_Ps. 116:1-8_—“_I love Jehovah because he heareth my voice and my supplications._” Luther prays for the dying Melanchthon, and he recovers. George Müller trusts to prayer, and builds his great orphan-houses. For a multitude of instances, see Prime, Answers to Prayer. Charles H. Spurgeon: “If there is any fact that is proved, it is that God hears prayer. If there is any scientific statement that is capable of mathematical proof, this is.” Mr. Spurgeon’s language is rhetorical: he means simply that God’s answers to prayer remove all reasonable doubt. Adoniram Judson: “I never was deeply interested in any object, I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything, but it came; at some time—no matter at how distant a day—somehow, in some shape, probably the last I should have devised—it came. And yet I have always had so little faith! May God forgive me, and while he condescends to use me as his instrument, wipe the sin of unbelief from my heart!”
(_b_) In condescension to human blindness, God may sometimes submit to a formal test of his faithfulness and power,—as in the case of Elijah and the priests of Baal.
_Is. 7:10-13_—Ahaz is rebuked for not asking a sign,—in him it indicated unbelief. _1 K. 18:36-38_—Elijah said, “_let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel.... Then the fire of Jehovah fell, and consumed the burnt offering._” Romaine speaks of “a year famous for believing.” _Mat 21:21, 22_—“_even if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, it shall be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive._” “Impossible?” said Napoleon; “then it shall be done!” Arthur Hallam, quoted in Tennyson’s Life, 1:44—“With respect to prayer, you ask how I am to distinguish the operations of God in me from the motions of my own heart. Why should you distinguish them, or how do you know that there is any distinction? Is God less God because he acts by general laws when he deals with the common elements of nature?” “Watch in prayer to see what cometh. Foolish boys that knock at a door in wantonness, will not stay till somebody open to them; but a man that hath business will knock, and knock again, till he gets his answer.”