202

Prayer without express Promise lawful.

Ch. xlviii. 4.

BOOK V. tain, it would follow that their prayer being without certainty of the event, was also made unto God without faith, and consequently that God abhorred it. Which to think of so many prayers of saints as we find have failed in particular requests, how absurd were it! His faithful people have this comfort, that whatsoever they rightly ask, the same no doubt but they shall receive, so far as may stand with the glory of God, and their own everlasting good, unto either of which two it is no virtuous man's purpose to seek or desire to obtain any thing prejudicial, and therefore that clause which our Lord and Saviour in the prayer of his agony did express, we in petitions of like nature do always imply, "Pater, si possibile est, If it may stand "with thy will and pleasure." Or if not, but that there be secret impediments and causes in regard whereof the thing we pray for is denied us, yet the prayer itself which we make is a pleasing sacrifice to God, who both accepteth and rewardeth it some other way. So that sinners in very truth are denied when they 16 seem to prevail in their supplications, because it is not for their sakes or to their good that their suits take place; the faithful contrariwise, because it is for their good oftentimes that their petitions do not take place, prevail even then when they most 17 seem denied. "Our Lord God in "anger hath granted some impatient men's requests 18, as on "the other side the Apostle's suit he hath of favour and mercy "not granted," saith St. Augustine.

[4] To think we may pray unto God for nothing but what he hath promised in Holy Scripture we shall obtain, is perhaps an error. For of prayer there are two uses. It serveth as a mean to procure those things which God hath promised to grant when we ask; and it serveth as a mean to express our lawful desires also towards that, which whether we shall have or no we know not till we see the event. Things in themselves unholy or unseemly we may not ask; we may whatsoever being not forbidden either nature or grace shall reasonably move us to wish as importing the good of men, albeit God himself have nowhere by promise assured us of that particular which our prayer craveth. To

Our Saviour prayed without Promise.

203

Ch. xlviil,

5.6.

pray for that which is in itself and of its own nature apparently BOOK V. a thing impossible, were not convenient. Wherefore though men do without offence wish daily that the affairs which with evil success are past might have fallen out much better, yet to pray that they may have been any other than they are, this being a manifest impossibility in itself, the rules of religion do not permit. Whereas contrariwise when things of their own nature contingent and mutable are by the secret determination of God appointed one way, though we the other way make our prayers, and consequently ask those things of God which are by this supposition impossible, we notwithstanding do not hereby in prayer transgress our lawful bounds,

[5.] That Christ, as the only begotten Son of God, having no superior, and therefore owing honour unto none, neither standing in any need, should either give thanks, or make petition unto God, were most absurd. As man what could beseem him better, whether we respect his affection to Godward, or his own necessity, or his charity and love towards men? Some things he knew should come to pass and notwithstanding prayed for them, because he also knew that the necessary means to effect them were his prayers. As in the Psalm it is said, "Ask of me and I will give thee the heathen "for thine inheritance and the ends of the earth for thy 66 possession 19" Wherefore that which here God promiseth his Son, the same in the seventeenth of John 20 he prayeth for: "Father, the hour is now come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee according as thou hast given " him power over all flesh.”

But had Christ the like promise concerning the effect of every particular for which he prayed? That which was not effected could not be promised. And we know in what sort he prayed for removal of that bitter cup, which cup he tasted, notwithstanding his prayer21.

[6.] To shift off this example 22 they answer first 23, "That

204 Prayer, the event being doubtful, allowed by the Puritans.

BOOK V. "as other children of God, so Christ had a promise of Ch. xlviii. *• « deliverance as far as the glory of God in the accomplishment

"of his vocation would suffer."

And if we ourselves have not also in that sort the promise of God to be evermore delivered from all adversity, what meaneth the sacred Scripture to speak in so large terms, "Be obedient, and the Lord thy God will make thee plen"teous in every work of thy hand, in the fruit of thy body, "and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of the land "for thy wealth 24," Again, "Keep his laws, and thou shalt "be blest above all people, the Lord shall take from thee all “infirmities 25." "The man whose delight is in the Law "of God, whatsoever he doeth it shall prosper 26 ̧” "For the

66

ungodly there are great plagues remaining; but whosoever "putteth his trust in the Lord mercy embraceth him on every "side 27" Not only that mercy which keepeth from being overlaid or oppressed 28, but mercy which saveth from being touched with grievous miscries, mercy which turneth away the course of" the great water-floods," and permitteth them not to "come near 29."

[7] Nevertheless, because the prayer of Christ did concern but one calamity, they are still bold to deny the lawfulness of our prayer for deliverance out of all, yea though we pray with the same exception that he did, "If such "deliverance may stand with the pleasure of Almighty God "and not otherwise." For they have secondly found out a rule 30 that prayer ought only to be made for deliverance "from this or that particular adversity, whereof we know not "but upon the event what the pleasure of God is." Which

Christ in his Agony prayed not ignorantly.

205

Ch. xlviii. 8.

quite overthroweth that other principle wherein they require BOOK V. unto every prayer which is of faith an assurance to obtain the thing we pray for. At the first to pray against all adversity was unlawful, because we cannot assure ourselves that this will be granted. Now we have license to pray against any particular adversity, and the reason given because we know not but upon the event what God will do. If we know not what God will do, it followeth that for any assurance we have he may do otherwise than we pray, and we may faithfully pray for that which we cannot assuredly presume that God will grant.

[8.] Seeing therefore neither of these two answers will serve the turn, they have31 a third, which is, that to pray in such sort is but idly mispent labour, because God already hath revealed his will touching this request, and we know that the suit is denied before we make it. Which neither is true, and if it were, was Christ ignorant what God had determined touching those things which himself should suffer? To say 32, "He knew not what weight of sufferances his heavenly "Father had measured unto him," is somewhat hard; harder that although " he knew them" notwithstanding for the present time they were "forgotten through the force of those "unspeakable pangs which he then was in." The one against the plain express words of the holy Evangelist," he knew "all things that should come upon him 33;" the other less credible if any thing may be of less credit than what the Scripture itself gainsayeth. Doth any of them which wrote his sufferings make report that memory failed him? Is there in his words and speeches any sign of defect that way? Did not himself declare before whatsoever was to happen in the

206

Two Wills in Jesus Christ-Distraction

BOOK V. course of that whole tragedy? Can we gather by any thing Ch. xlviii. 9. after taken from his own mouth either in the place of public

judgment or upon the altar of the cross, that through the bruising of his body some part of the treasures of his soul were scattered and slipped from him? If that which was perfect both before and after did fail at this only middle instant, there must appear some manifest cause how it came to pass. True it is that the pangs of his heaviness and grief were unspeakable: and as true that because the minds of the afflicted do never think they have fully conceived the weight or measure of their own woe, they use their affection as a whetstone both to wit and memory, these as nurses to feed grief, so that the weaker his conceit had been touching that which he was to suffer, the more it must needs in that hour have helped to the mitigation of his anguish. But his anguish we see was then at the very highest whereunto it could possibly rise; which argueth his deep apprehension even to the last drop of the gall which that cup contained, and of every circumstance wherein there was any force to augment heaviness, but above all things the resolute determination of God and his own unchangeable purpose, which he at that time could not forget.

[9] To what intent then was his prayer, which plainly testifieth so great willingness to avoid death? Will, whether it be in God or man, belongeth to the essence and nature of both. The Nature therefore of God being one, there are not in God divers wills although Godhead be in divers persons, because the power of willing is a natural not a personal propriety. Contrariwise, the Person of our Saviour Christ being but one there are in him two wills, because two natures, the nature of God and the nature of man, which both do imply this faculty and power. So that in Christ there is a divine and there is an human will, otherwise he were not both God and man. Hereupon the Church hath of old condemned Monothelites as heretics, for holding that Christ had but one will. The works and operations of our Saviour's human will were all subject to the will of God, and framed according to his law, "I desired to do thy will O God, and "thy law is within mine heart 34"

34 Psalm xl. 8.

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