Dan. ii. 20 ; 2 Sam. xv. 34 ; Esther iv. 16 ; Acts xii. 5 ; John xi. 41 ; Jonah ii. 2 ; Josh. X. 12, 14 ; 2 Kings xx. 11 ; Psa. cvi. 23 ; Ezek. xxii. 30. This is t]>e key that hath opened and shut heaven. It hath vanquished mighty armies ; and unlocked such secrets as passed the skill of the devil himself to find out. It hath strangled desperate plots in the very womb wherein ihey were conceived; and made those engines of cruelty, prepared against the saints, recoil upon their inventors, so that they have inherited the gallows which they set up for others. At the knock of prayer, prison-doors have opened, the grave hath delivered up its dead, and the sea's leviathan, not able to digest his prey, hath been made to vomit it up again. It hath stopped the sun's chariot in the heavens, yea, made it go back. And that which surpasselh all, it hath taken hold of the Almighty, when on his full march against a people, and put him to a mercifid retreat. Indeed, by the power prayer hath with God, it comes to prevail over all the rest. He that hath a key to God's heart cannot be shut out, or stopped at the creature's door. Now prayer moves God and overcomes him, not by causing any change in theDivine will, and making God to take up new thoughts of doing that for his people which he did not before intend. No ; God is immutable : and what good he doth in time for his people, he purposed before time was. But prayer is said to do more than overcome God, because he then gives, what from eternity he piu'posed to give upon their praying to him. For when God decreed what he would do for his saints, he also purposed they should pray for the same : ' I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them,' Ezek. xxxvi. 37. Prayer must be used, in order to obtain the mercies God purposeth and promiseth. Hezekiah understood this when he calls the prophet to the church's labour, and bids, because the children stuck in her birth, that he should therefore lift up a prayer, Isa. xxxvii. 4. And when Daniel had found the full reckoning of the promise, how long it had to go, with the deliverance promised for their return from captivity, perceiving it hastened, he therefore falls hard to prayer, knowing God's purpose to give doth not dis- charge us from our duty to ask, Dan. ix. 3.
CHAPTER IV.
THE QUESTION ANSWERED, WHY GOD REQUIRES PRAYER FOR THAT WHICH HE HATH PROMISED BEFORE TO GIVE?
But why doth God impose this upon the sahits, that they should pray for what he hath proposed and promised to give ? First, That they may be con- formable to Christ. The design of God is to make every saint like Christ ; this was resolved from eternity, Rom. viii. 29. Now, as the limner looks on the person whose picture he woidd take, and draws his lines to answer him with the nearest similitude that he can, so God looks on Christ as the archetype to which he will conform the saint, in suffering, in grace, and glory ; yet so that Christ hath the pre-eminence in alL Every saint must suffer, because Christ suffered : Christ must not have a delicate body under a crucified head ; yet never any suffered, or could, what he endured. Christ is holy, and therefore so shall every saint be, but in an inferior degree : an image cut in clay cannot be so exact as that engraved on gold. Now, our conformity to Christ appears, that as the promises made to him were performed upon his prayer to his Father, so pro- mises made to his saints are given to them in the same way of prayer : ' Ask of me,' saith God to his Son, ' and I shall give thee,' Psa. ii. 8. And the apostle tells us, ' Ye have not, because ye ask not.' God hath promised support to Christ in all his conflicts : Isa. xlii. 1, ' Behold my servant, whom I uphold.' Yet he praj's ' with strong cries and tears,' when his feet stood within the shadow of death. A seed is promised to him, and victory over his enemies ; yet for both these he prays. Christ towards us acts as a king ; but towards his Father as a priest. All he speaks to God is by prayer and intercession. So the saints ; the promise makes them kings over their lusts, conquerors over their enemies ; but it makes them priests toward God, by prayer humbly to sue out those great things given in the promise. Secondly, That God may give the good things of the promise with safety to his honour. Secure God but'his glory, and the saint may have what he will. The very life of God is bound up in his glory. The creature's honour is not intrinsical to his being. A prince is a man,
PRAYING ALWAYS, ETC. g,'J 1