conscience tells me so.  Well, saith Satan, now will I come upon thee with my appeals.  Art thou not a graceless wretch?  Yes.  Hast thou a heart to be sorry for this wickedness?  No, not as I should.  And albeit, saith Satan, thou prayest sometimes, yet is not thy heart possessed with a belief that God will not regard thee?  Yes, says the sinner.  Why then, despair, and go hang thyself, saith the devil.  And now we are at the end of the thing designed and driven at by Satan.  And what shall I now do, saith the sinner?  I answer, take up the words of the text against him:  Christ loves with a love that “passeth knowledge.”  And answer him further, saying, Satan, though I cannot think that God loves me, though I cannot think that God will save me, yet I will not yield to thee; for God can do more than I think he can.  And whereas thou appealedst unto me, if whether, when I pray, my heart is not possessed with the belief that God will not regard me, that shall not sink me neither; for God can “do abundantly above what I ask or think.”  Thus this text helpeth where obstructions are put in against our believing, and thereby casting ourselves upon the love of God in Christ for salvation.

And yet this is not all; for the text is yet more full:  “He is able to do abundantly more, yea, exceeding abundantly more, or above all that we ask or think.”  It is a text made up of words picked and packed together by the wisdom of God; picked and packed together on purpose for the succor and relief of the tempted; that they may, when in the midst of their distresses, cast themselves upon, the Lord their God.  He can do abundantly more than we ask.  O, says the soul, that he would but do so much for me as I could ask him to do:  how happy a man should I then be.  Why, what wouldst thou ask for, sinner?  You may be sure, says the soul, I would ask to be saved from my sins.  I would ask for faith in, and love to, Christ; I would ask to be preserved in this evil world, and ask to be glorified with Christ in heaven.  He that asketh for all this, doth indeed ask for much, and for more than Satan would have him believe that God is able or willing to bestow upon him.  But mark:  the text doth not say that God is able to do all that we can ask or think, but that he is able to do above all, yea, abundantly above all, yea, exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.  What a text is this!  What a God have we!  God foresaw the sins of his people, and what work the devil would make with their hearts about them; and therefore, to prevent their ruin by his temptation, he has thus largely, as you see, expressed his love by his word.  Let us therefore, as he has bidden us, make this good use of this doctrine of grace, to cast ourselves upon this love of God in the times of distress and temptation.

The bird in the air knows not the notes of the bird in the snare, until she comes thither herself.