[2.] With a due reservation of and submission to his secret and decreeing will. Many things are lawful, yea, commanded, yet we must a.sk them with submission to the will of God ; that is, we must use the means, and refer the success to God. As, for instance, when parents ask the conversion of their children, and children the lives of their parents ; but God disposeth of the event as it pleaseth him. Again, many things may be good in themselves, but are not good for us ; as Moses desired to enter into the land of Canaan, which God saw not good for him. So thou art sick, and wouldst fain have thy life pro- longed, and therefore in the bitterness of thy heart makest thy moan to God, as Hezekiah did ; it may be the Lord will take thee from the evil to come, and translate thee to glory, which is much better for thee ; as David fasted and prayed for the life of the child : 2 Sara. xii. 22. ' Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child
196 SERMONS UPON 1 JOHN III. [SeR. XXVIII.
may live ? ' In this reservation of God's will we have two exceptions — if it be for God's glory and onr good.
(1.) God's glory : »John xiv. 13, ' Whatever ye ask the Father in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.' Whatever belongeth to our duty we must do ; but for the event, how he will be glorified, we must submit it to God.
(2.) For our good. Grace layeth this restraint upon the will of a renewed man, but of this good, God will be judge, and not we. It may be good for us to be afflicted, Ps. cxix. 71. Temporal things being but accessary to our happiness, and belonging to our comfortable condition in the world, but not of absolute necessity to our salvation, should not be peremptorily asked, but in submission and limitation of God's will : Mat. xxvi. 39, 'Yet not my will, but thine be done ;' so far as God seeth them good for us. The short is, that in things necessary to sal- vation, we shall not be refused ; in other things, we should not ask of God anything that agreeth not with his will, or is against his glory, or may be hurtful to ourselves. Till we learn to acquiesce in the will of God, and seek the most necessary things of God, we do not pray aright.
3. The next limitation is as to the manner.
[1.] Fervently, and with that life and seriousness which such requests call for : Mat. vii. 7, ' Ask, seek, knock.' Prayer is not answered if the spirit of prayer be wanting, or those lively affections which are necessary to constitute a prayer : James v. 16, 'The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.' Afterwards he instanceth in Elias, ver. 17. If a cold prayer meets with a denial, we have no cause to complain. The ardency of holy desires is wanting; we are not in earnest, which is the soul of prayer, though the form and fashion of it be kept up : Dan. ix. 3, ' I set myself to seek the Lord ; ' Jer. xxix. 12, 13, 'And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your hearts.' When God hath a mind to work, he sets the spirit of prayer a-work.
[2.] Christ hath put faith among the conditions required to prayer : Mat. xxi. 22, 'All things that ye ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive ; ' or, as it is in Mark xi. 24, ' What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.' There must be a confidence of that power that we would set a-work, and of God's will and goodness to pity and relieve us. As things are tendered to us in the promise, so are we bound to believe and pray for them, and no otherwise ; for the word of promise is the measure, ground, and foundation of prayer. And as to the promise of temporal things, it is either personal or common. Personal ; so God absolutely promised to some of his servants to give them temporal blessings, so absolutely to be believed and prayed for. So he promised to Abraham to multiply his seed as the sand on the seashore, Gen. xxii. 17 ; and this promise Abraham was to believe with an absolute faith, whatever difficulties there were to the contrary, Kom. iv. 18-21. God promised David the kingdom, and anointed him by Samuel, but for a long time he was kept in a private and perplexed condition, yet bound to be confident. So God promised Paul the life of all that were with him in the ship, Acts xxvii. 25, therefore in the greatest difficulties he encouraged bis com-
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pauions: 'Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer; for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me/ But the commoa promise of the blessings of this life is not absolute, but shall be dispensed to us as it shall be for God's glory and our good, and therefore are not to be absolutely asked nor absolutely expected from God. >So the saints express themselves about these things: Joel ii. 14, 'Who knoweth it he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him, even a meat-offering and a drink-offering unto the Lord ? ' God will hold us in suspense about these things, and try our godliness and submissiou. But yet though there be uncertainty about particular blessings, we must always pray in faith. It is one thing to believe for certain that God will grant our petition with this condition, if the grant be for his glory and our good, and another thing to believe absolutely that he will not deny the particular thing we ask of him, without such excep- tion and reservation. Of the former, we must be persuaded in all our petitions ; of the latter, we cannot be confident ; there we can only say, AVho knoweth but that God may do it for us ? for it is not for us to determine what is most conducing to the glory of God, or profitable for us; all must be left to our heavenly Father, upon whose good pleasure all our happiness dependeth. We must be persuaded of his all-sufficiency, refer it to his goodness, as not to be troubled about it.