Doctrines of Prayer, Faith, and Peace by James Hastings: Hastings, James - Doctrine of Prayer: 072. The Name Of God

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Doctrines of Prayer, Faith, and Peace by James Hastings: Hastings, James - Doctrine of Prayer: 072. The Name Of God



TOPIC: Hastings, James - Doctrine of Prayer (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 072. The Name Of God

Other Subjects in this Topic:

I.

THE NAME OF GOD.

The promises of God speaking in the hearts of the psalmists over, possibly, a period of eight centuries, were no uncertain sounds, no dreams which vanish “when one awaketh,” no mirage of the desert promising refreshment and satisfaction which are illusory. Attested by inward experience, they have been fulfilled in the historic fact of the Incarnation, and the consequent communion and fellowship of God with man, and man with man in the mystical body of His Son. So for the expression of their own highest Christian convictions, the members of the Catholic Church have from generation to generation used their inspired language. Within the Divine Society, in which the Holy Spirit forms “the mind of Christ,” teaching us to pray aright, the Psalms live on, supported by both of the forms of testimony —derived from inward experience and from outward history—which are needed for complete assurance.

Now the psalmists knew God as the Living One; they were stirred to praise and thank Him because they believed not only that in prayer their souls were in contact with Him, but also that He delighted in such contact; they were morally certain that He meant their prayer to be answered, and, through the answered prayer, to work out in His Church and each faithful member of it His eternal purposes. To His attributes their appeal is constant as a reason for His hearing prayer and granting our requests. Thus the chief among all prayers for pardon is based upon the revelation of the Divine character granted to Moses on Mount Sinai:—

“Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness:

According to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.”

The ground of prayer for protection is discovered in the same great revelation by another psalmist, who expects that God, being in character what He declared Himself to be, will be gracious to him, and show him “a token for good”. Another appeals in a cry for forgiveness and restoration to the Divine attributes of “faithfulness” and “righteousness” as a reason why his prayer should be answered:—

“Hear my prayer, O Lord; give ear to my supplications:

In thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness.”

Again, in the intercession of Daniel the prophet we have a signal illustration of petitions founded on this warrant. He “understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem”. But the prophet does not repose his trust only on the promise; he urges that which is due to the Divine character: “Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord’s sake. O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousness, but for thy great mercies. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God, because thy city and thy people are called by thy name.”