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our very prayers; how do our souls behave then?
This is the true touchstone of our sincerity and submission; "Here," as it is said, Rev. xiii. 10. "is the patience and faith of the saints"; this shews what they are made of, what they are within; but instances there are many in the book of God, wherein we find this sweet frame prevailing, as Abraham, Job, David, and the Shumite in my text, than whose story we meet with few things in Providence more affecting.
If you look back a little, you may see what were her circumstances, and those of her family. She was "great woman," says verse 8, and that she was "good woman," the whole context shews, Her husband and she wanted but one thing to make them as happy as the vanity and uncertainty of human affairs would admit of. They had enough of the world, and they seem to have had some enjoyment of it; for when Elisha, to requite her kindness, asks; "What shall be done for thee? Wouldst thou be spoken for to the king? she answers, "No, I dwell among mine own people," "I seek nothing greater than that I have:" only (as Gehazie learned from) they wanted a child to comfort them now, and to inherit what they had when they were. God in a miraculous way, gives this request.
This child grows up, and was no doubt
