Ver. 3. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
In this verse he anticipateth and preventeth an objection. They might say. We do ask, and go to God (suppose) by daily prayers. The apostle answereth, You ask indeed ; but because of your vicious intention you cannot complain of not being heard ; would you make God a servant to your lusts ? For to convince them, he showeth what was the aim of their prayers — the conveniences of a fleshly life : ' Ye ask, that ye may consume it upon your lusts or pleasures,' rat?
There are several points notable in this verse ; they may be reduced to these three : —
1. That we pray amiss when our ends and aims are not right in player.
2. That our ends and aims are wrong when we ask blessings for the use and encouragement of our lusts.
3. That prayers so framed are usually successless ; we miss when we ask amiss.
Ohs. 1. I begin with the first. That we pray amiss when our ends and aims are not right in prayer. The end is a main circumstance in every action, the purest offspring of the soul. Practices and affections may be overruled ; this is the genuine, immediate birth and issue of the human spirit. We may instance in all sorts of actions ; we know the quality of them, not by the matter, but the end. In indifferent things the property of the action is altered by a wrong end. To eat out of necessity is a duty we owe to nature ; to eat out of wantonness is an effect of lust. So in all things instituted and commanded, the end deteimineth the action. Jehu's slnying of Ahab's children was not obedience, but murder, because done for his own ends, God required it, 2 Kings x. 30; and yet God saith, Ilosea i. 4, 'I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.' God required it as a righteous satisfaction to justice. Jehu spilt it out of ambition ; therefore so many persons slain, so many murders. So in these actions
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of worship, they are good or bad as their end is. Speaking to God may be prayer, if it come from zeal ; it may be howling, if it come from lust, Hosea vii. 14 ; then it is but a brutish cry, as beasts out of the rage of appetite howl for the prey, or things they stand in need of. For worship must never have an end beneath itself. We act prepos- terously, and not according to reason, when the means are more noble than the end. When we make self the end of prayer, it is not wor- ship of God, but self-seeking. All our actions are to have a reference and ordination to God, much more the acts that are proper to the spiritual life ; it is called a ' living to God/ Gal. ii. 19. That is the main difference between the carnal life and the spiritual ; the one is a living to ourselves, the other is a living to God. Now especially acts of worship are to be unto God and for God, for there the soul setteth itself to glorify him ; and the addresses being directly to him, must not be prostituted to a common use. Well, then, consider your ends in prayer, not the manner only, not the object only, but the end. It is not enough to look to the vehemency of the affections ; many make that all their work, to raise themselves into some quickness and smart- ness of spirit, but do not consider their aim. It is true, it is good to come with full sails ; ' fervent prayer ' is like an arrow drawn with full strength, but yet it must be godly prayer. A carnal spring may send forth high tides of affection ; the motions of lust are usually very • earnest and rapid. It is not enough to look to the fluency and service- ableness of invention ; carnal affections and imagination joined together may engage the wit, and set it a- work ; invention followeth affection. It is not enough to make God the object of the prayer, but the end also. Duty is expressed sometimes by ' serving God,' at other times by ' seeking God ;' serving noteth the object, seeking noteth the end ; in serving we must seek, &c.
Ohs. 2. The next point is, that our ends and aims are wrong in prayer when we ask blessings for the use and encouragement of our lusts. Men sin with reference to the aim of prayer several ways: (1.) When the end is grossly carnal and sinful. Some seek God for their sins, and would engage the divine blessing upon a revengeful and carnal enterprise ; as the thief kindled his torch that he might steal by at the lamps of the altar. Solomon saith, Prov. xxi. 27, the wiclced offereth sacrifice ' with an evil mind.' Foolish creatures vainly imagine to entice heaven to their lure. Balaam buildeth altars out of a hope that God would curse his own people ; and wicked men hope by fasts and prayers to draw God into their quarrel ; others seek a blessing upon their theft and unjust practices. The whore had her vows and peace-offerings for the prosperity of her unclean trade, Prov. vii. 14. This was a thing which heathens condemned. Juvenal laughed at it in one of his satires. Plato forbiddeth it in his Alci- hi'ides. Pliny detesteth it as a stupid impudence, to profane the reli- gion of the temples by making it conscious to unclean requests. These impious stories of prayers commended to the Virgin Mary for a blessing upon thefts and adulteries, which yet they say were granted because of the devoutness of the supplicants in the psalter and rosary, are worthy all Christians' abomination.^ (2.) When men privily seek to gratify