The Communicant's Companion (continued)
Two things we should be humbly earnest with God in prayer for, after this solemnity, and we are furnished from the mouth of holy David with very emphatical and expressive petitions for them both. We may therefore take with us these words in addressing God:—
1. We must pray that God will fulfil to us those promises which he was graciously pleased to seal to us in this ordinance. David prayed for this: "Now, Lord, let the thing that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant, and concerning his house, be established for ever, and do as thou hast said."
God's promises in the word are designed to be our pleas in prayer; and we receive the grace of God in them in vain, if we do not make that use of them, and sue out the benefits conveyed and secured by them. These are talents to be traded with, and improved as the guide of our desires, and the ground of our faith in prayer, and we must not hide them in a napkin.
Having here taken hold of the covenant, thus we must take hold on God for covenant mercies. "Lord, remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope." Thou hast not only given me the word to hope in, but the heart to hope in it. It is a hope of thy own raising, and thou wilt not destroy, by a disappointment, the work of thy own hands.
Come, therefore, O my soul, come order thy cause before him, and fill thy mouth with arguments. Lord, is not this the word which thou hast spoken, "Sin shall not have dominion over you, the God of peace shall tread Satan under your feet: There shall no temptation take you, but such as is common to men, and the faithful God will never suffer you to be tempted above what you are able?" Lord, be it unto thy servant according to these words. Is not this the word which thou hast spoken, "That all things shall work for good to them that love thee; that thou wilt be to them a God all-sufficient, their shield, and their exceeding great reward; that thou wilt give them grace and