A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically…

3. An arguing and pleading Spirit in prayer. This is properly wrestling with God, humble, yet earnest expostulations about his mind towards us,¹ Why hast thou cast us off for ever, why doth thine anger smoke? Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, remember not iniquity for ever, see we beseech thee, we are thy people. If so, why is it thus? as frighted Rebekah flies out into prayer. An arguing frame in prayer cures and appease• ^(f)the frights of spirit, and then inquires of God. The Temple of prayer is called the souls inquiring place. Why is God so far from the voice of my roaring? Thou hast heard me from the horns of the Unicorns. Art thou angry with the prayers of thy people? and how long? turn us again and cause thy face to shine upon us. O hope of Israel, why like a wayfaring man, like a man astonied? O Lord thou art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name, leave us not. I must refer to Abraham, Jacob and Moses, Joshua, David and Daniel: how they urged arguments with God. Sometimes from^(a) the multitudes of God's mercies, from^(b) the experience of former answers, from the Name of God: from^(c) their trust and reliance upon him,^(d) from the equity of God,^(e) from the shame and confusion of face that God will put his people to, if not answered, and that others will be driven away from God, and lastly from^(f) the promise of peace. These and many like pleadings we find in Scripture, ⟨p. 274⟩for patterns in prayer; which being suggested by the spirit, kindled from the altar and perfumed with Christ's incense, rise up like memorial pillars before the oracle. Let's observe one or two particular prayers what instant arguments holy men have used and pressed in their perplexities.