but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the Lord thy God loved thee.' Never was any design carried on with more zeal and passionate desire to effect it, than this ; one would think that God had said enough to Balaam at first, to make him sick of his enterprise; Numb. xxii. 12, ' Thou shalt not go with them, thou shalt not curse the people, for they are blessed.' But he liked the work, and loved the wages, and therefore baffles his conscience, not telling the messengers all that God said to him, and they also report not all to Balak what Balaam said to them, so fearful were both the work should fail ; j'et we see by the event, that they took but pains to lose their labour, nay, worse, to lose themselves ! for God made them, and him that set them on, to drink the curse which they woidd so fain have brewed for Israel. Secondlj'', A word to the wicked. Take heed, that by your implacable hatred to the truth and church of God, you do not engage her prayers against you. The impre- catory prayers of the saints, when shot at the right mark, are murdering pieces, and strike dead where they light. ' Shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them ? I tell you he will avenge them speedily,' Luke xviii. 7, 8. They are not empty words, as the imprecations of the wicked poured into the air, and vanish with their breath, but are received into heaven, and shall be sent back with thunder and lightning upon the wicked. David's prayer unravelled Ahithophel's fine-spun policy, and twisted his halter for him. The prayers of the saints are more to be feared than an army of twenty thousand men in the field. Esther's fast hastened Haman's ruin, and Hezekiah's prayer against Sennacherib, brought his huge host to the slaughter.
CHAPTER LVIL
OF GRATULATORY PRAYER.
The second kind of prayer is thanksgiving; in handling whereof I sliall. First, Shew what we are to praise and thank God for. Now, the object of thanks- giving, as of request, is something that is good, but under another notion : Ave ask what we want, we bless and praise God for the mercies we have received, or for the hope we have from the promise that we shall receive them. So that we see the Christian hath as large a field for the exercise of his thankfulness as he hath in the petitionary part of prayer for his desires. This duty circumscribes heaven and earth. As God does nothing, but he aims at his own glory thereby, Prov. xvi. 4 ; so there is no act of God toward his people, wherein he intends not their good, and as such becomes the subject of their thanksgiving. Hence we are bid, ' In everything give thanks.' O, what a copious theme hath God given his people to enlarge their meditations upon ? In everyihing. The whole course of Divine Providence toward the saints is like a music-book, in every leaf whereof there is a song ready set for them, to learn and sing to the praise of their God ; there is no passage in their life of which they can say, In this we received no mercy for which we should bless our God. Now, as partial obedience is not good, so partial thanks is worthless: not that any saint is able to keep all the commands, or reckon up all the mercies of God, nuich less return particular acknowledgment for every single mercy; but as he hath 'respect unto all the commandments,' Psa. cxix. 6, so he desires to value highly every mercy, and to his utmost power give God the praise of all : ' What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?' Psa. cxvi. 12. This is an honest soul indeed, he would not conceal any debt he owes to God, but calls his soul to an account for all his benefits. The skipping over one note in a lesson may spoil the grace of the music ; unthankfulness for one mercy disparageth our thanks for the rest. But to sort the mercies of God into several i-anks, that you may see more distinctly your work in this duty lie before you : — ■
First, Mercies are either ordinary or extraordinary; — our common necessaries, or the remarkable supplies which we receive now and then at the hand of God. Thou must not only praise him for some extraordinai-y mercy, that comes with such pomp and observation, that all thy neighbours take notice of it with thee, as the mercy which Zacharias and Elizabeth had in their son, that was noised about all the country, Luke i. 6o ; but also for ordinary, evcry-day mercies : for, first, we arc unworthy of the least mercy, Gen. xxxii. 10, and llu'relbre God is
732 WITH ALL PRAYER AND SUPPLICATION.