Question. But why doth God impose this upon the saints, that they should pray for what he hath purposed and promised to give? First. That they may be conformable to Christ. Second. That he may give the good things of the promise with safety to his honour. Third. To show the great delight he takes in his saints’ prayers.
Answer First. That they may be conformable to Christ. The design of God is to make every saint like Christ. This was resolved from eternity Rom. 8:29. Now, as the limner looks on the person whose picture he would take, and draws his lines to answer him with the nearest similitude that may be; so doth God look on Christ as the archetype to which he will conform the saint, in suffering, in grace, and in glory: yet so that Christ hath the pre-eminence in all. Every saint must suffer because Christ suffered: Christ must not have a delicate body under a crucified head. Yet never any suffered, or could, what he endured. Christ is holy, and therefore shall every saint be, but in an inferior degree. An image cut in clay cannot be so exact as that which is engraved on gold. Now, as in other things, so in this our conformity to Christ appears—that as the promises made to him were performed on his prayer to his Father, so promises made to his saints are given to them in the same way of prayer. ‘Ask of me,’ saith God to his Son, ‘and I shall give thee,’ Ps. 2:8. And the apostle tells us, ‘Ye have not because ye ask not.’ God had promised support to Christ in all his conflicts: ‘Behold my servant, whom I uphold,’ Isa. 42:1. Yet he prays ‘with strong crying and tears,’ when his feet stood within the shadow of death. A seed is promised to him, and victory over his enemies; yet, for both these, he is at prayer now in heaven. Christ towards us acts as a king, but towards his Father as a priest. All he speaks to God is on his knee by prayer and intercession. In like manner the saints. The promise makes them kings over their lusts, conquerors over their enemies; but it makes them priests towards God, by prayer humbly to sue out those great things given in the promise.
Answer Second. That God may give the good things of the promise with safety to his honour. Secure God but his glory, and the saint may have what he will. The very life of God is bound up in his glory. The creature’s honour is not intrinsical to his being. A prince is a man when his crown and kingdom are gone. But God cannot be a God, except he be glorious; neither can he be glorious, unless he be holy, just, merciful, and faithful, &c. Now, that this his glory may be seen and displayed, is the great end he propounds both in making and ordering of the world: ‘The Lord hath made all things for himself,’ Prov. 16:4. If there were any one occurrence in the world which could no way be reducible to the glory of God, it would make the being of a deity to be questioned. But the all wise God hath so made, and doth so order, all his creatures with their actions, that the manifestation of his glory is the result of all. Indeed, he forceth it from some, and takes it by distress, as princes do their taxes from disobedient subjects. Thus the very wrath of his enemies shall praise him, Ps. 76:10. But he expects the saints should be active instruments to glorify him, and, like loyal loving subjects, pay him the tribute of his praise freely, with acclamations of joy and gratitude; which, that they may do, he issueth out his mercies in such a way as may best suit with this their duty. And that is to give the good things he hath purposed and promised to them upon their humble address in prayer to him. Now two ways the glory of God is secured by this means.
1. The saint, in the very duty of prayer—when he performs it in a qualified manner—doth highly glorify God. Prayer, as it is medium gratiæ—a channel of grace, for the conveying and deriving blessings from God, the fountain, into the cistern of our bosoms; so it is medium cultus—a means of worship, whereby we are to do homage to God, and give him the glory of his deity. By this we give him ‘the glory of his power.’ Prayer is a humble appeal from our impotency to God’s omnipotence. None begs that at another’s door which he can pleasure himself with at home.
And if we thought not God able, we would go to another, not to him. We give him the glory of his sovereignty and dominion and acknowledge that he is not only able to procure for us what we ask, but can give us a right to, and the blessing of, what he gives. Therefore Christ closeth his prayer with, ‘Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory,’ &c., as a reason why we direct our prayers to God; because he alone is the sovereign Lord that can invest us in, and give us title to, any enjoyment. So that it is high treason against the crown and dignity of God, when we wither attempt to possess ourselves of any enjoyments without praying to him; or when we pray religiously to any other besides him. By the first we usurp his sovereignty ourselves, in their language, ‘We are lords; we will come no more unto thee,’ Jer. 2:31. And by the second we give away his kingdom and sovereignty to another. This was the devil’s drift when he would have had Christ fall down and worship him, that thereby he might acknowledge him to have the rule of the world. Again, by prayer give him the glory of his free mercy. Men demand a debt, but beg an alms.
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