exactly say that. Remember them if you please, provided you attribute them to their true sourceneglect of his usual prayerfulness. Thus, they will but bring out more strongly the precepts which his general history enforces: "Continue instant in prayer" "Pray without ceasing"-Be "praying always with all prayer." And do not suppose for a moment, that his example is above your imitation, because the results of his prayer were so overwhelming and extraordinary. They are not so in God's sight, who can as easily roll back a host of men as dispel a fancied terror, as easily arrest the universe as convert the heart of a sinner.

Regard the man. I have told you his spiritual failings as well as his spiritual triumphs, in order to show you that he was a man of like passions as we are, as liable, when he had put God out of sight for a moment, to go astray as we are. Yet God accepted his prayer-accepted it after he had sinned -sinned, yea, not once only. This is one great

encouragement.

Regard next the specimen of his prayers and the record of his reflections during sickness, which are preserved for our instruction in the 38th chapter of Isaiah. Read them carefully, and then answer me these questions :-Are they the utterances of a perfect man? Do they display all that abnegation of self which we desiderate in our own prayers so keenly? Are they quite what we should wish the last words of a

dying man to be, full of faith and hope, and joy at exchanging this life for a better? Do they show that clearness of spiritual vision in which we should desire to die? Far from it, dear brethren. Some allowance, indeed, must be made for the imperfect revelation under which he lived, and for his consequent tendency to make earth his home. But, after every abatement, what are they but poor essays towards prayer-feeble yearnings of the heart after Goddisjointed cries for mercy-mingled notes of hope and despondency? And do they not contain alternations of self-righteousness and humility, which, although our sympathy may make allowance for them, our moral sense can scarcely approve. Yes! They have, and they are all this, brethren. Yet God, who strengthens the faith which cries, "Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief;" God, I say, listened to Hezekiah's attempts at prayer, faint and imperfect though they were. His were not words of majesty and power, but such as any of us might give utter

ance to

"A sick man's lowly breathèd sigh,
When from the world he turns away,
And hides his weary eyes
to pray."

" 1

And yet they were available to prolong his days, and to procure him additional opportunities of finding his road towards heaven.

1 Second Sunday after Christmas. —-KEBLE,

And may not our prayers, also, weak and feeble as they are, and, alas! in this respect, too much like those of Hezekiah, though they be not answered exactly in the same manner-though no fifteen years be added to our lives, at least gain pardon through Christ for past sins that overwhelm us, and grace to walk for the future, more safely because more humbly, whatever of our span may remain?

Next regard the occasions on which Hezekiah prayed. He prayed on all occasions. He prayed when commencing his works, and while they were in progress; he prayed for himself-he prayed for others; he prayed in his early prosperity-he prayed in his later adversity; he prayed when he was strong and well— he prayed when he was "at the point to die, suffering God's terrors with a troubled mind;" he prayed when in danger of sinning he prayed after he had fallen into sin. At least, if this is not true universally, the few recorded exceptions to the ordinary tenor of his life, show what his general practice was. So, prayer is not only an expedient against great difficulties and contingencies of rare occurrence. It is rather man's daily aid, the staff which he must never let go from his hand, with which he can ascend mountains unfatigued and unflagging; but, without which, a pebble strewn in his path may be magnified into a rock of offence, perhaps of dangerous downfall.

I conclude with one word from good Bishop Hall : "What, one tear of Hezekiah can run waste? What

M

162 Hezekiah; or, The Might of Prayer.

can that good king pray for, unheard, unanswered ? Sennacherib came in proud confidence, to swallow up his city and people; prayers and tears send him away confounded. Death comes to swallow up his person, and that not without authority; prayers and tears send him away disappointed. Before Isaiah was gone out into the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Turn again, and tell Hezekiah, the captain of my people, Thus saith the Lord, the God of thy father, I have heard thy prayer."

Let him who sets lightly by prayer, remember how Hezekiah's found answer, how fully, how speedily, how triumphantly! let him draw from his history the TRUTH, that "God is always more ready to hear than we to pray, and is wont to give more than we either desire or deserve." And then let him pray for himself: "Pour down upon me, O Lord, the abundance of Thy mercy; forgiving me those things of which my conscience is afraid, and giving me those good things which I am not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Lord." 1 And then let him say, "Amen." It will certainly be echoed in heaven-" SO BE IT. I have heard thy prayer."

1 Collect for Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.

LECTURE IX.

MANASSEH; OR, THE PENITENT RESTORED.

2 CHRON. XXXIII. 9-13, 17. (1)

So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.

And the Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his people; but they would not hearken.

Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon.

And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,

And prayed unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God.

Nevertheless the people did sacrifice still in the high places, yet unto the Lord their God only.

-

THREE memorable things are known of King Solomon his goodness, his fall, his repentance. The books of Chronicles relate his goodness, but not his fall. The books of Kings relate both his

1 With this Lecture the following chapters should be read : 2 Kings xxi. ; 2 Chron. xxxiii.