marshals her facts. They are a goodly array, and drawn from all departments of creation, animate and inanimate ; from all kinds of living organisms, whether animal or vegetable; and they have forced upon you, we readily admit, the conviction of the universality and invariability of natural law. Christians are bound to believe you. We are not going to question your facts, though we may some of your inferences from them. Let your facts once be proved to be facts, as so many of them have been, and we will candidly accept them. Tes, though they compel us to set aside some old and cherished Interpretations of Scripture, and to confess that we have read our Bibles wrongly in more than one instance. We trust you in your statement of facts ; we believe you to be good men and true. Kow we turn and ask you to deal with us and our facts in like manner. For we, too, have facts from which we have drawn the conclusion that, let prayer he according to the will of God, he will assuredly answer it. Some of our facts which have much force with us you perhaps would not admit, since you would explain them on the groimd of mere coincidence, and we could not prove that, apart from prayer, they could not have been. E.g. persons in distress have called upon God ; relief has unexpectedly come and in very remarkable ways. The believer looks on such instances as answers to prayer ; nothing can persuade him that they are not. Still, it cannot be denied that they may have occurred without such prayer. Other such instances are those in which life despaired of has been given back in answer to, or in connectioa with, fervent prayer for such restoration; as the Prince of Wales's recovery in 1872. Now, this recovery might have been — we cannot prove that it could not — apart from prayer, and therefore, whilst these instances are very convincing to the believer, they are not so to others. But there are facts concerning which we can say they are valid for our argument, because they never have occurred and never do occur, apart from prayer, E.g. in the coming away of any soul fiom its attachment to the world to surrender itself in trust and love to Christ — that which is called conversion ; was this ever known apart from prayer ? Did ever any find the Lord without seeking him — i.e. without prayer? Also in the ordinary conduct of the Christian life, who among us is able to keep his garments unspotted from the world, to overcome besetting sin, to confront and conquer temptation, to preserve the hands clean and the heart pure, without con- tinual prayer ? Again, who are they that have attained to a high degree of spiritual life and vigour, to whom it is their habit to walk with God ; who " rejoice in the Lord always ; " who are God's saints indeed, the very elect, about whose being born of God we have no doubt? Now, every one of these will tell you that they owed their all to the habit their Lord enabled them to maintain of constant prayer. Press on in thought to the realms of the blest, move up and down amid the throng of God's redeemed ; is there one who has or could have attained that blessedness if on earth he had not sought God in prayer and called on the Name of the Lord ? So with any really living Church, B Church that is a power for good, a blessing to the neighbourhood, a Church at peace, at work, and blessed with the prosperity of God, is the life of such a Church ever possible apart from this same power of prayer ? Its life is nurtured, not by its wealth, numbers, rank, culture, intellect, eloquence, or any such gifts, but by its prayefs. All the rest would let it starve ; by prayer alone it lives. One other instance — the winning of our children for God. Does any parent or teacher ever secure this great joy without prayer ? Never. Such are our facts ; in them we are sure that God answers prayer ; and hence we believe also that in the material world he does the same. And as we receive the facts of science, so we ask that our facts may be received likewise.
III. Ib not God ona Father ? The scientific hypothesis denies his fatherhood, if not his very existence altogether. If he do exist, he is, according to the scientist, so enclosed in his own laws and in the visible adjustment of things that he has no room for freedom of choice, for exercise of will. Like the mainspring of a watch, he is shut up in his own works, and can only act in one given way. Or, like the locomotives en our railways, he must keep to the rigid appointed iron track, and not swerve therefrom inl the least. But that is not our conception of God, We believe him to have a mind, • will, a heart ; and hence we conclude that, like the best earthly parents, whilst keeping ever in view the true welfare of his children, he yet allows himself, within those limits, freedom of action as may seem to him wisest and best. Now, within these Umits there ia
78 THE BOOK 01 THE PBOPHET JEREMIAH, [oh. xxxiii. 1— 26l
room for prayer and room for answers to prayer. We cannot believe him to be bo tied down by his physical laws that, when it is consistent with the highest good of hia children, and yet more when it ia necessary for that good, he is unable to modify or alter them even though he would. A God so bound by physical law is really no God, and the creed of the atheist will alone harmonize with the assertions of science. If there be a God, he must be a personal God ; but if he be a Person, then he must have will, the power of choice ; but if he have will, he must be able to modify the action of hia laws, as we can and do continually ; and if he be our Father, as we believe, then we need not doubt that the fervent believing prayer of his children will avail much to induce him to modify his laws for our good. And hence we maintain that it is good to call upon him, and that he is nigh unto such and will save them. Prayer, then, is not unreasonable if there be a God ; not unreasonable ii we adopt the very methods of science itself, and deduce our doctrine from our facts ; not unreasonable, unless it can be shown that icienca is aware of and has registered every fixed law of God. — 0.
Ver. 6. — The Divine treatment of »in. " Behold, I will bring It health and cure, »nd I will cure them." Here, as in so many other Scriptures, the moral, political, social, and spiritual recovery of Israel is spoken of under the image of bodily healing. For all healings of the body are types and pledges of the better healing. If God so cares for the body, which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the tomb, shall he not care for the soul, which is eternal ? This ver. 6 is a promise that the Divine treatment of sin shall be effectual. The Lord is Jehovah-rophi. He heals them that have ne^ of healing.