Showing How A Man Should Seek The Wisdom Of God By Prayer; Containing Also A Useful Treatise On Prayer, Wherein The Reader Is Taught How The Heart Is To Be Moved Unto Prayer, And Brought Into A Quiet Sabbath, So That Prayer May Be Wrought In Us By The Lord; The Whole Being Set Forth In Twelve Sections.
Section I.
All That We Have Lost In Adam We Recover Fully And Completely In Christ.
In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.—Col. 2:3.
In the beginning God formed man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living and immortal soul, adorned with perfect wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and blessedness, after the image of his Creator. For where there is divine wisdom, there is blessedness; and where there is blessedness there is divine wisdom. Man, therefore, wanted nothing in Paradise to make him completely happy. But when, being seduced by the temptation of the serpent, he turned away from God, and fell into sin, then was this divine image in man effaced, and he became subject to the devil, to death, and to misery. For as soon as this divine image was defaced in him by sin, he could discover [pg 270] nothing in himself but misery, blindness, and the curse.
2. But in order that Adam, that is, all men in Adam, might not utterly perish, God himself was made man; that is, he was pleased to send his Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born of a virgin. The Son of God has, by his holy life and doctrine, as by a pattern, shown us again the way of wisdom and salvation in which we are to walk. For he has not only delivered us from our sins by his most bitter death, but has moreover given us a commandment, that “we should walk, even as he also walked.” 1 John 2:6.
3. We are, therefore, begotten again by him, through faith, to be the sons of God; nay, we are made sons of God in and with his own Son. For “as he is, so are we also in this world.” 1 John 4:17.
4. In this Son “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.” For whatsoever was lost in Adam, is perfectly to be found in Christ. Rom. 5:18, 19.
5. If we would, in this life, have a foretaste of these great and glorious treasures, it must be obtained by prayer, diligent searching, and continual knocking. For no man can have admission into the kingdom of God, unless he walk in the new birth, and seek it earnestly of God. No man can be delivered from the power of sin and the devil, unless he repent, and offer up his prayers in the name of Christ. For though Christ has purchased for us all good things, yet without faith no man can be partaker of them; in and by faith he must also pray, seek, and knock. In a word, it is by prayer only that we can obtain those “good and perfect gifts which come down from above, from the Father of lights.” James 1:17.