ravens when they cry, he will not surely refuse the requests of his people. "I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to him and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles." (Ps. xxxiv. 4—6.) "Let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went." (Gen. xxxv. 3.) Prayer disperses the darkest clouds, rolls away the greatest obstacles, blunts the sharpest pangs, fortifies us against hosts of enemies, and bears us safely amidst storms and billows, rocks and dangers. Should any one ask, whence comes the prevalence of prayer? I shall reply, in the words of an eloquent divine," Prayer procures deliverance from trouble, just as Naaman's dipping himself seven times in Jordan, procured him a deliverance from his leprosy; not by any virtue in itself adequate to so great an effect; but from this, that it was appointed by God, as the condition of his recovery, and so obliged the power of him who appointed it to give force and virtue to his own institution, beyond what the nature of the thing itself could otherwise have raised it to."*

* Dr. South's Sermon on Eccles. v. 2.

III. In seasons of affliction, let us remember the special promises adapted to our circumstances, to animate our prayers.

"We may judge," observes Cyprian, "how ready God is to give us those good things which he himself solicits us to ask of him." "Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." (Ps. 1. 15.) "When the poor and the needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Jacob will not forsake them. I will open rivers in the high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." What an interesting view does this passage give us of the power and goodness of God, displayed in answer to prayer! Is there any thing too hard for the hand of Omnipotence? This engine moves that hand, and draws forth springs in the desert, and pours rivers along the high places. But above all, God has promised to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him. Are you in trouble, in difficulty, in darkness? Oh, how suitable to your case is this divine promise! Be not taken up wholly with petitions for any temporal reliefs or supplies: seek the Spirit of power, of liberty, of light, and grace. If the heavenly Comforter

be given, your losses will turn to gain, your sorrows to joy. Perhaps it was to arouse you into an increasing earnestness for this blessing, that your affliction was sent. "They," says Archbishop Leighton, "who have been used to the greatest heights of daily devotion, yet in surrounding calamities, pray more fervently and more frequently than ordinary; and this is to be numbered among the chief benefits attending afflictions: and it would surely be well worth our while to experience all the hardest pressures of them, if we may gain this: that the languor, and sloth, and stupidity, into which our minds and our souls are ready insensibly to sink, while all is calm and serene about us, may be happily shaken off by something which the world may call an unhappy event-that some more violent gust of wind may fan the sacred flame that seems almost extinguished, and blow it up into greater ardour. It will be happy for us, if, with the Psalmist, we should sometimes sink in deep waters; that so we, who in prosperity do but whisper, or mutter out our prayers, may from the depths cry aloud to him. O how frequently and how ardently did David pray in the deserts, and in the caves, and out of the deep! Our vows are cruel to ourselves, if they demand nothing but gentle zephyrs, and flowery fields, and calm repose, as the lot of our life; for these pleasant things often prove

the most dangerous enemies to our nobler and dearer life. Oh! how true is that saying, that prayer is fervent in straits; but in joyful and prosperous circumstances, if not quite cold and dead, at least lukewarm. Oh! happy straits, if they favour our correspondence with heaven, and quicken our love to celestial objects, without which, what we call life, may more properly deserve the name of death." The promises of God are admirably suited to the Christian, under all the variety of his privations and trials. They supply a prop to his faith when sinking, a rich cordial when he is ready to faint, and a remedy able to heal the wounds inflicted by the old serpent; but none of these advantages can be derived from the promises, without devotion.

2. Let us remember the interpositions of God's Providence in times past, to animate our prayers in the midst of adversity.

It has been already observed, that the special promises of God, designed for seasons of affliction, are wonderfully adapted to call forth prayer; but when they are viewed in close connexion with the dispensations of Providence, ⚫ this effect is still more sensibly and happily produced. Hence we derive a clue to conduct us out of the most intricate labyrinth in which we can be involved; a scale to raise us from the lowest deeps of despondency to which we can be depressed. "Is the Lord's mercy clean

gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? And I said, this is my infirmity:, but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the Lord: surely I will remember thy wonders of old." (Ps. lxxvii. 8-10.) The divine promises, illustrated and verified by the operations of divine Providence, cannot fail to revive the languishing power of devotion. The testimonies of God are thus presented to the mind, not as naked abstract truths, but as palpable, substantial, affecting verities.

Art thou, Christian reader, pressed with urgent wants, and encompassed with real or apprehended perils? Recollect the case of Jacob, leaving his father's house, to sojourn among strangers. At the place, by him called Bethel, he received the promise of God, as the pledge and guarantee of his future safety and supply. But this was not all: the vision which he had, of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending, was a significant symbol, rich in instruction and encouragement. The vision was meant not for him only, but for every true Israelite; and teaches us, that a wise superintending Providence governs all worlds, connects all events, commissions or controls all agents, and makes