— Matth. vii. 7, 8.
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For whosoever asketh, &c.
AS all the creatures of God, which attain their highest perfection by process of time, are in their first beginning raw; so man, in the end of his race the perfectest, is at his entrance thereunto the weakest, and thereby longer enforced to continue a subject for other men’s compassions to work upon voluntarily, without any other persuader, besides their own secret inclination, moving them to repay to the common stock of humanity such help, as they know that themselves before must needs have borrowed; the state and condition of all flesh being herein alike. It cometh hereby to pass, that although there be in us, when we enter into this present world, no conceit or apprehension of our own misery, and for a long time after no ability, as much as to crave help or succour at other men’s hands; yet through his most good and gracious providence, which feedeth the young, even of feathered fowls and ravens, (whose natural significations of their necessities are therefore termed in Scripture “prayers and invocations1” which God doth hear), we amongst them, whom he values at a far higher rate than millions of brute creatures, do find by perpetual experience daily occasions given unto every of us, religiously to acknowledge with the Prophet David2, “Thou, O Lord, from our birth hast been merciful unto us,” we have tasted thy goodness, hanging even at our mothers’ breasts. That God, which during infancy preserveth us without our knowledge, teacheth us at years of discretion how to use our own abilities for procurement of our own good.
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” For whosoever doth ask, shall receive; whosoever doth seek, shall find; the door unto every one which knocks shall be opened.
In which words we are first commanded to “ask,” “seek,” and “knock:” secondly, promised grace answerable unto every of these endeavours; asking, we shall have; seeking, we shall find; knocking, it shall be opened unto us: thirdly, this grace is particularly warranted, because it is generally here averred, that no man asking, seeking, and knocking, shall fail of that whereunto his serious desire tendeth.
1. Of asking or praying I shall not need to tell you, either at whose hands we must seek our aid, or to put you in mind that our hearts are those golden censers from which the fume of this sacred incense must ascend. For concerning the one, you know who it is which hath said, “Call upon me3;” and of the other, we may very well think, that if any where, surely first and most of all in our prayers, God doth make his continual claim, Fili, da mihi cor tuum4, Son let me never fail in this duty to have thy heart.
Against invocation of any other than God alone, if all arguments else should fail, the number whereof is both great and forcible, yet this very bar and single challenge might suffice; that whereas God hath in Scripture delivered us so many patterns for imitation when we pray, yea, framed ready to our hands in a manner all, for suits and supplications, which our condition of life on earth may at any time need, there is not one, no not one to be found, directed unto angels, saints, or any, saving God alone. So that, if in such cases as this we hold it safest to be led by the best examples that have gone before, when we see what Noah, what Abraham, what Moses, what David, what Daniel, and the rest did; what form of prayer Christ himself likewise taught his Church, and what his blessed Apostles did practise; who can doubt but the way for us to pray so as we may undoubtedly be accepted, is by conforming our prayers to theirs, whose supplications we know were acceptable?
Whoso cometh unto God with a gift, must bring with him a cheerful heart, because he loveth hilarem datorem5, a liberal and frank affection in giving. Devotion and fervency addeth unto prayers the same that alacrity doth unto gifts; it putteth vigour and life in them. Prayer proceedeth from want, which being seriously laid to heart, maketh suppliants always importunate; which importunity our Saviour Christ did not only tolerate in the woman of Canaan (Matth. xv.), but also invite and exhort thereunto, as the parable of the wicked judge sheweth (Luke xiii).