MISCARRIAGES in a praying saint which hinder his audience in heaven 2/5

2. Miscarriage. Though the subject matter of a saint’s prayer be bottomed on the word, yet if the end he aims at be not levelled right, this is a second door at which his prayer will be stopped, though it pass the former.  ‘Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.’ Take, I confess, a Christian in his right temper, and he levels at the glory of God.  Yet as a needle is touched with a lodestone may, being shaken, be removed from its beloved point, to which nature hath espoused it, though trembling till it again recovers it; so, a gracious soul may, in a particular act and request, vary from this end, being jogged by Satan, yea disturbed by an enemy nearer home, his own unmortified corruption.  Truly he is a rare archer that ever hits the white. Do you not think it possible for a saint, in distress of body and spirit, to pray for health in the one, and comfort in the other, with too selfish a respect had to his own ease and quiet?  Yes sure, and to pray for gifts and assistance in some eminent service, with an eye asquint to his own credit and applause, to pray for a child with too inordinate a desire that the honour of his house may be built up in him—I know none so seasoned with grace as not to be subject to such warpings of spirit.  And this may be understood as the sense, in part, of that expression: ‘If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me, but verily the Lord hath heard me,’ Ps. 66:18.  For, to desire our own health, peace, and reputation, be not an iniquity —when contained in the banks that God hath set —yet, when they overflow, and are to such a height lift up as to overtop the glory of God, yea to stand but in a level with it, they are a great abomination.  That which in the first or second degree is wholesome food, would be rank poison in the fourth or fifth.

         Therefore, Christian, catechise thyself before thou prayest, O my soul, what sends thee on this errand?  Know but thy own mind, what thou prayest for, and thou mayest soon know God’s mind how thou shalt speed.  Secure God his glory, and thou mayest carry away the mercy with thee.  Had Adoni¬jah asked Abishag out of love to her person, and not rather out of love to the crown, it is like Solomon would not have denied the banns between them; but this wise prince observed his drift, to make her but a step to his getting into the throne, which he ambi¬tiously thirsted for, and therefore his request was denied with so much disdain.  Look that, when thy petition is loyal, there be not treason in thy end and aim.  If there be, he will find it out.