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Prayer of faith.

The morning prayer meeting.

and perhaps some of mature minds are not entirely free from the same perplexity, that in order to render prayer acceptable, the Christian must have a full belief that his request will be granted. This is called the prayer of faith. Hence many persons when they strongly desire some spiritual blessing for themselves or others, make a great deal of effort, when they pray for it, to believe that they shall receive it. Come with me to the morning prayer meeting. A few Christians whose duties of business press upon them during the day, assemble by the gray light of the dawn around the early fire of some Christian neighbor. They read and reflect a moment upon a few verses of the Bible. They sing a hymn, and are just about to kneel before God to unite in prayer for his blessing upon themselves and upon their families and neighbors during the day, when perhaps one of the number addresses the meeting as follows:

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My brethren, we come this morning to ask great blessings, but we must have faith, or we cannot expect that God will hear us. He has promised to hear us, and to give us whatever we ask, believing. Let us believe then firmly and cordially that God will hear us. And let us ask for great blessings. God is ready to give us the greatest, if we only have faith.”

They then unite in prayer, and there kneels with them, in a corner of the room, unnoticed perhaps by all but God, a young disciple who has hesitatingly asked of the master of the house permission to enjoy the privilege of joining that circle of prayer. She understands the exhortation which was given to mean, that she must fully believe that the blessings to be asked will certainly be granted. She tries therefore, as she listens to the words of the prayer, to believe this. Perhaps the first request is that God would pour out his Spirit upon all present, and purify them, and keep them that day devoted to his service and free from all sin. Now she thinks it right to

Prayer for a revival.

Difficulty.

pray for this; she sincerely desires it, but she cannot really believe that it will be fully granted. Then she reproves herself for her unbelief; that is, for the feeling that it is not probable that all present will be perfectly pure and holy during that day. She struggles against this feeling, but she cannot conquer it. Belief rests on evidence, not on determination.

The next petition is for a powerful revival of pure religion in that neighborhood; that, by a divine influence exerted over their hearts, Christians may be led to love their Maker more and to serve him better; and that those who are living in sin may universally be awakened to a conviction of their guilt and danger, and be persuaded to serve Jehovah. Now our young Christian sincerely desires this,—she hopes for it, but she is distressed because she cannot cordially believe that it will certainly come, and she considers this feeling a want of faith. She rises from her posture of devotion anxious and unhappy, because she does not feel absolutely sure that what she has asked is on the whole for the best, and that it will certainly be granted.

Now all her difficulty arises from misunderstanding the nature of the faith which ought to be exercised in prayer. The remarks made meant, or they ought to have meant, that we are to come to God confident that he will do what is on the whole for the best,-not positive that he will do exactly what we ask. God never has given assemblies of Christians authority to mark out a course for him to pursue, in such a sense as that he shall be bound to pursue it. He has promised to give us what we ask; but still the exceptions, universally understood to be implied by this language in other cases, are attached to it in this. We must offer our petitions, trusting in God,-believing, as the Bible expresses it, that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him; but after we have offered our most earnest requests, we must leave

God decides.

The mother.

the matter with him. This is what is mear t by the prayer of faith, so often alluded to by Christian ministers. And this was the kind of faith our Savior required of those who came to him to be healed. "Believest thou," said he, "that I am able to do this?" not that I shall do it. When the apostles and brethren came together to pray for Peter, they were so far from believing that their prayer for his deliverance would be granted, that they were incredulous when they saw him. They trusted in God, and believed that he would do what was right. This confidence in him was the faith they exercised. Believing that ye shall receive them, then, must mean-believing that God is able and willing to grant, except in those few cases where imperious reasons compel him to deny. He sees many material considerations in every case which are entirely beyond our view, and we must leave him to decide.

It is very often said that prayer for spiritual blessings will always be heard and granted. But we can be no more absolutely certain in this case than in others. God does often withhold the influences of his Spirit, as we all know full well. Who of us can tell what are the causes? Look at yonder mother. She has an only son. Her first prayer in regard to him was that God would make him his. She consecrated him to his Maker's service at his earliest breath. She rocked him to sleep in infancy, singing a hymn of acknowledgment that he was the Lord's. As soon as he could understand the lesson, she taught him his duty to his great Creator. She has often knelt with him in prayer, and her whole heart is set upon having her only son devoted to the service of God. But all her efforts are fruitless, and her prayers are not answered. Her son grows up in indifference about God, which perhaps becomes, when he has arrived at maturity, open hostility. How many such mothers there are! She was praying too for spiritual blessings, for the conversion of a son

God decides.

A favorable answer to prayer never certain.

to God, but the sovereign Ruler leaves him, notwithstanding these supplications, to his own chosen way.

Yes God is a Sovereign. He dispenses all his favors as he himself thinks best. He listens to our requests, and takes them into kind consideration, but he reserves to himself the right to make the ultimate decision. Let us come to him then with real sincerity, and with a deep sense of our need of the blessings we ask, but always with this humble feeling, that God sees farther than we, and can judge better,-and that he will himself make the ultimate decision in regard to every thing we ask.

And we must remember that this is just as true with regard to spiritual blessings as to any other. The cause of religion advances in the world in a manner which we cannot predict or account for. I do not pretend to say precisely how far and in what respects this progress depends upon the agency of man, and how far upon power which is in the hands of God. But every one, whatever may be his ideas of the boundlessness of human freedom, acknowledges that a most important agency in determining where the Gospel shall triumph and where it shall fail, and in regulating its progress throughout the earth, rests in the hands of the Supreme. Now what Christian is there who can understand the principles which guide Jehovah in the exercise of the power which he so obviously possesses? How many secretly think that the sudden conversion of a whole city, perhaps, to God would be a glorious achievement of the Redeemer, and fancy that if they had the power over the heart which God possesses, they would produce the effect at once, and exhibit the magnificent spectacle of the undisputed reign of holiness and peace in a community of one hundred thousand. Suppose now every Christian in some great city were to unite in a sincere and heartfelt prayer that God would pour out his Spirit universally among them, and in a single day awaken all the multitudes around them to piety.

Submissive spirit.

Prayers for the young.

It is indeed unquestionably true, that if this united prayer should be offered, and should be accompanied by the efforts which sincerity in the prayer would insure, most uncommon effects would follow. But who believes that the whole city would be converted in a day? No one. Why? Because this is not according to the analogy of God's working in spreading the Gospel. And why does he not work in this way, converting whole communities at once, leading them to him by his own direct agency upon the heart, as he now often leads individuals in silence and solitude? Why does not God work in this manner? Some one may say, because Christians are so cold and negligent in duty. Why then does not the power which raised up Paul, raise up thousands like him now, and enkindling within them the spirit and devotedness of the great apostle, send them forth to bring the world at once to him?-Who can tell?

No we cannot direct. God guides by his own wisdom the chariot of his coming. We can ask, but we cannot dictate. If we attempt to take the reins, he holds them up far above our reach, and the wheels roll on where God points the way.

The experienced Christian who reads these remarks, intended to show that God really controls and directs every thing relating to the progress of piety in the world, will immediately say, "How liable are we to pervert this truth, so as to excuse our own neglect of duty." Yes, it is so. Men are every where so prone to throw off responsibility from themselves, that the minister of the Gospel is often almost afraid to prescribe fully and cordially God's supreme power over the heart, for fear that men will lose their sense of their own accountability. A mother will ask that God will change the hearts of her children, and sometimes wait, as she expresses it, for God's time to come, while she in the meantime does nothing, or at most she goes over the same formal round of duties, without any

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