BOOK 2. FROM ETERNITY.
CHAPTER 2.
2.2.8. Of Calling on Jesus in that Respect.
Of Calling on Jesus in that respect.
We must call on Jesus, or on God the Father in and through Jesus. This also is included in looking; as David while praying* "Unto thee do I lift up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens," Psalm cxxiii. 1. Now this calling on God, or looking to God contains prayer and praise.
1. We must pray that all these transactions betwixt God and Christ may be assuredly ours, and that God would clear up our titles more and more; yea, "and seeing all good things tending to salvation were from all eternity prepared for us, we are therefore to pray, that by prayer we may draw them down from heaven; for what though our evidences be dear; yet this must not cast out means; God doth not use to bestow his saving graces on lazy sluggards; those therefore who from the certainty of predestination do pretend that the duty of prayer is superfluous, do plainly show that they have no certainty at all. Aquinas, Part. 1. q. art. 8. was orthodox in this, "The predestinate must pray, because by these effects of predestination, the salvation of souls is best ascertained." The same Spirit which witnesseth to our spirit that we are his chosen, is also the Spirit of prayer and supplication; and therefore he that believes that he is one of God's elect, he cannot but pray for those things which he believeth that God hath prepared for him before the foundation of the world.
2. We must praise God. What that God should look on us, and predestinate us to life? That he should pass by so many on the right hand, and on the left, and that I should be one whom the Lord did elect? What such a vile and sinful wretch as I am? Was there ever like love? Was there ever like mercy? May not heaven and earth stand amazed at this? O what shall I do to be thankful enough to this dear God? Thus thou that knowest thy interest in Christ, study praise and thankfulness. Say in thyself. Who made me to differ from those cast away souls? alas! we were all framed of the same mould, hewed out of the same rock. It is storied of one of the late French kings, that in a serious meditation, considering his own condition of being king and ruler of that nation, "Oh (said he) when I was born, a thousand other souls were born in this kingdom with me, and what have I done to God more than they?" O my soul, what difference betwixt thee and those many thousands of reprobates that live with thee in the world at this day? Nothing, surely nothing, but the free mercy, goodness, and love of God in Jesus Christ O then praise this God, yea sound forth "the praise of the glory of his grace." Remember that was God's design, and that is thy duty.