Consideration (b). Consider how thou prayedst when thou didst meet with this denial. Didst thou pray peremptorily and absolutely, or conditionally, with submission to the will of God? If peremptorily, thou wert beside the rule, and art the cause why thy prayer came back without its errand. God will not hear, or bear, commanding prayers. He that must have a temporal mercy, if he gets it, he may have a spiritual curse, but is sure to have a temporal cross. So Delilah proved to Samson, who would not take his parents’ counsel, but must have her whatever comes of it: ‘Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well,’ Judges 14:3. But he paid dearly for his choice. May be such an employment pleaseth thee well. Thy carnal heart is in love with it; and that sets the a praying inordinately for it. Alas! poor creature, if thou hadst it, what wouldst thou do with it? Thou wouldst fondly lay thy head in its lap and let it rock thy grace asleep, and then betray thee into the hand of some sin and judgment! But, if thou sayest that thou prayedst with a submissive spirit, on condition it liked God as well as thyself; if so, why then dost thou now recant thy prayer, seeing God hath declared his will that it is not good for thee to have thy desire? Wilt thou not be determined by him to whom thou didst refer thyself? Hast thou not reason to think that God takes the best way for thee? There is never a prayer put up but God doth, as it were, weigh and ponder it, and then his love sets his wisdom on work to make such a return as may be most for his own glory and his child’s good. Now, it being the product of such infinite wisdom and love, thou oughtest to acquiesce in it, yea to praise God for it. Thus did David in a great strait, ‘O my God, I cry in the daytime, and thou hearest not,’ Ps. 22:2. Well, what hears God from him now he hears nothing from God (as to the deliverance prayed for)? No murmuring nor cavilling at God’s proceedings —nay, he hears the quite contrary; for he justifies and praises God, ‘But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel,’ ver. 3.
Consideration (c). Observe whether thou canst not gather something from the manner of God’s denying the thing prayed for, which may sweeten it to thee. Haply thou shalt find he denies thee, but it is with a smiling countenance, and ushers it in with some expression of grace and favour that may assure thee his denial proceeds not from displeasure. As you would do with a dear friend, who, may be, comes to borrow a sum of money of you—lend it you dare not, because you see plainly it is not for his good. But, in giving him the denial, lest he should misinterpret it, as proceeding from want of love and respect, you therefore preface it in with some kind of language of you hearty affection to him, as that you love him, and therefore deny him, and shall be ready to do for him more than that comes too. Thus God sometimes wraps up his denials in such sweet sugared intimations of his love as prevent all jealousies from arising in the hearts of his people. When David was denied to build a temple for God, as was in his heart to do, God gave him a large testimony of his affection, how highly he accepted his good-will therein. Though he should not build a temple for him, yet his desire was so kindly taken that God would build a house for him that should last forever.
Thus, sometimes a faithful minister prays earnestly that God would bless his labours to the converting of his people, and is denied; yet intimations of God’s love to his person are dropped, with a promise that, however, ‘his reward is with the Lord.’ So that his prayer, though denied as to them, is returned with peace into his own bosom. Another prays passionately, ‘O that I might see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, and that truth and peace might flourish in his days!’ This, may be, is not granted, because his desire antedates the period which God hath fixed in his purpose for the fulfilling of his promise to his church: but he withal manifests his love to him, and expresseth how highly he resents[4] his love to the church. Thus God did by Daniel, to whom an angel was sent to let him know what kind entertainment his prayer had, and that he was a man ‘greatly beloved of God,’ Dan. 9:21. So in temporal mercies. Haply thou art pleading with God for deliverance out of this trouble and that affliction, and it is denied thee, but a message [is] with the denial that recompenseth it double. May be some sweet illapses of his love he drops into thy bosom, or assurance of seasonable succours that shall be sent in to enable thee to charge through them with faith and victory. So God dealt by Paul, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee.’ I hope now thou wilt not say thy prayer is lost. When Saul sought his father’s asses, was he not shrewdly hurt to find a kingdom instead of them? The holy women that went to the sepulchre to anoint the body of Jesus with their spices, did not lose their labour though they found him risen. Were they, thinkest thou, sorry for that? What are all the enjoyments of the world to the spiritual mercies and comfort of the promises which thou findest in thy attendance on God? Not so much as the dead body of our risen Saviour. Thou findest not some dead creature-comfort, but thou meetest with embraces from a living God.
Argument 3. The third and last thing that Satan abuseth the Christian with, to make him doubtful of the acceptance of his prayer, and also to question, when a mercy is given in after prayer, whether it comes as a gracious answer to it or no, is taken from the common providence of God, that dispenseth the same things to the wicked without praying which the saints receive praying. Now, with Satan, how knowest thou that thy mercies come to thee as an answer to thy prayer, and not at the door of common providence with them? For the extricating thee out of this snare thou must know, that we are not to expect the extraordinary ways to determine this, but must satisfy ourselves with what light the word of God affords, which is able to resolve, not only this, but all our cases of conscience. It is true that God doth sometimes cast in some such circumstances as bring an evidence with them that the mercy flies to us on the wings of prayer. As when, upon Abraham’s servant’s praying at the well for God’s gracious conduct and help to despatch his master’s business prosperously, that Rebecca should presently come forth, and, by her kind carriage and invitation, so fitly answer the mould of his prayer, even as the lock doth the key made for it. Here heaven declared to his very sense, that his prayer found the right way to heaven. When, upon prayer, the mercy is thus cast in strangely and suddenly without the concurrence of second causes—yea, when they all lie under a visible sentence of death, and the thing is put beyond the activity of their sphere to work—here there is no rival to stand in competition with prayer. Thus, when the apostles healed the sick upon a short prayer darted up to heaven—not so much as a doctor’s advice asked in the cure. When Peter knocked at the door where the church was praying for him, what but prayer bound his keeper’s senses so fast in the chains of sleep, and made those with which Peter was bound to fall off without any kind hand to help, but heaven’s? What made the iron gate so officious to open to him that had no key in his hand to unlock it? Surely we must confess, prayer opened heaven door, and heaven, at the church’s prayer, opened the prison door.
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