Ashbel Green
1Taken with editing from Green’s Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, vol 2. Green (1762-1848) was a Presbyterian minister who became President of the College of New Jersey. This extract comes from a lecture on the answer to, “What is prayer?”
Before explaining this statement about prayer, I think it important to refute certain objections, which the enemies of religion raise against this duty – objections which tend to set it aside altogether. I have reason to know that they have had a bad influence on the minds of some young persons; indeed they have occasionally operated as perplexing temptations, even to the pious. I shall try to state these objections in all their strength, and I hope to reply to them in such a manner as will satisfy every candid mind that they are utterly unfounded.
1. Some have said that prayer is unnecessary, because the Supreme Being is so good that we should not suppose that He needs any entreaties to bestow on us what we need, and that He is so wise that we cannot suppose He requires to be told what we lack. I reply that God is indeed both good and wise in an infinite degree, and yet He does require us to make known our requests to Him, for our own benefit. By asking Him in prayer to supply all our needs, we cultivate a sense of our dependence on Him and of our obligations to Him. We are constantly kept mindful that all the good we enjoy proceeds from the hand of God, that we are wholly indebted to Him both for its reception and its continuance, and that we are consequently accountable to Him for making a right use of His gifts.
Now, here is the foundation of all religion and of all moral obligation. The foundation of it all unquestionably is a just sense of our entire dependence on God as our Creator and Benefactor – and also a just sense of our obligation to seek to please Him, by rightly employing our powers and by an obedience to His commands. It is too obvious to need argument that prayer – in which dependence, indebtedness and obligation are constantly and solemnly acknowledged – must have a direct and powerful influence in augmenting the force, and keeping in lively exercise, these fundamental moral feelings and principles.
Indeed I firmly believe it may be asserted, without danger of error, that without prayer, these feelings and principles will for ever remain, if not absolutely inoperative, yet exceedingly weak and partial. It follows then that, although God is disposed to do us good and knows perfectly all that we need, yet without prayer we shall not be prepared to receive His benefits with a suitable disposition. On this very account, these benefits may not be conferred; if we do not have a right disposition, God may foresee that we will abuse His gifts, if they were bestowed, and hence His very goodness, as well as His justice, may be concerned in withholding them from us. Therefore prayer, by preparing us for God’s favours, gives us the best reason to expect them and makes them real blessings when they are received.
2. It has been said that we should not suppose that it is agreeable to God to receive those humble acknowledgments of dependence and obligation, and those ardent expressions of praise and thanksgivings, which are usually offered in prayer – since they are not pleasing even to a good man. This is a most insidious and delusive objection, and this will be clear if it is carefully examined. Notice that there is little ground for any comparison between God and man in the point before us. Every good man is made to believe and feel, by the very goodness which characterises him, that all the benefits or obligations which he confers on anyone entitle him to little praise. In the first place, God must give him the power and means to confer benefits on his fellow creatures. In the second place, the very disposition to confer them must come from the same source.
High praise is therefore not due to him. He has only tried to act the part of a faithful steward, in distributing the good things which the Great Giver of all good has committed to his management and disposal. But that Great Giver is Himself the overflowing fountain of all benevolence; to Him, of course, the highest praise is justly and strictly due. Besides, great and frequent praise, bestowed on the best man in the world, is calculated to endanger his virtue, which is still imperfect. But as the moral excellence of God is both perfect and unchangeable, it can never be endangered by the warmest and most unceasing acknowledgments of indebtedness and expressions of gratitude. Who does not now see that nothing like an exact parallel can be made between a man and his Maker, as is attempted in this objection?
Yet, after all, it is true that, while every good man seeks to avoid all extravagant praise, he does desire to know that one on whom he has conferred favours is suitably grateful for them. A virtuous parent expects this from his children and is always displeased if it is absent. Therefore the Giver of all good may well be supposed to look for suitable gratitude from all His moral creatures and to be displeased when it is absent. As all the conceptions and expressions of our obligation to God, which we can ever form, must fall far short of what is due to Him, we need never fear that the praise and thanksgiving we offer to Him will be too warm or too great. Thus so far as there is any fair reasoning from man to God, in this matter, it is conclusively in favour of the duty of prayer, of which thanksgiving is always an essential part.
3. It is objected that prayer cannot possibly have any influence in obtaining what we request from God, because all His purposes are fixed and unchangeable. This is the most formidable and plausible objection; yet it would be satisfactorily answered, even if we could say no more in reply than what has already been said in responding to the first objection – that prayer has the happiest influence in preparing our minds for the reception and right use of God’s blessings. But as the Holy Scriptures abundantly teach the truth that prayer has a direct influence in obtaining the blessings for which we pray, so I am satisfied that it can never be shown how this is any more inconsistent with reason than to believe in the influence of any secondary cause whatever in producing its appropriate effect.
How the unchangeable purpose of God is connected with the result of diligence or negligence in the use of means is, at bottom, beyond our powers to penetrate and explain. We only know that such a connection exists and that God’s purpose always (except in the case of miracles) includes, and never excludes, the use or neglect of the secondary cause. The secondary cause, although it may consist in the voluntary choice of a free agent, is as much the subject of God’s purpose or decree as the natural and necessary effect to be produced. Hence it is clear that what the Scriptures teach about the direct influence of prayer, in obtaining what it seeks from God, is just as reasonable, and no more difficult to be understood, than that ploughing and sowing should have an immediate and indispensable influence in producing a crop. In both cases, God’s purpose is equally certain and the influence of means, or secondary causes, is precisely the same. In both cases too the means are the objects of voluntary choice, and when rightly used, God’s revelation authorises us to expect a favourable result and forbids us to expect such a result when the proper means are neglected.
The prayer of faith is indeed more certainly connected with God’s favour than the labours of the husbandman are with the harvest which he hopes for. In the former case, the blessing never fails; in the latter, disappointment sometimes follows.