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We have no comfort to look for but according to the promise of God, and God has promised no comfort to us except we depend upon him for it, and testify our dependence upon him by calling upon his name,—except we be earnest in prayer, except we be fervent, and except we continue and endure in calling upon the name of God. Could we cry to the Lord, and cry constantly to him, either for deliverance from any ills, or for communication of any good, and that either temporal or spiritual, then the Lord, he would open the rich and plentiful treasures of his grace, and of his goodness, and give abundantly to us. Alas! in the day of our affliction we seem to do somewhat of this kind: but whenever we see any appearance of deliverance and outgate, then incontinent our mouths are closed up from crying, and our hands faint, and fall down from doing any more. Judges 3:14-15, as it is written there, the people of Israel were in thraldom to Eglon, King of Moab, eighteen years; but so soon as they cried unto, the Lord, the Lord raised up Ehud to be a judge and a deliverer to them: and so ye see, as soon as they cried to the Lord, the Lord put to his hand to help them. And there is no question but in the very beginning of the eighteen years, a people who formerly had the experience of liberty, in the sense of this their captivity, even then they behoved to make a moan to God, and groaned to him; but they cried not to him: and no but they spake to him (for it is not the extending of the voice that 1 mean), but they cried not to him in the earnestness of their heart. And all the time before the eighteen years were expired, they have been wishing to be delivered; but their affliction has not been sensible enough to them. It is long before affliction become impungent to us, that we will cry earnestly to the Lord for relief of it: and it is only affliction that makes us to cry to God; and we never cry earnestly to the Lord in affliction whill (till) we see we can do no better. It is marked of the Athenians, that they never proponed conditions of peace to any people about them but in mourning apparel; that is, when they could do no better, then they procured (negotiated) for peace. Surely so it is with us: we never cry earnestly to God but while we are in affliction and in trouble. Our hearts are like green timber, that will not burn except it be aye blown at; and whenever it ceases to be blown at, then it dies out. Even so is it with us; except the Lord exercise us in afflictions, and continue in exercising us with them, then incontinent our hearts grows careless and coldrife in crying to God: and when the Lord takes off his afflicting hand, then the little spunk of fervency that before we had in crying to God, it becomes to be scarce discernible. It is a strange thing, albeit the Lord has threatened us with judgments, and we have seen them approaching very near to have seized upon us, yet if we begin to see any little appearance of their removing, although we cannot certify ourselves of it, yet incontinent we fail in our crying to the Lord. And this, indeed, makes the Lord ofttimes to interrupt the work that he had begun, and to stand still there; or otherwise, to turn back again. When we cry to the Lord earnestly and constantly, then he goes on; but when we fail in our crying to him, then he stands still there, or turns his back on us, and lets us go where we were, and rather worse.
I say this for this end, that every one of us are bound to cry to God, not only for the comfort of our own soul, and for the pardon of our sins; but we are also bound to cry for the great work that is in hand in this land, in building the ruined house of God again. And when we began to cry for this, the Lord was coming towards us; he was renting his heavens, and stretching out his mighty hand for our help. Now if we shall faint in our prayers, and haunt not the exercises of his worship, (which may be seen among you this day,) then the Lord shall withdraw his helping hand from us, and shall leave us in a more duleful case than we were in at the first. And therefore let us now fall down before the Lord our God, and beseech him that he would pity us, and help us, and yet go on into the good work that he has begun amongst us, till it be perfected.