Doth sick David pray that some further time may be added to the lease of his temporal life? It is not out of a fond love to this world or the carnal entertainments of it, but to prepare himself the better for another life. ‘O spare me,’ a little ‘that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more,’ Ps. 39:13. Is he comforted with hopes of a longer stay here? It is not any of this world’s carnal pleasures that kindles this joy in his holy breast, but the advantage he shall thereby have for praising God in the land of the living. ‘Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God,’ Ps. 42:11. The saint hath as quick a sense to taste the sweetness of a temporal mercy as another; but his heart being spiritual, and so acquainted with higher enjoyments, he desires with Luther that God would not put him off with these shells of blessings. O how few thus pray for temporals! Most are but progging[4] for their lusts while praying for them. ‘Ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts,’ James 4:3. One is sick, and prays for health that he may be again at his pots or harlots. Another is childless, and he would have an heir to uphold the pride and grandeur of his house, but not the increase of Christ’s family in the world. A third would be a greater man in the world—and for what? May be, that having more power he may take the fuller revenge on his enemies that are now out of his reach. And other that bring not their sacrifice with so evil a mind, yet look no higher their carnal contentment in the enjoyment they would have, as appears by their carriage in the use of it. Thus the mariners in a sea‑storm, ‘Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble,’ Ps. 107:28. And when they have their life given them as they desire, ‘then are they glad because they be quiet,’ and God hears no more of them now their turn is served—a plain evidence that they were selfish and carnal in their prayer for this mercy, because they improve it not for their spiritual end. Which makes the psalmist break out into that holy option and vote, ‘Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness,’ ver. 31. But much more abominable is it to pray for spiritual mercies for the sake of some temporal advantage we hope to have by them. Thus Simon Magus desired the gifts of the Holy Ghost that he might be JÂH µX("H—a man of fame and name. And do not some labour to bring the gospel to town as an expedient to mend the takings in their shop? —others pray for the assistances of the Spirit, and project their own praise by the means, basely perverting those holy things to secular advantages? O horrid baseness! As if one should desire a prince’s robe to stop an oven with it! This is, as Austin saith, uti Deo ut fruamur mundo—to make God the stirrup and the creature our saddle.
(2.) Those spiritual blessings which are intrinsical to our happiness and indispensably necessary to our salvation, these we are to pray for with an undeniable importunity. Such are pardon of sin, the love and favour of God, and the sanctifying graces of the Spirit. To be cold or indifferent in our prayers for these is a great wickedness. The promise will bear us out in our greatest importunity: ‘Seek the Lord, and his strength: seek his face evermore,’ Ps. 105:4. ‘Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely,’ Rev. 22:17. Tantum possumus in negotio religionis, quantum volumus—we are powerful in the matter of religion. Nothing loseth us these mercies more than weak velleities and faint desires of them. But our prayers for temporal blessings must be with a latitude of submission to the will of God, because they are promised conditionally. The promise is the foundation of our faith, the superstructure therefore of our prayers must not jet beyond it. This was Israel’s sin —‘Who shall give us flesh to eat?’ Num. 11:18. God had indeed promised to feed them in the wilderness, but not to give them every dish their wanton palate craved; and therefore, when God’s bill of fare contents them not, but they cry for flesh, they have their desire but sour sauce with it; for, ‘while their meat was yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them,’ Ps. 78:31. Thus they were fed for the slaughter by the meat they inordinately lusted after. O take heed of peremptory prayers for any temporal enjoyment, for thereby thou beggest but a rod for thy own back. Rachel must have children or else she dies, and she at last hath two, but dies in travail of the latter. It was a smart saying of one to his wife, who passionately desired a son, and had one at last, but none of the wisest, ‘Wife,’ saith he, ‘thou hast long passionately desired a boy, and now thou hast one that will always be a boy.’ God may justly set some print of his anger on that mercy which he answers our peremptory prayers with. Why, alas! must we needs have that which we must needs lose, or shall not enjoy while we have it?
(3.) Those spiritual blessings which are intrinsical to the saints’ happiness are to be prayed for with boundless desires. Not, Give me thus much grace and I will trouble thee for no more. No, God gives a little grace, not to stop our mouth, but to open it wider for more. Yet, alas! how unreasonably reasonable are most in this particular! So much holiness contents them as will, like salt, keep them from putrefying in gross sins, that they be not unsavoury to the nostrils of their neighbours, or as will save them from the lash of their tormenting conscience; like school-boys, that care for no more of their lesson than will save a whipping. Alas! this is not to desire it at all; it is thy credit abroad and thy quiet within thou desirest, and the other but to help thee to these. He that knows the true worth of grace thinks he hath never enough till satisfied with it in glory. Paul had more than many of his brethren, yet prays and presseth as hard after more as if he had none at all, Php. 3:13, 14. But in temporal enjoyments we are to stint our desires, and not let out all the sails of our affections when praying for them. A gracious heart is as unwilling to have too much of these as afraid of having too little. ‘Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me,’ Prov. 30:8. I think not a saint but could cheerfully say amen to this prayer of Agur—I am sure he ought. That house is best seated which stands neither on the bleak top of the hill nor on the wet bottom. The nature of these temporal good things is enough to convince any wise man that the mean is best. They are not the Christian’s freight but his ballast, and therefore are to be desired to poise, not load, the vessel. They are not his portion—heaven is that; but his spending money in his journey thither; and what traveller that is wise desires to carry any greater charge about him than will pay for his quarters?
