Chapter IX
Considerations to quiet the heart, and to help it to discern an answer to, and
acceptation of, the prayer when the thing is not accomplished.
II. BUT now the next and more difficult question is, when the thing is not
granted, how shall we then discern and know that God doth notwithstand
ing hear the prayer 1
Concerning which I must premise this, that it is true that always the very thing itself desired is not granted, when yet the prayer is heard. Christ
prayed the cup might pass from him, which though some interpret the word
passing for the short continuance of the brunt, and that therefore in that
respect he was heard directly in what he asked ; yet if so, why was that
clause, if it be possible, added ? That argues his petition was for a total
removal, yet with subjection to God s will, for he knew there was no great impossibility in a short removal of it ; nay, it was impossible but that it should pass, Acts ii. 24. But, howsoever, it is plain in Moses, about his-
going into Canaan, Deut. iii. 26 : I besought the Lord, says he, ver. 23, and he was angry with me, and would not hear me, ver. 26. Likewise, ere I come to resolve the case, an objection is also to be removed ; which is
Obj. That if the Spirit of God doth make every faithful prayer in us,
as, Rom. viii. 26, it is said he doth, We know not what to pray for, but the
c searcheth the deep things of God, as it is said, 1 Cor. ii. 10, that therefore he knowing that God will not grant such a thing, you may think that he should not stir up the heart to pray for that which God means to deny, but always guide the heart aright, and not let us err or miss in the things we pray for. To this, in brief, by way of answer : Ans. 1. The Spirit makes not prayers in us always according to what God s secret will and foreknowledge is, but according to his revealed will to
Spirit helpeth our infirmities, &c. ; and he
us, both in his word and in his providence, as things therein are presented to us, and do lie before our view, and so not always according to what he means to do, but according to what it is our duty to pray most for. For he concurs to assist us to pray, as he doth in preaching or using other such like means and ordinances,, wherein though the Spirit know whom God means to
convert, whom not, yet he assists us ministers in our spirits oftentimes as much to preach to those he means not to convert, as to those he means to
convert ; he dealing with us therein according to what is our duty, not ac
cording to what is his decree.
Ans. 2. Again, secondly, that phrase helps to answer this, when he i&
said to help our infirmities ; and therefore not according to his own vast
knowledge doth he frame our prayers, but so as he applies his assistance to our infirm, weak, and narrow apprehensions, and stirs up desires in us to such things as according to our knowledge we are in duty to conceive, and which by all we can see, by what is before us revealed in his providence, we
394 THE RETURN OF PEAYEES. [CHAP. IX.
think to be most for our good and his glory ; and God accepts such desires as from us, but yet doth for us according to the largeness of his own love.
And so now to come to the case propounded, and therein unto helps to
pacify and direct the heart about those prayers at which the tilings are not
granted.
1. And, first, how didst thou frame thy prayer for that thing which is denied thee ? Didst thou pray for it absolutely and peremptorily, as simply best for thee ? Thou must not then think much if such a prayer be denied, for therein thou weritest beyond thy commission. But if thou didst pray for
it conditionally, and with an if, as Christ did, if it be possible, (which instance is a strong ground for such kind of prayers,) and
( not my will, but thy will be done, so as thou didst refer it unto, and trust God s judgment in the thing, and not thine own, only didst put him in mind, as thy duty was, of what was represented to thee as best for thee in view, and so left it to him to cast, and didst refer it to his will and wisdom ; then thy prayer may be most fully answered and heard, and yet the thing denied, and thou art to interpret and take God s meaning and mind revealed in the event in the best sense, which way soever it falls ; for otherwise Christ had not been
heard, when yet the text says he was heard in all he feared, Heb. v. 7.
2. Observe if there were not a reservation in that denial, for some greater and further mercy, whereof that denial was the foundation. Thus
(1.) Oftentimes some great cross is prevented by the denial of a thing which we were urgent for. If we had had many of our desires, we had been undone. So it was a mercy to David that his child was taken away, for whose life he was yet so earnest, who would have been but a living monument of his shame. It was also a mercy to David that Absalom was taken away, whom surely he prayed much for, for he loved him much, who, if he had
lived, might have been the ruin of him and his house. As a wicked man s deliverance and the granting his request lays a foundation, and is a reserva tion of him to a worse judgment ; so the denial of a godly man s prayer is for his greater good, and is laid as a foundation of a greater mercy. And
again
(2.) Oftentimes the very denial breaks a man s heart, and brings him nearer to God, puts him upon searching into his ways and estate, and in his prayers to see what should be amiss therein ; which alone is a great mercy, and better than the thing, seeing by the loss of that one thing he learns how to pray better, and so to obtain a hundred better things afterward. Christ desired the cup might pass ; it did not, and that was the foundation of our salvation, and the way to his glory, he being to pass through that suffering into his
glory. The woman that had the bloody issue, though she used many means, and haply prayers among the rest, and all in vain, yet none took effect j that in the end she might come to Christ, and have both body and soul healed at once.
3. Observe if there be not a transmutation and a translation or turning of the thing desired into some other greater blessing of the same kind ; for God, all whose ways are mercy and truth to his people, doth improve, hus-
band, and lay out the precious stocks of their prayers to the best advantage, in things whereby the greatest returns and gains may accrue. As old Jacob
laid not his hands of blessing as Joseph would have guided them, but laid the right hand upon the younger son, whom Joseph did set at his left ; so often doth God take off his hand of blessing from the thing we prayed for, and lays and discovers it in another more for our good. And as God giving Isaac the power and privilege to bless a son, though Isaac intended it for
CHAP. IX.] THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. 395
Esau, yet God unbeknown to him transmitted it to Jacob, yet so as the
blessing was not lost. Thus is it in our prayers for blessings both upon our selves and others. There is often a transmutation, never a frustration of them ; which may as truly and directly be called an answer to the prayer, as
if a factor beyond sea, when the owner sends for such and such commodities, supposing them more vendible and advantageous, but the factor knowing the state of things and the prices, sends him over, instead of them, such as shall
sell better and bring in more profit, may be said to answer his letters, and that better than if he had sent those very commodities he writ for. Thus Abraham s
prayers for Ishmael were turned for Isaac ; David s for the child to Solomon.
4. Observe if in the end God doth not answer thee still according to the ground of thy prayer ; that is, see if that holy end, intention, and affection which thou hadst in prayer be not in the end fully satisfied, though not in the thing thou didst desire ; for God answers secundum cardinem, according to the hinge which the prayer turns upon. As when a general is sent out with an army by a king or a state, who give him many particular directions how to order and dispose and manage the war, although in many particulars that fall out, wherein they could not foresee to give so punctual and particular
directions, he swerves from the directions, yet if he keeps to the intent of their commission, and doth what is most advantageous for their ends, he may be said to keep to his commission. For as they say of the law, mens legis est lex, the mind of the law is the law, not the bare words it is printed in, so the meaning of the Spirit is the prayer, Kom. viii. 27, and not simply the
things desired, wherein we express those our desires. And still the meaning, the intent, the ground of our prayers shall be answered.
To open this : the main ends and meanings of our hearts in our requests are God s glory, the church s good, and our own particular comfort and hap
piness. We can desire but comfort ; and a man looketh out and spieth out such a particular mercy, which he thinketh tends much to God s glory and
his happiness, and yet that thing is denied ; yet notwithstanding God will answer him according to the meaning of his prayers
: his glory shall certainly be advanced, even for that prayer of his, some other way, and his comfort made up, which is the common desire of all mankind. And thou canst have but comfort, let the thing be what it will that conveys it to thee. And God
will take order that that comfort thy soul desired thou shalt have come in one way or other, which, when it doth, thou canst not but say thy prayers are heard. For as God fulfils his promises, so he hears prayers ; there is the same reason of both. Now God hath promised,
( He that leaves father and mother shall have a hundred-fold. Not in specie, as we say
: in kind this cannot always be fulfilled, for a hundred fathers he cannot have. God
fulfils it not therefore always in the same kind, but in some other things, which shall be more than a hundred fathers would be.
Moses prays he might go into Canaan : God answers the ground of his
prayer, though not in the matter in it expressed and desired, and that both
for Moses s comfort and his own glory ; for he takes him up into heaven, the
true Canaan, whereof that Canaan was but a type ; and he appoints Joshua, a fresh and a young man,* coming on in the world, and one whom Moses
* It is by a very common inadvertence supposed that Joshua was a young man when he was appointed to succeed Moses as leader of the hosts of Israel. Yet he was general of the army in fighting against Amalek, nearly forty years before this. At that time he could scarcely be under thirty-five years of age, and by many he is supposed to have been fifty-three at the Exodus. At the time of his appointment, then, he must have been at the least seventy-five, and may have been ninety-three. ED.
396 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. [CHAP. IX.
himself had tutored and brought up, and was his pupil, servant, and attend
ant, Num. xi. 28. And this was more for God s glory, for Joshua was therein
to be the type of Christ leading us to heaven, which the law, of which Moses was the type, could not bring us unto, by reason of the weakness of it ; and he being young did it better ; and it was not so much also for God s glory that one man should do all and whereas Moses desired to have the honour
of it, in that his servant that attended him, and had been brought up by him, and had all from him, that he was the man should do it, was well-nigh as great an honour to Moses as if he had been the leader himself. And so
David, when he desired to build the temple and a house to God, for the like
reasons God denied it, but yet honoured him to prepare the materials, and
to draw the pattern, as also in that his son did it, who was therein also the
like type of Christ, being a prince of peace, but David a man of blood and war ; and likewise God accepted this of David, as if he had built it, and will
recompense him as much.
o. Observe if in the thing which thou hast prayed much about, though
it be denied thee, yet if God doth not endeavour to give thee (as I may so
speak) all satisfaction that may be, even as if he were tender of denying thee, and therefore doth much in it for thy prayers sake, though the conclusion,
proves otherwise, as being against some other purpose of his for some other
ends : as when he denied Moses to go into the land of Canaan, he did it with much respect (as I may so speak with reverence) to Moses. He yielded as far as might be, for he let Mm lead them till he should come to the very borders ; and he let him see that good land, carrying him up to a hill, and, as it is thought, by a miracle enabled his sight to view the whole land. And
the man he chose to perform this work was his servant, which was a great honour to Moses, that one brought up by him should succeed him. So when Abraham prayed for Ishmael, let Ishmael live in thy sight
! Gen. xvii. 1 8, God went as far in granting his request as might be ; for, says he, ver. 20, I have heard thee ; and I have blessed him, and I will make him fruitful, and multiply him exceedingly, and he shall beget twelve princes
: but my covenant I will establish with Isaac. So likewise, when in casting that
thing thou didst seek at his hands, he shews an extraordinary hand in turn
ing it, it is a sign he had a respect to thee, that he would vouchsafe to dis
cover his hand so much in it. Let the thing fall which way it will, if God s hand appear much in it, thou mayest comfortably conclude that there is some
great thing in it, and that prayer wrought that miracle in it to dispose it so ; and that there is some great reason why he denies thee, and a great respect had to thy prayers, in that he is pleased to discover so extraordinary a pro vidence about it.
6. Lastly, look into the effect of that denial upon thine own heart ; as
(1.) If thy heart be enlarged to acknowledge God to be holy and righteous in his dealings with thee, and thine own unworthiness the cause of his denying
thee. Thus we often find the saints expressing themselves in their prayers. That Ps. xxii., though typically made of Christ, yet as it was penned by
David, and as it may concern his person, it may serve for an instance for
this : I cry in the daytime, but thou nearest not ; this might have made him
jealous of God, but says he, Thou art holy, &c., and dealest now with me
in a holy manner, and art just in it. Others have called on thee, and have
been heard, though I now for my unworthiness am denied ; but I am a worm. It might have put a man off when he should think others are heard, but not I ; but it puts not him off, but humbles him : I am a worm, &c
f> and Thou art holy.
CHAP. IX.] THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. 397
(2.) If God fill thy heart with a holy contentment in the denial ; if he speak to thy heart, as he did to Moses when he denied him, Deut. iii. 28, * Let it suffice thee ; if as to St Paul, when he was so earnest about remov
ing that buffeting, if thou gettest but such an answer as that to him, My grace is sufficient/ or that some such like consideration is dropped in that
stays thee. It was the effect of David s seven days fasting that he did so
contentedly bear the loss of the child, which his servants thought would have overwhelmed him, 2 Sam. xii. 19-21. But a consideration was dropped in, which was the fruit of his prayer, that he should go to him, not he return hither ; and his mind was comforted thereby, insomuch, as it is said, ver.
24, that he comforted Bathsheba also.
(3.) If thou canst be thankful to God out of faith, that God hath cast and ordered all for the best, though he hath denied thee; and although thou seest no reason but that the tiling prayed for would have been for the
best, yet art thankful upon the denial of it, out of faith resting in God s judgment in it, as David in all those forementioned places was : Thou art
iioly that inhabitest the praises of Israel; he praises God for all this. David, before he did eat, after his seven days fasting for the child, arose, and went first into the temple, and worshipped, 2 Sam. xii. 20 ; and of what kind of worship it was appears by his anointing himself and changing his
raiment, which was in token of rejoicing and thanksgiving; and it fell out to him according to his faith, for presently after Solomon was begotten, ver. 24.
(4.) If thou canst pray still, and givest not over, although thou standest
for mercies which thou missest ; if when thou hast mercies granted thou
fearest most, and when denied lovest most, and art not discouraged, thy prayers are heard. Ps. Ixxx. 4, though God seemed angry with their
prayers, yet they pray, and expostulate with him, and give not over, for they made that psalm as a prayer,
l And how long wilt thou be angry against the
prayer of thy people 1 So, Ps. xliv. 1 7, Though we are cast among dra
gons, yet we have not been false in thy covenant. So say thou, I will pray
still, though I never have an answer in this life. It moves ingenuous natures
to see men take repulses and denials well, which proud persons will not do : and so it moves God.
398 THE RETURN OF PEAYEI:>. [CHAP. X.