held out to all manldiid, as an inducement and encouragement to pray. — Others would confine it to Grod's children and true believers, and interpret it only as an argument for converted people asking much that they may have much.
The reader of my exposition will perceive that I am unable to place the more confined and narrow view upon the promise. I feel obliged, in fairness and honesty, to regard the words as one of those great, broad sentences, in which God holds out his hands to the unconverted, and sets before them an open door. — That no man can pray acceptably without the Holv Spirit, I am well aware. — In what way a man can ask for the Holy Spirit unless he has first received the Holy Spirit, I do not pretend to explain. I only know that I find the words of this promise plainly laid before us, and that fair interpretation seems to re- quire them to be generally applied. I desire to receive the promise as a little child, and to press it on imconverted people. I dare not be more systematic in my theology than Scripture itself.