bar to God's interposition. All that he wants is, the prayer of faith : and that once offered, the deliverance, how difficult soever it may be, shall be vouchsafed.
Only let us commit our cause entirely to God —
[We must despair of help from the creature. God permits our trials to increase, in order to produce this very effect upon us. " We must have the sentence of death in ourselves, that we may not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raiseth the dead." Whilst there is any mixture of self-dependence in us, God will not interpose : but when, like Peter sinking in the waves, we cry, " Save, Lord, or I perish!" he will instantly stretch out his almighty hand, and afford us the succour we implore.]
His intervention then shall bear upon it the evident stamp of his Divine agency —
[In a multitude of instances in which he " undertook for his people " of old, his power was as evident as in the passage of the Red Sea, or in the ruin of the walls of Jericho. I say not that his interposition in our behalf shall be as visible to the eye of sense : but to the eye of faith it shall. Wonderful will be the support which he will give to the troubled spirit ; inso- much that, whilst all outward circumstances remain the same, it shall have " the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." Look at the 107 th Psalm: it is realized every day. Such are the spiritual distresses of God's people, and such their deliverances in answer to their
prayers If therefore there be any one that is now
" oppressed" with any grievous affliction, let him go to the Lord Jesus Christ, and spread his wants before him, with con- fidence that he shall not pray in vain. Let the 143d Psalm be his pattern and his encouragement. David there says, " My spirit is overwhelmed within me, and my heart within me is desolate. But I stretch forth my hands unto thee : my soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land. Hear me speedily, O Lord : my spirit faileth : hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit: cause me to hear thy loving-kindness in the morning, for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk ; for I lift up my soul unto theea." Spread your wants before your God in that way ; and be assured, that " though heaviness may continue for a night, joy shall come to you in the morning." " God will not contend with you for ever, lest your spirit should fail before him : " but " he will be with you in trouble," and u be to you a light in your darkness," and " give you songs in
a Ps. cxliii. 4 — 8.