It may be remarked further, that prayer is not only sincere desire, it is not only believing expectation, it is not only an offering presented under spiritual influence; but it must be according to the revealed will of God. It is possible that we may ask for things which God has never promised-that in the error which frequently mixes itself with just views of truth, we may ask for things which he has distinctly forbidden. It is necessary, therefore, not to trust to our own feelings, however fervent they may be-not to trust to our own affections, however strong these may be; but to come at once to the word of God, and to ask what those things are which God has made important, which he has promised to give, which he has commanded us to request, and which he has pledged his inviolable veracity shall be enjoyed, wherever they are prayed for according to his word. We have the word of God in this instance, as in many others, to check all the extravagancies of our imperfect nature: we have the word of God to direct all the doubts and difficulties of our still beclouded minds. We have the word of God to cheer us onward in the path, which it has beaten out for us toward the throne of God. When we are in the exercise of prayer, and looking to the word of truth as the great basis on which we ground all our requests, our desires grow in strength, our belief becomes positive confidence, our requests increase in urgency, the spirit of adoption grows into a holy tenderness, we offer up our supplications with a greater confidence that God will return an answer of peace, while we are thus walking onward bythe still waters which the word of truth has spread out, at once for our guidance, our strength, and our refreshment, in the wilderness through which we have to pass. If then, my friends, we regard prayer in the light in which we have just placed it, we may, perhaps, now be prepared to consider, in the second place, THE DUTY OF PRAYER FOR MINISTERS, to which we have already directed your attention. In considering this part of the subject before us, it is not, my friends, my wish to direct you especially to myself; I consider myself, notwithstanding the novelty of the circumstances in which we are now placed, as unworthy of being associated with the lofty demand on you which I am making, any farther than as I am connected with my brethren in this holy work, to whom many, perhaps all of you, are in the habit of occasionally listening. object of introducing it is to create a spirit of supplication among the people, who are looking for the instruction which the word of truth ministers through the service of the sanctuary. The In the first place, then, I would say that Prayer for Ministers connects devotion with public instruction. There is, perhaps, no danger to which the hearer of the gospel is more fearfully exposed, than the danger of attending as an unsanctified critic on the ministrations of the truth. There is something in this which calls forth, it is true, all the acumen of the intellectual powers; there is something that brings the taste, that brings the wit of the individual, into an exercise by which both are materially strengthened; but, being strengthened alone, are strengthened only as the enemies of his edification and his spiritual improvement. When the understanding is expanded and conscious of the expansion-when it feels that this expanded condition fits it for receiving, more largely, discoveries which are perhaps stated generally-when it knows its pinions are strengthening, that it can spread its wings with growing confidence, that it can soar to a loftier elevation without the fear of being sunk by the effortwhen it knows that it can maintain this elevation-when it feels that it can examine the peculiar character of this individual, and of that, who may be ministering in the things of Godwhen it knows it can take a range and a review through all the objects that the servants of God can bring before its attention-there is something in all this that very naturally tends to an alienation from the spiritual and sanctifying power of the truth as it is in Christ. In this case, as in the case of ordinances, the brilliancy of discovery, the consistency of argument, the beauty of oratorial representation, all flash on the mind, and gain possession of it; or if these are wanting, or if these are supposed to be distorted, or misplaced, or exhibited in such a point of light as meets affection which will furnish an element in which they may grow, and in which the preacher may increase his strength. Associating devotional feeling, coming at once, not only before the preacher, but before the preacher's God, and looking from the pulpit beneath to the throne above, and linking the expressions of truth, however feeble those may be, with the great energies of that God, who is able to give to that truth all the realities of the wisdom and the power of heaven; there is a solemnity which will be found pervading the whole of the inner man, that will leave no power unoccupied, and that will give to every faculty of reason, every faculty of intellect, every power that can exercise moral feeling, an interest in the grand theme by which Christ is celebrated as the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. But, again, prayer for ministers will not only be found to connect devotion with public instruction, but it will be found also to associate ministerial success with its true cause. Very frequently, my friends, the success of the minister is ascribed to causes very foreign from those, which should at once arrest the attention of the man of God. The talents of the man, perhaps, and they may consist in wisdom adorned with eloquence, or something substantial in reason set forth with all that is attractive in language-the ta not the taste of the individual in question, there is a recoil from the whole object thus set before him, and truth is lost in the midst of a fancied or real deficiency in the mode of representing it. Under these circumstances, then, it is the duty of those who regard their own edification, and the improvement of those who minister among them, to rise above these views and these feelings; and in connecting prayer with the ministrations of the sanctuary, they are necessarily associating devotion with the instruction which they are endeavouring to receive. They are then not calling forth one of those powers only, nor one department of their mental constitution; they are bringing the whole range of the human faculties to bear upon their case. They are inviting the affections-they are enlisting the feelings-they are summoning all the sentiments and all the sympathies of their nature, to the work of God, and to the work of edification as well as instruction. They are uniting, with an intellectual perception, the ardour of constraining love. They are combining with the exercise of a sound and cultivated judgment, the exercise of an ardent zeal and a growing animation of mind. They are uniting with all they see in the preacher, all they see in the God who is above him. They are associating in the testimony that he imperfectly announces, all the record of which that testimony is a part. They are look-lents of the man are very frequently ing to the representation he opens, and to the Redeemer, who has shed over it a glory which no preacher, and which no talents, can ever give to it, which it can never rival, much less exceed. They are not looking through some fallacious medium for some concomitant of the gospel; but they are looking through the imperfect man, who is offering himself to their attentions as the minister of God-they are looking through him to a splendour, to a glory, to a spiritual beauty, to a hallowed colouring in the gospel itself, as it shines in the face of Jesus, which gives to his ministrations all their power, and effect, and influence; and however imperfect those ministrations be, they have associated their affections with the grand and splendid object which he has before him and thus they kindle and interchange a mutual looked to as the grand source of ministerial success. By his talents, it is true, he may have succeeded; but still his success in the occupation of these instruments, may be a success of a very doubtful character, unless we consider his labours in connection with the God of truth. He may have succeeded in kindling sympathies in his favour-he may have succeeded in raising feelings of attachment to himself-he may have succeeded in destroying external waywardness and profligacy-he may have succeeded in beating down the hardihood of infidelity-he may have succeeded in throwing a garniture around Christianity that may have commended it to the taste, instead of the consciences of men and yet the whole of this success may rest merely in the effect that he has produced on their minds by this secondary instrumentality, | glory increasing and decreasing. while the great and primary instrumentality of God has never gone forth to the people. Now, my friends, if we are found praying for our ministers we will not associate their success with themselves; but this very exercise will lead us to associate that success with its true and proper cause-God himself. We will not rise from the throne of grace, and admire the talents of the man for whom we have been praying as a humble dependant on a God whose glory we have been commanded to behold. We will not come from communion with the great head of the church, through the avenue he has opened to all his people-the avenue of prayer-in order to lift above the glory of his cross the man who should only stand to point to the place where his honor dwelleth. We will not look to the operation of secondary causes, when we have, with believing | ardour and holy desire, been supplicating the throne of grace for the operation of the power of the great First Cause. We have just left the footstool of Heaven, and have come into the sanctuary with the impression which our enjoyments there may have kindled; and we are not likely under those impressions, whatever may be the success of the instrument in the hands of God, we are not likely with those impressions, either to attach an undue regard to the success itself, or to ascribe it to a cause inferior to that, the interference of which we have been so ardently seeking. We are relieved altogether from the man, when we come to seek his success from God, except so far as we may connect his instrumentality with the blessing for which we have been praying. But, further, prayer for ministers will not only be found to connect devotion with public instruction, will not only be found to associate ministerial success with its true and proper cause; but it will be found also to create a right state of mind in connexion with ministerial failure. In all the ages of the church, my friends, there have been, as was the case in the days of John the Baptist, when contrasted with the Redeemer, there have been the instruments for diffusing God's He must increase, but I must decrease," is language which must be employed by every minister of Christ at some period of his earthly ministration. The sun may rise-recent events have taught you that its glory may also go down, nay, that it must set, and set for ever. Either, then, in the decline of human powers, or in the mysterious change in the direction of God's own administration, or in the hand of the King of terrors, every minister must cry out, "I must decrease." my Under these circumstances, friends, what is the duty, and what the interest of the people of God? If they have been in the habit of looking to the instrument only, and are passing by the Great and Supreme Cause, the moment the ministerial powers begin to droop, that ministerial energies begin to show an approaching feebleness, that ministerial influence appears to contract its limits, that public support withdraws any of its patronage, there will be a feeling of despondency, there will be an immediate creation of doubt; and that very instrument that was once regarded as the signal for success, and the rallying post of triumph, then becomes the spring of declining feelings, and desponding cares. Let, however, the habit of prayer for ministers be created among the people, and we do not find any tendency to this state of mind. We sought the success of the instrument that has laboured among us, (will then be their feeling) and we have long enjoyed that success; and if he who putteth down kings and setteth up kings, and who putteth down ministers and setteth up ministers, having, in his all-wise arrangements, raised a cloud in the midst of our hitherto unclouded sky, our prayers are recorded above, our memorial is with the God that presides over what appears to us to be a brooding storm: and now that failure has taken the place of triumph, we shall betake us to our wonted refuge; our energies shall grow in prayer, as our prospects blacken in the vista which seems to lower before us; until that same God, who had before opened heaven's window, and sent us a blessing which we could not contain, shall again lift the light of his countenance; and until those who are walking in darkness and have no light, again behold the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings. The spirit of prayer, thus created on behalf of ministers, will be found to associate itself with your most forbidding circumstances; and your direst moments of any rising doubt will be found to be subdued, while devotion gives strength to its wings, and soars higher in its flight, and leaves the fervour of the footstool to burn like a seraph in prayer before God. be followed by an abundant harvest. We wish to see the character of personal and congregational devotion thus standing forth, embodied in the constant feeling and habitual exercise. of the community; and then we can stand on this element, without a bulwark, without a defence, for over all the glory a defence will be created by God himself. My friends, we consider this holy exercise to be of the very highest importance in connection with any religious belief; and most readily would we set it down to the want of a praying disposition on the part of a church and congregation, if we find its candlestick about to be removed, or if we find its light glittering, without giving any distinct and perceptive radiancy of the glorious gospel of an ever-blessed God. We do not think that mere circumstances should be regarded as the great anchor of success, or as a strong hold in the day of disappointment. We wish to see an element formed, an element in which the church may have its being, and in which it may move and live-an element which will characterize its every day doings-an element that will come down on its ordinary feelings, and ordinary operations, and that will cast them all in the mould of prayer; and when we find these elements distinctly marked, and strongly operative, we have no hesitation then in saying, that while God is a God whose ear is ever open to the righteous, and whose eye is ever watchful of their circumstances-we have no hesitation in saying, that while this is the standing characteristic of the great Jehovah, that prayer shall not be in vain, and that element must tell to the diffusion of the truth as it is in Christ, among all the members of his church; we wish to see such an element not like some passing cloud which an electric shock may throw into a blaze, and which, perhaps, in a few moments, may dissolve itself into an almost useless, if not an injurious shower-but we wish to see a cloud rise like the cloud of the prophet, as the hand of a man, and we wish to see its steady growth till it covers the whole face of the heavens, which must But, in the last place, let me now direct your attention to a few remarks on THE INFLUENCE OF A PRAYING PEOPLE ON THE STATE OF THE Church, AND THe world. In the first place, a praying people must exercise an important influence on the state of the church, and the world, because its exercise must increase and maintain their love to God. When there is any object which commands our admiration, and which possesses qualities fitted to secure our affection and esteem, the more we dwell on its excellence, the more distinctly it is recollected by us, the stronger the impression it produces on our minds; and the more habitually it is presented to our feelings, the more are we attached to the object itself. Now, when we apply this to God, (and the exercise of prayer must be regarded as a constant application to him,) it is the meditation of the soul directed to God in expectation and desire, it is the meditation of the soul carried by the wings of hope into the presence of that God who is the object of its confidence; and while we regard prayer in this point of light, and connect the exercise always with the recollection that God is immediately present, and with devout contemplation of the illustrious character we are addressing, we must grow in our attachment to him. Were we thus to dwell on the excellency of any creature in this our fallen world, we should discover defects in the midst of the worth which we at first, descried; and perhaps constant fellowship with that creature would cool down, instead of increasing our regard, and would shake instead of confirming our belief. When we come to God, however, we have a sun on whose disk there is no spot, we have a heaven which has no cloud, a moral excellence that has no defect, beauty in his attributes that shine with no dubious or equivocal lustre. The more intimately we are acquainted with him the more are we disposed, not only to admire, but to love and adore. When we are, therefore, engaged in presenting prayer before God on behalf of his ministers, connecting their success with the diffusion of his truth, we are cultivating that holy feeling which is described by the Apostle himself as "the constraining love of Christ," and which bore him in his ministrations until he felt that he was always led to triumph in his name. Now, wherever prayer is thus connected with the ministration of the word of truth, that the gospel may have free course and be glorified, this feeling of love to God must necessarily be increased; and hence a sure basis is laid for acting both on the church, and the world, for the edification of the one, and for the conversion of the other. But there is not only, my friends, a love to God created by the habit of prayer for ministers in connection with the diffusion of the gospel of Christ, there is also a love created to the souls of men. It was the obvious design of heaven that when man was first formed he should be a creature of society. All the faculties and functions of his mind prove this-all his wants prove this every thing connected with his circumstances in the world continue to establish this to demonstration; and as it was necessary that man should be associated with man, and as he has faculties by which feeling may be blended with feeling, and sympathy may kindle sympathy, the more we are engaged in prayer the more are we coming up to this original design of the Creator of man, the more are we identifying ourselves with his own And when counsel concerning us. we are thus engaged in prayer for the diffusion of truth, we are always associating, with that diffusion, the interests of the souls that are to be edified, and that are to be saved. We are bringing the world in our arms, as it were, to the throne of God; we are bringing the world, and the church, in our affections to the throne of God; we are presenting both with a professed ardour of attachment to their souls, which compels us to come and present that ardour in holy supplications before the throne of God; and while we are doing this, our ardour will grow 73 and increase as the increase of God. But further, prayer for Ministers, But, again, there is not only connected with the influence of the people of God, and the state of the church and the world, when they are found engaged in the habit of prayer, love both to God and man, and the exercise of holy zeal to give character and spring to that love; but there will be found practical activity arising from this habit of devotion. Love, my friends, |