SO2 HELPLESSNESS OF MAN. still be solicited, but it is in order that He may still bestow. Repeated gifts do not exhaust His bounty, nor lessen His power of fulfilment. Repeated solicit- ation, so far from wearying His patience, is an additional call for His favour. Nor is the lateness of the petition any bar to its acceptance : He likes it should be early, but He rejects it not though it be late. With a human benefactor, the con- sciousness of having received former favours is a motive with the modest pe- titioner for preventing his making an application for more ; while, on the con- trary, God even invites us to call on Him for future mercies, by the powerful plea of His past acts of goodness - "" even mercies which have been ever of old." And as past mercies on God's part, so, to the praise of His grace be it said, that past offences on our own part are no hindrance to the application of hearty repentance, or the answer of fer- vent prayer.
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