It may be, then, that the words of the text, although not applicable to us in their full and most fatal sense, may yet be applicable to us in a certain degree:  the evil which they speak of may be, not wholly future and contingent, and a thing to be feared, but present in part, actual, and a matter of experience.  This is not contradiction:  it is not impossible; it may be our case.  Let us see whether it really is so, that is, whether it is in any degree true of us, that when we call upon God he will not answer; that when we seek him, we shall in any manner be unable to find him.

It is manifest that, in proportion as Christ’s words “Seek, and ye shall find,” are true to any man, so are the words of the text less true to him; and in proportion as Christ’s words are less true to any one, so are the words of the text more true to him.  Now, is Christ’s promise, “Seek, and ye shall find,” equally true to all of us?  Conceive of one—­the thing is rare, but not impossible,—­of one who had been so kept from evil, and so happily led forward in good, that when arrived at boyhood, his soul had scarcely more stain upon it than when it was first fully cleansed, and forgiven, in baptism!  Conceive him speaking truth, without any effort, on all occasions; not greedy, not proud, not violent, not selfish, not feeling conscious that he was living a life of sin, and therefore glad to come to God, rather than shrinking away from him!  Conceive how completely to such an one would Christ’s words be fulfilled, “Seek, and ye shall find!” When would his prayers be unblessed or unfruitful?  When would he turn his thoughts to God without feeling pleasure in doing so; without a lively consciousness of God’s love to him; without an assured sense of the reality of things not seen, of redemption and grace and glory?  Would not the communion with God, enjoyed by one so untainted, come up to the full measure of those high promises, “It shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear?” Would it not be plain, that God was as truly found, by such a person, as he was sought in sincerity and earnestness?

But now, take the most of us:  suppose us not to have been kept carefully from evil, nor led on steadily in good; suppose us to have reached boyhood with bad dispositions, ready for the first temptation, with habits of good uncultivated; suppose us to have no great horror of a lie, when it can serve our turn; with much love of pleasure, and little love of our duty; with much, selfishness, and little or no thought of God:  suppose such an one, so sadly altered from a state of baptismal purity, to be saying his prayers as he had been taught to say them, and saying them sometimes with a thought of their meaning and a wish that God would hear them.  But does God hear them?  I ask of your own consciences, whether you have had any sense that he has heard you? whether death and judgment, Christ and Christ’s service, have become more real to you after such prayers?  If not, then is it not manifest, that you have sought God, and have not found him; that you have called upon him and he has not heard?  You know by experience, that you are not as those true children who are ever with him, who listen to catch the lightest whisper of his Spirit, for whom, he, too, vouchsafes to bless the faintest breathing of their prayer.