SERMON IX. ON PRAYER, AND THE PURITY REQUISITE TO 1 TIMOTHY II. 8. I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath or doubting. WHEN We look abroad upon the world, and perceive so much misfortune and misery collecting around us; when we regard the various calamities which have befallen ourselves and our acquaintance, the clouding of prospects once brilliant, the futility of endeavours once promising, and the overthrow of schemes once seemingly infallible, we are apt to allow our confidence in God to be shaken, our hearts to harden into insensibility, and our tongues to arraign the eternal Majesty of heaven for improvidence or tyranny. But when, on cooler reflection, we come to take a nearer survey of the means and motives of human action; when we are brought to inspect more closely the nature of our faded hopes, and the consistency of our thwarted ambi tion; we shall find, that, in most instances, failure has been the result of error, sorrow the concomitant of guilt, and despair the offspring of infidelity. We shall find that our own imprudence has engendered our misfortunes; that we have pursued ends which we could not legitimately attain; have wooed a phantom which we could not expect to win; and have worshipped an idol whose impotence cannot reward the votaries whom his speciousness may allure. We shall find that the power, vulgarly ascribed to chance, has had little to do with our affairs; that want of ability, of application, or of integrity, has naturally been followed by defeat; and even if we are conscious that, humanly speaking, these qualities have not been defective, yet we may have relied too much on our own faculties, and never have solicited the aid of that almighty and all-pervading Power, without whose will "not a sparrow falleth to the ground." The words of my text seem to me to place the duty and the requisites of prayer, in a very clear and conspicuous view. They are words addressed to one of the first Christian bishops, by an apostle whose life and death will be the best commentary on the doctrines he taught; who spoke on all occasions, with the humility becoming a disciple of Christ, and yet with the boldness befitting the authorized instructor of men; who feared no tyranny, and courted no protection; who shrunk from no enterprise, however perilous, which involved the interests of his Church; and whose pen and preaching exhibited the commanding energies of truth and reason, impregnated with the full spirit of divine inspiration. From authority such as this, I need hardly tell you, My Brethren, that there is no appeal. The apostle declares to you the counsel of God: and in commenting upon his declaration, I shall advance nothing speculative or uncertain, but urge you to the performance of a duty, which cannot be neglected without punishment, nor be practsed without reward. For the sake of a perfect and distinct comprehension of this excellent advice, we may divide it thus. I. St. Paul wills" that men pray every where;" II. That they approach the throne of grace, lifting up holy hands;" and III. That they come "without wrath or doubting." I." Men are to pray every where." There is no possible condition of life in which prayer is not a duty of primary importance; there is no situation in which it can be neglected without guilt; no coincidence of fortunate or adverse circumstances, which can abrogate its necessity. If the dreadful threat of the Babylonian monarch could not repress the devotion of Shadrach and his companions; if Daniel, whether incumbered with the cares of empire, or with the den of lions yawning before him, still continued in defiance H of the royal edict, to address the Holy One of Israel, not secretly, but openly, three times a day; if the confiding martyr suffered the most excruciating torments, rather than forego the covenant; shall we, of whom no such sacrifice is demanded; shall we, whom no terrors, save the taunts of the idle and worthless, restrain from doing our duty, basely desert our God and our Redeemer, for the sake of a mean compliance with the contemptible frivolities of an unthinking world? Conscious as we must be, if we have studied either the Scriptures or our own nature, of our inability "to do any good thing," without divine assistance; we must surely feel the necessity of imploring that aid, which has been pro mised to them who humbly and devoutly ask it; of craving admission at that gate which is opened to them that knock, and of seeking that treasure, which, as Job observes, is not contained in the mines of Ophir, or in the pearls of the sea, but which the Gospel, and the Gospel only, will develop to the searcher. Thus are you "to pray every where;" but there is something necessary beyond mere words, II. You must "lift up holy hands.” And here, My Brethren, I must remind you, that God is a Spirit," and requires " to be worshipped in spirit and in truth." Omniscient as well as omnipotent, he searcheth the inmost recesses of the soul, and knoweth all our necessities, before we can draw breath to plead them; prayer, then, is not an interpreter between man and his Maker; but it is the test of allegiance and the proof of submission; God values the obedience, God values the purity of prayer. To the performance of this duty, you must come with holy hands, with holy dispositions, meekly bending the knee, and prostrating the very soul before its almighty benefactor; you should study sincerity of heart, more than gracefulness of gesture, humility in desire, rather than eloquence in its expression. Your heavenly parent has no passions to be spoken to, no wavering judgment to be decided by the pleader; dearer to the ear of mercy is the plaintive voice of the repentant prodigal, than the proudest flights of mortal oratory; before the throne of eternal power, your appeal must arise in the humblest, as well as most impressive, manner; not like the stoic, in the pride of virtue, must the Christian address his God; not like the vain Pharisee, in his presumed perfection; not like the arrogant Calvinist, in his certainty of heaven; but stricken with a deep sense of his own unworthiness, mourning in dust the sins of his fathers and his own iniquities, he should exclaim with the poor publican, "Lord! be merciful to me a sinner!" The constant humbling of yourselves before God, will induce that becoming consciousness of human frailty, which is requisite to the |