II. In a time of adversity or affliction, prayer is our best resource.

1. Prayer has an efficacy, which has been proved in venting our griefs, and lightening our burdens.

Have you a friend, whom you tenderly love, and highly esteem-one who has ever shown a readiness to add to your joys, and take a part in your sorrows? You wish often to be in his company, you value his counsel, you mark every delicate touch, and remember every precious token of his affection, with peculiar interest. But in a state of anxious doubt, or deep distress, how desirable-how inexpressibly important, is such a friend! Oh! to tell your tale of woe to him-how does it ease the anguish of the throbbing heart! What a relief does his sympathy supply! Let this instance furnish a just and appropriate analogy. Do you love, and venerate, and serve God, believing his word, submitting to his will, and seeking his favour, which is better than life? "To love God," says Fenelon, "is to desire to converse with him, to wish to go to him, to sigh and languish after him. That is but a feigned love which does not desire to see the beloved." But at no time will the solicitude to approach God be so great, or the benefit of communion with him be so sensibly felt, as in the day of affliction and

the hour of temptation. He is our best Friend, always near, full of compassion, wonderful in counsel, and mighty in power. Witness the experience of the devout Hannah. She went up to the sanctuary, filled with vexation and bitterness; and addressing Eli the priest, who had mistaken her case, she said, "I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit, and have poured out my soul before the Lord. Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial; for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief, have I spoken hitherto." (1 Sam. i. 15.) Having thus vented the swelling tides of inward anguish, she returned to her family with a changed and cheerful countenance, and her spirit was no more sad. Witness also the experience of Hezekiah. This good king was smitten with affliction, brought down to the gates of death: mourning like a crane, or a swallow, or solitary deserted dove, he wept and prayed, and in a remarkable manner was answered, and restored to life, and health, and joy. "O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live. Behold, for peace I had great bitterness; but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back." (Isa. xxxviii. 16, 17.) Urgent trials should awaken fervent prayers. No creature can in

some cases, and few will in any case, lessen the pressure under which we groan. But who shall limit the Holy One of Israel? And let us remember, it is written,

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Cast thy burden

upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee."

2. Prayer has an efficacy to stay the fluctuating mind, and staunch the bleeding heart.

"His hand, the good man fastens in the skies,
And bids earth roll, nor feels the idle whirl."

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By the exercise of devotion, we fly to the Rock of ages, the God who is a refuge and a very present help in time of trouble, and feel a security which cannot be shaken. Hear me speedily, O Lord; my spirit faileth; hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit. Cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee. Deliver me, O Lord, from my enemies; I flee unto thee to hide me." (Ps. cxliii. 7, 8.) One who could exercise such a spirit of prayer as this passage breathes, might have inveterate foes, but then had he an Almighty Friend, and an impregnable retreat; and if at any time he received the poisoned shafts of malice, his helper and healer was at hand. When the prophet Jeremiah was filled

H

with affliction and misery, which he emphatically calls the wormwood and the gall; he found every avenue of comfort closed, every medium of communication shut, except a passage to a throne of grace. Yet having no other resources than prayer and patience, how did his fears sink, and his spirits rise! How did his grateful feelings and recollections work their way through the dense mass of trouble, which encompassed and oppressed him! How did his thoughts expand, and his anticipations brighten, while looking up to heaven! "It is of the Lord's

mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." Lamen. iii. 22-26.

3. Prayer has an efficacy to procure suitable supplies, and seasonable deliverances.

I am far from agreeing with those writers, who represent the use of devotion as confined to the serious, tranquil, and amiable dispositions, which it tends to produce and promote. Mr. West, in his Treatise on Prayer,' Dr. Leechman, and some other authors, have given this limited and defective view of the subject.

Prayer," says Dr. Leechman, "only works its effects upon us, as it contributes to change the temper of our minds, to beget or improve right dispositions in them; to lay them open to the impression of spiritual objects, and thus qualifies us for receiving the favour and approbation of our Maker." If indeed prayer merely produced such effects, it would be a matter of great importance; but I am persuaded we may go further. With the Apostles, as Dr. Chalmers very justly has observed, it was an affair of asking and receiving. If this scriptural view of it be once abandoned, and we descend from the high ground occupied by martyrs and confessors, to the low ground assumed by some philosophic devotees, I cannot but fear prayer will soon lose, in a great measure, even its moral influence. At the same time it must be granted, that some writers on the opposite side have pushed the point too far, and used very unwarrantable language. When Bishop Taylor says, "Christ hath put it into the hands of men to rescind or alter all the decrees of God, which are of one kind, by the power of prayers," every serious mind must revolt from the idea. As God hears the young

"Rule and Exercises of Holy Living," by Jeremy Taylor, D.D.