Now suppose for a moment it had been intended in any one prayer negatively to exclude the merits of Christ from the great work of our eternal salvation, and to limit our hopes of everlasting glory to the merits of St. Peter and St. Paul, could that object have been more effectually and fully secured than by this prayer?  Not one word alluding to the redemption which is in Christ can be found in this prayer.  The sentiment in the first member of the prayer refers us to the power exercised by the Son of God, and Son of man, when he was intabernacled in our flesh; and the second expression teaches us to contemplate the providence of our Almighty Saviour in his deeds of beneficence.  But no reference, even by allusion, is here made to the merits of Christ’s death—­none to his merits as our great Redeemer; none to his merits as our never-ceasing and never-failing Intercessor.  We are led to approach the throne of grace only with the merits of the two Apostles on our tongue.  If those who offer it hope for acceptance through THE MEDIATION of Jesus Christ, and for the sake of his merits, that hope is neither suggested nor fostered by this prayer.  The truth, as it is in Jesus, would compel us in addressing {256} Him, the Saviour of the world, to think of the merits of neither Peter nor Paul, of neither angel nor spirit.  Instead of praying to him that we may obtain the glories of eternity for their merits, true faith in Christ would bid us throw ourselves implicitly on his omnipotent merits alone, and implore so great a blessing for his own mercy’s sake.  If we receive the whole truth, can it appear otherwise than a disparagement of his perfect and omnipotent merits, to plead with Him the merits of one, whom the Saviour himself rebuked with as severe a sentence as ever fell from his lips, “Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offence to me; for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men;” [Matt. xvi. 23.] and of another who after his conversion, when speaking of the salvation wrought by Christ, in profound humility confesses himself to be a chief of those sinners for whom the Saviour died, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief?” [1 Tim. i. 15.] We feel, indeed, a sure and certain hope that these two fellow-creatures, once sinners, but by God’s grace afterwards saints, have found mercy with God, and will live with Christ for ever; but to pray for the same mercy at his gracious hands for the sake of their merits is repugnant to our first principles of Christian faith.  When we think of merits, for which to plead for mercy, we can think of Christ’s, and of Christ’s alone.