The Baptist Quarterly (Volume 7) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE PRAYER TEST. THE proposition recently made through Prof. Tyndall, has stirred up afresh difficult questions about prayer. Some of us are talking, some thinking, some writing. It seems to me there is a touchstone principle which, if rightly applied, will solve many of our difficulties. The essence of all prayer is in these words: " Thy will be done.' Here is not only the substance, but the sum. Whatever accompanies it, whatever of special petition, is not merely in subordination to it, but is an emanation from it; is not merely in accord, but in unison with it. That the will of God may be perfected, whatever that will may be, however unseen by us, however unknown in its means and ends, however counter to our fleshy longings, to our apparent welfare, ?this must be the fundamental desire of the praying heart, and not only fundamental, but the all-informing, all-absorbing desire. Our requests may be excursive, but faith leads them back to this centre, where they concur and close. This is not merely a submission of our will to that of God. The man whose life is hid with Christ in God, has no will apart or deviating from God's will. Though still free, his will is raised to be coincident with that of God. Thus regulated, his words express his own will only so far as they express God's will; all other construction he denies. Whatever will not bear this test, is not prayer. A consideration of the ground of prayer will confirm this view. God has declared that " of him, and through him, and to him, are all things"; and our response is, "To him be glory forever, amen." He has revealed to us the Son as " heir of all things, the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, seated on the right hand of the Majesty on high"; and we hail him: "The blessed and onl...