02.04. Chapter 4 - Verse 03
James 4:3. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. In this verse he anticipateth and preventeth an objection. They might say, We do ask, and go to God (suppose) by daily prayers. The apostle answereth, You ask indeed; but because of your vicious intention you cannot complain of not being hear; would you make God a servant to your lusts? For to convince them, he showeth what was the aim of their prayers—the conveniences of a fleshly life: ‘Ye ask, that ye may consume it upon your lusts or pleasures,’ ταῖς ἡδοναῖς.
There are several points notable in this verse; they may be reduced to these three —
1. That we pray amiss when our ends and aims are not right in prayer.
2. That our ends and aims are wrong when we ask blessings for the use and encouragement of our lusts.
3. That prayers so framed are usually successless; we miss when we ask amiss.
Obs. 1. I begin with the first. That we pray amiss when our ends and aims are not right in prayer. The end is a main circumstance in every action, the purest offspring of the soul. Practices and affections may be overruled; this is the genuine, immediate birth and issue of the human spirit. We may instance in all sorts of actions; we know the quality of them, not by the matter, but the end. In indifferent things the property of the action is altered by a wrong end. To eat out of necessity is a duty we owe to nature; to eat out of wantonness is an effect of lust. So in all things instituted and commanded, the end determineth the action. Jehu’s slaying of Ahab’s children was not obedience, but murder, because done for his own ends. God required it, 2 Kings 10:30; and yet God saith, Hosea 1:4, ‘I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu.’ God required it as a righteous satisfaction to justice. Jehu spilt it out of ambition; therefore so many persons slain, so many murders. So in these actions of worship, they are good or bad as their end is. Speaking to God may be prayer, if it come from zeal; it may be howling, if it come from lust, Hosea 7:14; then it is but a brutish cry, as beasts out of the rage of appetite howl for the prey, or things they stand in need of. For worship must never have an end beneath itself. We act preposterously, and not according to reason, when the means are more noble than the end. When we make self the end of prayer, it is not worship of God, but self-seeking. All our actions are to have a reference and ordination to God, much more the acts that are proper to the spiritual life; it is called a ‘living to God,’ Galatians 2:19. That is the main difference between the carnal life and the spiritual; the one is a living to ourselves, the other is a living to God. Now especially acts of worship are to be unto God and for God, for there the soul setteth itself to glorify him; and the addresses being directly to him, must not be prostituted to a common use. Well, then, consider your ends in prayer, not the manner only, not the object only, but the end. It is not enough to look to the vehemency of the affections; many make that all their work, to raise themselves into some quickness and smartness of spirit, but do not consider their aim. It is true, it is good to come with full sails; ‘fervent prayer’ is like an arrow drawn with full strength, but yet it must be godly prayer. A carnal spring may send forth high tides of affection; the motions of lust are usually very earnest and rapid. It is not enough to look to the fluency and serviceableness of invention; carnal affections and imagination joined together may engage the wit, and set it a-work; invention followeth affection. It is not enough to make God the object of the prayer, but the end also. Duty is expressed sometimes by ‘serving God,’ at other times by ‘seeking God;’ serving noteth the object, seeking noteth the end; in serving we must seek, &c.
Obs. 2. The next point is, that our ends and aims are wrong in prayer when we ask blessings for the use and encouragement of our lusts. Men sin with reference to the aim of prayer several ways: (1.) When the end is grossly carnal and sinful. Some seek God for their sins, and would engage the divine blessing upon a revengeful and carnal enterprise; as the thief kindled his torch that he might steal by at the lamps of the altar. Solomon saith, Proverbs 21:27, the wicked offereth sacrifice ‘with an evil mind.’ Foolish creatures vainly imagine to entice heaven to their lure. Balaam buildeth altars out of a hope that God would curse his own people; and wicked men hope by fasts and prayers to draw God into their quarrel; others seek a blessing upon their theft and unjust practices. The whore had her vows and peace-offerings for the prosperity of her unclean trade, Proverbs 7:14. This was a thing which heathens condemned. Juvenal laughed at it in one of his satires. Plato forbiddeth it in his Alcibiades. Pliny detesteth it as a stupid impudence, to profane the religion of the temples by making it conscious to unclean requests. These impious stories of prayers commended to the Virgin Mary for a blessing upon thefts and adulteries, which yet they say were granted because of the devoutness of the supplicants in the psalter and rosary, are worthy all Christians’ abomination.1 (2.) When men privily seek to gratify their lusts, men look upon God tanquam aliquem magnum, as some great power that must serve their carnal turns; as he came to Christ, Luke 12:13, ‘Master, speak to my brother to divide the inheritance.’ We would have somewhat from God to give to lust; health and long life, that we may live pleasantly; wealth, that we may ‘fare deliciously every day;’ estates, that we raise up our name and family; victory and success, to excuse ourselves from glorifying God by suffering, or to wreak our malice upon the enemies; church deliverances, out of a spirit of wrath and revenge. As they were ready to ‘call for fire from heaven,’ not knowing of what spirit they were, Luke 9:55. So some pray for the assistance and quickenings of the Spirit to set off their own praise and glory, and pervert the most holy things to common uses and secular advantages. Simon Magus would have gifts that he might be τις μέγας, a man of great repute in his place, Acts 8:9. The divine grace, by a vile submission and diversion, is forced to serve our vainglory. (3.) When we pray for blessings with a selfish aim, and not with serious and actual designs of God’s glory, as when a man prayeth for spiritual blessings with a mere respect to his own ease and comfort, as for pardon, heaven, grace, faith, repentance, only that he may escape wrath. This is but a carnal respect to our own good and welfare. God would have us mind our own comfort, but not only. God’s glory is the pure spiritual aim. Then we seek these things with the same mind that God offereth them: Ephesians 1:6, ‘He hath accepted us in the beloved, to the praise of his glorious grace.’ Your desires in asking are never regular but when they suit with God’s ends in giving. God’s glory is a better thing, and beyond our welfare and salvation. So in temporal cases. When men desire outward provisions merely that they may live the more comfortably, not serve God the more cheerfully. Agur measureth the conveniency and inconveniency of his outward estate, as it would more or less fit him for the service of God: Proverbs 30:8-9, ‘Not poverty, lest I deny thee; not riches, lest I forget thee.’ So in public cases of church deliverance, when we do not seek our own safety and welfare so much as God’s glory: Psalms 115:1, ‘Not to us, not to us,’ &c.; that is, not for our merits, not for our revenge, our safety, but that mercy and truth may shine forth.2 1 See Dr Kinet’s Apology for the Virgin Mary, lib. 2. cap. 15, et alibi passim.
2 ‘Effice quicquid novisti nomini tuo honorificum.’—Junius in locum. But you will say, May we not seek our own good and benefit?
I answer—Not ultimately, not absolutely, but only with submission to God’s will, and subordination to God’s glory. The main end why we desire to be saved, to be sanctified, to be delivered out of any danger, must be that God may be honoured in these experiences, in comparison of which our own glory and welfare should be nothing: ‘Not to us, not to us,’ &c. But you will say, How shall we know that God’s glory is the utmost aim? A deluded heart will pretend much.
I answer—You may discern it: (1.) By the work of your own thoughts. The end is first in intention and last in execution, therefore the heart worketh upon it. Now, what runneth often in the thoughts? When you pray against enemies, do you please yourself with suppositions and surmises of revenge, or hopes of the vindication of God’s name? So in prayers for strength and quickening, do not you entertain your spirit with whispers of vanity, dreams of applause, and the echoes and returns of your own praise? or enchant your minds with the sweet music of public acclamations? By these inward and secret thoughts the soul falleth out after carnal success and advantage. (2.) By the manner of praying absolutely for God’s glory, but in all other things with a sweet submission to God’s will: John 12:27-28, ‘Save me from this hour; for this cause came I to this hour. Father, glorify thy name.’ Christ is absolute in that request, and so receiveth an answer. It is enough to a gracious heart if God will glorify his own name. But now carnal aims make the spirit impetuous and impatient of check and denial. They are all for being saved from this hour. Rachel must have children or die. When the heart is set upon earthly success, or pleasure, or comfort, they cannot brook a denial. (3.) By the disposition of your hearts. When prayers are accomplished, when we do not ask for God’s glory, we abuse mercies to revenge, luxury, excess. Lust is an earnest craver, but when it receiveth any comfort it consumeth it in ease and pleasure. We deceive ourselves with notions. The time of having mercies is the time of trial. But how shall I do to get my ends right in prayer?
It is a necessary question; nothing maketh a man see the necessity of the divine help and concurrence to the word of prayer so much as this. To act for a holy end requireth the presence of the Spirit of grace; supernatural acts need supernatural strength. It is true in these inward productions ‘that which is of the flesh is flesh;’ water cannot rise higher than its fountain; bare nature aimeth at its own welfare, ease, and preservation; therefore go to God; beg uprightness it is his gift as well as other graces. The help that we have from the Spirit is to make requests κατὰ Θέον, ‘according to the will of God;’ or, as it is in the original, ‘according to God,’ Romans 8:27; that is, to put up godly requests for God’s sake. Besides, there should be much mortification; that which lieth uppermost will be soonest expressed: ‘Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.’ God’s people are ready in holy requests, because their hearts are exercised in them: Psalms 45:1, ‘My heart inditeth a good matter,’ &c. Worldly cares, worldly sorrows, worldly desires, must have vent. Vessels give a sound according to the metal they are made of. Hypocrites will howl for carnal comforts. Beat away these carnal reflections when they rush into your minds: Abraham drove the fowls away, Genesis 15:1-21. When you feel the heart running out by a perverse aim, disclaim it the more solemnly: ‘Not to us, not to us,’ &c.
Obs. 3. That prayers framed out of a carnal intention are usually successless. Prayers that want a good aim do also want a good issue. God’s glory is the end of prayer and the beginning of hope, otherwise we can look for nothing. God never undertook to satisfy fleshly desires. He will own no other voice in prayer but that of his own Spirit: Romans 8:27, ‘He that searcheth the heart knoweth the mind of the Spirit.’ What is a fleshly groan? and what is a spiritual groan? A carnal aim expressed is but a supplication with a confutation; it is the next way to be denied. Spiritual sighs and breathings are sooner heard than carnal roarings: they that cannot ask a mercy well, seldom use it well: in the enjoyment there is more temptation. Usually our hearts are more devout when we want a blessing than when we enjoy it; and therefore when our prayers are not directed to the glory of God, there is little hope that when we receive the talent we shall employ it to the Master’s use. Besides all this, prayers made with a base aim put a great affront and dishonour upon God; you would make him a servant to his enemy: Isaiah 43:24, ‘Ye made me to serve with your iniquities.’ We would commit sin, and we would have God to bless us in it. It is much you should be servants of sin, but that you should make God administrum peccati, a fellow-servant, and yoke him with yourselves in the same servility, it is not to be endured. Well, then, it teacheth us what to do when our prayers are not granted; let us not charge God foolishly, but examine ourselves: Were not our requests carnal? suppose you prayed for quickening, and God left you to your own deadness, did not your heart fancy your own praise? If for safety, you would live in ease, in pleasure; if for an estate, you were pleasing yourself in the suppositions of greatness and esteem in the world. O brethren! as we mind success, let us not come to God with an evil mind; holy desires have a sure answer, Psalms 145:19, and Psalms 10:17.