25. V. Prayer is confident
In speaking of Christ Jesus our Lord, Paul says, "In whom we have boldness and access with confidence
THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL by the faith of him;" "Jesus, our High Priest, has entered within the Vail, and having reconciled us to God, we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus;" "Seeing, then, that we have a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an High Priest which can not be touched with the feelings of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." It is easy to know the knock of a beggar at one's door. Low, timid, hesitating, it seems to say, I have no claim on the kindness of this house; I may be told I come too often; I may be treated as a troublesome and unworthy mendicant; the door may be flung in my face by some surly servant. How different, on his return from school, the loud knocking, the bounding step, the joyous rush of the child into his father's presence, and, as he climbs his knee, and flings his arms round his neck, the bold face and ready tongue with which he reminds his father of some promised favor? Now, why are God's people bold? Glory to God in the highest! To a Father in God, to an elder brother in Christ, Faith conducts our steps in prayer; therefore, in an hour of need, Faith, bold of spirit, raises her suppliant hands, and cries up to God, "Oh that thou wouldst rend the heavens, and come down." I think that I see the sneer curling on the skeptic's lip as he says, How absurd! What presumption! as if it were not below the dignity of Divinity to come at king's or peasant's, prince's or pauper's call. Should the lofty purposes of the Eternal be shaped by your petitions? Creature of a day and of the dust!
what are you, that the universe should be steered— its helm moved this or that way for your sake? Well, no doubt the language is bold; yet with God a Father, our Father, my Father in Christ, I feel I can be bold and confident in prayer. I know a father's heart.
Have I not seen the quiver of a father's lip, the tear start into his eye, and felt his heart in the grasp of his hand, when I expressed some good hope of a fallen child? Have I not seen a mother, when her infant was tottering in the path of mettled coursers, with foam spotting their necks, and fire flying from their feet, dash like a hawk across the path, and pluck him from instant death? Have I not seen a mother, who sat at the coffin-head, pale, dumb, tearless, rigid, terrible in grief, spring from her chair, seize the coffin which we were carrying away, and, with shrieks fit to pierce a heart of stone, struggle to retain her dead?
If we, that are but worms of the earth, will peril life for our children, and, when they are moldered into dust, can not think of our dead, nor visit their cold and lonesome grave, but our breasts are wrung, and our wounds bleed forth afresh, can we adequately conceive or measure, far less exaggerate—even with our fancy at its highest strain, the paternal love of
God? Talk not of what you suppose to be the dignity of Divinity. Talk not of the calm, lofty, dignified demeanor which becomes a king, who sees his child borne off on the stream that sweeps his palace wall.
The king is at once sunk in the father. Divesting himself of his trappings—casting away scepter, robe of gold, and jeweled crown, he at once rushes forth to leap into the boiling flood. Lives there a father with heart so dead that he would not, at the sight of a child fallen overboard, and struggling with death, back every sail, and, whatever might be the mission on which his ship was bound, or whatever the risk he ran, would not put up her helm, and, pale with dread, steer for the waves were his boy was sinking?
Child of God! pray on. God's people are more dear to him than our children can be to us. He regards them with more complacency than all the shining orbs of that starry firmament. They were bought at a price higher than would purchase the dead matter of ten thousand worlds. He cares more for his humblest, weakest child, than for all the crowned heads and great ones of earth, and takes a deeper interest in the daily fortunes of a pious cottage than in the fall and rise of kingdoms. Child of God! pray on. By prayer thy hand can touch the stars, thy arm stretch up to heaven. Nor let thy holy boldness be dashed by the thought that prayer has no power to bend these skies, and bring down thy God. When I pull on the rope which fastens my frail and little boat to a distant and mighty ship, if my strength cannot draw its vast bulk to me, I draw myself to it—to ride in safety under the protection of its guns; to enjoy in want the fullness of its stores. And it equally serves my purpose, and supplies my needs, that prayer, although it were powerless to move God to me, moves me to God. If He does not descend to earth, I—as it were—ascend to heaven. Child of God! pray on. Were it indispensable for thy safety that God should rend these heavens, it should be done—a wondering world should see it done. I dare believe that; and "I am not mad, most noble Festus." Have not these heavens been already rent? Eighteen hundred years ago, robed in humanity, God himself came down. These blue skies, where larks sing and eagles sail, were cleft with the wings and filled with the songs of his angel train. Among the ancient orbs of that very firmament, a stranger star appeared, traveling the heavens, and blazing on the banner borne before the King, as he descended on this dark and distant world. On Canaan's dewy ground—the lowly bed he had left—the eye of morning shone on the shape and form of the Son of God, and dusty roads, and winter snows, and desert sands, and the shores and very waves of Galilee, were impressed with the footprints of the Creator. By this manger, where the babe lies cradled—beside this cross, upon whose ignominious arms the glory of the universe is hung—by this silent sepulcher, where, wrapped in bloody shroud, the body is stretched out on its bed of spices, while Roman sentinels walk their moonlit round, and Death—a bound captive—sits within, so soon as the sleeper wakes, to be disarmed, uncrowned, and in himself have death put to death—faith can believe all that God has revealed, and hope for all that God has promised. She reads on that manger, on that cross, deeply lettered on that rocky sepulcher, these glorious words—"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" And there, lifting an eagle eye to heaven, she rises to the boldest flights, and soars aloft on the broad wings of prayer— Faith, bold faith, the promise sees,
And trusts to that alone,
Laughs at impossibilities,
And says, it shall be done.