This important view is strikingly illustrated in Scripture.

For some of the _purposes_ of God, which might have been undiscoverable in the mere light of Nature, are there explicitly declared; nay, they are thrown into the form of express _promises_, to which the Divine faithfulness is solemnly pledged; and yet the exercise of prayer, so far from being superseded by these promises, is rather stimulated and encouraged by them; and the believer pleads with increased fervor and confidence when he simply converts _God's promises into his own petitions_.

He feels that in doing so he is taking God at his word; and that his own prayer, in so far as it is warranted by His promise, cannot be ineffectual any more than God's faithfulness can fail.
Thus Daniel "understood by books the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish _seventy_ years in the desolation of Jerusalem." He knew the Lord's promise, and that the time for its fulfilment was at hand; yet so far from regarding either the immutability of the Divine _purpose_, or even the infallible certainty of the Divine _promise_, as a reason for neglecting prayer, as if that exercise were superfluous or vain, he was stimulated and encouraged to pray just because "he knew the word of the Lord."-- "And I set my face," he says, "unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes;" and I prayed unto the Lord my God, and said, "O Lord! hear; O Lord! forgive; O Lord! hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God!"[208] Thus, _again_, when the Lord gave certain great and precious promises to His ancient people, assuring them that "He would sprinkle clean water upon them, and give them a new heart and a right spirit," it is added, "I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them."[209] Thus, _again_, when the Saviour himself gave to His disciples that promise, which is emphatically called "the promise of the Father," assuring them that they should be "baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence," and directing them to "wait at Jerusalem until they should be endued with power from above," the apostles, so far from regarding that "promise" as superseding the exercise of "prayer," betook themselves immediately to an upper room, and "all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication;" and, at the appointed time, God's promise was fulfilled, and their prayer answered, when "they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." These examples are abundantly sufficient to show that prayer, so far from being inconsistent with, is founded on, the immutability of the Divine _purposes_, and the faithfulness of the Divine _promises_.
4.

Our next position is, that _the method_ in which God answers the prayers of His people may be, in many respects, mysterious or even inscrutable; but no objection to "the efficacy of prayer," which is founded on our ignorance of His infinite resources, can have any weight, especially when there are _several hypothetical solutions_, any one of which is sufficient to neutralize its force.
An omnipresent, omniscient, and almighty Being, presiding over the affairs of His own world, as the author, upholder, and governor of all things, may well be conceived to have infinite resources at His command,--such as we can never fully estimate,--by which he can give effect to prayer in ways that may be to us inscrutable.

But our ignorance of the _mode_ is no reason for doubting the _reality_ of His interposition in answer to prayer; and even if we were unable to decide on the comparative merits of the various explanations of it which have been proposed, the mere fact that there are several solutions, at once conceivable and credible, any one of which may be sufficient, as a hypothetical explanation, to neutralize every adverse presumption, should be held tantamount to a proof that no valid or conclusive objection can be urged against it.