MISCARRIAGES in a praying saint which hinder his audience in heaven 3/5

         Question.  When shall I know that I aim at God or self in prayer?

         Answer.  This will commonly appear by the posture of our heart when God delays or denies the thing we pray for.  A soul that can acquiesce, and patiently bear a delay or denial—I speak now of such mercies as are of an inferior nature, not necessary to salvation, and so not absolutely promised—gives a hopeful testimony that the glory of God weighs more in his thoughts than his own private interest and accommodation.  A selfish heart is both peremptory and hasty.  It must have the thing it cries for, and that quickly too, or else it faints and chides, falls down in a swoon, or breaks out into murmuring complaints, not sparing to fall foul on the promises and attributes of God himself.  ‘Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not?’ Isa. 58:3.  Now, from whence come both these, but from an overvaluing of ourselves? —which makes us clash with God’s glory, that may be more advanced by these delays and denials, than if we had the thing we so earnestly desire.  God was more glorified in denying Christ himself his life, than if he had let that bitter cup pass without his tasting of it, which Christ, understanding fully, resigned himself thereunto, saying, ‘Father, glorify thy name; not my will, but thy will be done,’ John 12:28.  As if he had said, I would not save my life to lose thee the least of thy glory.  This is the copy we should all write after. Indeed, if our distempered hearts be so wilful and hasty as not to be content with what, and that when it pleaseth God also, he should not love us in gratifying such desires, for thereby he would but nourish such distemper, which is better cured by starving than feeding it.

3. Miscarriage. The Christian’s prayer may miscarry when, with his prayer, he joins not a diligent use of the means.  We must not think to lie upon God, as some lazy people do on their rich kindred; to be always begging of him, but not putting forth our hand to work in the use of means.  God hath ap¬pointed prayer as a help to our diligence, not as a cloak for our sloth.  Idle beggars are welcome neither to God’s door nor man’s.  What! wilt thou lift up thy hands to God in prayer, and then put them in thy pocket?  Doth not God forbid our charity to him that worketh not?  ‘We commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat,’ II Thes. 3:10.  And will he encourage that idleness in thee which he would have punished by us?  It is a good gloss of Bernard upon that of Jeremiah, ‘Let us lift up our hearts with our hands unto God in the heavens,’ Lam. 3:41—qui orat et laborat, ille cor levat ad Deum cum manibus—he that prayeth, and is diligent in the use of means, is the person that lifts up his heart with his hands to God.  Look therefore, Christian, thou minglest thy sweat with thy tears, thy labour with thy prayers.  If thy prayer doth not set thee on work, neither will it set thy God at work for thee.  Is it a lust thou art praying against?  And dost thou sit down idle to see whether it will now die alone?  Will that prayer slay one lust that lets another—thy sloth, I mean —live under its nose?  As God will not save thy soul, so neither will he destroy thy sin, unless thy hand also be put to the work.  See how God raised Joshua from off the earth, where he lay praying and mourning for Israel's defeat, Joshua 7:10, 11: ‘Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel hath sinned,’ &c.; ver. 12, ‘Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies,’ &c.; ver. 13, ‘Up, sanctify the people.’

         O how oft may God rouse us up from our knees, and say, ‘Why lie ye here with your lazy prayers?  You have sinned in not taking my counsel and obeying my orders.  I bade you watch as well as pray; why do you not one as well as the other?  My command obliges you to flee from the snare that Satan lays for you, as well as pray against it: therefore it is you cannot stand before your lusts.’  Moses durst not go to God with a prayer in behalf of sinning Israel till he had shown his zeal for God against their sin, and then he goes and speeds; see Ex. 32:25, compared with ver. 31.  Dost thou think to walk loosely all day, yielding thyself, and betraying the glory of the God, into the hands of thy lust, and then mend all with a prayer at night?  Alas! thy cowardice and sloth will get to heaven before thy prayer, and put thee to shame when thou comest on such an errand.