advanced to middle life, how often do we see reason to deplore the loss of those ardent affections which once glowed in our souls! "The cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire of other things," have beguiled us, and caused a painful declension within us ; so that we have need par- ticularly to cry, " O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of my years ! " ]
To the prophet's remedy, then, we should betake ourselves —
[Prayer is, of all things, the most effectual. Personal exertions are good in their place, and even necessary : but, to whatever extent they be carried, they will be of no avail with- out prayer. The husbandman may labour day and night ; but he can never obtain a crop, without the shining of the sun, and the influences of the former and latter rain. All is under the controul of heaven with respect to him : and so it is with respect to us : and it is by prayer that the Divine blessing is to be obtained. And what would not the prayer of faith effect ? Has it closed heaven for three years and a half, and then opened it again; and shall it not avail for us? Were we but earnest and constant in prayer, there would be little reason to complain of declension, though every day would still bring with it the need of a revival.]
And have we not the same encouragement ?
[The prophet looked back to former days, and pleaded for a repetition of former mercies. And shall not we also look back to the day when he quickened us from our death in tres- passes and sins, and created us anew, and translated us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear Son ? We are taught to consider his gifts as earnests and pledges of fur- ther mercies : and that is a just mode of arguing which the Psalmist adopts, " Thou hast delivered my soul from death ; Wilt thou not deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before the Lord in the light of the living"5?" God says to us, " Put me in remembrance : let us plead together : declare thou, that thou mayest be justified6:" and if we use these means in faith, our success shall resemble that which the pro- phet describes : " Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord ! awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old ! Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon ? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep ; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over ? Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion ; and ever-
d Ps. hi. 1.3. e Lsai. xliii. 26.