What it is to pray in faith 2/2

         Now this reliance of the soul hath a twofold way whereby it fastens on God like the anchor’s double hook.

         (a.) It takes hold on the power of God.  Thus Christ in his agony ‘offered up prayers and supplica¬tions with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death,’ Heb. 5:7.  In prayer we open our case to God, declare how sinful, weak, shiftless creatures we are, and then we commit our cause to God.  Now as none will put that to another’s keeping which he thinks safe in his own hands; so neither will any deliver it to another whose ability he is not first persuaded to effect that which himself is unable to do.  See Eliphaz’s counsel to Job, ‘I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause,’ Job 5:8.  As if he had said, ‘If I were in your case I will tell you what course I would take, I would not look this way or that, but speedily haste me to the throne of grace, and when once I had told God my very heart, I would trouble myself no more, but commit my cause to him, and discharge my heart of the burden of all its troublesome thoughts.’  But under what notion would he do all this?  The next words will tell us, ‘Unto God would I commit my cause, which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number.’  First he would bottom his faith on God as able to do great things; and then, leaving his request lodged in the arms of such power, he doubted not but he should cast all care away and enjoy the serenity of his mind whatever his condition was.  Indeed, this is the first stone faith lays in her building.  And an error in the foundation will make the whole house stand weak.  Be sure, therefore, thou layest this bottom stone with thy greatest care.  O how unbecoming is it to have a great God, and a little faith on this great God!—a strong God, and a weak faith on his almighty power! Unbelief here ravisheth and offereth violence to the very light of nature, for ‘his eternal power and God¬head’ are known by ‘the visible things’ of the creation, Rom 1:20.  What is not he able to do that could make so goodly a fabric without materials, tools, or workmen?  Crucifige illud verbum potest ne?—obliterate that word ‘Is he able?’  Away with the question which so grates the ears of the Almighty: Can he pardon? Can he purge?  What cannot he do that can do what he will?

         (b.) It takes hold on the faithfulness of God to perform the promise.  We are directed, in committing ourselves to him, to eye his faithfulness: ‘as unto a faithful Creator,’ I Peter 4:19.  The saints’ faith hath been remarkable in staying themselves on this, while yet the mercy they prayed for lay asleep in its causes: ‘Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion: and unto thee shall the vow be performed,’ Ps. 65:1.  See, he stands with his instrument strung and tuned, ready to strike up and bring God in with the music of his praise when he shall come with an answer to his prayer, not the least doubting but that he shall use it upon that joyful occasion; for he speaks without ifs and ands—‘Unto thee shall the vow be performed, O thou that hearest prayer!’  And yet that good day was not come; for even then he cries out, ‘Iniquities prevail against me!’ So, ‘I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and the right of the poor,’ Ps. 140:12.  Why? how comes he so conf-dent?  ‘Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name,’ ver. 13.  As if he had said, ‘Thou hast a name for a gracious and faithful God in thy promise, and this thou wilt never suffer to be blotted by failing thy word.’  Christian, thou mayest venture all thou art worth on the public faith of heaven.  ‘His words are pure as silver tried seven times in a furnace.’  He that will not suffer a liar or covenant breaker to set foot on his holy hill, will much less suffer any one thought of falseness or unfaithfulness to enter into his own most holy heart.

         Question.  But how may I know when I thus act faith in prayer?

What it is to pray in faith 1/2

         First Requisite.  The person must be a believer. But this is not enough.

         Second Requisite.  There must be an act of faith exerted in the prayer, as well as the habit of faith dwelling in the person.  ‘What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them,’ Mark 11:24.  If the thing be not to be found in the promise that we desire, it is a sin to pray for it; if it be, it is a sin not to believe, when we pray for it, and that no small one, because thereby we both profane and ordinance and asperse the name of the great God.

         Question.  But what is it to pray in faith?

         Answer 1.  Negatively.  It is not to believe that the very thing in specie—or in its proper kind, that we pray for, shall be always given.  Christ prayed in faith and was heard, Heb. 5.  He believed not the thing in kind to be given neither was it; yet his prayer was answered.  Therefore, be sure thou learnest the right method of acting thy faith in prayer, which must be taken from the nature of the promise thou puttest in suit.  As water receives its figure—round or square —from the vessel it is poured into; so our faith is to be shaped by the promise.  If that be absolute—as things necessary to salvation are—then thy faith may expect the very thing promised; if otherwise, then thou art not to limit thy faith to the thing itself, but expect money or moneyworth; health, or as good as health; deliverance, or better than deliverance.  An absolute faith on a conditional promise—without an immediate revelation, which we must not look for—is fancy, not faith.  To commit a sin, not act a grace, this is to be free on God's purse without a grant; for we put more in the conclusion of our faith than is in the premises of the promise; and this is as bad divinity as logic.

         Answer 2. Positively.  To pray in faith is to ask of God, in the name of Christ, what he hath promised, relying on his power and truth for performance, without binding him up to time, manner, or means.

         (1.) We must ask what God hath promised, or else we choose for ourselves and not beg; we subject God’s will to ours, and not ours to his; we forge a bond and then claim it as debt, which is a horrible presumption!  He that is his own promiser must be his own paymaster.

         (2.) To pray in faith is required that we pray in Christ’s name.  As there can be no faith but on a promise, so no promise can be claimed but in his name, because they are all both made to him and performed for him.  They are made to him, the covenant being struck with him: ‘In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began,’ Titus 1:2.  And there was none then existing but Christ to whom the promise could be made. So that, as the child claims his estate in right of his father that purchased it; so we come to our right in the promise, as heirs of and co heirs with Christ.  And as the promise was made to him, so it is performed for him, because his blood shed was the condition of the obligation upon which God acknowledged the debt to Christ, and bound himself to perform all the articles of the covenant to his heirs’ orderly claiming them at his hands in his name.  It is not therefore enough boldly to urge God with a promise: ‘Pardon, Lord, for thou hast promised it; grace and glory, for thou hast promised them;’ but we must, if we mean to lay our plea legally—I mean according to the law of faith—plead for these under the protection of his name.  Thus Daniel, that holy man, laid the stress of his prayer on Christ: ‘Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord’s sake,’ Dan. 9:17.

         (3.) To this praying in faith is required a relying on God, through Christ, for a gracious answer.  Let the former be done, and the creature fail in this, he prays not in faith, but takes the name of God and Christ in vain.  This act of relying is the taking hold on God in prayer, Isa. 64.  When mariners in a storm cast out their anchor, and it comes home again without taking hold on the firm ground, so as to stay the ship and bear it up against the violence of the waves, it gives them no help.  So neither doth a handless prayer that takes no hold on God.  Therefore you shall find that when a Christian speeds well in prayer, his happy success is attributed, not to naked prayer, but as clothed and empowered with this act of recumbency upon God.  ‘They cried unto the Lord,’ II Chr. 13:14.  Now see, ‘The children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the Lord God of their fathers,’ ver. 18.  He doth but lie in prayer that doth not rely on God after praying.  What he seems to give with one hand to God he takes from him with another, which is no better than a mocking of God. By praying we pretend to expect good from him; by not relying we blot this out and declare we look for no such matter.