Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

³ And where should you seek. Where but in the books of the Lord? Peradventure what he has asked is contained in the book, but it is obscure. Perhaps the Apostle has declared it in some Epistle: declared it in such wise, that you can read, but canst not understand it: you are not permitted to pass on. For the interrogator urges you; Paul himself, or Peter, or any of the Prophets you are not allowed to ask. For this family is now at rest with their Lord, and intense is the ignorance of this life, that is, it is midnight, and your hungry friend is urgent upon you. A simple faith haply sufficed you, him it suffices not. Is he then to be abandoned? Is he to be cast out of your house? Therefore unto the Lord Himself, unto Him with whom the family is at rest, knock by prayer, ask, be instant. He will not, as that friend in the parable, arise and give you as overcome by importunity. He wishes to give; you for your knocking hast not yet received; knock on; He wishes to give. And what He wishes to give, He defers, that you may long the more for it when deferred, lest if given quickly it should be lightly esteemed.