Chapter XXIX.—Of the Power of Prayer.

For what has God, who exacts it ever denied^89458945    Routh would read, “What will God deny?” to prayer coming from “spirit and truth?”  How mighty specimens of its efficacy do we read, and hear, and believe! Old-world prayer, indeed, used to free from fires,^89468946    Dan. iii. and from beasts,^89478947    Dan. vi. and from famine;^89488948    1 Kings xviii.; James v. 17, 18. and yet it had not (then) received its form from Christ. But how far more amply operative is Christian prayer! It does not station the angel of dew 691in mid-fires,^89498949    i.e. “the angel who preserved in the furnace the three youths besprinkled, as it were, with dewy shower” (Muratori quoted by Oehler).  [Apocrypha, The Song, etc., verses 26, 27.] nor muzzle lions, nor transfer to the hungry the rustics’ bread;^89508950    2 Kings iv. 42–44. it has no delegated grace to avert any sense of suffering;^89518951    i.e. in brief, its miraculous operations, as they are called, are suspended in these ways. but it supplies the suffering, and the feeling, and the grieving, with endurance: it amplifies grace by virtue, that faith may know what she obtains from the Lord, understanding what—for God’s name’s sake—she suffers. But in days gone by, withal prayer used to call down^89528952    Or, “inflict.” plagues, scatter the armies of foes, withhold the wholesome influences of the showers. Now, however, the prayer of righteousness averts all God’s anger, keeps bivouac on behalf of personal enemies, makes supplication on behalf of persecutors. Is it wonder if it knows how to extort the rains of heaven^89538953    See Apolog. c. 5 (Oehler).—(prayer) which was once able to procure its fires?^89548954    See 2 Kings i. Prayer is alone that which vanquishes^89558955    [A reference to Jacob’s wrestling. Also, probably, to Matt. xi. 12.] God. But Christ has willed that it be operative for no evil: He had conferred on it all its virtue in the cause of good.  And so it knows nothing save how to recall the souls of the departed from the very path of death, to transform the weak, to restore the sick, to purge the possessed, to open prison-bars, to loose the bonds of the innocent. Likewise it washes away faults, repels temptations, extinguishes persecutions, consoles the faint-spirited, cheers the high-spirited, escorts travellers, appeases waves, makes robbers stand aghast, nourishes the poor, governs the rich, upraises the fallen, arrests the falling, confirms the standing. Prayer is the wall of faith: her arms and missiles^89568956    Or, “her armour defensive and offensive.” against the foe who keeps watch over us on all sides. And, so never walk we unarmed. By day, be we mindful of Station; by night, of vigil. Under the arms of prayer guard we the standard of our General; await we in prayer the angel’s trump.^89578957    1 Cor. xv. 52; 1 Thess. iv. 16. The angels, likewise, all pray; every creature prays; cattle and wild beasts pray and bend their knees; and when they issue from their layers and lairs,^89588958    Or, “pens and dens.” they look up heavenward with no idle mouth, making their breath vibrate^89598959    As if in prayer. after their own manner. Nay, the birds too, rising out of the nest, upraise themselves heavenward, and, instead of hands, expand the cross of their wings, and say somewhat to seem like prayer.^89608960    This beautiful passage should be supplemented by a similar one from St. Bernard: “Nonne et aviculas levat, non onerat pennarum numerositas ipsa? Tolle eas, et reliquum corpus pondere suo fertur ad ima. Sic disciplinam Christi, sic suave jugum, sic onus leve, quo deponimus, eo deprimimur ipsi:  quia portat potius quam portatur.” Epistola, ccclxxxv. Bernardi Opp. Tom. i. p. 691. Ed. (Mabillon.) Gaume, Paris, 1839. Bearing the cross uplifts the Christian.] What more then, touching the office of prayer? Even the Lord Himself prayed; to whom be honour and virtue unto the ages of the ages!