thing experimentally of this wrestling with God. We admit that it is a highly figurative expression, but if there be meaning in language, it cannot represent the poor, cold, formal services which we too often misname prayer. In the wrestler, every limb, every muscle, every faculty is engaged, and his grasp once taken, he never relaxes his hold, until he has gained the object for which he is struggling. Is there any thing in your holiest efforts at the throne of grace at all resembling this? Yet this is prayer! That earnest application to the Father of our spirits which engages every feeling and affection of the heart, every thought and faculty of the mind, which, if we may so express ourselves, teaches us to cling around the mercyseat, and never to relax our hold and rise from our knees without the blessing. Pray thus perseveringly, and you will pray effectually; "when thou shalt call," as the prophet has declared, “the Lord shall answer thee; when thou shalt cry, he shall say, Here I am." Thus like Jacob shall you have power with God and shall prevail. Whatever discouragements you may meet with in coming to a throne of grace, be not deterred, remember that on the very spot where God had lamed Jacob, there, even there, he blessed him. Be assured that

your greater discouragements are only preludes to greater blessings, that your ever gracious Intercessor is at the present moment as tender, as willing to hear the cry of his children, as in the days of his flesh; that now, as then, he cannot close his ears or his heart to persevering prayer; continue, therefore, to intreat him, pray without ceasing, and you will, in his own good time, assuredly receive the wished-for answer, "Great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt."

LECTURE V.

GENESIS XXXIII. 4.

"And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept."

OUR last discourse brought us to that period in the history of Jacob, in which, after having seen him making every preparation that prudence could dictate against the hostile approach of his brother, we beheld him committing himself in humble, fervent prayer to the God of his salvation, spreading before the Lord the anxieties and apprehensions which filled his bosom, and engaged throughout the live long night, in "weeping and making supplication" until he "had power with God and prevailed." We are to commence our present observations by endeavouring to trace the effect of this prayer, and to behold the manner in which, in answer to Jacob's petitions, the Almighty averted the threatened calamity. Before we enter upon this investigation, we cannot refrain from endeavouring to strengthen those observations upon prayer which

formed a prominent feature of our last discourse, by remarking how powerful an inducement is of fered to the prayers of the Christian by the consideration, that the Word of God furnishes us with so many instances of answers to the petitions of his people.*

God would have acted with equal justice, and man would have been equally without excuse, had the Bible not recorded a single answer to prayer; had the Almighty contented himself with commanding us to pray, and promising to hear us without revealing to us any particular instances in which the command had been obeyed and the promise fulfilled. What additional obligations then do the injunctions to prayer possess, since our heavenly Father has in mercy permitted them to be accompanied by so many astonishing instances of accomplishment. Peculiar, indeed, must be the situation of that Christian who cannot look into the pages of God's word, and find some instances in which his own particular necessity, be it what it may, has been experienced by the saints of old, and been made the subjects of their petitions, and been re

*For a connected view of the answers to prayer, contained in the Scriptures, see a very interesting little work denominated "The Achievements of Prayer."

moved or alleviated in answer to their prayers. My brethren, if you would really allow these instances their due weight in your minds, prayer would acquire an importance and a value of which you have, perhaps, at present but little conception. There is nothing in the Bible to lead you to imagine that God attended more earnestly to the prayers of the patriarchs, or answered them more readily, than he now answers your own ;-every thing to assure you that "whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive." Whence comes it, then, that, to so many amongst us, prayer appears comparatively to have lost its value? Whence is it that compared with these men of old, this heartfelt intercourse with our Creator and Redeemer occupies so small a portion of our lives? Is it that we have less sorrow, less necessity, less sin than they had? Is it not rather that we have less faith? We do not believe that God really hears the prayers and answers the petitions of all who faithfully seek him, and therefore we have no heart for prayer. My brethren, I would appeal to your own consciences whether there be not too much of truth in this. You perhaps consider prayer as a duty, and would not, from feelings of obedience towards God, upon any consideration, absolutely