acceptance with God for his sake. We should come trusting in his sacrifice, and pleading the merit of his blood. This is indispensable in all our addresses at the throne of grace. We must not think of asking for any thing, but in His name". But if we have a becoming respect to him, we need not be straitened in our requests to God : we may " open our mouths wide, and he will fill them." Of course, a person thus humbled with a sense of his own sinfulness, and thus exercising faith in the Lord Jesus, will desire nothing but what is agreeable to the Divine will : that limit to his prayers he himself will readily assign11 : he will take the promises as the legitimate standard of his petitions : and, so doing, he needs not be afraid of asking too much : the repeated declarations of Christ shall be literally fulfilled : " Whatsoever he asks, he shall have1:" yea, he shall have "exceeding abundantly above all that he can ask or thinkk:" nothing can be so great, but it shall be granted to him ; nothing so small, but he shall be heard concerning it. Of this we have repeated assurances from our Lord in the words before us : " JFhatsoever ye shall ask, that will I do : if ye shall ask any thing, I will do it."]
Of the accomplishment of these promises we have the strongest pledge, when he tells us,
II. For what end he will answer it —
The end for which Jesus left the bosom of the Father was to do his Father's will1: and during the whole time of his sojourning on earth, he invariably sought, not his own glory, but the glory of Him that sent him™: and in the last prayer he offered with his Disciples, he desired only to be glorified himself, that he might thereby advance the Father's glory". This same end does he keep in view in answering the prayers that are offered in his name.
1. The effect of his answers is, that his Father is glorified —
[Sec what effects were produced by the miraculous powers which he bestowed on his Apostles: multitudes were converted by their ministry: the empire of sin and Satan was weakened :
s This is twice mentioned in the text ; and frequently elsewhere. See John xv. l(i. and xvi. 23, 24, 26. h 1 John v. 14.
1 Compare John xv. 7. and Matt. xxi. 22. with the text. k Eph. iii. 20. i Ps. xl. 7, 8.
ni John v. 30. and viii. .r>0. <> John xvii. 1.