II. The consideration with which it is enforced — Surprising encouragement ! Mark it,
1. As referring to God's ancient people —
[God had brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm. What an evidence was this of his poiver / and what a pledge was this of his willingness to do for them all that their necessities might require ! Behold the sea opening before them, to give a dry path to them, and to overwhelm in one common ruin every one of their pursuers ! Behold the bread given them for forty years by a daily mira- culous supply from heaven, and the water from the rock follow- ing them in all their way! See them at last established in the Promised Land ! Could they ask more than had already been done for them? And if these things had been done notwith- standing all their rebellions, what should they not obtain if they would implore it with all humility from God ?]
2. As comprehending that more wonderful redemp- tion vouchsafed to us —
[If the typical redemption from Egypt afforded such encouragement to prayer, what must we think of that redemp- tion which it shadowed forth, even the redemption of our souls from death and hell, by the precious blood of God's only dear Son ? Hear Jehovah saying, ' I am the Lord thy God, who became a man for thee ; who died upon the cross for thee ; who bore thy sins in my own body on the tree, that thou mightest be freed from the condemnation due to them, and mightest inherit a throne of glory ! ' What a claim is this to our gratitude ! what an incentive to the utmost possible enlarge- ment of our petitions ! and what an encouragement to our most unshaken affiance ! Take the invitation by itself, and it ex- presses all that we can wish : but take it in connexion with this consideration with which it is enforced, and methinks there will not be one amongst us that will not most cordially accept it, and most thankfully avail himself of the liberty, the inesti- mable liberty, thus accorded to him.]
But, seeing that this invitation has been so often sent to us,
1. How amazing is it that any of us can live with- out prayer !
[Methinks it were almost a libel upon human nature to suppose that there should be any one so stupid and so brutish as to live without prayer; and I ought to make an apology for suggesting even a possibility that such an one may be found in this assembly. Well ; forgive me, if in this I have erred : yet I. would affectionately put it home to the consciences