Samson's Locks

*^Single prayers are like the si?igle hairs of Sainso7t; but the prayers of the congregation are like the whole of his bushy locks, wherein his strength lay. Therefore you shoicld, in Tertullians phrase, quasi manu facta, with a holy conspiracy, besiege heaven, and force out a blessing for your pastors. This is a fine metaphor wherewith to set forth united prayer. One prayer is a hair of Samson, but our united supplications are as the seven locks of that hero’s head. May God grant that the church may never be shorn of the locks of prayer, wherein her great strength lieth, and her great beauty also.

The cumulative power of prayer is well worthy of notice. Abraham alone could not by intercession save a single city of the plain, though his pleas were very weighty. Lot’s poor prayer was to Abraham’s as an ounce to a ton, and yet that last ounce turned the scale, and Zoar was preserved from the burning. The agreement of two saints is a grand force against which very few obstacles can stand; and when it comes to a praying band, all the smiths in Jerusalem cannot make bolts for the doors, or chains for the wrists, sufficiently strong to hold Peter in prison. Come, then, to the meetings for prayer, for there is the strength of the church, and there are her Samson’s locks.