Nor shall ive restrain prayer before God, if we will but consider the state of an unpardoned soul —
[No words can fully express the misery of one who has all the guilt of his sins upon him. He has no peace with God, seeing that '' God is angry with him every day," and " the wrath of God abideth on him." He has no peace in his ow?i conscience ; for though he may drown reflection for a while in business or pleasure, he is like the troubled sea which cannot rest, but casts up mire and dirt *. He is also destitute of any well-founded hope : he may buoy up himself with blind presump- tion ; but he will feel many misgiving fears, and forebodings of evil. He has ?io comfort in his affiic lions ; for, not having God for his friend, he cannot go to him with confidence, or ob- tain those refreshing consolations which strengthen and uphold the godly. In a dying hour he is yet more ivretched : if he be not insensible as a beast, how does he regret his mis-spent hours, and wish that God would prolong his state of probation ! But in the eternal ivorld his misery is completed : he comes to the tribunal of Justice without any Mediator to reconcile him to God, or any Advocate to plead his cause : yea, the very voice which just before importuned him to accept of mercy, now bids him " depart accursed :" and from that moment his doom is fixed in everlasting burnings. Now can any man reflect on this, and not see the need of crying earnestly for mercy ? Can our petitions be too earnest, or too constant, when they are the appointed^ and the only means of escaping all this misery ?]
Bat in our application for mercj^ we must be careful to use,
III. His Plea—
The Psalmist derived all his hope of mercy from God himself —
[He pleaded not the smallness of his offences or the multi- tude of his services, the depth of his penitence, or the fervour of his petitions. He knew that name, which had long before been proclaimed to Moses, to which, as to " a strong tower, the right- eous runneth and is safe ;" and to that he fled for refuge ; from that he derived his only hope, his only plea.]
Nor can we present any other plea than the name, the sacred name of Jesus —
[Under the Gospel we are taught more clearly to ask in the name of Jesus, and are assured that petitions so offered shall never fail of acceptance ^ But it is no easy matter to offer that plea in sincerity. Perhaps there is not any thing in
the
• Isai, Ivii. 20. ' John xiv. 13, 14.