Counsel and direction for the weak Christian in persevering prayer 3/3

 Third.  This not persevering in prayer proceeds oft from unbelief.  The creature prays, God is silent, and no answer comes.  Now, thinks Satan, is my time come to do this person a mischief; and therefore he labours to persuade the creature that there is no mercy to be expected from God.  If, saith the tempter, God had meant to come, he would have been here be­fore now.  So many days and months are now gone, and no news of his approach.  Thou hast stayed too long to meet with disappointment at last; give over, and take some other course. Thus he dealt with our Saviour.  No enemy appeared in the field for forty days, and then he appears.  This is his way with the saints also.  He lets them alone while he thinks they are softened into a compliance by long standing upon duty, and hopes their ammunition grows low; then he comes to parley with them, and take them off from waiting upon God, by starting many fears and doubts in their thoughts concerning the power, mercy, and truth of God; so that the poor Christian is at last put to a stand, and knows not whether he should pray or not pray.  Or if he holds up the duty, yet not his heart in it; he prays faintly, and with a kind of despair, as the poor widow made ready her last handful of meal with no other thoughts than of dying when she had ate it.  Thus he prays, but lots upon nothing but death and misery to follow it.  O this is sad praying, to expect no good from God in the performance!  Un­belief is a soul‑enfeebling sin; it is to prayer as the moth to the cloth, which bites the very threads asunder, and crumbles it to nothing; it wastes the soul's strength, that it cannot look up to God with any hope.  ‘For they all made us afraid, saying, Their hands shall be weakened,’ Neh. 6:9.  Resist therefore Satan, steadfast in the faith.  Never let thy heart suf­fer the power, mercy, or truth of God to be called into question; thou hadst as good question whether he can cease to be God.  These attributes of the divine na­ture are to thy faith like the stone to Moses, which Aaron and Hur put under him to sit upon; they will sustain thy spirit, that thou shalt not faint or grow weary at the work, though God makes thee wait till ‘the going down of the sun.’  O this waiting posture highly pleaseth God, and never puts the soul to shame.  Mary, that stayed by the sepulchre, though she missed her Lord there, got at last a happy sight of him.  Quæramus et nos Christum, saith one upon the place, ex fide, et astabit nobis licet non illicò eum ag­noverimus—let us but seek Christ in faith, and he will at last be with us, though we do not presently see him.

           Fourth.  Some persevere not in prayer, because they have their eye upon some other than God from whom they expect help.  It is no wonder he gives over praying who thinks he hath another string to his bow. While the carnal heart prays for deliverance, he hath other projects in his head how to wriggle himself out of the briers in which he is caught, and on these he lays more stress and weight than on God to whom he prays; therefore, at last, he leaves praying, to betake himself to them.  Whereas another, that looks for all from God, and sees no way to help himself but by calling in God to his aid, will say as Peter to Christ —asking his disciples whether they would leave him as others had done—‘Lord, to whom shall we go but unto thee? thou hast the words of eternal life.’  I know not another door to knock at—saith the poor soul—but thine; the creature hath it not to give, but thou hast; I will therefore never leave thee.  We know not what to do, said good Jehoshaphat, but our eyes are up unto thee.

           Fifth.  It proceeds from a want of inward com­placency which the creature should have in God, and communion with him.  ‘Will he delight himself in the Almighty? will he always call upon God?’ Job 27:10.  He will not always call upon him, because he never did ordinarily delight in him.  We easily let go what we take no great content to enjoy.  The sincere soul is tied to God by the heart‑strings, his communion is founded in love; and ‘love is stronger than death,’ ‘many waters cannot quench it.’  A stranger may have an errand that brings him to a man's house; but that done his acquaintance ceaseth.  But a friend, he comes to sit with him, and the delight he takes in his company will not suffer him to discontinue his ac­quaintance long.  Get therefore thy affections but once placed upon God as thy chief good, and the spark or stone will as soon forget the way to their centre, as thou the way to thy God in prayer.  The hypocrite useth prayer as we use physic—not because he loves the taste of it; the sincere soul as food—it is sweet to his gust^[6].  David, from the inward satis­faction he found in the presence of God, cries out, ‘It is good for me to draw near to God;’ Ps. 73:28, as one that, tasting some rich wine or sweet morsel, lays his hand on his stomach—where he finds the cheering of it—and saith to the standers‑by, ‘O it is good!’  Never will such a soul part with it.  No, he will say, as the fig‑tree in Jotham's parable, Shall I forsake my sweet­ness, and the good fruit I have found in communion with my God!  I will never do it.

Counsel and direction for the weak Christian in persevering prayer 2/3

1. Consider what it is to pray.  It is to go a beg­ging for an alms, not to demand a debt.  Now, doth it become thee in so poor a condition, and about such a work, to be so quick and short with thy God?  If you can live without being beholden to God, why then do you at all come to his door?  If you cannot, why then do you not wait more patiently for his pleasure? Should he wrong thee if he beat thee from his door? Why then art thou no more thankful for his leave to wait there, though thou beest not presently served?
2. Consider who he is thou prayest to.  Is he not the great and glorious majesty of heaven and earth?  And is not this one piece of the state he looks to be served in by his poor creatures?  How long did Mor­decai sit at the king's gate before he had that which he waited for?  Is it not time enough for the servant to be set at dinner after he hath waited at his master’s table?  Were it not unsufferable sauciness in the serv­ant to complain his master sat too long and required too much waiting at his hands?  This is the language of our hearts, when we think much to stay God’s time for a mercy.  Is he not a righteous holy God?  Surely he doth thee no wrong to make thee pray, and that long, for a mercy which thou deservest not when it comes at last.  Is he not wiser than thou, to know how to time his mercies?  ‘Shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place?’ Job 18:4.  Wilt thou have God overthrow the course of his providence, which he thinks fit, to gratify thy impatient spirit?  Surely this is to charge God fool­ishly with some error in his government.  In a word, is not he a faithful God, though he comes not so soon to thy relief  as thou wouldst have him?  where did he give thee leave to date his promises and set the day of payment?  No; he hath promised to answer his chil­dren’s prayers, but concealed the time of performance of his promise, on purpose to keep them in a waiting posture; and therefore he breaks not his promise when he detains a mercy, but thou forgettest thy duty not to wait.  God is not unfaithful, but thou art faith­less and unbelieving.
3. Have not as good as thyself prayed, and that as long as thou, before they have received an answer,and yet have not thus behaved themselves?  Look into the generation of seekers, and thou wilt find that God hath exercised their patience as well as thine. Hast thou stood at God’s door longer than many of thy brethren have done?  Remember Job, David, and Heman, how many troubles came over their heads! what sad tidings did they hear!  Dismal afflictions did they endure they endure before the day broke and divine providence cleared up!  Shall God raise a causey^[5] for thee to walk by thyself dryshod, while these, and thousands besides, have taken many a weary step through the deep sloughs of affliction, before they could come to fair way?  When God led Israel far about, and made it a journey of forty years from Egypt to Canaan, it had been great pride for any among them to have desired God to lead them a shorter way thither than all his brethren.  David de­sired no more at God’s hands than to fare as his fellow-saints did: ‘Be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name,’ Ps. 119:132.  Nay, doth not Christ himself and example beyond all example, wait, and that long, even in heaven itself for an answer to his prayers?  He hath been already above a thousand years  there at prayer for his church, and against his enemies, and hath not as yet received the full of his desires; but still is expecting till the one be saved, and the other be made his footstool.  Who art thou that thou shouldst have so high an opinion of thyself, as to look God should make all stay, and trade for time, while thou alone for ready money?
4. Consider whether thou didst never make God wait on thee before his suit could be heard, though he begged not for his benefit but thy own.  Did God wait in thy carnal state upon thee, that he might at last be gracious to thee, and thinkest thou much to wait at prayer now on him?

          

Counsel and direction for the weak Christian in persevering prayer 1/3

           Fourth. I shall wind up the discourse with a word of counsel and direction for the help of the weak Christian therein.  Now this will, I suppose, be best performed by laying be­fore you the several causes of a person’s falling off from this duty, or fainting in it, and so to fit the directions accordingly. All diseases are not cured with the same medicine, neither are catholic remedies so effectual as those which respect the particular humour from which the distemper aris­eth.  Now the causes of non‑persevering in prayer are diverse.

           First. Sometimes the cause is want of a lasting and en­during motive or principle to keep and hold us constantly to the duty.  When the spring is down the watch must needs cease going, for that fails that gave the wheels their motions.  That sometimes which sets the creature to prayer, is not pure obedience to the command, but a desire to some particular mercy, which, if obtained, the fish being caught, the net is laid aside; or, if he prays long, and hath it not, he grows weary of the work, and lets it fall.  Be sure, Christian, therefore to pray in obedience.  Bind the duty upon thy conscience, and thou wilt not easily shake it off.  ‘God forbid that,’ saith Samuel, ‘I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you,’ I Sam. 12:23.  He had little encouragement, from them he prayed for, to continue at the work, but his obedience to God, to whom he prayed, held him to it. This is a strong fence to hedge in the heart indeed. We cannot break through this hedge but we shall feel the thorns in our side.  A gracious soul dreads noth­ing more than guilt.  Tell him it is a sin to cease pray­ing, and you say enough.  What though God answers not my prayer, his silence to my prayer must not make me silent not to pray.  Prayer is still a duty. God is not bound to answer presently when we pray, but we are bound to pray though he doth not answer. ‘All this is come upon us,’ saith the church, ‘yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant,’ Ps. 44:17.  Remember, Christian, thou art a covenant servant, and one thing thou art as such bound to do is, to pray to thy God without ceasing, I Thes. 5:17.  This will defend thee against any motion that the tempter suggests to the contrary.  the beggar knocks awhile at the rich man's door, and, if he be not served, away he goes.  But the servant in the house, though he be hungry, doth not run away pres­ently from his master, because he hath not his dinner so soon as he desires.

           Second. Sometimes this not persevering in prayer comes from pride.  ‘This evil is of the Lord; what should I wait for the Lord any longer?’ II Kings 6:33.  What a haughty spirit was here!  Pride likes not to wait, but to be waited on.  He in the gospel was ashamed to beg, much more to stand long at the door upon a begging errand.  Now, though this be a disease which a saint is more free from than other men, yet there are dregs enough still within him to royle and distemper his spirit, if he be not daily evacuating and purging them out.  It will not therefore be amiss to leave a few soul‑humbling considerations in your hands, which you may be often taking, especially when you feel any grudgings of this sin about you, and your hearts begin to grow discontented that God makes you stay so long for any mercy prayed for.