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. Dr. Chalmers has frequently
illustrated the legitimate and important uses of "hypothetical
solutions" in Theology; and has conclusively shown that even where they
leave us at a loss to determine which of various methods of solving a
difficulty is the truest or the best, they yet serve a great purpose, if
they merely neutralize an objection, by showing that the difficulty in
question _might_ be satisfactorily accounted for, were our knowledge
more extensive or more precise.[210] Now, with regard to "the efficacy
of prayer," there are _four_ distinct solutions, or rather _four_
different methods of disposing of the difficulty, any one of which is
sufficient to vindicate the claims of the doctrine on our faith. We
shall not discuss the respective merits of these various solutions in
detail, but shall merely state the