BOOK 5. THE MESSAGE.
CHAPTER 5.
5.5.8. Of Calling on Jesus in that Respect.
Of Calling on Jesus in that Respect.
Let us call on Jesus, or on God the Father, in and through Jesus, Thus we read. That looking up to Jesus, or lifting up the eyes to Jesus, goes also for prayer in God's book, Psal. v. 3. "My prayer will I direct to thee, (saith David) and will look up," Psal, lxix. 3. And "mine eyes fail with looking upwards." Faith in prayer will often come out at the eye in lieu of another door; our affections will often break out at the window when the door is closed: thus "Stephen looked up to heaven," Acts vii. 55. He sent a post, a greedy, pitiful, and hungry look up to Jesus Christ out at the window, at the nearest passage, to tell him, that a poor friend was coming to him, why thus, let us look up to Jesus by calling on him; now this calling on him contains prayer, and praise.
1. We must pray, that all these transactions of Jesus during his life, or during his ministry upon earth, may be ours; we hope it is so, and we believe it to be so, but for all that we must pray that it may be so: there is no contraction betwixt hope and faith, and prayer, but rather a concatenation, Mark ix. 24. "Lord, I believe," yet help my unbelief, or be it to me according to my faith, how weak soever: it will bear that sense.
2. We must praise God for all those passages in Christ's life. Thus did the multitude. "They praised God with a loud voice, for all the mighty works that they had seen," saying, Luke xix. 37, 38. "Blessed be the king that comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven, and glory in the highest." What, my soul, hath Christ done all this for thee? Was he made under the law, to redeem thy soul, and adopt thee for his son to the inheritance of heaven? Came he down from heaven, and travelled he so many miles on earth, to woo and win thy heart? Spent he so many sermons, and so many miracles to work thee into faith? O how shouldst thou bless, and prize, and magnify his name? How shouldst thou break out into that blessed hymn. "To him that loved us, and hath made us kings and priests unto God, and his Father, to him be glory and dominion, forever and ever. Amen," Rev. i. 5, 6.