On the duty and efficacy of prayer

IT is

T is not proposed to enter largely on a topic which has been exhausted by the ablest pens. But as a work of this nature seems to require that so important a subject should not be overlooked, it is intended to notice in a slight manner a few of those many difficulties and popular ob jections which are brought forward against the use and efficacy of prayer, even by those who would be unwilling to be suspected of impiety and unbelief.

There is a class of objectors who strangely profess to withhold homage from the Most High, not out of contempt, but reverence. They affect to consider the use of prayer as derogatory to the omniscience of God, asserting that it looks as if we thought he stood in need of being informed of our wants; and as derogatory to his goodness, as implying that he needs to be put in mind of them.

But is it not enough for such poor frail beings as we are to know, that God himself does not consider prayer as de rogatory either to his wisdom or goodness? And shall we erect ourselves into judges of what is consistent with the attributes of HIм, before whom angels fall prostrate with self abasement? Will he thank such defenders of his attributes, who, while they profess to reverence, scruple not to disobey him? It ought rather to be viewed as a great encouragement to prayer, that we are addressing a Being, who knows our wants better than we can express them, and whose preventing goodness is always ready to relieve them.

It is objected by another class, and on the specious: ground of humility too, though we do not always find the objector himself quite as humble as his plea, that it is ar. rogant in such insignificant beings as we are to presume to lay our petty necessities before the great and glorious God, who cannot be expected to condescend to the multitude of trifling and even interfering requests which are brought before him by his creatures. These and such like objec tions arise from mean and unworthy thoughts of the great Creator. It seems as if those who make them considered the Most High as "such an one as themselves;" a being,

who can perform a certain quantity of business, but who would be overpowered with an additional quantity. Or at best, is it not considering the Almighty in the light, not of an infinite God, but of a great man, of a minister, or a king, who, while he superintends great and national concerns, is obliged to neglect small and individual petitions, because he cannot spare that leisure and attention which suffice for every thing? They do not consider him as that infinitely glorious Being who, while he beholds at once all that is doing in heaven and in earth, is at the same time as attentive to the prayer of the poor destitute, as present to the sorrowful sighing of the prisoner, as if these forlorn creatures were the objects of his undivided attention.

4

These critics, who are for sparing the Supreme Being the trouble of our prayers, and, if I may so speak without profaneness, would relieve Omnipotence of part of his burden, by assigning to his care only such a portion as may be more easily managed, seem to have no conception of his attributes.

They forget that infinite wisdom puts him as easily within reach of all knowledge, as infinite power does of all performance; that he is a being in whose plans complexity makes no difficulty, and multiplicity no confusion: that to ubiquity distance does not exist; that to infinity space is annihilated; that past, present, and future, are discerned more accurately at one glance of his eye, to whom a thousand years are as one day, than a single mo ment of time or a single point of space can be by ours.

To the other part of the objection founded on the supposed interference (that is, irreconcilableness) of one man's petitions with those of another, this answer seems to suggest itself: first, that we must take care that when we ask, we do not "ask amiss;" that, for instance, we ask chiefly, and in an unqualified manner, only for spiritual blessings to ourselves and others; and in doing this the prayer of one man cannot interfere with that of another. Next, in ask. ing for temporal and inferior blessings, we must qualify our petition even though it should extend to deliverance from the severest pains, or to our very life itself, according to that example of our Saviour: "Father, if it be possible, let "this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine "be done." By thus qualifying our prayer, we exercise

ourselves in an act of resignation to God; we profess not to wish what will interfere with his benevolent plau, and yet we may hope by prayer to secure the blessing so far as it is consistent with it. Perhaps the reason why this objection to prayer is so strongly felt, is the too great disposition to pray for merely temporal and worldly blessings, and to desire them in the most unqualified manner, not submitting to be without them, even though the granting them should be inconsistent with the general plan of Providence.

Another class continue to bring forward, as pertinaciously as if it had never been answered, the exhausted argument, that seeing God is immutable, no petitions of ours can ever change Him: that events themselves being settled in a fixed and unalterable course, and bound in a fatal necessity, it is folly to think that we can disturb the established laws of the universe, or interrupt the course of Providence by our prayers: and that it is absurd to suppose these firm decrees can be reversed by any requests of

ours.

Without entering into the wide and trackless field of fate and free will, from which pursuit I am kept back equally by the most profound ignorance and the most invin. cible dislike, I would only observe, that these objections apply equally to all human actions as well as to prayer. It may therefore with the same propriety be urged, that seeing God is immutable and his decrees unalterable, there. fore our actions can produce no change in Him or in our own state. Weak as well as impious reasoning. It may be questioned whether, the modern French and German philosophers might not be prevailed upon to acknowledge the existence of God, if they might make such an use of his attributes. The truth is, and it is a truth discoverable without any depth of learning, all these objections are the offspring of pride. Poor, short-sighted man cannot reconcile the omniscience and decrees of God with the efficacy of prayer; and, because he cannot reconcile them, he modestly concludes they are irreconcilable. How much more wisdom as well as happiness results from an humble Christian spirit! Such a plain practical text as, "Draw near "unto God, and he will draw near unto you," carries more consolation, more true knowledge of his wants and their remedy to the heart of a penitent sinner, than all the tomes

of casuistry which have puzzled the world ever since the question was first set afloat by its original propounders.

And as the plain man only got up and walked, to prove there was such a thing as motion, in answer to the philoso pher who denied it; so the plain Christian, when he is borne down with the assurance that there is no efficacy in prayer, requires no better argument to repel the assertion than the good he finds in prayer itself.

All the doubts proposed to him respecting God, do not so much affect him as this one doubt respecting himself: "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear "" me." For the chief doubt and difficulty of a Christian consists, not so much in a distrust of God's ability and willingness to answer the prayer of the upright, as in a distrust of his own uprightness, and of the quality of the prayer which he offers up.

Let the subjects of a dark fate maintain a sullen, or the slaves of a blind chance a hopeless, silence, but let the child of a compassionate Almighty Father supplicate his mercies with an humble confidence, inspired by the assurance, that "the very hairs of his head are numbered." Let him take comfort in that individual and minute attention, without which not a sparrow falls to the ground, as well as in that heart-cheering promise, that, as "the eyes of the Lord 66 are over the righteous," so are "his ears open to their 66 prayers." And as a pious bishop has observed, "Our "Saviour has as it were hedged in and inclosed the Lord's "Prayer with these two great fences of our faith, God's "willingness and his power to help us:" the preface to it assures us of the one, which, by calling God by the tender name of "Our Father," intimates his readiness to help his children and the animating conclusion, "Thine is the "power," rescues us from every unbelieving doubt of his ability to help us.

A Christian knows, because he feels, that prayer is, though in a way to him inscrutable, the medium of connexion between God and his rational creatures; the means appointed by him to draw down his blessings upon

us.

The Christian knows, that prayer is the appointed means of uniting two ideas, one of the highest magnificence, the other of the most profound lowliness, within

the compass of imagination; namely, that it is the link of communication between "the High and Lofty One who "'inhabiteth eternity," and that heart of the "contrite in "which he delights to dwell." He knows that this inex plicable union between beings so unspeakably, so essen. tially different, can only be maintained by prayer.

The plain Christian, as was before observed, cannot explain why it is so; but while he feels the efficacy, he is contented to let the learned define it; and he will no more postpone prayer till he can produce a chain of reasoning on the manner in which he derives benefit from it, than he will postpone eating till he can give a scientific lecture on the nature of digestion: he is contented with knowing that his meat has nourished him; and he leaves to the philoso pher, who may choose to defer his meal till he has elab. orated his treatise, to starve in the interim. The Chris tian feels better than he is able to explain, that the func tions of his spiritual life can no more be carried on with out habitual prayer, than those of his natural life without frequent bodily nourishment. He feels renovation and strength grow out of the use of the appointed means, as necessarily in the one case as in the other. He feels that the health of his soul can no more be sustained, and its pow. ers kept in continued vigour by the prayers of a distant day, than his body by the aliment of a distant day.

But there is one motive to the duty in question, far more constraining to the true believer than all others that can be named; more imperious than any arguments on its utility, than any convictions of its efficacy, even than any experience of its consolations. Prayer is the command of God; the plain, positive, repeated injunction of the Most High, who declares, "He will be inquired of." This is enough to secure the obedience of the Christian, even though a promise were not, as it always is, attached to the command. But in this case the promise is as clear as the precept: "Ask, and ye shall receive;"-"Seek, and ye shall "find:" this is enough for the plain Christian. As to the manner in which prayer is made to coincide with the gen eral scheme of God's plan in the government of human af. fairs; how God has left himself at liberty to reconcile our prayer with his own predetermined will, the Christian does not very critically examine, his precise and immediate du