27. Part 3, Chapter 11. Direct Our Prayers to the Trinity
CHAPTER XI.
HOW AND IN WHAT ORDER WE ARE TO DIRECT OUR PRAYERS TO THE PERSONS OF THE BLESSED TRINITY. In last case briefly to be spoken unto is, how and in what order we are to direct our prayers to the persons of the blessed Trinity? and whether we may not single out any one of the persons, to whom we may direct more immediately such or such a prayer. This case has some more difficulty in it than the former, yet I will endeavor to lay down the answer thereunto, as briefly as I can, in these following conclusion s.
1. That in all parts of divine worship, and so in this of prayer, the Trinity in unity, and unity in Trinity is to be worshipped, and therefore we are not so to fix our thoughts on God as one; but rather to have this meditation and thought attending, that this one God in essence is in personal proprieties three subsistences, really distinct: nor yet are we so to let our thoughts expatiate and feed themselves in musings upon the blessed persons as distinct in personal proprieties, but still with an attending apprehension of them as one in essence, one Jehovah, one God, and no more. He to whom the Scripture applies the property of begetting, is Jehovah, God the Father, and not the Son, or the Holy Ghost, to whom that property in reference to the eternal begotten of God is never ascribed: he to whom the Scripture gives the property of being the only begotten Son of God, he is Jehovah, God the Son, and no other person; the Scripture ascribing that propriety of communication of the divine being, in a way of begetting, to none other; and so he to whom the Scripture applies that propriety of proceeding, he and only he is God the Holy Ghost: the Scripture applying to none other of the persons that propriety of communication of the divine being in a way of proceeding, or being as it were breathed forth from the Father; and therefore is called his Spirit, and from the Son; therefore is called the Son’s Spirit, yet the holy Scripture never mentions but one Jehovah, or any more than one God, even when it mentions him in personal distinctions three, yet essentially but one; and not otherwise surely are we to worship him, or to conceive of him in our worship. Let the beams of the glorious Unity of the Deity lead us in worshipping or praying unto God, to the consideration of the blessed Trinity; and let the mediation of the Trinity of the persons in our prayers lead us forthwith to this glorious Unity in the Deity.
2. In our prayers fix not our minds so upon one of the glorious persons, as not thereby to be led to the contemplation of the other; or direct any prayer so to one person in the blessed Trinity, as not to exclude the other: the Father being in the Son, and the Son in the Father, and the Holy Ghost in them both: we cannot look at one, and behold one by a spiritual eye, but we must eye the other, and be led to the other; as our Savior reasons, to prove that if they had seen him, they must see his Father also.
They who look at Christ as their mediator, must eye the Father, as giving him so to be; yea, and at the Holy Ghost as one who with the blessed Father consented to his designment to that office, as the Lord Christ says, Isaiah 48:16, “and now the Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me: “ yea, they must eye the Holy Ghost as that blessed Spirit and more immediate efficient, by whose power and grace they thus come to the Lord, and are enabled to pray to him, or look to him. We cannot look aright to the blessed Father, but we must look to him as it were through the blessed Son; neither can we look upon the Son but by the Spirit. As he said in 1 Corinthians 12:3, so may I in this: If we worship God as our Father, with whom we have union and communion, we believe him to be so to us in his Son, and that this union and communion is effected by the Holy Ghost: so that if we worship God aright, we worship each person in the Trinity in any one person, as united by the cause of our Sonship, and union with God the Father, as first in order regenerating and adopting of us; the Son as one in and by whom we are redeemed and reconciled, and for whose sake we are accepted with God, and expect to be heard; the Holy Ghost as the immediate efficient of and with the blessed Father and Son, of our calling and adoption, etc., and therefore is he called the spirit of Son ship, as the Greek word signifies, and he by whom more immediately we are enabled to pray to the Father in the name of his blessed Son. True, a Christian may not in every particular petition or confession, particularly and distinctly consider of the other two persons in that one person, to whom more properly he directs his prayer; but yet he must in the general bent of his mind and spirit do it and intend it.
3. That in order we are first to direct our prayers to the blessed Father; yet not as first or chief in honor and dignity above the other two (for even the Son who though as man and as mediator is inferior to the Father, yet as God, as the Son of God he is equal with him, and the Son is to be honored, as equal with the same honor as the Father,) but as first in order of subsisting; according as the Scripture in two places, where the order of the blessed persons is set down, the Father is first set down in order of witnessing, and in invocation and worship, as first in order to be mentioned and invocated: and as he is the first in order, who was displeased, and to whom we are first in order reconciled in Christ; and who is first in order pleased on him, yea, who first in order among the persons laid the foundation of our redemption; and therefore to him is ascribed the work of giving his Son, and of sanctifying or anointing and appointing the Lord Christ to his office of mediator, (albeit as was said, the Holy Ghost be not excluded, but included, as acting in the blessed work,) so are we in that order to worship him, and to breathe after nearest fellowship with him, through Christ, by the help of his blessed Spirit.
4. In singling out any one person in the blessed Trinity, we are to pitch most usually upon the Father, as he to whom we direct our prayers through the mediation of Christ, and by the help of the Holy Ghost: that is the rule and method prescribed by Christ, to ask the Father in his name, and has been the usual practice of the saints: and yet in such directings of prayers to the Father, in the general intention of their spirits, do the saints eye the other two persons, and include them as jointly worshipped; and therefore in their prefaces of prayer ofttimes mention expressly, that blessed God one in essence, yet three in persons, as he to whom they speak; and in the close they subscribe glory to the blessed Father, Son, and Spirit, three persons yet one God, etc.
5. We may single out the Son of God the Lord Christ, as he to whom we occasionally present some special request, either by way of apostrophe, whilst we are directing our prayers to the Father, or in way of ejaculation, as did Stephen: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit: “ and so in the instance of that short prayer of the converted thief: “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom;” and so in that short prayer of Jacob, “the angel which hath delivered me from all evil, bless thee.” This angel was Christ: the Father never being called an angel in Scripture or being said to be sent of any other of the persons; nor do I find where the Holy Ghost is called an angel; and a created angel surely it was not: it being unlawful to Jacob, as well as to any others, to worship angels; and in more continued and solemn wise did Abraham pray to that angel, which in the same chapter is called the Lord; which indeed was Christ by the reasons foregoing, to him did Jacob pray and make supplication, by the space almost of the whole night, yea, he had power over the angel; to him is the prayer of the afflicted made: and the primitive saints they are said to call, not simply and only upon the name of the Father, but of the Lord Jesus Christ: for it was the Lord Jesus whom Saul persecuted, that appeared to Saul, and afterwards to Ananias: it was the Lord whose saints Saul so much injured, and upon whose name such as called, Saul had commission to bind, and the reasons hereof are evident,
1. Because prayer is a divine worship of God, as God; and therefore due to the Son, and so to the Holy Ghost as well as to the Father.
2. We are baptized into the name of the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as well as into the name of the Father: and therefore both the Son and the Holy Ghost likewise may be particularly and personally invocated, and worshipped as well as the Father.
3. We are to believe in the Son, and so in the Holy Ghost as well as in the Father, and that personally and particularly: and therefore so are to pray to either. That which the Apostle expounds of the Gentiles trusting Christ, the prophet expressed of their seeking to him, so that they are inseparably due to one and the same Christ, upon one and the same ground. It is supposed that he on whom men call, must be believed on, or else he cannot be called upon by any; and when the Apostle mentions the name of the Lord, as that which is called upon, he expounds it to be meant of the Lord himself: to call upon the Lord’s name, is to call upon himself.
4. Christ promises that be himself will do what we ask, and therefore he may be sought to do the same; and indeed he thereby proves himself in that chapter to be equal with the Father, by this argument, because petitions shall not only be granted in his name, but by him; neither does he make account that this is any disparagement to the Father, but glorifying him: I will do it, that my Father may be glorified. What we have said, to prove that in our prayers we may single out the Son of God, may serve to prove the same may be done to the Holy Ghost: and more arguments might have been added if need were.
Against this which we have spoken, it may be objected, we are to ask all we do ask in the name of Christ; and therefore how can we be said to ask him, or pray to him? To which I answer: 1. Christ is prayed unto in that prayer that is put up to the Father in his name. Christ, speaking of the time after his resurrection and ascension, says, “In that day ye shall ask me nothing: Verily, ye shall ask the Father nothing in my name, but be will give it you.” He is glorified as God, in that all is done with God in his name, and for his Father. For though it be sometimes said, for Abraham and David’s sake God will do this or that; yet this is meant in reference to God’s covenant of grace with them, and so to Christ properly, in whom that covenant is ratified: “They called on the name of the Lord Jesus in all places.” Yet surely they brake not that rule, John 16:23, they called on the Father in Christ’s name also, yet are said to call on Christ’s name, even in their calling upon God in his name: and Christ as God is also called upon, in that his Father as God is also called upon.
2. In all external worship of God, one person of the Trinity being named, the others are understood, and are not to be excluded.
3. If Christ be considered as the Son of God in essence the same with the Father, He is be to whom we come, coming in prayer to the Father: if considered as mediator, God incarnate, God and man, He is he by whom we come to the Father, and as it is another part of his divine glory ascribed to him, which is true of him as the Son of God, he by his divine power does subject all to himself: and yet in another consideration and respect, namely, as media-. toy, be has all things subjected to him of the Father, so it is here in this part of his glory; as the Son of God he may be, be must be prayed to, which is God and man in one person; but is not prayed to as man, but as God. So much be spoken to this weighty duty of prayer, and to the incessant practice thereof.
END.