PRAYER IN AFFLICTION.

If pain afflict, or wrongs oppress,
If cares distract, or fears dismay,
If guilt deject, if sin distress,

The remedy's before thee,-pray.

Trials make the promise sweet,
Trials give new life to prayer,

Trials bring me to his feet,

Lay me low, and keep me there.

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IN THE DAY OF MY TROUBLE, I WILL CALL UPON THEE.'
PSALM LXXXVI., VII.

Of all the duties and privileges of the christian life, prayer is unquestionably the most important. It is the very soul of all true religion, and the channel through which God usually confers the blessings of his grace. It is God's appointed method of access to himself, in the neglect of which we infallibly exclude ourselves from all gracious intercourse, and every promise of favour. No blessing of salvation is promised but in answer to sincere, fervent, and believing supplication. No man, therefore, can be a partaker of saving grace that lives without prayer. It is, in all cases, an assured fact, that a prayerless person is destitute of religion. Nothing can supply the absence of prayer. If this be wanting, the evils of our fallen nature remain in all their virulence, and threaten

us with all their consequences. Other means may instruct the mind, and impress the conscience; but prayer brings us to God, and from him alone deliverance comes. There is no duty more strongly recommended to us in the word of God, or in which Christ is placed before us more prominently as our example. It is not less a privilege, however, than a duty ; and he who, either in prosperity or adversity, makes it his daily practice to go to a throne of grace, and "in every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, makes his requests known unto God," will, from his own experience, bear testimony to the truth of his promise, "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds by Christ Jesus." By prayer we are admitted into the presence of the King of kings; we hold communion with the Sovereign of the universe; we are permitted to enjoy confidential intercourse with Him, before the blaze of whose uncreated glory, not merely the throned monarchs of earth, but even the throned principalities of heaven, are but as the particles of shining dust that glitter in the sunbeam. We gain access to the treasury of divine grace, and a liberty to take freely, to take as much as we will, of every thing that is essential to our peace, and holiness, and safety. We are admitted to speak to the Eternal God as a father; to tell him all we fear, all we desire, all we want; to pour out all our complaints before him; to plead our cause before him; to fill our mouths with arguments; to lay hold of him, and not to let him go until he bless us.

"A soul in commerce with her God is heaven.

Prayer ardent opens heaven, lets down a stream
Of glory on the consecrated hour

Of man in audience with the deity.

Who worships the great God, that instant joins
The first in heaven, and sets his foot on hell."

But while prayer is a duty incumbent at all seasons, and a privilege which the highest prosperity affords no reason for neglecting, it is, in many respects, peculiarly seasonable in the time of affliction. It is therefore recommended by infinite wisdom and goodness. "Is any afflicted? let him pray." Whatever may be cause of our distress, prayer is our duty, and our appointed relief. This is the universal remedy which our divine physician hath prescribed for all our evils, and which in every case is able to give ease and comfort to the distressed soul.

Reader, are you in bodily sickness? Call upon God; beg of him to support you under your pain, and to give you patience, resignation, and submission to his will It is lawful too, that you should ask for the removal of your affliction, so long as you refer the time and the manner, with devout submission, to God. But, above all, ask for a sanctified use of your affliction; that the sickness of the body may be promotive of the health of the soul; that you may be awakened to a more deep and effectual sense of the importance of eternal things; of your state as a sinner, and of Christ as the only but all-sufficient Saviour; that your affliction may become a mean, through the divine blessing, of producing a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness, and of causing you to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord. Or, if your sickness should be unto death, then pray for a readiness for that awful event, nor cease to urge your suit until, in the fulness of a sanctified spirit, you can say, 66 come, Lord Jesus, come

quickly."

Are you afflicted with the loss of relatives and friends? Call upon God. Let not sorrow prey upon our heart in gloomy sadness, or vent itself in rebellious murmurings; but act like the disciples of John, who, when their master was taken from them by a violent death, buried the body, and "went and told Jesus." Ask for the submission of the

venerable Eli, "it is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good." Ask for the patient resignation of Job, "shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?" Ask for the confidence of David, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return unto me:' 66 Although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure. This is all my salvation and all my desire."

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Are you afflicted in your temporal circumstances,-struggling with poverty,-reduced from a state of competence, and deprived in a great measure of the means of providing for the support of your family? Call upon God. "The world is his, and the fulness thereof." Whatever he sees requisite for your real good he can bestow, and, if you are a christian, he will bestow. Spread all your troubles and distresses before him; he can afford relief and support when all other resources fail, and he never said to any, "seek ye me in vain." If your heart is conscious that hitherto you have been a stranger to religion, beg of God to over-rule your poverty as the happy mean of making you spiritually rich; and your scanty fare as the mean of giving you a relish for the bread that endureth to life everlasting. Or, if you are a christian, seek of God increasing contentment and resignation to your lot, whatever it may be, and faith to realize that blessed state to which you are tending, where poverty and distress shall exist no more. Does your distress arise from a spiritual apprehension of guilt and danger? Painful as this you, it furnishes a subject for congratulation; for the soul that has never known spiritual trouble, has never known aright spiritual joy; the soul that has never been wounded with a sense of sin, has never been healed by the blood of Jesus; and the soul that has never trembled for its safety is indeed in a state of the most awful danger. The deep anxiety which you feel, and which prompts the earnest enquiry, "what must I do to be

may

be to

saved?" proves that you are in the way of mercy. You are especially invited to cast your burden upon the Lord. There is forgiveness with him. Read your bible, and you will find that throughout it invites you to turn unto the Lord, and even puts words into your mouth; " 'say unto him, take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously; so will we render the calves of our lips." Come, therefore, and plead with God; plead as a child with a father; plead as one who has a friendly hearing promised, nay secured; and thus make known, without reserve, your every thought. Pour out your heart; persevere in supplication; "God is a refuge for us."

Are you afflicted by the infirmities and grievances of old age? Call upon God. Say with David, "cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth. O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: now also when I am old and grey-headed, O God, forsake me not." In short, whatever evil it may be that oppresseth your soul, let your resource be a throne of grace.

The design of affliction is to call forth the exercise of prayer. The heart of man is naturally estranged from God. While he remains in this state, the thought of God is unwelcome to him; it exists in his mind as a stranger in a foreign land; its connexion with the general mass of thought is slight and unmarked by sympathy, or affection, or influence. So far from seeking after intercourse with his Maker, the sinner's chief concern is to do without God, willing to forego all the comforts and hopes which he sees some derive from the remembrance of him, if thus he may but avoid the checks and the unpleasantness which, to him at least, it brings; hence his aversion to the exercise of prayer. With the idea of God, however, there is always associated in his mind, that of almighty power, and of an ability to control all events. When, therefore, calamity beats down his loftiness, and impresses upon his mind a deep sense of helplessness, when he is brought