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SERMON XVIII.

A PATTERN OF PRAYER.

PSALM lxxxvi, 1-5.

Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me : for I am poor and needy. Preserve my soul; for I am holy: O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee. Be merciful unto me, O Lord for I cry unto thee daily. Rejoice the soul of thy servant : for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.

"WHEN ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the

heathen do." But earnest reiteration is not vain repetition. The one is born of doubt; the other of faith. The prayer that springs from a deep felt need, and will not cease till that need is supplied, may say the same things over a hundred times and yet they shall not be vain. Rather, as the same blood is repeatedly driven through the veins by the contraction and dilating of the heart, so all true prayer will flow forth over and over again, as the spirit opens in yearning, and closes itself in calm fruition on the grace it has received, and then dilates again in longing and sense of need. So the Master, who warned us against the paganism of empty repetitions,

enjoined upon us the importunity which prevails; and of Himself it is written, "And he left them and went away again the third time, saying the same words."

This faithful and prevailing reiteration remarkably characterizes the striking series of supplications in these verses. Substantially they are all one; but the varying phases of the one wish show how familiar it was in all its aspects to his mind; and the accumulation of them is the token of his earnest longing and profound sense of need. Like the great ancestor of his nation, he wrestles with God and prevails.

The whole Psalm is apparently of late date, and abounds with quotations from earlier songs-especially David's. In all probability, then, we have here a devout man in later ages, breathing out his cries to God, and using, as we do, consecrated words of earlier Scripture, which he freely reproduces and blends with his own petitions. That is no sign of cold artificial prayer, any more than our petitions are to be so regarded, because they often flow naturally in Bible words, which are hallowed by many associations, and using which, we unite our poor lives with those of the saints of old, who “cried unto God, and he heard them, and saved them out of all their distresses."

The fulness and variety of these petitions deserve careful consideration. My object now is mainly to bring out the richness of meaning which lies in them. Note the invocations, the petitions, and the pleas.

I. The Invocations.

I suppose there are few parts of our prayers, dear

brethren, formal as they all tend to be, which are more formal, mechanical, unmeaning, than our repetition of the name of Him to whom we speak. We round off sentences with it. We make beginnings of our prayers with it; we finish them conventionally, and properly, as we think, with it; but, if we rightly understand what the meaning is of that element of the prayer, which the old divines in their catechisms call invocation, we shall understand that it is the foundation of all, and that it professes, very distinctly, a faith which is anything but formal. For, when we call upon the name of God, if we do it aright, and come not under the condemnation of that commandment, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain "--what do we mean? What do we do thereby? Three things. We summon up before our thoughts that aspect of the Divine character which lies. in the name that we utter. We do not pronounce a mere syllable. We utter a significant word that tells us something concerning God; and, when we use it, unless the majestic image which it is intended to flash into our mind do indeed coruscate and glow there, we had better be speaking in an unknown tongue, than with an unfruitful understanding. Further, we profess that we are exercising an act of faith in the character as revealed in that name. We say in effect: "This aspect of thy Divine allsufficiency, this fragment of thine ineffable perfection, on this I build, and to this I make my appeal." Further, we bring before God His own character as a motive with Him. We say in effect: "I bring thee thyself, and in that mighty name, for the sake of what it declares, I ask

that these goods may be bestowed upon me." So, to invoke God is to contemplate His character, to trust in that character which we contemplate, and to believe that He responds to the obligations that are involved therein.

If that then be the general idea of invocation, we may now advance to notice how comprehensive and various are the names by which the Psalmist here calls upon his helper, God, and steadies his own confidence.

In general, this Psalm is remarkable for its frequent use of the Divine names. In almost every verse they recur, and their frequency gives us a vivid impression of earnestness, of consciousness of need, and of faith so sore pressed that it could only sustain itself by perpetual renewal of its grasp of God. Five times in these verses of our text does he invoke Him, and that by three several names— Jehovah, my God, Lord. These three sacred names have each a distinct meaning when used in prayer; they bring up various aspects of the character of God as the basis of our confidence, and the ground of our petitions.

He calls on Jehovah.

As to that first name, let me remind you in the briefest possible way that it has a double force in Scripture—one derived from its literal, philological meaning; the other derived from its historical use and development. As concerns the former of these two, as we all know, I suppose, the word substantially implies eternal, timeless being, underived self-existence. His name is, "I am that I am," He, who is and was and shall be, the one fontal source of all transitory and creatural life, who "himself unmoved moveth all things." And, then, the

name derives a force from the history of its origin and use. It was given as the seal of the covenant, as the ground of the great deliverance from Egyptian bondage. The national existence rested upon it. The vitality of Israel was guaranteed by the eternity of Israel's God. The bush that burnt and was not consumed was the emblem of Him who gives and is none the poorer, who works unwearied, who pours forth life and light through all ages to all creatures, and diminishes no whit the fulness of the fountain of life which is with Him. And that undecaying, inexhausted being is the pledge of Israel's security, the guarantee that "He will not alter the thing that is gone out of His lips." It was the pledge and the basis of the great deliverance which made Israel a nation—it was a name that expressed God's purpose to form that people into His people, who should show forth His praise.

When we use it in our prayers we contemplate and trust in and plead with Him, all these grand thoughts of eternal subsistence, inexhaustible power, unwearied strength, resources that never fail, purposes that never alter, a being that never fails, a nature lifted high above the mutations of time, who dwells in a region above all tenses and moods, and is, and was, and is to come in one ineffable and mysterious present. Nor only so-but we likewise say "and this rock of ages and basis of all that is, hath spoken and entered into the bonds of love and covenant with men, whereby they can plead with Him His revealed character, and appeal to Him on the ground of His ancient promise, and begin all their believing