Volume I, Treatise V, Chapter III

Of the Obligations We Have unto God, for Bestowing Upon Us So Easy, So Excellent, and So Necessary a Thing, as Prayer Is

PRAYER being a thing of so great value in itself, and of which we have so much need > it is just we should consider how much we are obliged to God for having rendered it so easy, that we may attend to it at any time, or in any place whatsoever. “It is in my power,” says David, “to pray continually to our Lord, who has given me a being.” (Psalms 41:9) The gates of God’s mercy are never shut; they are always open to the whole world. We find him always at leisure, always well disposed to do good; and sometimes he even importunes us to ask graces and favours of him. Some make a most pious reflection hereupon, and say that if God should give audience only once a-month, to all those that desired to speak with him, and give them a kind and favourable hearing; and moreover should bestow several graces on them; this without doubt would: be what we could not sufficiently esteem; because we should repute it a greater happiness than if an earthly king should honour us after this manner. Now if this be so, what esteem ought we not to have of the offer which God makes us, by inviting us to address ourselves to him, not only once a-month, but every day, and even every hour of the day? “At night, in the morning, and at noon, I will recount my afflictions to our Lord,” says the Royal Prophet, “T will make my wants known unto him, and he will hear me.” (Psalms 54:18) God is not like men, who reject the petitions offered to them; because by giving, he does not impoverish himself, as they do. A man has so much the less, by how much he bestows upon another; for he deprives himself of that which he gives, and grows the poorer by his liberality. It is for this reason, then, that men so easily refuse what is asked; and if they give once or twice with a good will, they grow angry the third time, and give nothing at all; or if they do, it isin so disobliging a manner, that thereby they take away all assurance or confidence of asking them anything another time. ‘“But God,” says the apostle, “is always rich, for such as implore his assistance” (Romans 10:12): because he makes himself not the poorer by giving, nor is weary of being importuned, nor of seeing a great many continually employed in begging of him. He is rich enough to satisfy the whole world, and is able to enrich every one, without being in the least poorer than he was before. But as the fund of his riches is infinite, the source of his mercy is also inexhaustible. So that, as on the one hand, he abounds in all things to succour our necessities, 80, on the other, he has a constant will to assist us, and would have us recur unto him. It is therefore very reasonable that we should have a most grateful sense of so great a favour; and that making our profit of so ample a permission, we should endeavour continually to apply ourselves to prayer. For as St. Austin says, upon these words of the Psalmist, “Blessed be our Lord, who has not deprived me of the spirit of prayer, nor of his mercy” (Psalms 15:19), we must believe for certain, that if God withdraws not from us the spirit of prayer, he will neither withdraw that of his mercy; wherefore that his mercy may never forsake us, let us never leave off the exercise of prayer.

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