God, therefore, on a throne of grace is God as in a readiness through Jesus Christ to dispense grace and mercy to suppliant sinners. When God comes to execute judgment, his throne is other- wise represented. See Dan. vii. 9, 10. And when sinners take a view in their minds of God as he is in himself, and as he will be unto all out of Christ, it ingenerates nothing but dread and terror in them, with foolish contrivances to avoid him or his displeasure, Isa. xxxiii. 14; Mic. vi. 6, 7; Rev. vi. 16, 17. All these places and others testify that when sinners do engage into serious thoughts and conceptions of the nature of God, and what entertainment they shall meet with from him, all their apprehensions issue in dread and terror. This is not a frame wherein they can cry, " Abba, Father." If they are delivered from this fear and bondage, it is by that which is worse, namely, carnal boldness and presumption, whose rise lieth
292 WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN PRATER. [BOOK VII.
in the highest contempt of God and his holiness. When men give up themselves to the customary performance of this duty, or rather " saying of their prayers/ I know not out of what conviction that so they must do, without a due consideration of God and the regard that he hath unto them, they do but provoke him to his face in taking his name in vain ; nor, however they satisfy themselves in what they do, have they any delight in God in their approaches unto him.
Wherefore, there is required hereunto a prospect of God, by faith, as on a " throne of grace/' as exalted in Christ to show mercy unto sinners. So is he represented, Isa. xxx. 18, "Therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious, and therefore will he be ex- alted, that he may have mercy." Without this we cannot draw nigh to him, or call upon him with delight, as becometh children, crying, "Abba, Father." And by whom is this discovery made unto us? Is this a fruit of our own fancy and imagination? So it may be with some, to their ruin. But it is the work of the Spirit, who alone, in and through Christ, revealeth God unto us, and enableth us to discern him in a due manner. Hence our apostle prays for the Ephesians " that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, would give unto them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him ; that the eyes of their under- standing being enlightened, they might know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints," chap. i. 17, 18. All the acquaintance which we have with God, in a way of grace, is from the revelation made in us by his Spirit. See Col. ii. 1,2. By him doth God say unto us that " fury is not in him," and that if we lay hold on his arm, that we may have peace, we shall have peace, Isa. xxvii. 4, 5.
2. Unto this delight is required a sense of God's relation unto us as a Father. By that name, and under that consideration, hath the Lord Christ taught us to address ourselves unto him in all our supplications. And although we may use other titles and appella- tions in our speaking to him, even such as he hath given himself in the Scripture, or those which are analogous thereunto, yet this con- sideration principally influenceth our souls and minds, that God is not ashamed to be called our Father, that " the Lord Almighty hath said that he will be a Father unto us, and that we shall be his sons and daughters," 2 Cor. vi. 18. Wherefore, as a Father is he the ulti- mate object of all evangelical worship, of all our prayers. So is it ex- pressed in that holy and divine description of it given by the apostle, Eph. ii. 18. "Through Christ we have access by one Spirit unto the Father." No tongue can express, no mind can reach, the heavenly placidness and soul-satisfying delight which are intimated in these words. To come to God as a Father, through Christ, by the help
CHAP. VI.] THE DUE MANNER OF PRAYER. 293
and assistance of the Holy Spirit, revealing him as a Father unto us, and enabling us to go to him as a Father, how full of sweetness and satisfaction is it ! Without a due apprehension of God in this relation no man can pray as he ought. And hereof we have no sense, herewith we have no acquaintance, but by the Holy Ghost ; for we do not consider God in a general manner, as he may be said to be a Father unto the whole creation, but in an especial, distin- guishing relation, — as he makes us his children by adoption. And as it is " the Spirit that beareth witness with our spirit that we are thus the children of God," Rom. viii. 16, giving us the highest and utmost assurance of our estate of sonship in this world ; so being the Spirit of adoption, it is by him alone that we have any acquaintance with our interest in that privilege.