side of him does so contradict the other. The old man and the new are so yoked together in his daily working that you will declare he breaks that word of the Lord by Moses: "Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass together." Rem. a. It is a sad reflection that all the grain for Christian cakes must be raised from ground that hath been cursed - Egyptian, Palestinian, or Genessee, it is all of the same field. Rem. B. Our main dependence is on the divine mill, having the upper and nether stones of the law and the gospel, and the leaven of the kingdom. Rem. y. Our main fear should be of the preparing and cooking. For men will tinker the mill, and get substitutes and imitations for the true leaven, and work all kinds of lighter fuel, as well as strange dampers and draughts, on the oven. We have even portable kneading-troughs and ovens, that will do annual and triennial bakings for a people. This will relieve a family or community of daily house-work, but gives them burnt ioaves, and loaves half baked, and, near the close of the period, loaves quite stale "bread dry and mouldy," like that with which Gibeon did impose on Israel. Rem. S. Cakes not turned ilies or on our Round Table. - may they never be found in our fam WE closed our Second Volume in comfort, and promised a third in hope. The times have been against us from the first, but we have steadily and cheerfully gone onward and upward. We are not, however, so far forward as to be beyond the reach and need of any cordial and helping hand. Can the friends of this Review-interest do a better thing incidentally for the church of Christ, than to make some small effort and extend the reading of such a periodical? We are not yet independent of personal burdens, and the expense of this present Number is double the cost of the first, so far as paper is concerned. We hope this fact will reach the eye of the few who are in arrears as to payment. Since we closed the last volume pledges to our subscription-list of more than one hundred, have given us new courage as well as strength. Will not our old subscribers make themselves sociable over the Boston Review by getting a few new ones in their churches and neighborhoods? We have the humble confidence that the Head of the Church has a work for this periodical to do, not only in a pure theology, but in a sanctified literature. We hope to furnish a literary offering safe and instructive, as well as agreeable and entertaining for our Christian families. BOSTON REVIEW. VOL. III. MARCH, 1863.-No. 14. ARTICLE I. THE PRAYER OF FAITH. Of the prayer of faith there are three kinds; the miraculous, of the apostolic age, the submissive, of the common Christian, and the prayer that both expects and insures a specified answer. By a special and delegated authority the apostles, and some of the private Christians of that age, were authorized to ask for and expect a specific answer to some of their prayers. The most of such answers were of a miraculous kind, and implied a special divine interposition. The right to offer such prayers was a prerogative of the apostolic age. The answers were to constitute a part of the evidences of Christianity for that age of spectators, and for all subsequent ages of readers. Such prayer stood inseparably connected with God's policy of proving and establishing the Christian religion as a divine institution. After sufficient evidence of the miraculous and supernatural kind had been accumulated, and by inspired men had been made a part of the permanent record and scripture of the church, God caused the accumulation to cease. As there is a point where cumulative evidence of the same kind ceases to add to its force as a whole, there must be a limit to the useful multiplication of the miraculous evidence of Christianity. The doubling of the number of miracles wrought by Christ, or by his apostles, would not aid in the conviction of a man who is now sceptical in view of those actually wrought. That kind of evidence has already 66 spent its force on him, and no increase of its amount would increase its force. For this reason, among others, we may suppose that God allowed miraculous power to cease with the apostolic age. So those promises that warranted Christians of that age in praying for and expecting miraculous aid, we must regard as confined to that age in their use. Casting out devils, speaking with new tongues, taking up serpents, drinking deadly poisons, healing the sick, and such like miraculous acts, the early disciples, as well as the apostles, were able to perform. The specific promises of Christ warranted them in praying for this specific power with a faith absolutely expecting the power. Verily, verily I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; [the miraculous works] and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." John xiv. 12. "The topic of discourse here," says Olshausen, "is the working of miracles on earth." "Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig-tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done. And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." Matt. xxi. 21, 22. "This promise was evidently a special one, given to them in regard to working miracles. To them it was true. But it is manifest that we have no right to apply this promise to ourselves. It was designed specially for the apostles; nor have we a right to turn it from its original meaning." Barnes, Com. in loco. These passages must serve for a class, and the meaning that we are compelled to give to these must confine the import and application and use of them to the apostles and to the church of the apostolic age. Their scope lies within the area of the supernatural, and the faith they encourage in prayer is the faith of miracles. A second kind of prayer of faith is what we have called the submissive, or the common prayer of the common Christian. By this we mean a prayer, however intense, specific, and persevering, that is poured into the ear of God, and left, in a total and resigned uncertainty as to the notice he may take of it. This is the prayer of faith, in the sense that he offering it has faith in God that he will do only what is best in the answer; either granting the petition wholly, or denying it wholly, or granting it with variations. It is faith or confidence in the wisdom and justice and goodness of God. It is prayer in blank for God to fill out according to his most holy will. We have a perfect illustration of this kind of prayer, both in form and in spirit, in our Saviour's agony in the garden. He had a specific desire, and it was a holy desire, and most fitting to constitute the body of a prayer. It was proper that he should urge it with a most sincere and concentrated and repeating earnestness. Yet, with an overmastering faith in God, he inakes his personal desires and will in the matter cheerfully and totally submissive to the divine will. In this thrice offered prayer, there is in each instance the same contingent veto supplicated on the same intense petition: "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." Here the desire for the object, the faith in God for granting or denying, and the submission in advance to his unknown decision, are equally eminent and holy and worthy of imitation. And these three elements, an absorbing and persevering earnestness, a faith in God's justice and wisdom and love, and a sweet submission to his unknown will, constitute the acceptable prayer of a child of God. A third kind of prayer of faith is the prayer that expects and insures an answer specified and defined in the petition. This is a kind of prayer clearly taught by some, and blindly and painfully labored for by many of their disciples. Few religious and doctrinal errors, as we apprehend, have occasioned more confusion of theological truth, or vain struggle for a supposed eminence in holiness, or despondency under a constant defeat. The piety that is supposed to offer this prayer of faith, has assigned to it a special elevation in the attainment of a Christian life. Hence, to those whose piety is more emotional and ecstatic than it is doctrinal and reflective and uniform, this teaching has a fascination and a temptation. They crave that sublimated and glowing nearness to God, bordering on the perfect state, and they have holy aspirations for a position and power so at one with God that they may properly ask what they will and receive it. And the ill-defined approaches to this elevation and its misty surroundings enhance their desire to reach it. For as we know that clearness in a religious truth or way is a stim ulus to some, so a cloudy overshadowing, and a dim religious light, are a stimulus to others. We begin our examination of this kind of prayer of faith by quoting some definitions or declarations of it by one of its leading teachers. We make our quotations from Mr. Finney, and for the double reason that he has put on record very clear and generally received statements of this peculiar doctrine, and because he has done as much probably as any living author or preacher in spreading the doctrine: "What encouragement have we to pray for anything in particular, if we are to ask for one thing and receive another? Suppose a Christian should pray for a revival here he would be answered by a revival in China. Or he might pray for a revival, and God would send the cholera, or an earthquake. All the history of the church shows that when God answers prayer, he gives his people the very thing for which their prayers are offered. . . . When he answers prayer, it is by doing what they ask him to do." "When a man prays for his children's conversion, is he to believe that either his children will be converted, or somebody's else children, and it is altogether uncertain which? All this is utter nonsense, and highly dishonorable to God. No, we are to believe that we shall receive the very things that we ask for." "I am speaking now of the kind of faith that insures the blessing, . . . the faith which secures the very blessing it seeks." "I will 66 ... ... proceed to show that this kind of faith always obtains the object." . . "Persons who have not known by experience what this is, [the prayer of faith] have great reason to doubt their piety." Such is this modern prayer of faith in its nature and scope, and the last quotation we have made indicates the spirit that sometimes possesses those who believe, and try to practise, such an article of faith. We now proceed to an analysis of the doctrine. There must be a great difficulty in obtaining the evidences on which to found such a faith. According to the premises, the faith must amount to an assurance and certainty of obtaining the very thing prayed for. But faith is a consummation of the highest logic, a culmination of moral certainty from proofs. The faith in question must arise from proofs that God will, beyond all question, confer a specified favor. Where are these proofs to be had? God only can furnish them, and if found |