Man, by worshipping, becomes assimilated to the moral character of the object that he worships:
The God of the Bible, as manifest in Christ Jesus, is the only perfectly righteous and perfectly benevolent Being ever worshipped by man.
Therefore, man can become righteous and benevolent in no other way but by that worship which will assimilate him to the God of the Bible.
And further, as it has been demonstrated that righteousness and benevolence produce the rectitude and the happiness—the greatest good—of the soul, man can gain the great end of his being only by that worship which assimilates his nature to the moral image of God.
It follows, therefore, that prayer is a necessary and most important means of grace—a duty growing out of the nature of the case, and a duty upon which depends, in a great measure, the well-being of the human spirit. The apostle understood the philosophy of this subject when he said: ‘But we all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.’ Therefore it is that the commandment that men should pray is presented in the Bible in every variety of language; and it is constantly repeated by the inspired writers and by the Son of God himself, who commended, by his precepts and example, private, social, and public prayer; and who taught by a parable that ‘men ought always to pray, and not to faint.’
The importance of strong desire and importunity in prayer.
It is impossible to produce grateful feelings by granting a benefit for which the recipient has no desire. If a child asked for bread when it was not hungry, and if, while the child had no feeling of want, its unfelt request was answered by its father, it could neither appreciate the gift nor be grateful for it. The soul is so constituted, as has been fully shown, that it must really feel the need of the benefit before it can appreciate its importance, or be grateful for the favour received. So it is in the case of the suppliant in prayer: if he has an anxious desire, a spirit of importunate solicitude, for the blessing which he asks, when he receives it, gratitude and praise will, as the consequence of gratified desire, spring up in the heart. Now, mark, if there were not a feeling of importunate desire in the mind of the suppliant, God could not be glorified, nor the creature benefited, by an answer to prayer. God could not be glorified, because his goodness would not be felt and acknowledged in the answer. And the creature could not be benefited, because it is the feeling of gratitude and praise in his own heart which constitutes the spiritual blessing, so far forth as the suppliant himself is concerned; and this exercise is produced only so far as it is preceded by dependent and anxious desire for the blessing sought. When the supplication is for spiritual blessing upon another individual, two minds are blessed by the answer, the individual prayed for and the individual who prays. And if a thousand individuals desired spiritual mercies for that soul, God would be glorified by a thousand hearts, and a thousand hearts would be reciprocally blessed by the answer. The time may come when all the angels in heaven, and all the saints upon earth, will be blessed by mercy bestowed upon a single individual; when the last unregenerated sinner stands in solitary and awful rebellion upon the earth, should tidings be circulated through earth and heaven that he had submitted himself to God, and that his affections began to take hold on Christ, every being in the universe who had strongly desired the conversion of the last sinner would feel the thrill of ‘glory to God and good-will to men’ arise in his soul. It follows, therefore, that a fervent, importunate state of mind is, from the nature of the case, necessary, in order that God may be glorified, and man blessed, by the duty of prayer. It was in view of these constitutional principles that Jesus constantly taught the necessity of desire and importunity, in order that mercies might be received in answer to the supplication of saints.[40]
[40] Matt. vi. 6; Luke xi. 5-10, and xviii. 1-14. [Back]