Answer 1. Oppose the greatness of that God thou art going to make thy address unto, against the greatness of thy request. We are bid to ‘ascribe greatness to our God,’ Deut. 32:3. And if ever, especially when kneeling down to pray. Wert thou to put up thy request to some puny prince, or petty creature, thou hadst reason to consider whether thy pitcher were not too great that thou wouldst have filled. Possibly thou mayest ask such a one more at one clap than he is worth. ‘Help, my lord, O king,’ said the woman in the famine of Samaria, yet she had no relief: ‘If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee?’ II Kings 6:26, 27. Or possibly, if he hath power, he may want a heart to part with so much as will serve thy turn. There are many of Nabal’s name in the world—such churls, who think every bit of bread lost that they eat not themselves; yea, some who grudge their own belly its necessary food. Wert thou at the door of such as those, what couldst thou expect but cold welcome? But remember he is a great God, great in power. Thou canst not overask. Thou mayest draw thine arrow to the head, and yet not overshoot the power of God. Even when thou hast drawn thy desires to the highest pitch, he shall be above thee; ‘for he is able to do exceedingly above what we can ask or think.’
Wouldst thou have thy sins pardoned? Yes, if they were not too great, thou sayest. But can God at once discount such a sum, and discharge so vast a debt, that hath been gathering many years by a full trade of constant sinning, with so great a stock of means and mercies as I have had; and thereby the unhappy advantage of making the greater return? Yes, he is able ‘abundantly to pardon,’ without any wrong to himself or control from any other. The sovereign power of life and death being in his hands, he is accountable to none;—as not for acts of justice, so neither of mercy. ‘It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? Rom. 8:33, 34. If, indeed, a man forgive a wrong done unto him, thou canst not think thyself therefore acquitted by God; his wrath may still chide on thee. Man cannot give away God’s right. Were a man so kind as to forgive a thief that robbed him, yet it is not in his power to discharge him of the penalty of the law. But if the prince, who is the lawgiver, will do it, none can gainsay. If God will pass an act of mercy, thou art free indeed; for the power lies in his hands.
Is it any masterly lust, from whose tyranny thou wouldst beg deliverance? The God thou prayest to is able to break open thy prison door, and make thee, a poor captive, go out free. He can give these thine enemies as dust to thy sword, and as driven stubble to thy bow; yea, destroy them with a cast of his eye: ‘The Lord looked unto the Egyptians...and troubled their host,’ Ex. 14:24. His very look was as heavy as a millstone about their necks. Presently they sank, horse and rider, like lead to the bottom of the sea. And sin and Satan are no more before God than were Pharaoh and his host.
In a word, is it comfort thou wouldst ask if it might be had? O, know he is a Creator thou prayest to! Though thy heart were as void of comfort as the chaos was of light, yet can he with a word cause a new heaven of joy to arise out of thy confused soul, and make in one moment to step out of darkness into light. Neither is his mercy less than his power. O, launch therefore into this bankless, bottomless sea, by thy faith! Behold the wonders of God in these depths, and do not stand reasoning thyself into unbelief by any uncomely comparisons between God and the narrow-hearted creature. ‘He is God and not man.’ None of these defects are to be found in his mercy which we impotent creatures find in ourselves. The paleness we see sometimes is not in the sun, but from the clouds that interpose. The stars do not blink nor twinkle, as is thought; but we—because of their vast distance, and our weak organ—cannot behold them with a fixed eye. Nor have the jealousies and fears entertained by tempted souls, to the disparagement of the mercy of God, any foundation in the divine nature, but are mere entia rationis—bugbears, which, through the darkness of their troubled spirits, and distemperature of a melancholy fancy, Satan hath the advantage of affrighting them with. O, beware therefore thou dost not disfigure the sweet lovely face of God’s mercy—which smile alike upon every poor, penitent, praying soul—while thou fanciest God to have a cast of this his eye, and to look more favourably upon one than another, lest by this you do betray the glorious name of God to be rent in pieces by your cruel unbelief! If you once come to wrap up God in your hard thoughts as slow to hear—hard to be wrought on with your prayers and tears; truly then Satan may easily persuade you to commit any sin against him, because you expect no mercy from him.
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