The Assembly of God. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. IIIMackintosh, Charles Henry
Religion
The Assembly of God. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. III
Mackintosh, Charles Henry
Theology
Need we wonder that such an one should cry mightily to God? Yea, the
wonder would be if he could do aught else. How, then, should we treat
him? Should we teach him not to pray? God forbid. This would be to do
the work of Satan, who, assuredly, hates prayer most cordially. To drop
a syllable which could even be understood as making little of an
exercise so entirely divine, would be to fly in the face of the entire
book of God, to deny the very example of Christ, and hinder the
utterance of the Holy Ghost in the new-born soul. The Old and New
Testament Scriptures literally teem with exhortations and encouragements
to pray. To quote the passages would fill a volume. The blessed Master
Himself has left His people an example as to the unceasing exercise of a
spirit of prayer. He both prayed Himself and taught His disciples to
pray. The same is true of the Holy Ghost in the apostles. (See the
following passages; Luke iii. 21; vi. 12; ix. 28, 29; xi. I-13; xviii.
I-8; Acts i. 14; iv. 31; Rom. xii. 12; xv. 30; Eph. vi. 18; Phil. iv. 6;
Col. iv. 2-4; I Thess. v. 17; 2 Thess. iii. I, 2; I Tim. ii. I-3; Heb.
xiii. 18; James v. 14, 15.)
If my reader will look out and ponder the foregoing passages, he will
have a just view of the place which prayer occupies in the Christian
economy. He will see that disciples are exhorted to pray; and that it is
only disciples who are so exhorted. He will see that prayer is a grand
prominent exercise of the household of God, and that he must be of that
household to engage in it. He will see that prayer is the undoubted
utterance of the new life; and that the life therefore must be there to
utter itself. He will see that prayer is an important part of the
Christian's privilege; and that it enters in no wise in the foundation
of the Christian's peace.
Thus, he will be able to put prayer in its proper place; and how
important it is that it should be so put! How important it is that the
anxious inquirer should see that the deep and solid foundations of his
present and everlasting peace were laid in the work of the Cross,
nineteen centuries ago! How important that the blood of Jesus should
stand out before the soul in clear and bold relief, in its solitary
grandeur, as the alone foundation of the sinner's rest! A soul may be
earnestly seeking and crying for salvation, and all the while be
ignorant of the great fact that it is ready to his hand--that he is
actually commanded to accept a free, full, present, personal, and
eternal salvation--that Christ has done all--that a brimming cup of
salvation is set before him, which faith has only to take and drink for
its everlasting satisfaction. The gospel of God's free grace points to
the rent vail--the empty tomb--the occupied throne above. (Matt. xxviii;
Heb. i. and x.) What do these things declare? What do they utter in the
anxious sinner's ear? Salvation! salvation! The rent vail, the empty
tomb, the occupied throne, all cry out, salvation!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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