But Jacob must have had other and different thoughts—thoughts which preponderated. As he called to mind his first passage over Jordan, did not he remember the wonderful vision that was vouchsafed him of angels descending to earth, ascending to heaven, in token of Divine providence, of the intercourse between man and GOD? Did he not remember the Voice which promised to be with him, to keep him in all places whither he went, to bring him again to this land, to give it to him and to his seed after him? Did he not look along those twenty years, and remember that GOD had been with him, and that, by His command, he was now coming back; and did he not hope, yes, even against hope, that GOD would be with him in the coming struggle, that He would crown His mercy and goodness with a present success, and with the establishment of himself and his seed in the promised land? And one other remembrance surely he had. He remembered the vow which in the fresh reverence of GOD’S presence, in glad and grateful acceptance of His promises, he had solemnly made, “The LORD shall be my GOD;” and he must have remembered how often he had forgotten that vow, how generally he had slightly regarded it. These I suppose to have been the feelings and remembrances which filled the breast of Jacob, when he uttered the prayer in which our text occurs. Observe how that prayer exhibits the right ordering of these feelings, making prominent, putting uppermost thoughts and acknowledgments of GOD’S goodness; and, in the moment of greatest peril, pausing to review mercies, and to give thanks! There is no bitter lamentation of his hard lot throughout those years of promised blessing; there is no pleading with GOD, that if he had sinned he had surely been punished enough; there is no mention of the merits of his contrite heart and amended life; there is no angry feeling against Esau, no supplication that GOD would smite and confound him. It is a godly, a model prayer. Betaking himself to GOD in the hour of danger, as his only confidence and help, he humbly urges no personal claim, but—that he is in the place of GOD’S commanding. “‘Thou LORD that saidst unto me Return unto thy country and unto thy kindred,’ I did not recklessly run into danger, I did not voluntarily gratify the natural yearning of my poor heart. Thou broughtest me here, O LORD protect me here;” and then having put forth himself, though but such a little way, and coming to consider GOD, Who had shown him such wondrous goodness, Who had fulfilled for him so truthfully all His promises, he exclaims, “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth which thou hast showed unto Thy servant: for with my staff—as a solitary, poor individual—I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee.”