was figuratively
transferred to this innocent substitute; so, breth-
ren, it is for us to confess our trespasses over His
head who is the propitiation for the sins of the
world, and on whom the Lord hath really laid
the iniquities of us all. Arid if we do this — if
we make the deliberate transference of our guilt
to this all-sufficient substitute — like the Israelite
who saw the trickling blood of the one victim,
and felt, " Surely there is a sacrifice for sin.
Let this blood be for mine ;" so, looking to the
wounded, dying Surety, we can securely feel,
" This is not the blood of bulls or of goats, but a
better sacrifice. This is the precious blood of
God's only and well-beloved Son, shed for many.
Let it flow for me. Jesus, be thou my righteous-
ness— be thou the reparation for my sin." And
then as the Israelite saw the strong man leading

120 LECTURE VII.

the other goat away into the wilderness, and
gazed with interest after them till they disap-
peared in the grey horizon, and felt, " There the
sin is away into a land not inhabited. It is lost
— forgotten ; if sought for it cannot again be
found." So, if you sincerely transfer your sin to
the Saviour, the Lamb of God will take it away.
It will vanish from God's sight. It will be count-
ed as if it had never been. You will be dealt
with not only as one who has made expiation,
but as one in whom there is no iniquity. You
will be, in God's sight, as innocent; and that sin
will never be punished in you which the Son of
God hath atoned for, and which the Lamb of
God hath taken away.

ADORATION.

The heart is the noblest part of human nature,
and God says, " My son, give me thine heart."
And, just as the affections are the noblest ingre-
dient in human nature, so the elevation and the
happiness of a human being mainly depend on
the right bestowment and ample exercise of these
affections. To be self-sufficient and self-seeking
— that is, to keep all the affections to one's self
— is the meanest and most miserable predicament
a creature can be in. The homestead of a finite
spirit — much more the desolate chamber of a
sinful heart — does not contain resources enough
for its own blessedness. The soul must go out
from itself if it would find materials of joy. It
must love its neighbour, or it must love the works
of God, or it must love its family, or its circle of
friendship, if it would not be absolutely dreary

- LECTUUE VII. 121

and forlorn. And just as the soul's happiness
depends on going out from itself, so its elevation
depends on its going up — depends on its setting
its affections on something higher than itself —
something nobler, or holier, or more engaging.

The main part of true religion is the right be-
stowment of the affections. When these are set
on the things above — on God and on Jesus who
sitteth at God's right hand — they are set as high
as a seraph can set his. They are set so high
thai they cannot fail to lift the character along
with them, and make his a peculiar life whose
ends in living are so lofty. A self-forgetting de-
votion to some noble earthly character has ex-
erted a refining and elevating influence on many.
Veneration for some illustrious sage has some-
times quickened a sluggard into a scholar, and
enthusiastic attachment to a high-souled patriot
has been known to kindle up an idler into a hero.
But there is only One of character so lofty, and
of influence so transforming, that love to Him
will convert a sinner into a saint. Such a One,
however, there is, and it is the business of the
Gospel to make Him known.

When required to love the Lord with all their
heart and soul and strength and mind, many feel
as if they were asked to perform an impossibility.
So vague, in general, are their notions of the
Great Jehovah, that they feel much the same as
if they were asked to love the principle of gravi-
tation, or as if they were bidden bestow all their
heart and mind on a fixed star, or as if they were
invited to lay up treasure in a cloud, or told to
set their affections on infinite space. I appeal to
11

122 LECTURE VII.

yourselves, Have not many of you felt something
of this sort? The command, " Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thine heart," has it
not often fallen on your ear in comfortless tones,
rather as the funeral knell of your earthly affec-
tions than as the joyous summons to a present
and attainable blessedness ? Have you not rather
felt it as a command to kill your earthly delights,
than as an invitation to superadd a delight beyond
them all ? Have you not felt that the nearest
approach to obedience you could make would be
to cut the cords that bind you to the earth in
sunder, and, seeing that you cannot love One so
utterly beyond your conceptions, that you had
better cease to love altogether ?

This is the tendency of some books and sys-
tems. To love an abstract and impersonal God
is Platonism. It is mysticism; but it is not
Christianity. The God whom the Gospel bids
us view, and whom Jesus bade us love, is not a
distant power nor a dim abstraction. He is not
a mere presence, nor a mere principle. He is
not the most vague of all diffusions, and the most
general of all general laws. But he is " the liv-
ing God " — of all beings the most truly living —
possessing, in intensest measure, all that is truly
excellent and which has won our veneration in
our fellow-men ; combining in himself all that
goodness which has aver arrested, or affected, or
entranced us in the objects of our earthly admi-
ration ; not only wiser than the wisest, but more
loving than the most affectionate — taking a kinder
and wiser interest in us than the friend to whom,
perhaps, we have devoted our earthly all, and

LECTURE VII. 123

more present with us than the most anxious
friend can be. This Living God — possessing
perfections at whose outburst the eye of an arch-
angel dazzles — possesses also that power of spe-
cial condescension and individual interest which
can make him, to any one, most truly a friend
and a perfect brother. If you be on a right foot-
ing with Him — a footing of friendship and loyalty
— he is omnipotent and able to devote the same
regard to all your interests as if immensity con-
tained nothing else to attract his notice. He is
omniscient, and able to keep you more constantly
in his eye, and bear you more continually in his
loving thoughts, than you are able to watch over
the child, or to think oif the friend, that is dearest.
And though he be a consuming fire — though
there be that in his holiness which is burning
antipathy to sin — there is nothing in this holiness
to hinder the humble soul from reposing on his
faithfulness as securely as meekest brow ever
rested on the fondest father's bosom. In the only
aspect in which mortal eye can view him — in the
person of Immanuel — the Living God draws near
and says, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with
all thy strength and with all thy mind." Thou
shalt love — not Fate — not Providence — not Eter-
nity— not Immensity — not Goodness — it is not
even said the Deity — but " Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God" — the God of the Bible — the great
I Am — the Living God — Jehovah — the most ma-
jestic yet most loving and most lovely of all be-
ings— thou shalt love the Lord with all thy soul.
Love Him of whom the earth saw, not merely a

124 LECTURE VII

living, but an incarnate, specimen in the person
of Jesus Christ.

Whatever Platonisis and mystics and tran-
scendentalists may pretend to the contrary, and
whatever a theology, tinctured by these human
notions, may daily teach, if we would love God
at all, we must look to the God of the Bible. It
may be difficult to love the " First Cause " of the
philosophers, or the Divine Essence of the
schoolmen, or the far-off abstraction of the mys-
tics,— but to love Immanuel, God with us, surely
this is possible. By the door of the incarnation
to get into some knowledge of God, and so into
some love, — surely this is possible. To perceive
the friendly disposition of the High and Holy
One, even towards our wretched and guilty
selves, is possible, when we look to the co-equal
Son pouring out his blood a ransom for many.
To apprehend his gentle and benignant bearing
towards his own is easy when we look at John
on the bosom of Jesus — yes, John on the bo-
som of God. And to see how much, not
only of awful majesty and spotless sanctity,
but how much of genial goodness and sweetest
loveliness, how much of truest tenderness and
heart-attracting graciousness there was in the Son
of Mary, and yet doubt whether the living God
be worthy of pur love ; dear brethren, which of
you will answer, — This is possible ? " That
which was from the beginning, which we have
heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which
we have looked upon, and our hands have hand-
led of the Word of Life, (for the life — the Living
One — was manifested, and we have seen him,)

LECTURE VII. 125

that which we have seen and heard declare we
unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with
us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father,
and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these
things write we unto you, that your joy may b«
full."

It is a simple truth, — but oh ! that its starry
letters sparkled in every eye, — would that its
daily echo haunted every ear. The Incarnation
is as truly our door of entrance into all true
knowledge of God as the Atonement is our pass-
port to heaven. The living person of Jesus is
our theology as truly as the finished work of
Jesus is our righteousness. We can reach no
heaven except that which Immanuel bought for
us, and we can know nothing of God except that
which Immanuel is to us. But all that Imman-
uel was or is, all this the ever-blessed Godhead
is ; and ours is New-Testament divinity and ours
is Christian worship, when in Jesus Christ we
recognize " The Alpha and Omega, the begin-
ning and the ending, which is, and which was,
and which is to come, the Almighty."

And having discovered, — so far as finite pow-
ers and this dim world admit of, — what the true
God really is, cultivate each reverent and trustful
and admiring disposition toward him. Study his
perfections on very purpose to enkindle praise,
and when any fair scene in creation makes
your heart right glad, or when any marvellous
event in Providence solemnizes your spirit, let
the thought of the Omnipotent creator and ruler
convert it into present adoration. In the various
revolutions of your worldly lot, and the changeful
11*

126 LECTURE VII.

moods of feeling, let the recollection of the Divine
perfections and recourse to the living God, be the
instant asylum of your soul. Are you weary
with the world's boisterousness — with the rough
and high-handed ways of ungodly men ? Seek
the calm sanctuary of God's own presence.
" Though a host encamp against me, one thing
have I desired of the Lord — that will I seek
after ; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of
the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. For in
the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pa-
vilion ; in the secret of his tent shall he hide
me." Are you damped by the disappointment
of some hope, or the downfall of some joy which
you have long been rearing ? Think of the per-
manence of God and the perpetuity of those joys
which are at his own right hand, and in which
he himself is part; and learn to build your bless-
edness on the Rock of Ages. Are you shut out
from engagements which once were very sweet
— society, recreations, and pursuits, in which you
could indulge without satiety, and with ever-
growing zest ? Learn to live upon God, and like
that prisoner of the Lord who beguiled her ten
years' captivity with psalms, and who declares
that the heavenly society of her cell made " its
stones look like rubies,"* try to sing :

How pleasant is all that I meet,

From fear of adversity free,
I find every sorrow made sweet,

Because 'tis assigned me by thee.

* Madame Guion.

LECTURE VII. 127

Thy will is the treasure I seek,
For thou art as faithful as strong ;

There let me, obedient and meek,
Repose myself all the day long.

My spirit and faculties fail ;

Oh ! finish what love has begun.
Destroy what is sinful and frail,

And dwell in the soul thou hast won.

Oh, glory ! in which I am lost,

Too deep for the plummet of thought

On an ocean of Deity toss'd,

I am swallow'd, I sink into nought.

Yet lost and absorbed as I seem,
I chant to the praise of my King ;

And though overwhelmed by the thought,
Am happy whenever I sing.

Do you grieve for the fickleness of man and
mourn over friendships which have dried like
summer-brooks? If the fault be not your own,
think of the unchanging friend whose mercy is
in the heavens and whose kindness is unaffected
by the influences which make such havoc in the
affections of earth. Do you feel the flesh fading ?
Then say, " Whom have I in heaven but thee ?
and there is none upon earth that I desire beside
thee. My flesh and rny heart faileth ; but God
is the strength of my heart and my portion for
ever. " Do you begin to wonder what is to be-
come of your own mouldered dust and that of
many dear to you, when long ages have slipped
away and the inscription on your tomb is a dead
language ? Do not err, forgetting the Scriptures.
Think of the great power of God. Remember
who hath said, " I am the Resurrection and the

128 LECTURE VII.

Life ; he that believeth in me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live." And thus, whatever be
the grief, the vacancy, or fear, learn to find the
antidote in GOD.

THANKSGIVING.

Adoration is devout meditation on what Jeho-
vah is,—- the praise of the divine perfections.
Thanksgiving is delighted meditation on what the
Lord has done for us or others — praise for his
mercies. Such praise is " comely." Just as
there is meanness in constant murmuring, so
there is a gracefulness and majesty in habitual
gratitude. And it is " pleasant." It is not the
full purse or the easy calling, but the full heart,
the praising disposition, which makes the blessed
life ; and of all personal gifts that man has got
the best who has received the quick-discerning
eye, the promptly-joyful soul, the ever-praising
spirit.

And, my dear friends, in searching for the ma-
terials of gratitude, you have not far to go. If
you have a lawful pursuit — a business to which,
with a clear conscience, you can devote your en-
ergy— and a possession which raises you above
the woes of penury ; if you have contentment
within, and affection around, you are a wealthy
and a favoured man. Your daily lot may well
be your daily wonder ; and when other texts are
exhausted you may find a theme for thanksgiv-
ing in your very home — a Hosannah in the
blazing hearth and a Jubilate in each joyful
voice and merry sound that echoes through your

LECTURE VII. 129

dwelling. But there are signal mercies, memo-
rable interpositions and marvellous deliverances,
which should be signalized by memorable thanks-
givings. Remarkable interpositions are rare, but
that life is rarer in which there has been no re-
markable rescue ; no signal interposition of
Providence. Just see. Is there any one here
present whose life has moved so smoothly that no
accident ever endangered it, and that he cannot
quote the time when there was but a hair-breadth
betwixt him and death ? The boat was upset,
but you were saved. You intended going by the
vessel that foundered at sea, but were unaccount-
ably hindered. You passed along, and three
seconds afterwards the tottering wall crashed
down. You still preserve the hat that was
grazed by the bullet, or the book that received the
shot instead of yourself. And how did you feel
at the time ? When you fell from the precipice,
or were thrown headlong from your startled
steed, and rose uninjured, did all your bones say,
Who is like unto thee, O Lord? When you
just escaped the fatal missile, was gratitude to
your gracious Preserver your first emotion, or did
you merely thank your stars and congratulate
yourself on your singular luck ? And when the
active arm saved you from drowning, or from
being crushed to death in the crossing, when de-
posited on the place of safety you were pale, or
you laughed wildly, or you clung to the arm of
your deliverer, for the danger was dreadful ; but
have you since praised the Lord for his goodness,
and for his wonderful work in saving you
then ? And do you adoringly remember it still ?

130 LECTURE VII.

" Whoso is wise, and will observe these things,
even they shall understand the loving-kindness
of the Lord."

Then, farther, there are moral perplexities and
painful dilemmas ; times of heart-trouble and
fearful foreboding, followed by times for thanks-
giving. " I love the Lord because he hath heard
my voice and my supplications. The sorrows of
death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat
hold upon me : I found trouble and sorrow.
Then called I upon the name of the Lord ; O
Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. Gracious
is the Lord and righteous ; yea, our God is mer-
ciful. I was brought low, and he helped me.
Keturn unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord
hath dealt bountifully with thee. For thou hast
delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from
tears, and my feet from falling." You were in
some desperate crisis of your history, and unless
the Lord had made bare his mighty arm you saw
nothing for it but disaster, confusion, and dis-
grace. But in that vale of Achor the Lord
opened a door of hope. He raised up friends un-
looked-for, or sent supplies unhoped-for, and step
by step he opened up a gentle path, till you
found yourself in a large place, and at gladsome
liberty. And " what shall I render unto thee, O
Lord, for all his benefits toward me ? I will take
the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of
the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord
now, in the presence of all his people. I will
offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and
will call upon the name of the Lord."

And the crowning mercies — the sweetest and

LECTURE VII. ]

the surest — the most precious and most lasting —
have you tasted spiritual mercies ? " Then blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in Christ : according as he hath chosen
us in him before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before him
in love." Have you heard of the Saviour ?
Then " Thanks be to God for his unspeakable
gift." Have you found the pardon of sin?
Then " Bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and forget
not all his benefits, who forgiveth all thine iniqui-
ties ; who as far as the east is from the west, so
far hath removed my transgressions from me.''
Have you the lively hope to light you on your
way through life ? " Then blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who ac-
cording to his abundant mercy hath begotten me
again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance in-
corruptible, reserved in heaven for me." Have
you found the promises fulfilled ? " Blessed be
the Lord that hath given rest unto his people, ac-
cording to all that he promised. There hath not.
failed one word of all his good promise." Have
you received an answer to your prayers ? "I
will praise thee, for thou hast heard me, and art
become my salvation. I called upon the Lord hi
distress : the Lord answered me and set me in a
large place. O give thanks unto the Lord, for he
is good : for his mercy endureth for ever." It is
written of that seraphic Christian, Joseph Al-
leine, " Love and joy and a heavenly mind were
the internal'part of his religion, and the large and

132 LECTURE VII.

fervent praises of God and thanksgiving for his
mercies, especially for CHRIST, and the SPIRIT,
and HEAVEN, were the external exercises of it.
He was not negligent in confessing sin, but praise
and thanksgiving were his natural strains ; his
longest, most frequent, and hearty services. He
was no despiser of a broken heart, but he had at-
tained the blessing of a healed and joyful heart."
And this is indeed the most blessed life, — the
most uplifted — the most impressive, and most
heavenly. The Lord wills his people to be hap-
py. He has provided strong consolation for them,
and he desires that their enraptured praises and
joyful lives should speak good of his name.
Dear brethren, aspire at habitual thankfulness.
Covet earnestly a life of prevailing cheerfulness
and praise. Seek to have your souls often brim-
ming over with hoiy gladness. Bring them into
broad contact with every happy thing around
you — not with every mad and foolish thing — but
with everything on which God's countenance
shines, and in which his joy-awakening Spirit
stirs. Rejoice with a rejoicing universe. Re-
joice with the morning stars, and let your ador-
ing spirit march to the music of the hymning
spheres. Rejoice with the jocund spring in its
gush of hope and its dancing glory — with its
swinging insect-clouds, and its suffusion of mul-
titudinous song — and rejoice with golden autumn
as he rustles his grateful sheaves, and claps his
purple hands, as he breathes his story of fruition,
his anthem of promises fulfilled — as he breathes
it softly in the morning stillness of ripened fields,
or flings it in jEolian sweeps from lavish orchards

LECTURE VII. 133

and branches tossing bounty into mellow winds.
Rejoice with infancy as it guesses its wondering
way into more and more existence, and laughs
and carols as the field of pleasant life enlarges on
it, and new secrets of delight flow in through
fresh and open senses. Rejoice with the second
youth of the heaven-born soul — as the revelations
of a second birth pour in upon it, and the glories of
a new world amaze it. Rejoice with the joyful
believer when he sings " 0 Lord, I will praise
thee : though thou wast angry with me, thine
anger is turned away and thou comfortest me.
Behold God is my salvation. " Rejoice with
him whose incredulous ecstasy has alighted on
the great Gospel-secret — whose eye is beaming
as none can beam save that which for the first
time beholds the Lamb — whose awe-struck coun-
tenance and uplifted hands are evidently ex-
claiming, " This is my beloved, and this is my
friend." Rejoice with saints and angels, as they
rejoice in a sight like this. Rejoice with Im-
manuel, whose soul now sees of its travail. Re-
joice with the ever-blessed Three, and with a
heaven whose work is joy. Be glad in the
Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous ; and shout for
joy, all ye that are upright in heart.

LECTURE VIH.

BIBLE INSTANCES.

" The effectual fervent prayer of a r ighteous man
availeth much." — JAMES v 16.

SOME have no turn for poetry, and others have
no taste for science. Many have no aptitude for
argument and dissertation, and no comprehension
for abstract statement. But almost all men have
an avidity for history. And what is history ? It
is truth alive and actual — truth embodied — truth
clothed in our kindred clay. It is knowledge,
not afloat on the mist-bounded sea — the shoreless
abyss of speculation — but knowledge coasting it
in sight of the familiar landmarks of time and
place ; knowledge anchored to this human heart,
and coming ashore on this our every-day exist-
ence. It is the maxim of the book made inter-
esting— the lesson of the pulpit or the desk made
simple and delightful, by being read anew in
living men. It is the grace made lovelier, and
the attainment made more hopeful, by its exhibi-
tion in men of like passions and like affections
with ourselves. The human spirit craves for
history, and the Bible meets this craving. The
half of it is history ; and we shall devote this
morning to some names of prayerful renown —
Bible instances, and their modem parallels.

LECTURE VIII . 135

1. The first we quote is ENOCH. He walked
with God. The conception we form of him, from
what the Bible tells us, is, that his was a life of
delightful communion and constant devotion. He
had discovered the living God, and, from the
moment of that discovery, could date his blessed
life. So correct was his view of the Divine
character, that he was irresistibly drawn toward
it in confidence and love. So vivid was that
view that he never forgot it, and so influential
that it completely altered him. He " came to
God ;" " he walked with God ;" and " he pleased
God." " Every sacred engagement was perform-
ed with a holy alacrity. Every call to worship
welcomed as it came, from its inviting him to
contact with ' the Father of Spirits.' Every ex-
cursion of sanctified thought — every emotion of
virtuous feeling — was sustained and encouraged,
in anticipation of this intercourse, or as the
result of its enjoyment. ' God was in all his
thoughts.' If he looked upon the heavens, he
was there ; if he contemplated the earth, he was
there ; if he retired into his own bosom, he was
there. He felt his presence pressing, as it were,
upon his senses. It was the congenial element
of his moral being — the atmosphere in which his
spirit was refreshed. There was no terror to
him in the great and holy name ; he felt no tumul-
tuary agitation, because ' God had beset him be-
hind and before, encompassing all his ways.'
The recollection of this was rather a source of
sacred and animated pleasure ; it invested every-
thing with a new property ; it disclosed to him
the spiritual essence that pervades the universe ;

136 LECTURE VIII.

and thus gave him ever to feel as within the cir-
cle of the sublimest satisfactions."^

And so, my friends, do you seek Enoch's in-
troduction to the living God. Go to him, as
Enoch went, believing that he is, and that he is
accessible.! And seek to get into the same just
and realizing knowledge of him that Enoch got.
He is revealed to you more amply, perhaps, than
he was to Enoch. Believe. Believe that he is
not afar off, but nigh. Believe that he is not
hostile, but propitious. Believe that he is all that
Jesus said — that he is all that Jesus was — and,
believing this, walk with him. Admit him into
your home, that he may hallow it. Admit him
into your hourly occupations, that he may elevate
and expedite them. Admit him into your happy
moments, that he may enhance them ; and into
your hours of anguish, that his presence may
tranquillize and transform them. Let his recol-
lected presence be the brightness of every land-
scape— the zest of every pleasure — the energy
for every undertaking — the refuge from every
danger — the solace in every sorrow — the asylum
of your hidden life, and the constant Sabbath of
your soul. Learn — -with all reverence for his
greatness, but with equal reliance on his good-
ness— learn to make the eye that never slumbers
the companion of your nights and mornings ; and
the ear that never wearies — make it the confidant
of your weakness, your solicitude, your ecstasy,
arid woe. Learn to have not one life for God and
another for the world ; but let your earthly life

* Binuey on Hebrews xi.} pp. 89, 90 f Heb. xi. 6.

LECTURE VIII. 137

be divinely directed and divinely quickened — let
every footstep be a walk with God.

2. There was no prophet in Israel like unto
MOSES, whom the Lord knew face to face ; and,
like all the conspicuous characters of Scripture,
Moses was a man of prayer. He, too, had been
introduced into a peculiar acquaintance with the
living God, and, from the memorable interview
at the burning bush, there always rested on him
an impress of that high fellowship to which he
had been admitted. It was not only when the
brightness of some recent interview lit up his
countenance with new and painful glory ; but, on
his habitual look there lingered that blended be-
nignity and majesty which, once seen in the as-
pect of Jehovah, its memorial might always be
seen in himself. The Lord had heard Moses'
prayer ;^ and, if he had not shown him all his
glory, he had at least made all his goodness pass
before him ; and from that moment when, hidden
in the mountain-cleft, the cloud swept over him,
and the pulses of encircling power and sanctity
thrilled through him, no conviction lodged deeper
in Moses' mind, and no element of influence told
more constantly on Moses' character, than the
assurance that " the Lord is merciful and gracious,
long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and
truth." The secret of the Lord was with him;
and surely it is important to know how one who
knew the Lord's mind so well, and with whom
the Lord so spake, face to face — how such a one
was wont to pray. And I think you will notice
these things in Moses' prayers : — (1.) A hopeful-

* Exodus xxxiii. 18.

138 LECTURE VIII.

ness which felt that no moment was loo late, nor
any depth of misery too profound, for prayer.
When brought to a stand-still on the Red Sea
shore — when almost poisoned by the waters of
Marah — when like to be swallowed up by the
fierceness of Amalek — it was all the same. Moses
had instant recourse to the arm of Jehovah, and
that arm brought salvation. And, in a case more
daunting still — when successive sins had made
the people outlaws from the covenant and its
mercies — when they erected the golden calf —
when Korah and his company rebelled — when
Miriam was struck with leprosy — when the fire
of God was sweeping through the camp — when
the burning serpents were darting death and con-
sternation on every side — these rapid plagues>
the wickedness of the people, and their wild dis-
may, which would have made another leader
" faint," only made Moses pray. He recollected
" the Lord merciful and gracious, forgiving ini-
quity, transgression, and sin;" and, when other
hearts were sinking, he still could " hope in God's
mercy," and his hopeful prayers were ever pro-
curing fresh forgiveness. (2.) And, besides this
expectancy of mercy — this confidence of being
heard — you may notice a holy urgency in Moses'
prayers. How he pleads with God ! How firm
he takes his stand on the Divine perfections and
the special promises, and with what security he
argues from them ! " Lord, why doth thy wrath
wax hot against thy people, which thou hast
brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great
power, and with a mighty hand ? Wherefore
should the Egyptians speak and say, ' For mis-

LECTURE VIII. 139

chief did he bring them out, to slay them in the
mountains, and to consume them from the face
of the earth?' Turn from thy fierce wrath, and
repent of this evil against thy people. Remember
Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom
thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto
them, * I will multiply your seed, as the stars of
heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of
will I give unto your seed and they shall inherit
it for ever.^ And that other time, when the
Lord threatened to annihilate the murmuring
people — "And now, I beseech thee, let the power
of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spo-
ken, saying, ' The Lord is long-suffering and of
great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression,
and by no means clearing the guilty.' Pardon,
I beseech J;hee, the iniquity of this people, accord-
ing unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou
hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until
now.' And the Lord said, ' I have pardoned,
according to thy word.' "t

From Moses, learn to pray and never faint.
However awful the exigency, however near the
destruction, and however abused past mercy may
have been, still resort to him whose power is
beyoad all exigencies, and whose pity is more
prompt than our repentance. And, from Moses,
learn to glorify God, by pleading in prayer his
perfections and his promises. That prayer will
bring an absolute answer, which has for its found-
ation the Lord's absolute assurance ; and, in the
absence of a positive promise, that prayer will pro-
cure some mitigation or some rnercy , which makes
* Exod. xxxii. f Num. xiv. 17—20.

140 LECTURE VIII.

cordial mention of the Lord's goodness and lov-
ing-kindness. Remember the word unto thy ser-
vant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.

3. Passing on to the " man after God's own
heart," we find, of human models, the most per-
fect specimen of prayer. It is not so much the
frequency of his devotional exercises, though
these were seven times a day ; nor the memora-
ble returns which these prayers procured, for the
prayers of Elijah and others may have brought
about more miraculons results — may have drawn
down, in the world's eye, more stupendous re-
turns ; but it is that DAVID was so signally a man
of prayer, and that his prayers, in themselves are
so pre-eminent. He prayed without ceasing, and
with all prayer, in everything making known his
requests, and in everything giving thanks. Tak-
ing possession of his new house, or retreating
from it — on the eve of battle and in the flush of
victory — among the sheep-cotes and in the moun-
tain pass — on the tented field and in the trading
town — in the shepherd's hut and on the mon-
arch's throne — in the full height of spiritual joy
and in the depths of guilty misery — we find him
still the man of prayer. And these prayers have
in them everything that enters into our idea of
what prayer should be. David's was the darting
eye thai could catch upon the wing the fleetest
of nature's phantoms and the swiftest flights of
man's imaginings ; and the divining eye that
could detect the passion ere it mantled on Doeg's
swarthy cheek, or read the cunning scheme ere
it glanced from under Achithophel's polished
brow. Arid his own soul was the well-tuned

LECTURE VIII. 141

harp on which, from the deep notes of dull and
doubtful feeling up to the shrillest tones of ecsta-
tic bliss or woe, the diapason sounded the full
compass of all the emotions which this harp of
thousand strings is able to express. And whilst
his soul was thus susceptible and his eye thus
quick, in his hand he held a poet's pen, and
could transfer into equal words each intuition of
his ranging eye and each aspiration of his yearn-
ing heart. And when you recollect that all this
glowing fancy and earnest feeling and creative
diction were the clothing of a spirit to which Je-
hovah was the chiefest joy — by which the living
God was known and loved, 'adored and trusted —
you can see how the Book of Psalms must ever
be the best manual of devotion.

(I.) From David, learn in everything to pray.
Learn to ask God's blessing on little things as
well as great. There is nothing which it is right
for us to do, but it is also right to ask that God
would bless it ; and, indeed, there is nothing so
little but the frown of God can convert it into the
most sad calamity, or his smile exalt it into a
most memorable mercy ; and there is nothing we
can do but its complexion for weal or woe de-
pends entirely on what the Lord will make it
It is said of Matthew Henry, that " no journey
was undertaken, nor any subject or course of
sermons entered upon ; no book committed to the
press, nor any trouble apprehended or felt, with-
out a particular application to the mercy-seat for
direction, assistance, and success."^ And, on a
studying day, he writes, " I forgot explicitly and

* Life, by Sir J. B. Williams, p. 211.

^ at THS

142 LECTURE VIII.

especially when I began to crave help of God,
and the chariot-wheels drove accordingly."^ It
is recorded of Cornelius Winter, that he seldom
opened a book, even on general subjects, without
a moment's prayer.t The late Bishop Heber,
on each new incident of his history, or on the
eve of any undertaking, used to compose a brief
Latin prayer, imploring special help and guid-
ance. No doubt such a prayer preceded the com-
position of his famous poem, " Palestine." At
least, after it had gained the prize, and been read
in the ears of applauding Oxford, when the assem-
bly dismissed, the successful scholar could no-
where be found, till some one discovered him on
his knees thanking God who had given him the
power to produce that poem, and who had spared
his parents to witness and share his joy.t A
late physician of great celebrity used to ascribe
much of his success to three maxims of his fa-
ther, the last and best of which was, " Always
pray for your patients. "§

(2.) From David, learn to give thanks in every-
thing. " Every furrow in the Book of Psalms
is sown with seeds of thanksgiving. "II Many of
the Psalms are songs of vigorous and continuous
praise: "O give thanks unto the Lord!" and
others which begin with grief and confession and
complaint, presently slide into gratitude. Praise
is the believer's seemliest attire ; and those have

* Tong's Life of Henry, p. 60.

f Jay's Life of Winter, p. 256.

j Life of Heber, quarto, vol. i., p. 33.

§ Memoir of James Hope, M.D., p. 51.

j| Jeremy Taylor

LECTURE VIII. 143

been the most attractive Christians whose every-
day adorning was the " garment of praise." It
is mentioned of the famous Moravian, Count Zin-
zendorf, that " in his very aspect might be dis-
cerned the blessedness of a heart sprinkled from
an evil conscience with the blood of the Lamb."
" He looked for nothing but good from the Lord,
in whom he delighted ; and every subject of
thankfulness, however inconsiderable it might
seem to others, was important and interesting to
him."1* " I am surrounded with goodness, and
scarcely a day passes over my head but I say,
* Were it not for an ungrateful heart I should be
the happiest man alive ;' and that excepted, I
neither expect nor wish to be happier in this
world. My wife, my children, and myself in
health ; my friends kind ; my soul at rest ; and
my labours successful. Who should not be con-
tent and thankful if I should not ? O, my bro-
ther, help me to praise."!

(3.) From David, learn to delight in God, and
so to view each scene in creation, and each event
in providence, in God's own purest light. God
was his chiefest joy, his sure and ascertained
friend ; and every scene was pleasant where
God's presence was enjoyed, and every object
interesting in which aught of God's glory could
be seen. He felt Jehovah's tread in the shaking
wilderness and the quivering forest. He saw Je-
hovah's chariot in the rolling cloud, the eddying
tornado, and the wheeling water-spout. He be-
held Jehovah's majestic flight on the wings of

' * Life, pp. 508, 509.
t Fuller's Life of Pearce, p. 36.

144 LECTURE VIII.

mighty winds and in the sweep of the careering
clouds. He heard Jehovah's voice in the thun-
der-psalm and in ocean's echoing chime. He
heard it, too, in the hum of leafy trees, and in the
liquid music that trickled down the mountain's
side. He recognised Jehovah's frown in the
splitting rocks and smoking hills ; and hailed
Jehovah's smile in the melting tints of morning,
in the laughing joy of harvest-fields, in the glanc-
ing roll of sun-steeped billows and the plunging
gambols of leviathan as he played his ponderous
frolics there. * Every touch of pathos or power
passed away a heavenward melody from the
JEolian harp of his devotional spirit ; and, not
content with these strains of constant adoration,
on some occasions you can see him mustering all
his being for some effort of ecstatic worship, and
longing to flame away a holocaust of praise.
Describing the change which came over his own
feelings from the time that he knew God in Christ,
President Edwards says, " The appearance of
everything was altered ; there seemed to be, as
it were, a calm, sweet cast or appearance of Di-
vine glory in almost everything. God's excel-
lency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed
to appear in everything ; in the sun, and moon,
and stars ; in the clouds and blue sky ; in the
grass, flowers, trees ; in the water and all nature,
which used greatly to fix my mind. I often used
to sit and view the moon for continuance ; and in
the day spent much time in viewing the clouds
and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in
these things ; in the mean time singing forth,

* See Psalms xxix., Ixv., civ., cxlviii., &c.

LECTURE VIII. 145

with a low voice, my contemplations of the Crea-
tor and Redeemer. . . . My mind was greatly
fixed on Divine things, almost perpetually in the
contemplation of them. I oft walked alone in the
woods and solitary places, for meditation, solilo-
quy, and prayer, and converse with God. . . .
Prayer seemed to be natural to me, as the breath
by which the inward burnings of my heart had
vent."

4. And to take only one instance more, — " the
man greatly beloved." DANIEL was a busy
statesman. Darius had made him his chief
minister. He had charge of the royal revenue,
and was virtual ruler of the empire. But amidst
all the cares of office he maintained his wonted
custom of praying thrice a day.^ For these
prayers nothing was neglected. The adminis-
tration of justice was not standing still; the pub-
lic accounts did not run into confusion. There
was no mutiny in the army, no rebellion in the
provinces from any mismanagement of his. And
though disappointed rivals were ready to found
an impeachment on the slightest flaw, so wise
and prompt and impartial was his procedure that
they at last concluded, " We shall find no occa-
sion against this Daniel, except we find it against
him concerning the law of his God." He found
leisure to rule the realm of Babylon, and leisure
to pray three times a day. Some would say that
he must have been a first-rate man of business to
find so much time for prayer. It would be nearer
the truth to say that it was his taking so much
time to pray which made him so diligent and

* Dan. vi. 10

146 LECTURE VIII.

successful in business. It was from God that
Daniel got his knowledge, his wisdom, and his
skill. In the composure and serenity which
these frequent approaches to God imparted to his
spirit, as well as in the supernatural sagacity and
forethought and power of arrangement which
God gave in direct answer to his prayers, he had
an infinite advantage over those men who, re-
fusing to acknowledge God in their callings, vex
themselves in vain, and who, when the fret and
worry and sweltering of their jaded day is done,
find that they have accomplished less, and that
little far more painfully than their wiser brethren
who took time to pray. The man must be busier
than Daniel who has not time to pray, and wiser
than Daniel who can do what Daniel did without
prayer to help him. Daniel was in a place where
prayer was eminently needful. He was in Baby-
Ion — a place of luxury and revelry — and from
his position in society he was peculiarly exposed
to the idolatrous and voluptuous temptations
around him. It was difficult and ere long it was
dangerous to maintain his singularity. But so
far as there was any seduction in the mirth of
that jovial city, prayer kept him separate ; and
so far as there was any danger in withholding
countenance from its idol-orgies, prayer made
him bold. Though the clash of the cymbal and
the shouts of the dancers were coming in at the
window, they did not disturb his devotion ; and
though he had not forgotten the king's decree and
the lions' den, he did not close the lattice nor try
to conceal his faith and his worship ; and, secure
alike from spiritual detriment and personal dan-

LECTURE VIII. 147

ger, the Lord hid his praying servant in the
hollow of his hand.

Among the elegant forms of insect life, there
is a little creature known to naturalists, which
can gather round it a sufficiency of atmospheric
air — and, so clothed upon, it descends into the
bottom of the pool, and you may see the little
diver moving about dry and at his ease, protected
by his crystal vesture, though the water all around
and above be stagnant and bitter. Prayer is such
a protector — a transparent vesture, the world sees
it not — but a real defence, it keeps out the world.
By means of it the believer can gather so much
of heaven's atmosphere around him, and with it
descend into the putrid depths of this contami-
nating world, that for a season no evil will touch
him ; and he knows where to ascend for a new
supply. Communion with God kept Daniel pure
in Babylon. Nothing else can keep us safe in
London. In secret of God's presence you might
tread these giddy streets, and your eyes never
view the vanity. You might pass theatres and
taverns and never dream of entering in. Y ou might
get invitations to noisy routs and God-forgetting
assemblies and have no heart to go. Golden
images, public opinion with its lions' den, and
fashion with its fiery furnace, would never disturb
you. A man of prayer in this mart of nations,
you could pass upon your way unseduced and
undistracted, a Christian in Vanity Fair, a pil-
grim in a paradise of fools, a true worshipper
amidst idolaters, a Daniel in Babylon.

And so far as this is a world of distress and dan-
ger, prayer is the best defence. So Daniel found

148 LECTURE VIII.

it in the den. So his three friends found it in the
fiery furnace. And so you, my friends, will find
it in the real or fancied perils of this mortal life.
" The name of the Lord is a strong tower ; the
righteous runneth into it and is safe." An asy-
lum ever open, the ejaculation of an instant will
land you in it, and nothing is evil which befalls
you there. By the omnipotent help which it at
once secures, prayer is strength in weakness and
courage in dismay. It is the buoy which rides
the roaring flood, the asbestos-robe which defies
the devouring flame. It is the tent in which
frailty sleeps securely, and anguish forgets to
moan. It is the shield on which the world and
the wicked one expend their darts in vain. And
when panic and temptation and agony all are
over, — whether wafted by Sabbath zephyrs, or
winged by scorching flames — whether guided by
hymning angels, or dragged by raging lions —
whether the starting-point be Patmos, or Jerusa-
lem, or Smithfield, or Babylon, it is the chariot
which conveys the departing spirit into a Saviour's
arms.

LECTURE IX.

CONCLUSION.

" Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the
Spirit." — EPHESIANS vi. 18.

THEN what is prayer ? Is it penance ? Is it
a part of that various punishment which God has
inflicted on our sinful family? Is it so much
holy drudgery to which every soul must force
himself, under pain of incurring a severer pen-
alty, or sinking at last into a deeper woe ? Is it
the irksome ordeal through which you are doom-
ed to enter each successive day, and the moping
and mournful finale with which you must close
it up and leave it off? Is prayer the sackcloth
which you must wear beneath the silk attire of
daily joys, — the pebble which you must put into
the sandals of daily business, — the preliminary
thorn which you must break across or pluck
away before you reach the downy pillow of this
weary night's new slumber? Is prayer the cold
fog which you must scatter over this world's
bright landscape, — the memento mori with which
you must sober down its merry melodies, — the
Egyptian coffin at the banquet's close to lengthen
every visage, and with quashed delight and bit-
ter fancies to send each rueful guest away ?

150 LECTURE IX.

And yet, I am sure that it is in this sombre
aspect that many look on prayer. Are you sure
that this is not the aspect in which you yourself
regard it ? Is it not a task, — an exercise, — an
endurance ? Instead of engaging in it with that
alacrity, or resorting to it with that avidity which
would bespeak the privilege, do you not betake
yourself to secret prayer with coldness and self-
constraint, and feel, when the devotions of the
family or sanctuary are ended, that it is a great
comfort to have this other " duty " done?

What then is prayer ?

1. It is communion with God. Oh ! breth-
ren, prayer is not an apostrophe to woods and
wilds and waters. It is not a moan let fly upon
the viewless winds, nor a bootless behest expended
on a passing cloud. It is not a plaintive cry, di-
rected to an empty echo, that can send back
nothing but another cry. Prayer is a living
heart that speaks in a living ear, — the ear of the
living God. It matters not where the worship-
per is, — on a dreary shore ; in a noisome dun-
geon ; amidst the filth and ferocity of brutal
savages, or the frivolity and atheism of hollow-
hearted worldlings ; surrounded by the whirr and
clash and roaring dissonance of the heaving fac-
tory, or toiling in the depths of the lamp-lit
mine, — the man of prayer need never feel the
withering pangs ot loneliness. Wherever you
are the Lord is there, and it only needs prayer to
bring Himself and you together. Recollect him,
and he is beside your path ; resort to him, and he
lays his hand upon you. And who is this ever-
present Help, — this never-distant Friend? Words

LECTURE IX. 151

cannot tell. The Incarnate "Word" did tell,
but few could comprehend, and as few could
credit.^ If you imagine the tenderest affection
of your most anxious Friend; the mildest con-
descension and readiest sympathy of your most
appreciating and considerate Friend ; and if you
add to this a goodness and a wisdom, such as you
never saw in the best and wisest of your friends ;
and if you do not merge but multiply all this
wisdom, all this goodness, and all this kindness
towards you by infinity, so as to give this tender
and constant Friend infinite knowledge to watch
over you, infinite forethought to provide for you,
and infinite resources to relieve or enrich you ; if
you did not fully realize who the hearer and an-
swerer of prayer is, you would, at least, be a step
beyond that unknown God, whom many igno-
rantly and joylessly worship. In prayer you do
not address a general law or a first principle, but
you address a living person. You do not com-
mune with eternity, or with infinite space, but
you commune with the Father of eternity, —
with Him " who fills the highest heavens, and
who also dwells in the lowliest hearts." You do
not hold converse with abstract goodness, but
with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ ; with God in Christ ; with Him whose
express image Jesus is ; with Jesus himself ;
with your Friend within the veil; with your
Father who is in heaven.

And is there in this aught that should prove
repulsive or heart-chilling ? Is Christ s'o altered
from what he was, that you needs must depre-

John i. 5, 18.

152 LECTURE IX.

cate his presence ; or are you so earthly, so sen-
sual, so sin -saturated, that though he were talk-
ing with you by the way your bosom could not
bum ? The Saviour and yourself ; is there so
little friendship between you? is he so little a
reality that days pass without adverting to him ?
or is he so little loved that you rather deprecate
than desire his coming ? Have you found so
little that is engaging in him that you wonder
how people who loved one another dearly, loved
this Saviour more ? Or is the whole such a
phantom, — to your feelings such a nonentity, —
that you cannot comprehend how any one should
have such delight in God as to cry out in desire
of his more conscious presence, " O God, thou
art my God ; early will I seek thee : my soul
thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a
dry and thirsty land. My soul shall be satisfied
as with marrow and fatness, when I remember
thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the
night-watches."

Yes, brethren, whatever you may fancy — or
rather, whatever you may forget — the Lord liveth.
There may be objects which fascinate all your
soul, and bind in welcome fetters all your facul-
ties ; but hidden from your view there is an ob-
ject, did you catch one glimpse of him, fit to
deaden the deliciousness of every lesser joy, and
darken the glare of every lesser glory. There
may be friends deep-seated in your soul, but
there is yet one friend, whom could you but dis-
cover, he would make you another man — he
would give your life a new nobility, your char-
acter a new sanctity. He would give yourself a

LECTURE IX. 153

new existence in giving himself to you, and
would give society a new manner of person in
giving you to it. And with this glorious person-
age, and withal most gracious friend, it is possi-
ble to keep up an intercourse to which the most
rapid communication and the closest converse of
earth supply not the equivalent. The twinkling
thought — the uplifted eye — the secret groan —
will bring him in an instant — will bring him in
all the brightness of his countenance through the
midnight gloom — in all the promptitude of his
interposition through the thickest dangers — in all
the abundance of his strength into the fading
flesh — and in all the sweetness of his sympathy
and assurance of his death-destroying might into
the failing heart. And this communion, closer
and more complete than that of any creature with
another — for dearest friend can only give his
thoughts, and desires, and feelings — he cannot
impart himself; but in regard to the praying
soul and this divine communion, we read of its
being " filled with all the fulness of God."

2. Prayer is peace and joy. Two things con-
stitute the believer's peculiarity and make him
differ from the rest of men — just as two things
constitute the sinner's peculiarity, and make him
differ from the rest of God's creatures. The two
things which form the Christless sinner's pecu-
liar misery, are guilt and vacancy — a gloom
above him and a void within him. A gloom
above him — for he has no confidence in God — he
has no hopeful and confiding feeling heavenwards
— no firm reliance on a reconciled God, and no
smiling vista through a pierced and heaven-open-

154 LECTURE IX.

ing sepulchre. A sense of sin — in shadowy
hauntings or in severe and burning incubus — is
lowering over his conscience, and whether it
merely mar his occasional joy, or convert his
days into habitual misery, this guilt, this con-
science of sin is a serious abatement on the zest
of existence — a mournful deduction from the
total of earthly joy. It makes the unpardoned
sinner's walk very different from the seraph's
limpid flight, who only knows guilt by distant
report, and very different from the newly-par-
doned sinner's lightened gaiety, who only knows
it by remembrance — breaking his daily bread in
the sprightliness of a vanished fear, and eating it
with the relish of a conscious innocency. But
not only is there a gloom above the Christless
sinner — a brooding guilt, and an impending dan-
ger— -but there is a void within him. God did
not create man at first with that burden on his
conscience, and neither did he create him with
this aching gap in his bosom. Or rather, we
should say the all-wise Creator has implanted no
craving in any of his creatures, without having
provided some counterpart object. When that
object is attained, the creature is content. The
craving subsides in quiet enjoyment and compla-
cency. It is happy and wants no more. The
ox is at home in his rich pasture, and sends no
wistful thought beyond it ; and so is the insect
which " expands and shuts its wings in silent
ecstasy " on the edge of the sunny flower. But
it 5s far otherwise with the roaming soul of the
Christless sinner. There is no flower of earthly
growth in whose nectar bathing he can finally

LECTURE IX. 155

forget his poverty — no green pastures of time-
bounded blessedness in whose amplitudes he can
so lose himself that misery shall find him no
more. Wide as is his range, his anxious eye
sees too well its weary limits, and sweet as the
honeyed petals are. he perceives them dying as
he drinks. Oh ! this fugacity of all that is plea-
sant— this scanty measure and momentary dura-
tion of earthly delights was never meant to satiate
the soul of man — this never is the counterpart
which the bountiful Jehovah created for the
yearning avidity of an immortal spirit. Cast
into the mighty gulf of man's craving soul, a
house-full of friendship, a ship's freight of wealth
and dainty delights, a world-load of wondrous
objects and lovely scenes, — the deep-sounding
abyss will ever echo, " Give, give ;" and though
you could tumble the world itself into the heart
of man, you could not prevent it from collapsing
in disappointment, and dying vacant and dreary
at last.

There is only one object so mighty as truly to
content this capacious desire — only one ultima-
tum so conclusive that when the soul has reached
it, it has nothing more to do than rest it and re-
joice. That object is the living God himself,
that ultimatum is the All-sufficient Jehovah.
The Gospel meets the two desiderata of our un-
easy and anxious humanity by offering a free
pardon and an infinite and eternal possession.
The affrighted and apprehensive soul finds peace
where it finds forgiveness ; and the yearning,
discontented soul finds joy where it finds a never-
dying, all-sufficient friend. It finds them both

156 LECTURE IX.

where it finds Immanuel. The gloom vanishes
and the void is filled — the query of existence is
answered, and the problem of blessedness solved
when the soul ascertains what Jesus really is,
and in a Saviour-God discovers its Beloved and
its Friend.

Now the peace and joy of conversion it is one
great use of prayer to reproduce and perpetuate.
It brings the soul into the presence of that Sa-
viour, whom in the day of salvation it found, and
renewing the intercourse, it renews the joy.
When prayer is what it ought to be — when it is
earnest and realizing — it gives the believer fel-
lowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus
Christ. It brings him in contact with those per-
fections of the Godhead which may at the moment
be chiefly revealed to his view : and in the pa-
vilion of prayer — beneath the canopy of the sure
atonement, and on the safe standing-point of
acceptance — the soul surveys the God of majesty,
or surrenders itself to the God of grace — hearkens
to his dreadful voice in the thundering power of
startling providences, or melts in sweet amaze-
ment beneath the full flood of his marvellous
mercies — but from every aspect of awful solem-
nity or benignant endearment, the assuring
thought comes home, " And this God is our own
God for ever." And perhaps there is no influ-
ence so abidingly tranquillizing — so permanently
hallowing and heart-assuring, as this high com-
munion with the great All in All. The pleasures
of sin will look paltry, and sin itself disgusting to
eyes which have just been gazing on the fountain
of light. The tossings of time — mountains of

LECTURE IX. 157

prosperity rooted up, and pinnacles of fortune
flung into the roaring sea — will look trivial mat-
ters to one who has eyed them in their mote-
like distance from beneath the sapphire throne.
And even the groans of mortality and the wailings
of the sepulchre will come diluted and trans-
formed to ears resounding with golden harmonies
from the holy place of the Most High.

3. Prayer is the only means of importing to
earth blessings not native to it. * There are many
commodities not of English growth, which ships
and wealth and enterprise can fetch from foreign
shores. But there are some things which no
wealth can purchase, which no enterprise can
compass, and with which no ship that ever rode
the seas came freighted. Where is the emporium
to which you can resort and order so much hap-
piness ? Where is the ship that ever brought
home a cargo of heart-comfort? — a consignment
of good consciences ?-— a freight of strength for
the feeble, and joy for the wretched, and peace
for the dying? But what no vessel ever fetched
from the Indies, prayer has often fetched from
heaven. Our earth is insulated. It is clean cut off
from all intercourse with the most adjacent worlds.
But even though the nearest world were peopled
by holy and happy beings, and though they coflld
cross the great gulf that severs them from us,
they could accomplish little for us. They could
not bind up bleeding hearts — they could not wash
stains from guilty souls — they could not infuse
their own felicity into gaunt and joyless hearts,
and they could not transport their own sweet at-
mosphere so as to heal the miasma of a polluted

158 LECTURE IX.

place, or the misery of a wretched home. Bat
what they cannot do, the Lord himself can do.
Prayer is not a message to the moon. It is not
a cry for help to the sun, or to the sfcirs in their
courses. It is a petition addressed to Him who
made the sun and moon and stars. It is recourse
to the ever-present and all-sufficient God. It is
frailty fleeing to omnipotence. It is misery at
the door of mercy. It is worm Jacob at the
ladder's foot, and that ladder's top in heaven. It
is the dying thief beside a dying Saviour, and
the same Paradise already open for them both.
The mercy-seat is the ark of the covenant opened,
and the legend over it, " Ask, and it shall be
given thee." And prayer is just the exploring
eye and the believing hand selecting from the
" unsearchable riches of Christ" the sweetest
mercies and the costliest gifts. Jacob compared
Joseph his son to a fruitful tree inside of a lofty
fence ;* but though he grew in a " garden en-
closed," his growth was so luxuriant that his
branches ran over the wall, and the wandering
Ishmaelites, and the hungry passengers shot
their arrows and flung their missiles at the laden
boughs, and caught up such clusters as fell out-
side the fence. The tree of life grows now in
such a garden. There is now an enclosure
round it, but the branches run over the wall.
High over our heads we may perceive the bend-
ing boughs, and such fragrant fruits as " peace
of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, assurance
of God's love," " gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance" — and prayer is the armv
* Gen. xlix. 22, 23, with Manner's explanation.

LECTURE IX. 159

which detaches these from the bough — the mis-
sile which brings these far-off fruits, these lofty
clusters, down to the dusty path, and the weary
traveller's feet. Happy he whose believing
prayer is " like Jonathan's bow, which never
came empty back."*

4. Prayer confers the largest power of doing
good to others. " What am I to do with other
people's sorrows ?" The finest and the gentlest
spirits are often the most heavily burdened.
Many a one feels that he could pass right easily
through the world if he had no griefs to carry
but his own. He feels that his sensitive system
is just a contrivance for catching up other men's
calamities, — -an apparatus on which every body
fastens his own peculiar vexation — his family
their's — his neighbours their's — till at last he
moves about the burden-bearer of a groaning
world. But after he has got himself thus charged
and loaded, he knows not what to do, for he can-
not alleviate the twentieth portion of the ills he
knows. He cannot heal all the wounds and mi-
tigate all the poverty of which he is the mourning
witness. He cannot minister to all the minds
diseased, all the aching hearts and wounded
spirits whose confidant he is ; and in the anguish
of his own tortured sympathies he is sometimes
tempted to turn these sympathies outside in, and
feel for his fellow-men no more. " What then
shall I do with other people's sorrows?" The
Christian feels that he has no right to be his own
little all-in-all. He feels that he dares not invert
the example of his Master, who was a man of
* Gurnall

160 LECTURE IX.

sorrows very much because a man of sympathies.
He remembers of whom it is said, " Surely he
hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows ;"
and this reminds him what to do with the per-
plexities and disappointments and distresses of
his brethren. He takes them to the Throne of
Grace. He deposits them in the ear of the Great
High Priest. He urges them on the notice of one
who can be touched with a feeling of infirmity,
and who is able to succour them that are tempted.
And in this way a believer who is tender-hearted
enough to feel fcnrhis brethren, and who is so
much a man of prayer as to carry to the mercy-
seat those matters that are too hard and those
griefs that are too heavy for himself, may be a
greater benefactor to his afflicted friends than an
Achitophel who has nothing but sage counsel, or
a Joab who has nothing but a stout arm to help
them — than a man of fortune who can give noth-
ing but his money, or a man of feeling who has
nothing but his tears. The Christian has his
near relations and personal friends. Parents and
children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives,
— God has bound them very closely together, and
made it impossible for the joy of one to be full if
another's joy is incomplete. Besides these there
are friends not of one's house — kindred spirits
whom God, in creating, or the Spirit of God, in
new-creating, has made congenial with your own
— those to whom you are drawn by the afFnity
of identical tastes, or by the discovery of those
mental gifts and spiritual graces, which cannot
be hid, and which cannot be seen without attract-
ing you. Now one way to sanctify such friend-

LECTUREIX. 161

ships is to make them the materials and the
incentives of prayer. For example, there may
be seasons of spiritual languor when you have
little heart to pray. The Throne of Grace seems
distant or uninviting. A deep sloth has seized
the inner man. You are not inclined to ask any
blessing for yourself. You are too carnal to con-
fess any sin, and too sullen to acknowledge any
mercy — perhaps so earthly or atheistical that you
do not pant — nay, do not breathe after God, the
living God. At such a season of deadness you
will sometimes find that you can pray for others
when you cannot for yourself.^ Do even so.
Make your solicitude for them a motive for prayer.
Begin by laying their wants before the Lord, and
you will soon find out your own. Come in their
company, and you may soon find yourself left
alone with God. This is not to desecrate prayer,
but to consecrate friendship. It exalts and puri-
fies affection, and by making it friendship in the
Lord, makes it more lasting now, and more likely
to be renewed hereafter.

And lastly, Intercession sanctifies the be-
liever's relation to the Church. " Our Father "
makes all of us who are in Christ one family.
But this, too, is oft forgotten. There is little
family love amongst us yet — little instinctive
affection resulting from our common adoption
into the circle of God's dear children — little of
that affection towards one another which our
elder brother feels towards , very one — little out-
going of sympathy because one Comforter fills
us all. If the family relation of the household c f
* Sheppard's Thoughts on Private Devotion.

162 LECTURE IX.

faith be ever realized, it is in social or interces-
sory prayer. Abba, Father — my Father truly,
because Father of my Lord Jesus Christ ; but, if
so, Father of many more — Father of the whole
believing family — " Our Father, which art in
heaven." And so the circle widens, till, starting
from the individual, or his own little band of im-
mediate brotherhood, it includes all whom the
arms of Immanuel enclose. One who was much
given to intercessory prayer writes thus to a
Christian friend : — " I beseech you to seek ear-
nestly the communion of saints. This is the only
progress I have made in the divine life. I have
received, as a most precious and unmerited gift,
the power of feeling the things of the flock of
Christ as if they were my own. You cannot
imagine the happiness of this feeling. I dedi-
cate an hour every evening to prayer, and prin-
cipally to intercession. I generally begin with
the thanks due to God for having made himself
known to us as our Father, for all that he has
done for every one of his sheep on that day. It
is impossible for me to tell you the great delight
of thus mixing myself up with the people of
Christ, and of considering their benefits as my
own. The thought which transports me the
most, is that of how many souls have been, per-
haps, this day joined to the Church ! how many
succoured under temptation ! how many recov-
ered from their backslidings ! how many filled
with consolation ! how many transported by death
into the bosom of Christ ! I then try to pray for
that sweet ' we,' and to think of the necessities
of my Christian friends. Besides, I have a list

LECTURE IX. 163

of unconverted persons, for whom I wish to
pray."5* And, if there were more of this spirit,
how it would alter the tone of Christians to one
another ! Instead of being so censorious and un-
charitable, it would make us feel, " Am I not my
brother's keeper ?" Instead of a fault-finding, it
would make us a fault-forgiving and a fault-
healing Church. It would make us suffer with
the suffering members, and exult with the re-
joicing. It would make us like that high-souled
apostle who had " continual heaviness " for his
unconverted kindred, and who yet never wanted
topics of consolation ; remembering without ceas-
ing in his prayers his believing brethren, with
their work of faith, and labour of love, and
patience of hope.

* «< Memoir of Miss M. J Graham," second edition,
pp. 375, 376

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