determined by any inexorable fate. A fatalist cannot consist- ently pray. It is only on the assumption that there is a God, who does his pleasure in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, that we can rationally address Him as the hearer of prayer.
In like manner it is assumed that there is no such f oreordination of events as is inconsistent with God's acting according to the good pleasure of his will. When a man enters upon any great enter- prise, he lays down beforehand the plan of his operations ; selects and determines his means, and assigns to each subordinate the part he is to act ; he may require each to apply continually for guidance and directions ; and may assure him that his requests for assistance and guidance shall be answered. Were it possible that every instance of such application or request could be fore- seen and the answer predetermined, this would not be inconsistent with the duty or propriety of such requests being made, or with the liberty of action on the part of the controller. This illustra- tion may amount to little ; but it is certain that the Scriptures teach both foreordination and the efficacy of prayer. The two, therefore, cannot be inconsistent. God has not determined to ac- complish his purposes without the use of means ; and among those means, the prayers of his people have their appropriate place. If the objection to prayer, founded on the foreordination of events, be valid, it is valid against the use of means in any case. If it be unreasonable to say, * If it be foreordained that I should live, it is not necessary for me to eat,' it is no less unreasonable for me to say, * If it be foreordained that I should receive any good, it is not necessary for me to ask for it.' If God has foreordained to bless us, He has foreordained that we should seek his blessing. Prayer has the same causal relation to the good bestowed, as any other means has to the end with which it is connected.
The God of the Bible, who has revealed Himself as the hearer of prayer, is not mere intelligence and power. He is love. He feels as well as thinks. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Loed pitieth them that fear Him. He is full of tenderness, compassion, long-suffering, and benevolence. This is not anthro- pomorphism. These declarations of Scripture are not mere " regulative truths." They reveal what God really is. If man was made in his image, God is like man. All the excellences of our nature as spirits belong to Him without limitation, and to an infinite degree. There is mystery here, as there is everywhere. But we are all used to mysteries, the naturalist as well as the
700 PART III. Ch. XX. — THE MEANS OP GRACE.
theologian. Both have been taught the folly of denying that a thing is, because we cannot tell how it is. It is enough for us to know that God loves us and cares for us ; that a sparrow does not fall to the ground without his notice, and that we are, in his sight, of more value than many sparrows. All this for the believer is literal truth, having in its support the highest kind of evidence. The " how " he is content to leave unexplained.
It is an objection often urged against the propriety of address- ing prayer to God, that it is inconsistent with his dignity as an infinite Being to suppose that He concerns Himself with the trifling affairs of men. This objection arises from a forgetful- ness that God is infinite. It assumes that his knowledge, power, or presence, is limited ; that He would be distracted if his atten- tion were directed to all the minute changes constantly occurring throughout the universe. This supposes that God is a creature like ourselves ; that bounds can be set to his intelligence or effi- ciency. When a man looks out on an extended landscape, the objects to which his attention is simultaneously directed are too numerous to be counted. What is man to God ? The absolute intelligence must know all things ; absolute power must be able to direct all things. In the sight of God, the distinction between few and many, great and small, disappears. In Him all creatures live, and move, and have their being.
The Object of Prayer.
As prayer involves the ascription of divine attributes to its ob- ject, it can be properly addressed to God alone. The heathen prayed to imaginary beings, or to idols, who had eyes that saw not, and hands that could not save. Equally unscriptural and irrational are prayers addressed to any creature of whose presence we have no knowledge, and of whose ability either to hear 01 answer our petitions we have no evidence.
In the Old Testament, the prayers therein recorded are uni- formly addressed to God, as such ; to the one Divine Being, be- cause the distinction of the persons in the Godhead was then but imperfectly revealed. In the New Testament, prayer is addressed either to God, as the Triune God, or to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as distinct persons. In the Christian doxology, used wherever the Bible is known, the several persons of the Trinity are separately addressed. The examples of prayer addressed to Christ, recorded in the New Testament, are very numerous. As prayer, in the Scriptural sense of the term, in-