They have gone with these pitchers to their fountains, and have returned empty and ashamed; they found no water, no river of water of life.

Paul, not finding it in the law, despairs to find it in any thing else below, but presently betakes himself to look for it where he had not yet found it:  he looked for it by Jesus Christ, who is the throne of grace, where he found it, and rejoiced in hope of the glory of God.

O, when a God of grace is upon a throne of grace, and a poor sinner stands by and begs for grace, and that in the name of a gracious Christ, in and by the help of the Spirit of grace, can it be otherwise but such a sinner must obtain mercy and grace to help in time of need?

All the sorrow that is mixed with our Christianity proceeds, as the procuring cause, from ourselves, not from the throne of grace; for that is the place where our tears are wiped away, and also where we hang up our crutches:  the streams thereof are pure and clear, not muddy nor frozen, but warm and delightful, and they make glad the city of God.

Discouragements in prayer.

There is an aptness in those that come to the throne of grace, to cast every degree of faith away that carries not in it self-evidence of its own being and nature, thinking that if it be faith, it must be known to the soul; yea, if it be faith, it will do so and so—­even so as the highest degree of faith will do:  when, alas, faith is sometimes in a calm, sometimes up, and sometimes down, and sometimes in conflict with sin, death, and the devil.  Faith now has but little time to speak peace to the conscience; it is now struggling for life, it is now fighting with angels, with infernals; all it can do now, is to cry, groan, sweat, fear, fight, and gasp for life.

I know what it is to go to God for mercy, and stand all the while through fear afar off, being possessed with this, Will not God now smite me at once to the ground for my sins?  David thought something so when he said as he prayed, “Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.”

None know, but those that have them, what turns and returns, what coming on and going off, there are in the spirit of a man that indeed is awakened, and that stands awakened before the glorious Majesty in prayer.

It is a great matter, in praying to God, not to go too far; nor come too short; and a man is very apt to do one or the other.  The Pharisee went so far, he was too bold; he came into the temple making, such a ruffle with his own excellencies, there was in his thoughts no need of a Mediator.

It has been the custom of praying men to keep their distance, and not to be rudely bold in rushing into the presence of the holy and heavenly Majesty, especially if they have been sensible of their own vileness and sins, as the prodigal, the lepers, and the poor publican were.  Yea, Peter himself, when upon a time he perceived more than commonly he did of the majesty of Jesus his Lord, what doth he do?  “He fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”