8. Eighthly, The prayers of the church have a mighty force with God
seal, break his covenant, who never broke his league with any of his people yet?
8. Eighthly, The prayers of the church have a mighty force with God to this end. God is entitled a God hearing prayer; and what prayers should God hear, if not the prayers of his church, which aim at God's glory in their own good? Though the prayers of the church may in some particulars fail, yet in general they do not; because they submit their desires to the will of God, which always works what is best for them.
When God would do any mighty work in the world, he stirs up his people to pray for it; and their prayers by his own appointment have a mighty influence upon the government of the world, for when they come before him in behalf of the church in general, he doth indulge them a greater liberty and boldness, and as it were a kind of authority over him, than upon other occasions of their own: Isa.
45:11, 'Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask of me things to come concerning my sons; and concerning the work of mine hands command you me.' God would be more positively, confidently, and familiarly dealt with about the concerns of his sons, though they were things to come to pass in after ages.
And indeed the prayers of the church have a powerful and invisible efficacy on the great actions and overturnings which are in the world.
The being of the world is maintained by them from sinking; according to the Jews' saying, sine stationibus non subsisteret mundus (standing in prayer was their usual prayer gesture). And that they have actually such a force is evident: Rev. 8:3, 4, an angel hath a golden censer with incense, to offer it with the prayers of the saints upon the altar which was before the throne. And, verse 5, the censer wherein their prayers were offered was filled with the fire of the altar, and cast into the earth; and there were voices, thundering s, lightnings, and earthquakes. When the prayer of the saints were offered to God, and ascended up before him, that is, were very pleasing to him, the issue is, the angel fills the censer with fire of the altar, and thereby causes great commotions and alterations in the
world, signifying that the great changes of the world are an answer unto those prayers which are offered unto God; for fire is taken from that altar upon which they were offered, and flung into the world.
And it must needs be that the prayers of the church should have an influence on the government of the world.
(1.) Because God hath a mighty delight in the prayers of his people.
'The prayer of the upright is his delight;' and he loves to hear the church's voice: Cant. 2:14, 'O my dove, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice' (Chaldee, 'Thy voice is sweet in prayer'). In the times of the gospel, God promises that the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem should be pleasant to him, Mal. 3:4. When Christ shall sit as a refiner, ver. 3, what is the issue of those prayers? ver. 5, 'I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers,' &c. Prayer awakes providence to judge the enemies of the church. A parent delights not in the bare crying, or the voice of his child simply considered in itself, but in the significations and effects of it. He delights in the matter of their prayers, it being so agreeable to his own heart and will, and in the sense they have of the sufferings of the whole body.
(2.) Because prayer is nothing else but a pleading of God's promises.
Unto this they are directed by that Spirit which knows the mind of God, and marshals their petitions according to his will. Now as God turns his own decrees and purposes concerning his church into promises to them, so the church turns those promises into prayers for them; so that promises being for the good of the church, and there being an exact harmony between those promises and the church's prayers, all those providences which are the issue of those promises, and the answer of the church's prayers, must needs be for the church's good.
(3.) Because there are united supplications and pleadings both in heaven and earth. All the hands of the whole family in heaven and earth are concerned in their petitions.
[1.] Christ intercedes for the church, who always desires mercy and deliverance for them in the appointed time: Zech. 1:12; 'How long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem?' and the issue is always gracious; for, ver. 13, God answers him with 'good and comfortable words;' and thereupon carpenters are raised to 'cut off the horns which had scattered Judah,' ver. 20.
[2.] Angels in all probability plead for the church, as we have already heard; it is likely they offer and present that to God which makes for his glory, and that is the good of the church. Angels surely desire that which their head doth, which is described as one of their own order, and called an angel, Zech. 1:12. Do they rejoice at the repentance of a sinner, and do they not likewise triumph at the happiness of the church, which is part of that family they are of? And we know that the greatness of our joy is suited to the mercies of our desires; where our joy is most triumphant, it implies that our desires before were most vehement.
[3.] Glorified saints are not surely behind. The rich man in the parable desired his friends on earth might not come into that place of torment, Luke 16:28. If there be so much charity in hell, can there be less in heaven? If he desired it, that by the presence of his companions in sin, his own torments might not be increased, do not the saints in heaven desire the presence of the whole church, that their happiness in that of the whole body may be completed? If the head Christ be not complete without the body, the members of the body cannot be complete without one another. The souls of them that were slain for the word of God cry under the altar for vengeance on them that dwell on the earth; as Rev. 6:9, 10, 'How long, O Lord holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?' Will not their kindness to their fellowmembers be as strong as their justice, and their love for the good of their friends draw out their prayers as well as their desire of vengeance on their enemies? Why may they not as well pray for us as we praise God for them? Had they not some likeness to their great
Master whilst they were on earth, and shall they not be more like to