his own heart Look as the holy Spirit is not always a teaching Spirit nor always a leading Spirit nor always a comforting Spirit nor alwayes a sealing Spirit nor alwayes a witnessing Spirit nor alwayes an assuring Spirit to any of the Saints so he is not alwayes a supplicating Spirit in any of the Saints When he is grieved vexed quenched provoked he may suspend his gracious influences and deny the soul his assistance and what can a Christian then say or do But Secondly I answer Thou canst not pray but canst thou not sigh nor groan neither there may be the spirit of Adoption in sighs and groans as well as in vocal prayer Rom. 8. 26. The force the vertue the efficacie the excellency of prayer doth not consist in the number and flourish of words but in the supernatural motions of the spirit in sighs and groans and pangs and strong affections of heart that are unspeakable and unutterable Certainly the very soul of prayer lyes in the pouring out of a mans soul before the Lord though it be but in sighs groans and tears 1 Sam. 1. 13 19. One sigh and groan from a broken heart is better pleasing to God than all humane eloquence But Thirdly I answer Beg of God to teach thee to pray O beg the holy spirit that is a spirit of prayer God hath promised his holy spirit to them that ask it Luk. 11. 13. If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your heavenly father give the holy spirit to them that ask him Ezek. 36. 26 27. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will takeaway the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgements and doe them Ezek. 11. 19. And I will give them one heart I will put a new Spirit within you and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them an heart of flesh Zech. 12. 10. I will pour upon the house of David and upon the Inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication Now Gracious promises are Gods bonds and he loves to see his people put them in suit God expects Isa 62. 6 7. Isa 42. 25 26. that we should be his Remembrancers and that we should pray over his promises When he had promised great things to his people concerning Justification Sanctification Preservation he subjoynes Yet I will for this be enquired of by Ezek. 36. 37. the house of Israel to doe it God looks that we should spread his gracious promises before him as Hezekiah Isa 37. 14. did Seanacheribs letter God is never better pleased than when his people importune him in his own words and urge him with arguments taken from his owne promises Though God be a very affectionate father and a very liberal father yet he is not a prodigal father for he will never throw away his mercies on such as will not stoutly and humbly plead out his promises with him God loves to take state upon him and will be sought unto both for his giving in of mercies and for his making good of precious promises Thou sayest thou can'st not pray why can'st thou not goe into a corner and spread the Promises last cited before the Lord and tell him how much it concernes his honour glory as well as thy own internal eternal good to make good those gracious promises that he hath made concerning his giving of his Spirit to them that ask him and his putting his Spirit within them and his pouring out a Spirit of grace and supplication upon them We read of Tamar that when Gen. 38. 18 25. Judah her father-in-law lay with her she took as a pledge his signet bracelets and staffe and afterwards when she was in great distress and ready to be burnt as an Harlot she then brought out her staff and signet and Bracelets and said by the man whose these are am I with child and thereby she saved her life The promises are as so many rich Mines they are as so many choice flowers of paradise they are the food life and strength of the soul They are as a staffe to support the soul and they are as a signet and Bracelets to adorne the soul and to enrich the soul and therefore poor sinners should bring them forth and lay them before the Lord and urge God with them there being no way on earth to save a mans soule and to prevent a burning in Hell like this Concerning precious promises let me give you these eight hints First that they are truly propounded stated by God Mark 10. 30. Secondly That they shall certainly be performed 2 Cor. 1. 20. they being all made in and thorow Christ they are made first to Christ and then to all that have union and communion with him Sirtorius saith Plutarch paid what he promised with fair words but so doth not God Men many times say and unsay they often eate their words as soon as they have spoken them but God will never eat the words that are gone out of his mouth Isa 46. 10 11. My counsel shall stand and I will doe all my pleasure yea I have spoken it I will also bring it to pass I have purposed it I will also doe it Thirdly That they all issue from free grace from special love Hos 14. 4. from divine goodness Fourthly That they are all as Jer. 31. 3. unchangable as he is that made them Fifthly That they are all bottomed and Mal. 3. 6. founded upon the truth faithfulness and all sufficiency of God Sixthly That they are pledges and pawnes of great things that Heb. 13. 5. God will doe for his people in time Seventhly That they are most Heb. 6. 12. sure and certain evidences of divine favour and a declaration of the Num. 23. 19. heart and good will of God to his poor people Eighthly That they are the price of Christs blood Now how should all these things encourage poor souls to be still a pressing of God with his promises But Fourthly You say you cannot pray c. O that you would leave off objecting and fall upon praying If you cannot pray as you would nor as you should pray as well as you can Josephs brethren stood so long dallying delaying and trifling out the time that having a Journey to goe to buy corn they might have bought and returned twice before they went and bought once When Eliah called Elizeus he goes about the bush 1 Kings 19. 20. and he must needs goe bid his father and mother farewel before he could follow the Prophet O friends take heed of dallying delaying trifling going about the bush when you should be a faling upon the work of prayer What though
with Hannah thou can'st but weep out a prayer or with Moses stammer out a prayer or with Hezekiah chatter out a prayer yet do as well as thou can'st and thou shalt find acceptance with God 2 Cor. 8. 12. For if there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not The Publicans prayer had not much Rhetorick or eloquence in it God be merciful to me a sinner and yet God accepted it He Luke 18. 13. prayed much though he spake little and God did not turn a deafe ear upon him That God that once accepted a handfull of meale Lev. 2. 1 2. Chap. 6. 15. Luke 21 3. for a sacrifice and a gripe of Goats hair for an oblation and the poor widows two mites as if they had been two millions will certainly accept of what thou art able to do though thou dost fall short yea much short of what thou oughtest to doe Lord saith Luther thou commandest me to pray I cannot pray as I would yet I will obey for though my prayer be not acceptable yet thine own commandement is acceptable to thee If weak Christians would but put forth in prayer that little strength they have God would quickly renew their spiritual strength he would certainly carry them on from strength to strength he would Isa 49. 29 30 31. Psal 84. 7. still by secret assistances and secret influences help them on in their heavenly trade As a loving indulgent Father will take his little Child in his armes and carry him on in his way home ward when his strength begins to fail him and he can walk no further and the way proves dirty slippery or uneven So doth God by his Hos 11. 3. I taught Ephram also to go as a nurse doth the infant taking them by their arm When Gods poor Children come to a fowl way or a rough place he takes them up in his own arms and helps them over the quagmire of Crosses and the difficulties of duties and over all that straitness and narrowness and weakness oâ— spirit that doth attend them in their closet performances 'T is observable that when the King of Israel was to shoot the Arrow 2 Kings 13. 16. he did put his hand upon the Bow and Elisha did put his hand upon the Kings hand So when we go into our Closets we are to put up our hand and then the Spirit of God likewise will put his hand upon our hand he will put his strength to our strengâ—h or rather to our weakness Rom. 8. 26. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities lifts with us or helpeth together The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth properly signifie such a help as when another man of strength and ability steppeth in to sustain the burden that lieth upon our shoulders be it a logg or a piece of timber setting his shoulders under it to lift up and bear part of it with us or to help us as the nurse helpeth her little child upholding it by the sleeve When a poor Christian sets himself to closet prayer or to mourn or to believe or to obey c. then the Spirit comes in with new help and new influences and new assistances and so carryes him on in all these noble services That child that doth but stammer at first in time will speak plainly and fluently O how many Christians are there that now can pray with much freedom liberty and fluency who at first could only sigh out a prayer or stammer out a prayer or weep out a prayer Thou saiest thou canst not pray but didst thou but stir up thy self to obey that command Matth. 6. 6. as well as thou canst thou dost not know but that a power may go forth with the command that may enable thee to act suitable to the command In Matth 9. 1 9. Christ bid the Palsie man rise and walk Take up thy bed and go unto thine house The Palsie man might have objected Alas I am carried by four I am not able to stir a limb much less to rise but least of all to take up my bed and walk c. Oh but he rouseth up himself as well as he could and a power went forth with the command that enabled him to do what was commanded So Matth. 12. 10 14 There was a poor man that had a withered hand and Christ commands him to stretch forth his hand he might have replied My hand is withered and if I might have as many worlds as there be men in the world to stretch it forth I could not stretch it forth yea if my very life if my very salvation did lie upon stretching forth my withered arm I could not stretch it forth Oh but he throws by all such plea's and complies with Christ's command as well as he could and a power went forth and healed his hand O sirs if you would but pray in your closets as well as you can you do not know but that such power and virtue might flow from Christ into your hearts as might carry you on in your closet duties beyond expectation even to admiration others have found it so and why not you why not you Well remember that God is no curious nor critical observer of the incongruous expressions that falls from his poor children when they are in their closet duties he is such a father as is very well pleased with the broken expressions and divine stammerings of his people when they are in a corner 'T is not a flood of words nor studied notions nor seraphical expressions nor elegant phrases in prayer that takes the ear or that delights the heart of God or that opens the gates of glory or that brings down the best of blessings upon the soul but uprightness holiness heavenlyness spiritualness and brokenness of heart these are the things that make a conquest upon God and that turns most to the souls account But Fifthly Thou sayst thou canst not pray but if thou art a child of God thou hast the Spirit of God and the Spirit of God is a Spirit of prayer and supplication That all the Children of God have the Spirit of God is most evident in the blessed Scriptures Take these for a taste Zach. 12. 10. I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication Psal 51. 11. Take not thy holy Spirit from me Rom. 8. 15. Ye have received the spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father 1 Cor. 2. 12. We have received not the Spirit of the world but the spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God 1 Thes 4. 8. Who hath given unto us his holy spirit 1 John 3. 2â— Hereby we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us Chap. 4. 13. Hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath
Father While the child is in the womb it cannot cry but as soon as it is born it cries Whilst Paul did lie in the womb of his natural estate he could not pray but no sooner was he born of the spirit but the next news is Behold he prayeth Acts. 9. 11. Prayer is nothing but the turning of a mans inside outward before the Lord. The very soul of prayer lyes in the pouring out of a mans soul into the bosome of God Prayer is nothing but the breathing that out before the Lord that was first breath'd into us by the spirit of the Lord Prayer is nothing but a choice a free a sweet and familiar intercourse of the soul with God Certainly it is a great work of the Spirit to help the Saints to pray Gal. 4. 6. Because you are sons God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba father God hath no still-born children The Gemination Abba Father notes fiduciall filial and vehement affection The first is an Pareus Hebrew or Syriack word the Second a Greek whereby is signified the union of the Hebrews and Grecians or the Jews and Gentiles in one Church Abba Father What is Abba say others in Hebrew Father and it is added because in Christ the corner stone both peoples are joyned alike becoming sons whence soever they come circumcision from one place whereupon Abba uncircumcision from another whereupon father is named The concord of the walls being the glory of the corner stone The word Abba say others signifies Father in the Syriack Tongue which the Apostle here retaineth because it is a word full of affection which young children retain almost in all Languages when they begin to speak And he adds the word Father not only to expound the same but also the better to express the eager movings and the earnest and vehement desires and singular affection of beleevers in their crying unto God even as Christ himself redoubled the Mark 14. 36. word Father to the same purpose when he was in his greatest distress This little word Father saith Luther lisped forth in prayer by a Child of God exceeds the eloquence of Demosthenes Cicero and all other so famed Orators in the World 'T is certain that the Spirit of God helps the Saints in all their communions with God viz. in their meditations of God in their reading and hearing of the Word of God in their communions one with another and in all their solemn addresses to God And as to this the Apostle gives us a most special instance in that Rom. 8. 26. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered When we are to pray there is in us sometimes an infirmity of ignorance so that we know not what to pray for either in regard of the matter or the manner And there is in us at other times an infirmity of pride and conceitedness so that we cannot pray with that humility and lowliness of spirit as we should spiritual pride having fly-blown our prayers Sometimes there is in us an infirmity of deadness dullness drowsiness c. so that we cannot pray with that warmth heat life spirit and fervency as we should or as we would and at other times there is in us an infirmity of unbelief and slavish fears so that we cannot pray with that faith and holy boldness as becomes Children that draw near to a Throne of Grace to a Throne of Mercy c. But now the Spirit helps these infirmities by way of instruction prompting and teaching us what to pray for and how we should spell our lesson and by telling us as it were within what we should say and how we should sigh and groan and by rousing and quickening and stirring of us up to prayer and by his singular influence and choice assistance opening and enlarging our hearts in prayer and by his tuning the Strings of our affections he prepares us and fits us for the work of Supplication And therefore every one that derides the Spirit of prayer in the Saints saying these are the men and the women that pray by the Spirit blaspheme against the holy Spirit it being a main work of the Spirit to teach the Saints to pray and to help them in prayer Now all the Saints having the Spirit and the Spirit being a Spirit of prayer and supplication there is no reason in the world why a Saint should say I would pray in secret but I can't pray I can't pour out my soul nor my complaint before the Lord in a corner Sixthly and lastly Thou sayest thou canst not pray thou hast not the gifts and parts which others have But thou canst mannage thy callings thy worldly businesse as well as others and why then canst thou not pray as well as others Ah friends did you but love private prayer as well as you love the world and delight in private prayer as much as you delight in the world and were your hearts as much set upon closet prayer as they are set upon the world you would never say you could not pray yea you would quickly pray as well as others 't is not so much from want of ability to pray in secret that you don't pray in secret as 't is from want of a will a heart to pray in secret that you don't pray in secret Jacobs love to Rachel and Sechems love to Dina carried Gen. 29. ch 34. them through the greatest difficulties Were mens affections but strongly set upon private prayer they would quickly find abilities to pray He that sets his affections upon a Virgin though he be not learned nor eloquent will find words enough to let her know how his heart is taken with her The application is easie He in Seneca complained of a Thorn in his foot when his Lungs was rotten So many complain of want of ability to pray in their closets when their hearts are rotten Sirs do but get better hearts and then you will never say you can't pray 'T is one of the saddest sights in all the world to see men strongly parted and gifted for all worldly businesses to cry out that they can't pray that they have no ability to pour out their souls before the Lord in secret You have sufficient parts and gifts to tell men of your sins your wants your dangers your difficulties your mercies your deliverances your duties your crosses your losses your enjoyments your friends your foes and why then are you not ashamed to complain of your want of parts and gifts to tell those very things to God in a corner which you can tell to men even upon the house-top c. But Fourthly Some may further object and say God is very well acquainted with all our wants necessities straits tryals and there is no moving of him to bestow any favours upon us which he
do defer Dan. 9. 19. not for thine own sake Look as there be two kinds of Antidotes against Poyson viz. hot and cold so there are two kinds of Antidotes against all the troubles of this life viz. fervent prayers and holy patience the one hot the other cold the one quickening and the other quenching and holy Daniel made use of them both Fervency to prayer is as the fire was to the spices in the Censor or as wings to the Bird or as oyl to the wheels and this Daniel found by experience God looks not for any James with horny knees through assiduity of prayer nor for any Bartholomew with a Century of prayers for the morning and as many for the evening but for fervency of spirit in prayer which alone carryes all with God Feeble prayers like weak pangs go over and never brings a mercy to the birth Cold prayers are still-born Children in whom the Father of spirits can take no pleasure Look as a painted man is no man and as painted fire is no fire so a cold prayer is no prayer Such prayers never win upon the heart of God that do not first warm our own hearts As a body without a soul much wood without fire a Bullet in a Gun without powder so are all prayers without fervency of Spirit Luther termes Prayer Bombarda Christianorum the Gun or Canon of Christians or the Christians Gun-shot The hottest springs send forth their waters by ebullitions Cold prayers make a smoak a smother Isa 1. 15. Ch. 65 5. in the eyes of God Lazy prayers never procure noble answers Lazy beggars may starve for all their begging Such as have a male in their flock and offer to the Lord a female Such as offer to the Lord the torn and the lame and the sick such as turn off God with their cold lazy sleepy and formal Mal. 1. 13 14. devotions are condemned cast and cursed by God David compares his prayers to incense and no incense was offered without Psal 141. 2. fire it was that that made the smoke of it to ascend 'T is only fervent prayer that hits the mark and that pierces the walls of heaven though like those of Gaza Isa 45. 2. made of Brass and Iron While the Child only whimpers and whines in the Cradle the Mother lets it alone but when once it sets up its note and cryes out right then she runs and takes it up So 't is with a Christian Psal 34. 6. This poor man cryed there is his fervency he cryed but it was silently and secretly in the presence of King Achish as Moses did at the Red-Sea and as Nehemiah did in the presence of the King of Persia and the Lord heard him and delivered him out of all his troubles here is his prevalency So Latimer plyed the Throne of grace with great fervency crying out Once again Lord once again restore the Gospel to England and God heard him Hudson the Martyr deserted at the Stake went from under his Chain and having prayed fervently he was comforted immediately and suffered valiantly I have read of one Giles of Bruxels a Dutch Martyr who was so fervent in his prayer kneeling by himself in some secret place of the Prison where he was that he seemed to forget himself and being called to his meat he neither heard nor saw who stood by him till he was lifted up by the armes and then he would speak gently to them as one awaked out of a Trance So Gregory Nazianzen speaking Paulin. Epist lib. 1. Epist 4. of his sister Gorgonia saith that in the vehemency of her prayer she came to a Religious impudency with God so as to threaten heaven and tell God that she would never depart from his Altar till she had her petition granted Let us make it our businesse to follow these noble examples as ever we would so Prince it in prayer as to prevail with God An importunate soul in prayer is like the poor beggar that prayes and knocks that prayes and waits that prayes and works that knocks and knits that begs and patches and will not stir from the door till he hath an alms Well Friends remember this God respects no more luke-warm prayers than he doth luke-warm persons and they are such that he hath threatned to spue out of his mouth Those prayers that are but lip-labour are lost-labour And therefore in all your Closet-prayers look to the fervency of your spirits My Seventh Advice and counsel is this Be constant as well as servent in closet-Closet-prayer look that you hold on and hold out and that you persevere to the end in private prayer 1 Thes 5. 17. Pray without ceasing A man must alwayes pray habitually though not actually he must have his heart in a praying disposition in all estates and conditions Though Closet-prayer may have an intermission yet it must never have a cessation Luke 18. 1. And he spake a Parable unto them to this end that men ought alwayes to pray and not to faint or as the Greek hath it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shrink back as sluggards in work or cowards in war Closet-prayer is a fire like that on the Altar that was never to go out day nor Lev. 12. 6. night 1 Thes 3. 10. Night and day praying exceedingly Paul speaks like a man made up all of prayer like a man that minded nothing so much as prayer So Ephes 6. 18. Praying alwayes with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance Calvin makes this difference between praying alwayes in the beginning of this Verse and praying with perseverance in the end of this Verse By praying alwayes saith he he exhorts us to pray in prosperity as well as in adversity and not to quit the duty of prayer in a prosperous estate because we are not driven to it by outward pressing necessities and miseries and by praying with perseverance he admonisheth us that we be not weary of the work but continue instant and constance in its performance though we have not presently what we pray for So that praying alwayes is opposed to a neglect of the Duty in its proper times and seasons and praying with perseverance is opposed to a fainting in our spirits in respect of this or that particular suit or request that we put up to God When God turns a deaf ear to our prayers we must not fret nor faint we must not be dismayed nor discouraged but we must hold up and hold on in the Duty of prayer with invincible patience courage and constancy as the Church did Lament 3. 8 44 55 56 57. compared Col. 4. 2. Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving We must be constant and instant in Closet-prayer we must wait upon it and lay all aside for it He that is only in his Closet by fits and starts will neither glorifie God nor advantage his own soul If we do not make a
of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of supplications vers 12 13 14. And the Land shall mourn every family apart the family of the House of David apart and their Wives apart the family of the House of Nathan apart and their Wives apart The family of the House of Levi apart and their Wives apart the family of the House of Shimei apart and their VVives apart All the families that remain every family apart and their VVives apart Mark in the Joel 2. 28 29. Isa 44 3. last of the last dayes when men shall be generally under a greater effusion of the Holy Spirit than ever then they shall be more given up to secret prayer than ever There will never be such praying apart and such mourning apart as there will be when the Lord shall pour out most richly gloriously abundantly of his Spirit upon his poor people now every one shall pour out his tears and his soul before God in a corner to shew the soundness of their sorrow and to shew their sincerity by their secrecy for Ille dolet vere qui sine teste dolet He grieves with a witness that grieves without a witness Certainly the more any man is now under the blessed pouring out of the Spirit of Christ the more that man gives himself up to secret Communion with Christ Every man is more or less with Christ in his Closet as he is more or less under the anointings of the Spirit of Christ The more any man hath of the Spirit of Christ the more he loves Christ and the more any man loves Christ the more he delights to be with Christ alone Lovers love to be alone The more any man hath of the Spirit of Christ the more his heart will be set to please Christ Now nothing pleaseth Christ more than the secret prayers of his people Cant. 2. 14. O my Dâ—ve that art in the clefts of the Rock in the secret places of the stairs let me see thy Countenance let me hear thy voice for sweet is thy voyce and thy countenance is comely And therefore such a one will be much in secret prayer The more any man hath of the Spirit of Christ the more his heart will be set upon glorifying and exalting Christ Now nothing glorifies Christ more nor exalts him more than secret prayer and therefore the more any man hath of the Spirit of Christ the more that man will be found in secret prayer There are many persons who say they would be more in their Closets than they are but that they meet with many hinderances many occasions many diversions many temptations many oppositions many difficulties many discouragements which prevent them Ah Friends had you a greater measure of the Holy Spirit upon you none of these things should ever be able to hinder your secret trade Heaven-ward Had you a more rich anointing of the Spirit upon you you would never plead there is a Lyon in the way a Lyon in the Streets but were there a thousand Pro. 26. 13. Lyons between you and your Closets you would either step over them or make your way through them that so you might enjoy Communion with Christ in your Closets But Eighthly and Lastly As ever you would keep close to private prayer Be frequent in the serious Consideration of Eternity O see Eternity standing at the end of every Closet-Prayer and this will make you pray to purpose in your Closets O Sirs every work you doe is a step to a blessed or to a cursed Eternity Every motion every action in this life is a step toward Eternity As every step that a Traveller takes brings him forward to his journeys end So every step that a man takes in the secret wayes of Righteousness and Holiness such as Closet-Duties are they bring him neerer to his journeys end they bring him neerer to a blessed Eternity Look as every step the sinner takes in a way of wickedness brings him neerer to Hell so every step that a Saint takes in a way of Holiness brings him neerer to Heaven Look as every step that a wicked man takes in the wayes of unrighteousness brings him nearer to a cursed Eternity so every step that a godly man takes in a way of Righteousness brings him neerer to a blessed Eternity Zeuxis the famous Painter was so exceeding careful and curious in drawing all his Lines that he would let no Piece of his go abroad into the World to be seen of men till he had turn'd it over and over and viewed it on this side and that side again and again to see if he could spie any fault in it and being asked the reason why he was so curious and so long in drawing his Lines answered Aeternitati pingo I paint for Eternity O Sirs we all pray for Eternity we fast for Eternity we read for Eternity we hear for Eternity we wait for Eternity we weep for Eternity and therefore O how curiously how exactly how wisely how faithfully how carefully how diligently how unweariedly should we be in all our Closet-Duties and services seeing that all we do is in order to Eternity Friends you must all e're long be eternally blest or eternally curst eternally happy or eternally miserable eternally saved or eternally damned eternally accepted or eternally rejected And therefore what infinite cause have you frequently to shut to your Closet Doors and to plead mightily with God in in a corner for the lives of your poor precious and immortal souls that they may be eternally saved in the great day of our Lord Jesus O Sirs when any hinderances to Closet-prayer present themselves to you seriously remember Eternity and that will remove them It is related of one Pachomius that whensoever he felt any unlawful Drex de Eternit consid 8. desires to arise in his mind he was wont to drive them away with the remembrance of Eternity The same Author relates a story out of Benedictus Rhrexanus of an ungodly fellow who on a certain Ibid. con 5. night could not sleep who up on the serious Consideration of Death and Eternity and the damned lying in Hell could not be at rest but Eternity did still run in his mind faâ—n would he have shaken off the thoughts thereof as gnawing worms therefore he followed sports and pastimes and merry meetings and sought out Companions like himself and sat oftentimes so long at his Cups that he laid his Conscience asleep and so seemed to take some rest but when he was awakened his Conscience flew in his face and would still be a suggesting sad thoughts of Eternity to him of all things in the world he could not bear it to be kept awake in the night but so it happened that being sick he was kept awake one night and could not sleep at all whereupon these thoughts rise in him VVhat is it so tedious then to be kept from sleep one night and to lye a few hours in the dark
an Allegory they say that in these words there are two Allegories First the Chamber Door is the Sense Shut the Door that is say they thy Sense lest vain imaginations and worldly thoughts distract thy mind in praying Secondly The Door say they is our Mouth Shut thy Door that is thy Lips say they and let thy Prayer be like the Prayer of Hannah conceived in thy mind but not uttered with thy mouth 'T is usual with Papists and other monkish men that lye in wait to deceive to turn the blessed Scriptures into a Nose of Wax under pretence of Allegories and Mysteries Origen was a great admirer Euseb Eccl. Hist Lib. 6. chap. 8. of Allegories by the strength of his parts and wanton wit he turn'd most of the Scriptures into Allegories and by the just Judgement of God upon him he foolishly understood and absurdly applied that Matth. 19. 12. litterally Some have made themselves chaste for the Kingdom of Heaven and so gelded himself And indeed he might as well have pluck't out one of his eyes upon the same account because Christ saith It is better to go to Heaven with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into Hell fire Matth. 18. 9. In all Ages Hereticks have commonly defended their Heresies by translating of Scriptures into Allegories The Apostle speaks of such as denying the Resurrection of the body turn all the testimonies of the Resurrection into an Allegory meaning thereby only the spiritual Resurrection of the soul from sin of which sort was Hymeneus and Philetus who destroyed the faith of some saying the Resurrection was past already 2 Tim. 2. 17 18. And are there not many among us that turn the whole History of the Bible into an Allegory and that turn Christ and Sin and Death and the Soul and Hell and Heaven and all into an Allegory Many have and many do miserably pervert the Scriptures by turning them into vain and groundless Allegories Some wanton wits have expounded Paradise Philo Judaeus and others of a later date to be the Soul Man to be the Mind the Woman to be the Sense the Serpent to be Delight the Tree of knowledge of good and evil to be Wisdome and the rest of the Trees to be the Vertues and Endowments of the Mind O friends it is dangerous to bring in Allegories where the Scripture doth not clearly and plainly warrant them and to take those words Figuratively which should be taken properly The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is in the Text rendred Closet hath only three most usual significations amongst Greek Authors First it may be taken for a secret Chamber or close and locked Parlour Secondly for a Safe or Cupbord to lay Victuals in Thirdly for a locked Chest or Cupbord wherein Treasure usually is reserved The best and most judicious Interpreters that I have cast mine eye upon both of a former and later date do all expound my Text of Private Prayer in retired places and with them I close And so the main Doctrine that I shall gather from the words is this That closet-Closet-Prayer or private-Private-Prayer is an indispensible duty that Doct. Christ himself hath laid upon all that are not willing to lye under the woful brand of being Hypocrites I beseech you seriously to lay to heart these five things First If any Prayer be a duty then secret Prayer must needs be a duty for secret Prayer is as much Prayer as any other Prayer is Prayer and secret Prayer prepares and fits the soul for Family-Prayer and for Publick-Prayer Secret-Prayer sweetly enclines strongly disposes a Christian to all other religious duties and services Ergo. But Secondly If Secret Prayer be not an indispensible duty that lyes upon thee by what authority doth Conscience so upbraid thee and so accuse thee and so condemn thee and so terrifie thee as it often doth for the neglect of this duty But Thirdly Was it ever the way or method of God to promise again and again a reward an open reward for that work or service which himself never commanded Surely No. Now to this duty of Secret Prayer the Lord hath again and again promised an open reward Matth. 6. 6. 18. And therefore without all peradventure this is a duty incumbent upon all Christians Fourthly Our Saviour in the Text takes it for granted that every child of God will be frequent in praying to his heavenly Father and therefore he encourages them so much the more in the work of Secret Prayer When you Pray As if he had said I know you can as well hear without eares and live without food and fight without hands and walk without feet as you are able to live without Prayer And therefore when you go to wait on God or to give your heavenly Father a visit Enter into your Closet and shut your doors c. Fifthly If Closet Prayer be not an indispensible duty that Christ hath laid upon all his people why doth Satan so much oppose it why doth he so industriously and so unweariedly labour to discourage Christians in it to take off Christians from it Certainly Satan would never make such a fierce constant war as he doth upon private Prayer were it not a necessary duty a reall duty and a soul-enriching duty But more of this you will find in the following discourse and therefore let this touch suffice for the present c. Now these five things do very clearly and evidently demonstrate that secretly and solitarily to hold entercourse with God is the undoubted duty of every Christian But for a more full opening and confirmation of this great and important Point I shall lay down these Twenty Arguments or Considerations c. First The most eminent Saints both in the Old and New Testament have applied themselves to Private-Prayer Moses was alone in the Mount with God forty dayes and fourty nights Exod. 34. 28. So Abraham fills his mouth with Arguments and reasons the case out alone with God in Prayer to prevent Sodoms desolation and destruction and never leaves off pleading and praying till he had brought God down from fifty to ten Gen. 18. 22-32 and in Gen. 21. 33. you have Abraham again at his private prayers And Abraham planted a Grove in Beer-sheba and called there on the name of the Lord the everlasting God Why did Abraham plant a Grove but that he might have a most private place to pray and poure out his soul before the Lord in So Isaac Gen. 24. 63. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at eventide The Hebrew word Lasuach that is here rendred Meditate signifies to pray as well as to meditate and so it is often used 'T is a comprehensive word that takes in both Prayer and Meditation So you shall find Jacob at his private-prayer Gen. 32. 24 25 26 27 28. And Jacob was left alone and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day When Jacob was all alone and in a
dark night and when his joynts were out of joynt he so wrestles and weeps and weeps and wrestles in private Prayer that as a Prince at last he prevailes with God Hos 12. 3 4. So David Psal 55. 16 17. As for me I will call upon God and the Lord shall save me Evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voyce So Daniel was three times a day in private prayer Dan. 6. 10. Now when Daniel knew that the Writing was sign'd he went into his house and his Windows being open in his Chamber toward Jerusalem he kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did aforetime Daniel had accustomed himself to private prayer he went to his closet before he went to his publick employment and State affairs and at his return to dinner he turned first into his Chamber to serve his God and refresh his soul before he set down to feast his body and at the end of the day when he had dispatcht his business with men he made it his business to wait upon God in his Chamber So Jonah keeps up private prayer when he was in the Fishes belly yea when he was in the belly of Hell Jonah 2. 1 2 c. So we have Elias at prayer under the Juniper Tree 1 Kings 19. 4. So Hannah 1 Sam. 1. 13. Now Hannah she speaks in her heart only her lips moved but her voice was not heard The very soul of prayer lyes in the pouring out of the soul before God as Hannah did vers 15. Neither was Rebecah a stranger to this duty who upon the Babes strugling in her womb went to enquire of the Lord Gen. 25. 22. that is she went to some secret place to pray saith Calvin Musculus Mercer and others So Saul is no sooner converted but presently he falls upon private prayer Acts 9. 11. And the Lord said unto him arise and go into the street which is called Strait and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus for behold he prayeth Though he was a strict Pharisee yet he never prayed to purpose before nor never prayed in private before The Pharisees used to pray in the corners of the Streets and not in the corners of their houses And after his conversion he was frequently in private prayer as you may see by comparing of these Scriptures together Rom. 1. 9. Ephes 1. 15 16. 1 Phil. 3 4. 2 Tim. 1. 3. So Epaphras was a warm man in closet prayer Phil. 4. 12 13. So Cornelius had devoted himself to private prayer Acts 10. 2 4. And so Peter gets up to the house top to pray vers 9. On the morrow as they went on their journey and drew nigh unto the City Peter went up upon the house-top to pray about the sixth hour Peter got up upon the Leads not only to avoid destraction but that he might be the more secret in his private devotion Eusebius tells us of James called Justus that his knees were grown hard and brawny with kneeling so much in private prayer And Nazianzen reports of his Sister Gorgonia that her knees seemed to cleave to the earth by her often praying in private And Gregory saith of his Aunt Trucilla that her Elbows was as hard as horn by often leaning upon her Desk at private prayer I have read of a devout person who when the set time for his private devotion was come whatever company he was in he would break from them with this neat and handsome come off I have a friend that stayes for me Farewel And there was once a great Lady of this Land who would frequently withdraw from the company of Lords and Ladies of great quality who came to visit her rather than she would lose her set times of waiting upon God in her Closet she would as they call'd it rudely take her leave of them that so she might in private attend the Lord of Lords She would spare what time she could to express her favours civilities and courtesies among her Relations and Friends but she would never suffer them to rob God of his time nor her soul of that comfort and communion which she used to enjoy when she was with God in her Closet And indeed one hours communion with God in ones closet is to be preferr'd before the greatest and best company in the World And there was a child of a Christian Gentle-woman that was so given to prayer from its infancy that before it could well speak it would use to get alone and go to prayer and as it grew it was more frequent in prayer and retiring of it self from company and he would ask his Mother very strange questions far above the capacity of one of his years but at last when this child was but five years old and whipping of his top on a sudden he flung away his Scourge-stick and Top and ran to his Mother and with great joy said unto her Mother I must go to God will you go with me She answered My dear Child how dost thou know thou shalt go to God he answered God hath told me so for I love God and God loves me She answered Dear Child I must go when God pleaseth But why wilt thou not stay with me The Child answered I will not stay I must go to God And the Child did not live above a moneth after but never cared for play more but falling sick he would alwayes be saying that he must go to God he must go to God And thus sometimes out of the Mat. 21. 16. mouthes of Babes and Sucklings God hath perfected praise Certainly such persons will be ripe for Heaven betimes who begin betimes to seek God in a Closet in a Corner And Eusebius reports of Constantine the Emperour that every day he used to shut up himself in some secret place in his Palace and there on bended knees did make his devout Prayers and Soliloquies to God My God and I are good company said famous Dr. Sibbs A man whose soul is conversant with God in a Closer in a Hole behind the Door or in a Desart a Den a Dungeon shall find more real pleasure more choice delight and more full content than in the Pallace of a Prince By all these famous Instances you see that the People of God in all Ages have addicted themselves to private prayer O friends these pious examples should be very awakning very convincing and very encouraging to you Certainly 't is as much your duty as 't is your glory to follow these pious patterns that are now set before you Witness these following Scriptures Prov. 2. 20. That thou mayest walk in the way of good men and keep the paths of the righteous 1 Cor. 11. 1. Be ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ Phil. 3. 17. Brethren be followers together of me and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an
do make The thirsty flocks that of their waters take Black Red and White and near the Crimson deep The Arabian Fountain maketh Crimson sheep Certainly Jesus Christ is such a Fountain in which whosoever bathes and of which whosoever drinks shall be changed into the same likeness 2 Cor. 3. 18. But why was our Lord Jesus so much Quest in private prayer why was he so often with God alone First 'T was to put a very high Answ 1 honour and value upon private prayer 't was to enhance and raise the price of this duty Men naturally are very apt and prone to have low and under-valuing thoughts of secret prayer But Christ by exercising himself so frequently in it hath put an everlasting honour and an inestimable value upon it But Secondly He was much in private prayer he was often with God alone that he might not be seen of men and that he might avoid all shews and appearances of ostentation and popular applause He that hath commanded us to abstain from all appearance of evil 1 Thes 5. 22. would not himself when he was in this world venture upon the least appearance of evil Christ was very shie of every thing that did but look like sin he was very shie of the very shew and shadow of pride or vain-glory Thirdly To avoid interruptions in the duty Secresie is no small advantage to the serious and lively carrying on of a private duty Interruptions and disturbances from without are often-times quench-coals to private prayer The best Christians do but bungle when they meet with interruptions in their private devotions Fourthly To set us such a blessed pattern and gracious example that we should never please nor content our selves with publick-prayers onely nor with family-prayers only but that we should also apply our selves to secret prayer to closet prayer Christ was not alwayes in publick nor alwayes in his family but he was often in private with God alone that by his own example he might encourage us to be often with God in secret and happy are they that tread in his steps and that write after his Copy Fifthly That he might approve himself to our understandings and consciences to be a most just and faithful High-Priest Christ was Heb. 2. 17. John 17. per totum wonderful faithful and careful in both parts of his Priestly Office viz Satisfaction and Intercession he was his Peoples only Spokesman Ah! how earnest how frequent was he in pouring out prayers and tears and sighes and groans for his people in secret when he was in this world Heb. 5. 7. And now he is in Heaven he is still a making Intercession for them Heb. 7. 25. Sixthly To convince us that his Father hears and observes our private prayers and bottles up all our secret tears and that he is not a stranger to our closet desires wrestlings breathings hungrings and thirstings Thirdly Consider that the ordinary exercising of your selves in secret prayer is that which will difference and distinguish you from hypocrites who do all they do to be seen of men Matth. 6. 1 2. Take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven Therefore when thou doest They say of the Nightingale that when she is solitary in the woods she is careless of her note but composes her self more quaintly and elegantly if she conceives there be any auditors or if she be near houses Just so 't is with hypocrites in religious duties thine alms do not sound a Trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do in the Synagogues and in the streets that they may have glory of men Verily I say unto you they have their reward Self is the only oyl that makes the Chariot-wheels of the hypocrite move in all religious concernments Vers 5. And when thou prayest thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are for they love to stand praying in the Synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men Verily I say unto you they have their reward Vers 16. Moreover when ye fast be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast Verily I say unto you they have their reward Thus you see that these hypocrites look more at men that at God in all their duties When they give alms the trumpet must sound when they pray it must be in the Synagogues and in the corner of the streets and when they fasted they disfigured their faces that they might appear unto men to fast Hypocrites live upon the praises and applauses of men Naturalists report of the Chelydonian stone that it will retain its vertue no longer than it is enclosed in gold So hypocrites will keep up their duties no longer than they are fed and encouraged and enclosed with the golden praises and applauses of men Hypocrites are like blazing Stars which so long as they are fed with Vapours shine as if they were fixed Stars but let the Vapours dry up and presently they vanish and disappear Closet duty speaks out most sincerity He prayes with a witness that prayes without a witness The more sincere the soul is the more in Closet duty the soul will be Job 31. 33. Where do you read in all the Scripture that Pharaoh or Saul or Judas or Demas or Simon Magus or the Scribes and Pharisees did ever use to pour out their souls before the Lord in secret Secret prayer is not the Hypocrites ordinary walk his ordinary work or trade There is great cause to fear that his heart was never right with God whose whole devotion is spent among men or among many Or else our Saviour in drawing the hypocrites picture would never have made this to be the very cast of his countenance as he doth in Mat. 6. 5. 'T is very observable that Christ commands his Disciples that they should not be as the hypocrites 'T is one thing to be hypocrites and 't is another thing to be as the hypocrites Christ would not have his people to look like hypocrites nor to be like to hypocrites 'T is only sincerity that will enable a man to make a trade of private prayer In praying with many there are many things that may bribe and provoke a carnal heart as pride vain-glory love of applause or to get a name An hypocrite in all his duties trades more for a good name than for a good life for a good report than for a good conscience like Fidlers that are more careful in tuning their Instruments than in composing their lives But in private prayer there is no such trade to be driven But Fourthly Consider that in secret we may more freely and fully and safely unbosome our soules to God than we can in the presence of many or a few Hence the Husband is to mourn apart and the Wife apart Zech. 12. 12 13 14. not only to shew
in favour with God a man that art very pleasing and delightful to God God loves to lade the wings of private prayer with the sweetest choicest and chiefest blessings Ah how often hath God kissed a poor christian at the beginning of private prayer and spoke peace to him in the midst of private prayer and fill'd him with light and joy and assurance upon the close of private prayer And so Cornelius is highly commended and graciously rewarded upon the account of his private prayer Acts. 10. 1 2 3 4. There was a certain man in Cesarea called Cornelius a Centurion of the Band called the Italian Band a devout man and one that feared God with all his house which gave much Alms to the people and prayed to God alwayes He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth houre of the day an Angel of God coming in to him and saying unto him Cornelius And when he looked on him he was afraid and said what is it Lord and he said unto him thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God Vers 30. 31. And Cornelius said four dayes agoe I was fasting until this hour that is until about three a clock in the after-noon vers 3. and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house and behold a man stood before me in bright cloathing and said Cornelius thy prayer is heard and thine Alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God Mark as he was praying in his house namely by himself alone a man in bright clothing that was an Angel in mans shape vers 3. appeared to him and said Cornelius thy prayer is heard he doth not mean only that prayer which he made when he fasted and humbled himself before the Lord vers 30. 31. but as vers 2 3 4. shews His prayers his prayers which he made alone for it seemes none else were with him then for he only saw that man in bright cloathing and to him alone the Angel addressed his present speech saying Cornelius thy prayers are heard vers 4 31. Here you see that Cornelius his private prayers are not only heard but kindly remembred and graciously accepted and gloriously rewarded Praying Cornelius is not only remembred by God but he is also visited sensibly and evidently by an Angel and assured that his private prayers and good deeds are an odour a sweet smel a sacrifice acceptable and well pleasing to God And so when had Peter his Vision but when he was praying alone on the house-top Acts 10. 9 10 11 12 13. On the morrow as they went on their journey and drew nigh unto the City Peter went up unto the house-top to pray about the sxith hour And he became very hungry and would have eaten but while they made ready he fell into a trance and saw heaven opened and a certain Vessel descending unto him as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners and let down to the earth wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth and wild beasts and creeping things and fowls of the air And there came a voice to him Rise Peter kill and eat When Peter was upon the house-top at prayer alone then he fell into a trance and then he saw Heaven opened and then he had his spirit raised his Mind clevated and all the Faculties of his soul filled with a Divine Revelation And so when Paâ—l was at prayer alone he saw in Acts 11 18. a Vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him that he might receive his sight Paul had not been long at private prayer before it was revealed to him that he was a chosen vessel before he was filled with the gifts Graces and Comforts of the Holy Ghost And when John was alone in the Isle of Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ whither he was banished by Domitian a most cruel Emperor then he had a glorious Euseb l. 3. c. 18. Rev. 1. 9 ult Rev. 5. 1 to 9. sight of the Son of man and then the Lord discovered to him most deep and profound Mysteries both concerning the present and future state of the Church to the end of the world And when John was weeping in private prayer doubtless then the sealed book was opened to him So when Daniel was at private prayer God dispatches a heavenly messenger to him and his Errand was to open more clearly and fully the blessed Scripture to him Some comfortable encourraging knowledge this holy man Doctor Ames got his learning by privat prayer and so did Solomon his wisdom of God had attain'd unto before by his frequent and constant study in the word and this egges him on to private prayer and private prayer posts an Angel from heaven to give him a clearer and fuller light Private prayer is a Golden-key to unlock the mysteries of the word unto us The knowledge of many choice and blessed Truths are but the returns of private prayer The Word dwells most richly in their hearts who are most in pouring out of their hearts before God in their Closets When Bonaventure that seraphical Doctor as some call him was asked by Aquinas from what books and helps he derived such holy and divine expressions and contemplations He pointed to a Crucifix and said Iste est liber c. Prostrate in prayer at the feet of this Image my soul receiveth greater light from heaven than from all study and disputation Though this be a Monkish tradition superstitious Fiction yet some improvement may be made of it Certainly that Christian or that Minister that in private prayer lyes most at the feet of Jesus Christ he shall understand most of the mind of Christ in the Gospel and he shall have most of heaven and the things of his owne peace brought down into his heart There is no Service wherein christians have such a near familiar and friendly entercourse with God as in this of private prayer neither is there any Service wherein God doth more delight to make known his truth and faithfulness his grace and goodness his mercy and bounty his beauty and glory Bene orasse est bene studuisse Luther to poor Souls than this of private prayer Luther professeth That he profited more in the knowledge of the Scripture by private prayer in a short space than he did by study in a longer space As John by weeping in a corner got the sealed book opened Private prayer crownes God with the Honor and Glory that is due to his Name and God crowns private prayer with a discovery of those blessed weighty Truths to his servants that are a sealed book to others Certainly the soul usually enjoyes most communion with God Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus Never less alone than when alone said the Heathen And may not a Saint say so much more that hath communion with God Jer. 13. 1 2. in secret When a christian is
and his prevailing by praying Prayers and tears are not only very pleasing to God but also very prevalent with God And thus you see that this great instance of Jacob speaks out aloud the prevalency of private prayer See another instance of this in David Psal 6. 6 8 9. I am weary groanings all the night make I my bed to swim I water my couch with my tears These are all excessive figurative speeches to set forth the greatness of his sorrow and the multitude of his tears David in his retirement makes the place of his sin viz. his Bed to be the place of his repentance David sins privately upon his bed and David mourns privately upon his bed Every place which we have polluted by sin we should sanctifie and water with our tears Vers 8. Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping As blood hath a voice and as the rod hath a voice so tears have a voice tears have tongues and tears can speak There is no noise to that that tears in secret make in the ears of God A prudent indulgent Father can better pick out the wants and necessities of his Children by their secret tears than by their loud complaints by their weeping than by their words and do you think that God can't do as much Tears are not alwayes Mutes Cry aloud saith one not with thy tongue but with thy eyes Lam. 2. 18. not with thy words but with thy tears for that is the prayer that maketh the most forcible entry into the ears of the great God of Heaven Penitent tears are undeniable Ambassadors that never return from the Throne of Grace without a gracious answer Tears are a kind of silent prayers which though they say nothing yet they obtain pardon and though they plead not a mans cause yet they obtain mercy at the hands of God As you see in that great instance of Peter who though he said nothing that we read of yet weeping bitterly he obtained mercy Mat. 26. 75. I have read of Augustine who coming as a Visitant to the house of a sick man he saw the room full of friends and kindred who were all silent yet all weeping the Wife sobbing the Children sighing the Kinsfolk lamenting all mourning whereupon Augustine uttered this short ejaculatory Prayer Lord What prayer dost thou hear if not these Vers 9. The Lord hath heard my supplication the Lord will receive my prayer God sometimes answers his people before they pray Isa 65. 24. And it shall come to passe that before they call I will answer And sometimes while they are praying so it follows in the same verse And while they are yet speaking I will hear So Isa 30. 19. He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry when he shall hear it he will answer thee And sometimes after they have prayed as the experiences of all Christians can testifie Sometimes God neither hears nor receives a prayer and this is the common case and lot of the wicked Prov. 1. 28. Job 27. 9. Isa 1. 15. Sometimes God hears the prayers of his people but doth not presently answer them as in that case of Paul 2 Cor. 12. 7 8 9. And sometimes God both hears and receives the prayers of his people as here he did Davids Now in this instance of David as in a glasse you may run and read the prevalency of private prayer and of secret tears You may take another instance of this in Jonah Jonah 2. 1 2 3 5 7 10. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fishes belly and said I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord and he heard me out of the belly of Hell cried I and thou heardest my voice For thou had'st cast me into the deep into the midst of the seas and the floods compassed me about all thy billows and thy waves passed over me The waters compassed me about even to the soul the depth closed me round about the weeds were wrapt about my head When my soul fainted within me I remembred the Lord and my prayer came in unto thee into thy holy Temple And the Lord spake unto the fish and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land When Jonah was all alone and in the midst of many dangers and deaths when he was in the Whales belly yea in the belly of Hell so called because horrid and hideous deep and dismal yet then private prayer fetches him from thence Let a mans dangers be never so many nor never so great yet secret prayer hath a certain omnipotency in it that wil deliver him out of them all In multiplied afflictions private prayer is most prevalent with God In the very midst of drowning secret prayer will keep both head and heart above water Upon Jonahs private prayer God sends forth his Mandamus and the Fish serves Jonah for a ship to sail safe to shore When the case is even desperate yet then private prayer can do much with God Private prayer is of that power that it can open the doors of Leviathan as you see in this great instance which yet is reckoned as a thing not feasible Job 41. 14. Another instance of the prevalency of private prayer you have in that 2 Kings 4. 32 33 34 35. And when Elisha was come into the house behold the child was dead and laid upon his bed He went in therefore and shut the door upon them twain and prayer unto the Lord. Privacy is a good help to fervency in prayer And he went up and lay upon the child and put his mouth upon his mouth and his eyes upon his eyes and his hands upon his hands and he stretched himself upon the child and the flesh of the child waxed warm Then he returned and walked in the house to and fro and went up and stretched himself upon him and the child neesed seven times and the child opened his eyes Oh the power the prevalency the omnipotency of private prayer that raises the dead to Life And the same effect had the private prayer of Elijah in raising the widows Son of Zarephath to life 1 Kings 17. 18 ult The great prevalency of Moses his Private prayers you may read in the following Scriptures Num. 11. 1 2. And when the people complained it displeased the Lord and the Lord heard it and his anger was kindled and the fire of the Lord burnt among them and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the Camp And the people cried unto Moses and when Moses prayed unto the Lord the fire was quenched Moses by private prayer rules and over-rules with God he was so potent with God in private prayer that he could have what he would of God So Num. 21. 7 8 9. Psal 106. 23. Exo. 32. 9 10 11 12 13 14. Exo. 14. 15 16 17. The same you may see in Nehemiah Neh. 1. 11. compared with Neh. 2. 4 5
but his secret sins every day written in his fore-head it would not only put him to a crimson blush but it would make him pull his hat over his eyes or cover his face with a double scarfe So 1 Kings 8. 38. What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man or by all thy people Israel which shall know every man the plague of his own heart c. Sin is the greatest plague in the world but never more dangerous than when it reaches the heart Now secret sins commonly ly nearest the Heart the Fountain from whence they take a quick immediate and continual supply Secret sins are as near to original Sin as the first droppings are to the spring head And as every secret sin lyes nearest the heart so every secret sin is the plague of the heart Now as secret diseases are not to be laid open to every one but only to the prudent Physitian So our secret sins which are the secret plagues the secret diseases of our souls are not to belaid open to every one but only to the Physitian of souls that is only able both to cure them and pardon them And as all Christians have their secret sins so all Christians have their secret temptations 2 Corin. 12. 8 9. And as they have their secret temptations so they have their secret wants Yea many times they have such particular and personal wants that there is not one in the congregation nor one in the family that hath the like And as they have their secret wants so they have their secret fears and secret snares and secret streights and secret troubles and secret doubts and secret jealousies c. And how do all these things call aloud upon every Christian to be frequent and constant in secret prayer Eleventhly Consider Christ is very much affected and delighted in the secret prayers of his people Cant. 2. 14. O my dove that art in the clefts of the Rock in the secret places of the staires let me see thy countenance let me hear thy voice for sweet is thy voice and thy countenance is comely Christ observes his Spouse when she is in the clefts of the rock when she is gotten into a Corner a praying he looks upon her with singular delight and with special intimations of his love Nothing is more sweet delightful and welcome to Christ than the secret services of his people Their secret breathings are like lovely songs to him their Mal. 3. 4. secret prayers in the clefts of the rock or under the staires are as sweet incense to Jesus The Spouse retires to the secret places of the stairs not only for security but also for secrecy that so she might the more freely without suspition of hypocrisie pour out her soul into the bosome of her beloved The great delight that Parents take in the secret lispings and whisperings of their children is no delight to that which Christ takes in the secret prayers of his people And therefore as you would be friends and and furtherers of Christs delight be much in secret prayer Twelfthly Consider you are the only persons in all the world that God hath made choice of to reveale his secrets to John 15. 15. Henceforth I call you not servants for the Servant knoweth not what his Lord doth but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my father I have made known unto you Every thing that God the father had communicated to Christ as Mediator to be revealed to his servants he did make known to his disciples as to his bosome friends Christ loves his people as friends and he uses them as friends and he opens his heart to them as friends There is nothing in the heart of Christ that concerns the internal and eternal 1 Cor. 2. 10 11. John 1. 9. Rom. 16. 25. 1 Cor. 2. 7. Ephes 3. 3 4 9. welfare of his friends but he reveales it to them he reveales himself his love his eternal good-will the misteries of Faith and the secrets of his Covenant to his friends Christ loves not to entertaine his friends with things that are commonly and vulgarly knowne Christ will reveal the secrets of his mind the secrets of his love the secrets of his thoughts the secrets of his heart and the secrets of his purposes to all his bosome friends Sampson could not hide his mind his secrets from Dalilah Judg. 16. 15 16 17. though it cost him his life and do you think that Christ can hide his mind his secrets from them for whom he hath laid down his life surely no. O sirs Christ is 1. A universal friend 2. An omnipotent friend an Almighty friend He is no less than thirty times called Almighty in that book of Job he can do above all expressions and beyond all apprehensions 3. He is an omniscient friend 4. He is an omnipresent friend 5. He is an indeficient friend 6. He is an independant friend 7. He is an unchangable friend 8. He is a watchful friend 9. He is a tender and compassionate friend 10. He is a close and faithful friend And therefore he can't but open and unbosom himself to all his bosom friends To be reserved and close is against the very law of friendship Faithful friends are very free in imparting their thoughts their minds their secrets one to another A real friend accounts nothing worth knowing unless he makes it known to his friends He rips up his greatest and most inward secrets to his friends Job calls Job 19. 19. his friends inward friends or the men of his secrets All Christs friends are inward friends they are the men of his secrets Prov. 3. 32. His secrets are with the righteous that is his covenant and fatherly affection which is hid and secret from the world He that is righteous in secret where no man sees him he is the righteous man to whom God will communicate his closest secrets as to his dearest bosom friend It is only a bosom friend to whom we will unbosom our selves So Psal 25. 14. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will shew them his Covenant Now there are three sorts of divine secrets First There are secrets of Providence Psal 107. ult Hos 14. 9. and these he reveals to the righteous and to them that fear him The Prophet Amos speaks of these secrets of Providence Amos 3. 7. Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he revealeth his secrets unto his servants the Prophets Micaiah knew the secret of the Lord touching Ahab which neither Zedekiah 1 King 2 4. nor any other of the false Prophets knew So Gen. 18. 17. And the Lord said shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do The destruction of Sodom was a secret that lay in the bosom of God but Abraham being a bosom friend God communicates this secret to him Vers 19 20 21. Abraham was a Jam. 2. 23. friend a faithful friend a friend
brother front the hand of Esau for I fear him lest he will come and smite me and the Mother with the children or upon the children meaning he he will put all to death Some look upon the words to be a metaphor taken from Fowlers who kill and take away the young and the Dams together contrary to that old law Deut. 22. 6. Others say 't is a Phrase that doth most lively represent the tenderness of a mother who seeing her children in distress spares not her own body nor life to hazard the same for her childrens preservation by interposing See Hos 10. 14. her self even to be massacred together with and upon them When Jacob and all that was near and dear unto him were in eminent danger of being cut off by Esau and those men of blood that were with him he betakes himself to private prayer as his only City of refuge against the rage and malice of the mighty And so when Jeremiah was in a solitary and loathsome Dungeon Private prayer was his meat and drink it was his only City of refuge Jer. 33. 1 2 3. Moreover the word of Lord came unto Jeremiah the second time while he was yet shut up in the Court of the prison saying Thus saith the Lord the Maker thereof the Lord that formed it to establish it the Lord is his Name Call unto me and I will answer thee I will shew thee great and mighty or hidden things which thou knowest not When Jeremiah was in a lonesome loathsome Prison God encourages him by private prayer to seek for further discoveries and revelations of those choice and singular favours which in future times he purposed to confer upon his people So 2 Chron. 33. 11 12 13. Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the Captains of the Host of the King of Assyria which took Manasseh among the thorns and bound him with fetters or chains and carried him to Babylon And when he was in affliction he besought the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers and prayed unto him and he was intreated of him and heard his supplication and brought him again to Jerusalem into his Kingdome Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God When Manasseh was in fetters in his enemies country when he was stript of all his Princely glory and led captive into Babylon he betakes himself to Private prayer as his only City of refuge and by this means he prevailes with God for his restauration to his Crown and Kingdome Private prayer is a City of refuge that no power nor Policy no craft nor cruelty no violence nor force is ever able to surprize Though the joynt prayers of the People of God together were often obstructed and hindered in the times of the ten Persecutions yet they were never able to obstruct or hinder secret prayer Private prayer When men and Devils have done their worst every Christian will be able to maintain his Private trade with Heaven Private prayer will shelter a christian against all the National Domestical and Personal stormes and tempests that may threaten him When a man is lying upon a sick bed alone or when a man is in prison alone or when a man is with Job left upon the Dunghil alone or when a man is with John banished for the Testimony of Jesus into this or that Island alone O then private prayer will be his meat and drink his shelter his hiding place his Heaven When all other Trades faile this Trade of private Prayer will hold good But. Fourteenthly Consider that Jer. 16. 17. Job 34. 21. Prov. 5. 21. Jer. 32. 19. Rev. 2. 23. Lam. 3 56. God is omnipresent We cannot get into any blind hole or dark corner or secret place but the Lord hath an eye there the Lord will keep us company there Math. 6. 6. And thy father which seeth in secret shall reward the openly So v. 18. there is not the darkest durtiest hole in the world into which a saint creeps but God hath a favourable eye there God never wants an eye to see our secret tears nor an eare to heare our secret cryes and groans nor a heart to grant our secret requests and therefore we ought to pour out our souls to him in secret Psal 38. 9. Lord all my desire is before thee and my groaning is not hide from thee Though our private desires are never so confused though our private requests are never so broken and though our private groanings are never so much hidden from men yet God eyes them all God records them all and God puts them all upon the file of heaven and will one day crown them with glorious answers and returns We cannot sigh out a prayer in secret but he sees us we cannot lift up our eyes to him at midnight but he observes us The eye that God hath upon his people when they are in secret is such a special tender eye of love as opens his ear his heart and his hand for their good 1 Pet. 3. 12. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous and his ears are open unto their prayers or as the Greek hath it his ears are unto their prayers If their prayers are so faint that they cannot reach up as high as Heaven then God will bow the heavens God is totus oculus all eye and come down to their prayers Gods eye is upon every secret sigh every secret groan every secret tear and every secret desire and every secret pant of love and every secret breathing of soul and every secret melting and working of heart all which should encourage us to be much in secret duties in closet-services As a Christian is never out of the reach of Gods hand so he is never out of the view of Gods eye If a Christian cannot hide himself from the Sun which is Gods Minister of light how impossible will it be to hide himself from him whose eyes are ten thousand times brighter than the Sun In every private duty a christian is stil under the eye of Gods omnisciency When we are in the darkest hole God hath windows into our breasts and observes all the secret actings of our inward man The 1 Tim. 2. 8. eye of God is not confined to this place or that to this company or that God hath an eye upon his people as well when they are alone as when they are among a multitude as well when they are in a corner as well as when they are in a croud Diana's Temple was burnt down when she was busie at Alexanders birth and could not be at two places together But God is present both in Paradise and in the wilderness both in the family and in the closet both in publick and in private at the same time God is an omnipresent God he is Non est ubi ubi non est Deus every where as he is included in no place so he is excluded from no place
Jer. 23. 24. Can any man hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him saith the Lord Pro. 15. 3. The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good or contemplating the evil and the good as the Hebrew may be read Now to contemplate is more than simply to behold for contemplation addeth to a simple apprehension a deeper degree of knowledge entring into the very inside of a matter and so indeed doth God discern the very inward intentions of the heart and the most secret motions of the spirit God is an infinite and immense being whose center is every where and whose circumference is no where Now if our God be omnipresent then wheresoever we are our God is present with us if we are in prison alone with Joseph our God is present with us there or if we are in exile alone with David our God is present with us there or if we are alone in our closets our God is present with us there God seeth us in secret and therefore let us seek his face in secret Though Heaven be Gods Pallace yet it is not his prison But Fifteenthly He that willingly neglects private prayer shall certainly be neglected in his publick prayer he that will not call upon God in secret shall find by sad experience that God will neither hear him nor regard him in publick Want of private duties is the great reason why the hearts of many are so dead and dull so formal and carnal so barren and unfruitful under publick Ordinances O that Christians would seriously lay this to heart Certainly that man or womans heart is best in publick who is most frequent in private They make most yearnings in publick Ordinances that are most conscientiously exercised in closet duties No mans graces rises so high nor no mans experiences rises so high nor no mans communion with God rises so high nor no mans divine enjoyments rises so high nor no mans springs of comfort rises so high nor no mans hopes rises so high nor no mans parts and gifts rises so high c. as theirs do who conscientiously wait upon God in their Closets before they wait upon him in the Assembly of his people and who when they return from publick Ordinances retire into their Closets and look up to Heaven for a blessing upon the publick means 'T is certain that private duties fit the soul for publick ordinances He that makes conscience to wait upon God in private shall finde by experience that God will wonderfully blesse publick Mic. 2. 7. Ordinances to him My designe is not to set up one Ordinance of God above another nor to cause one ordinance of God to clash with another the publick wth the private or the private with the publick but that every Ordinance may have its proper place right The desires of my soul being to prize every Ordinance to praise every ordinance and to practise every Ordinance to improve every ordinance to blesse the Lord for every Ordinance But as ever you would see Psal 63. 1 2 3. the beauty and glory of God in his sanctuary as ever you would have publick Ordinances to be lovely and lively to your souls as ever you would have your drooping spirits revived and your languishing souls refreshed and your weak graces strengthned and your strong corruptions weakned under publick Ordinances be more careful conscientious in the performance of Closet duties O how strong in grace O how victorious over sin O how dead to the world O how alive to Christ O how fit to live O how prepared to die might many a Christian have been had they been but more frequent serious and conscientious in the discharge of Closet duties Not but that I think there is a truth in that saying of Bede the word Church being rightly understood viz. That he that comes not willingly to Church shall one day go unwillingly to Hell But Sixteenthly Consider the times wherein we live call aloud for secret prayer Hell seems to be broke loose and men turned into incarnate Devils Land-destroying and Soul-damning wickednesses walk up and down the streets with a Whores fore-head without the least check or controul Jer. 3. 3. Thou had'st a Whores fore-head thou refusest to be ashamed Jer. 6. 15. Were they ashamed when they committed abomination nay they were not at allashamed neither could they blush They had Curtius an heathen could say That he was an undone man that knoweth no shame sinned away shame instead of being ashamed of sin Custom in sin had quite banished all sence of sin and all shame for sin so that they would not suffer nature to draw her vail of blushing before their great abominations They were like to Caligula a wicked Emperor who used to say of himself That he loved nothing better in himself than that he could not be ashamed The same words are repeated in Chap. 8. 12. How applicable these Scriptures are to the present times I will leave the prudent reader to judge But what doth the Prophet do now they were as bold in sin and as shameless as so many harlots that you may see in Jer. 13. 17. But if ye will not hear it my soul shall weep in secret places or secresies for your pride and mine eye shall weep sore Heb. weeping weep or shedding tears shed tears the doubling of the verb notes the bitter and grievous lamentation that he should make for them and run down with tears Now they were grown up to that heighth of sin and wickedness that they were above all shame and blushing now they were grown so proud so hardned so obstinate so rebellious so mad upon mischief that no mercies could melt them or allure them nor no threatnings nor judgements could any wayes terrifie them or stop them the Prophet goes into a corner he retires himself into the most secret places and there he weeps bitterly there he weeps as if he were resolved to drown himself in his own tears When the springs of sorrow rise high a Christian turns his back upon company and retires himself into places of greatest privacy that so he may the more freely and the more fully vent his sorrow and grief before the Lord. Ah England England what pride luxury lasciviousness licentiousness wantonness drunkenness cruelties injustice oppressions fornications adulteries falshoods hypocrisie bribery atheisme horrid blasphemies and hellish impieties are now to be found rampant in the midst of thee Ah England England how are the Lords Sabbaths profaned pure Ordinances despised Scriptures rejected the Spirit resisted and derided the righteous reviled wickedness countenanced and Christ many thousand times in a day by these cursed practises a fresh crucified Ah England England were our forefathers alive how sadly would they blush to see such a horrid degenerate posterity as is to be found in the midst of thee How is our forefathers hospitality converted into riot and luxury their frugallity into
pride and prodigallity their simplicity into subtilty their sincerity into hypocrisie their charity into cruelty their chastity into chambring and wantonness their sobriety into drunkenness their plain dealing into dissembling their works of compassion into works of oppression and their love to the people of God into an utter enmity against the people of God! c. And what is the voice of all these crying abominations but every Christian to his closet every Christian to his closet and there weep with weeping Jeremiah bitterly for all these great abominations whereby God is dishonoured openly O weep in secret for their sins who openly glory in their sins which should be their greatest shame O blush in secret for them that are past all blushing for their sins for who knowes but that the whole land may fare the better for the sakes of a few that are mourners in secret But however it goes with the Nation such as mourn in secret for the abominations of the times may be confident that when sweeping judgements shall come upon the land the Lord will hide them in the secret Chambers of his providence he will set a secret mark of deliverance upon their fore-heads that mourn in secret for the crying sins of the present day as he did upon theirs in Ezek. 9. 4 5 6. Seventeenthly Consider That John 15. 14 15. the near and dear relations that you stand in to the Lord calls aloud for secret prayer You are his friends Now a true friend loves to visit his friend when he may find him alone and enjoy privacy with him A true friend loves to pour out his heart into the bosom of his friend when he hath him in a corner or in the field or under a hedge You are his favourites and 1 Sam. 20. Neh. 2. 1 2 3 4. what favourite is there that hides his secret from his prince do not all favourites open their hearts to their princes when they are alone You are his Children and what ingenious child is there that doth not delight to be much with his father Eph. 5. 8. 1 Thes 5. 5. 2 Cor. 11. 2. when he is alone when no body is by O how free and open are children when they have their parents alone beyond what they are when company is present You are the Spouse of Christ and what spouse what wife is there that doth not love to be much with her husband when he is all alone True lovers are alwayes best when they are most alone Cant. 7. 10 11 12. I am my beloveds and his desire is towards me Come my beloved let us go forth into the field let us lodge in the villages Let us get up early to the vineyards let us see if the vines flourish whether the tender grape appear and the pomegranates bud forth there will I give thee my loves The Spouse of Christ is very desirous to enjoy his company in the fields that so having her beloved alone she might the more freely and the more secretly open her heart to him As wives when they are walking alone with their husbands in the fields are more free to open their minds and the secrets of their hearts than they are when in their houses with their children and servants about them so 't was with the spouse Without all peradventure they have very great cause to question whether they are Christs real friends favourites children spouse who seldom or never converse with Christ in their closets who are shie of Christ when they are alone who never accustome themselves to give Christ secret visits What Dalilah said to Sampson Judg. 16. 15. How canst thou say I love thee when thou hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth the discovery of which secret at last cost him his life that Christ may say to very many in our dayes How can you say you love me when you never acquaint me with your secrets how can you say you love me when you never bestow any private visits upon me How can you say that you are my friends my faithful friends my bosom friends when you never in private unbosom your selves to me How can you say that you are my favourites when you can spend one moneth after another and one quarter of a year after anoâ—her and yet not let me know one of all your secrets when every day you might have my ear in secret if you pleased How can you say that you are my children and yet be so close and reserved as you are How can you say you are my spouse and that you lye in my bosome yet never take any delight to open your hearts your secrets to me when I am alone What Alexander said to one that was of his name but a Coward Either lay down the name of Alexander or fight like Alexander that I say to you Either be frequent in closet duties as becomes a Christian or else lay down the name of a Christian either unbosom your selves in secret to Christ as friends favourites children spouses or else lay down these names c. But Eighteenthly Consider that God hath set a special mark of favour honour and observation upon those that have prayed in secret As you may see in Moses Exod. 34. 28. And in Abraham Gen. 21. 33. And in Isaac Gen. 24. 63. And in Jacob Gen. 32. 24-29 And in David Psal 55. 16 17. And in Daniel Chap. 6. 10. And in Paul Acts 9. 11. And in Cornelius Acts 10. 2. 4. And in Peter Acts 10. 9 10 11 12. And in Manasseh 2 Chron. 33. 18 19. God hath put all these worthies that have exercised themselves in secret prayer upon record to their everlasting fame and honour The Persians seldome write their Kings name but in characters of Gold God hath writ as I may say their names in characters of Gold who have made conscience of exercising themselves in secret prayer The precious names of those that have addicted themselves to closet duties are as Statues of gold which the polluted breath of men can no wayes stain they are like so many shining Suns that no clouds can darken they are like so many sparkling Diamonds that shine brightest in the darkest night A christian can never get into a hole a corner a closet to pour out his soul before the Lord but the Lord makes an honourable observation of him and sets a secret mark of favour upon him Ezek. 9. 4 5 6. And how should this provoke all christians to be much with God alone The Romans were very ambitious of obtaining a great name a great report in this world and why should not Christians be as divinely ambitious of obtaining a good name a good report in the other Heb. 11. 39. world A good name is alwayes better then a great name and a name in heaven is infinitely better then a thousand names on earth and the way to both these is to be much with God in secret But 19thly Consider that Satan
is a very great enemy to secret prayer Secret prayer is a scourge a hell to Satan every secret prayer adds to the Devils torment and every secret sigh adds to his torment and every secret groan adds to his torment every secret tear adds to his torment When a child of God is on his knees in his secret addresses There is no one thing that many hundred Christians have more sadly lamented and bewailed as many saithful Ministers can witness than the sad interruptions that they have met with from Satan when they have been with God alone in a room in a corner O! how often have they been scared affrighted and amazed by noyses strange apparitions at least to their fancies when they have been alone with God in a corner to God O the strange thoughts the earthly thoughts the wandring thoughts the distracted thoughts the hideous thoughts the blasphemous thoughts that Satan often injects into his soul and all to wean him from secret prayer and to weary him of secret prayer Sometimes he tells the soul that 't is in vain to seek God in secret and at other times he tells the soul 't is too late to seek God in secret for the door of mercy is shut and there is no hope no help for the soul Sometimes he tells the soul that 't is enough to seek God in Publick and at other times he tells the soul that 't is but a precise trick to seek the Lord in private Sometimes he tells the soul that 't is not elected and therefore all his secret prayers shall be rejected and at other times he tells the soul that 't is sealed up unto the day of wrath and therefore secret prayer can never reverse that seal and all this to dishearten and discourage a poor Christian in his secret retirements Sometimes Satan will object to a poor Christian the greatness of his sins at other times he will object against a Christian the greatness of his unworthyness Sometimes he will object against a Christian his want of grace and at other times he will object against a Christian his want of gifts to manage such a duty as it should be managed Sometimes he will object against a Christian his former streightnedness in secret prayer and at other times he will object against a Christian the smal yearnings that he makes of secret prayer and all to work the soule out of love with secret prayer yea to work the soul to loath secret prayer so deadly an enemy is Satan to secret prayer O the strange fears fancies and conceits that Satan often raises in the spirits of Christian when they are alone with God in a corner and all to work them to cast off private prayer 'T is none of Satans least designes to interrupt a Christian in his private trade with God Satan watches all a Christians motions so that he cannot turn into his closet nor creep into any hole to converse privately with his God but he followes him hard at heels will be stil injecting one thing or another into the soul or else objecting one thing or another against the soul A Christian is as well able to tell the stars of Heaven and to number the sands of the sea as he is able to number up the several devices and slights that Satan uses to obstruct the souls private addresses to God Now from that great opposition that Satan makes against private prayer a Christian may safely conclude these five things First The excellency of private prayer Certainly If it were not an excellent thing for a man to be in secret with God Satan would never make such head against it Secondly The necessity of this duty The more necessary any duty is to the internal and eternal welfare of a Christian the more Satan will bestir himself to blunt a Christians Spirit in that duty Thirdly The utility or profit that attends a conscientious discharge of this duty Where we are like to gain most there Satan loves to oppose most Fourthly The prevalency of private prayer If there were not a kind of an omnipotency in it if it were not able to doe wonders in heaven and wonders on earth and wonders in the hearts and lives and wayes of men Satan would never have such an akeing tooth against it as he hath Fifthly That God is highly honoured by this duty or else Satan would never be so greatly enraged against it This is certaine The more Glory God hath from any service we do the more Satan will strive by all his wiles and slights to take us either off from that service or so to interrupt us in that service that God may have no honour nor we no good nor himself no hurt by our private retirements But in the Twentieth and last place consider that you are only the Lords secret ones his hidden ones and therefore if you do not apply your selves to private prayer and to your secret retirements that you may enjoy God in a corner none will 'T is only Gods hidden ones his secret ones that are spirited principled and prepared to waite on God in secret Exod. 19. 5. Then shall ye be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people The Hebrew word Segullah signifieth Gods special Jewels Gods proper ones or Gods secret ones that he keeps in store for himself and for his own special service and use Princes lock up with their own hands in secret their most precious and costly Jewels and so doth God his Psal 135. 4. For the Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself and Israel for his peculiar treasure or for his secret Gem. Psal 83. 3. They have taken craftie counsel against thy people and consulted against thy hidden ones or thy secret ones so called partly because God hides them in the secret of his Tabernacle partly because God sets Psal 31. 20. as high a value upon them as men do upon their hidden treasure their secret treasure yea he makes more reckoning of them than he doth of all the world besides And so the world shall know when God shall arise to revenge the wrongs and injuries that hath been done to his secret ones Neither are there any on earth that knowes so much of the secrets of his love of the secrets of his counsels of the secrets of his purposes of the secrets of his heart as his secret ones do Neither are there any in all the world that are under those secret influences those secret assistances those secret incomes those secret anointings of the Spirit as his secret ones are under And therefore no wonder if God calls them again and gain and again his secret ones Now what can be more comely or more desireable than to see their natures and their practices to answer to their names They are the Lords secret ones his hidden ones and therefore how highly doth it concern them to be much with God in secret and to hide themselves with God in a corner Shall
then sixthly and lastly they pray for a good night after their day Certainly these very Moors will one day rise in judgement against them who cast off prayer who live in a total neglect of prayer who suffer so many Suns and Moons to rise and set upon their heads without any solemn calling upon God I have read of a man who being sick and afraid of death fell to his prayers and to move God to hear him told him That he was no common beggar and that he had never troubled him with his prayers before Heil Mic. p. 376. and if he would but hear him at that time he would never trouble him again This world is full of such prophane blasphemous atheistical wretches But Thirdly This truth looks very sourly and sadly upon such who are all for publick prayer but never regard private prayer who are â—ll for going up to the Temple but never care for going into their Closets This is most palpable hypocrisie for a man to be very zealous for publick prayer but very cold and careless as to private prayer He that pretends conscience in the one and makes no conscience of the other is an hypocrite in grain Matth. 23. 5. Matth. 6. 1 2 5. And the Devil knowes well enough how to make his markets of all such hypocrites that are all for the prayers of the Church but perfect Gallio's as to private prayer Acts 18. 17. Such as perform all their private devotion in the Church but not in the Chamber do put too great a slight upon the authority of Christ who saith When thou prayest enter into thy Chamber he doth not say when thou prayest Go to the Church but when thou prayest go into thy Chamber But Fourthly This truth looks sadly and sourly upon such who in their Closets pray with a loud clamorous voice A Christian should shut both the door of his Closet and the door of his Lips so close that none should hear without what he saith within Enter into thy Closet saith Christ and when thou hast shut thy door pray But what need a man shut his Closet door if he may pray with a clamorous voice if he make such a noise as all in the street or all in the house may hear him The Hen when she lays her Eggs gets into a hole a corner but then she makes such a noise with her cackling that she tells all in the house where she is and about what she is Such Christians that in their Closets do imitate the Hen do rather pray to be seen heard and observed by men than out of any noble design to glorifie God or to pour out their souls before him that seeth in secret Sometimes children when they are vext or afraid of the rod will run behind the door or get into a dark hole and there they will lye crying and sighing and sobbing that all the house may know where they are O 't is a childish thing so to cry and sigh and sob in our Closets as to tell all in the house where we are and about what work we are Well Christians for an effectual redress of this evil frequently and seriously consider of these five things First That God seeth in secret Secondly That God hath a quick ear and is taken more with the voice of the heart than he is with the clamour of the mouth God can easily hear the most secret breathings of thy soul God is more curious in observing the messages delivered by the heart than he is those that are only delivered by the mouth He that prays aloud in private seems to tell others that God doth not understand the secret desires and thoughts and workings of his peoples hearts Thirdly 'T is not meet 't is not convenient nor expedient that any should be acquainted with our secret prayers but God and our own souls Now 't is as much our duty to look to what is expedient as 't is 2 Cor. 8. 10 Chap. 12. 1. to look to what is lawful 1 Cor. 6. 12. All things are lawful unto me but all things are not expedient So Chap. 10. 23. All things are lawful for me but all things are not expedient all things are lawful for me but all things edifie not Now 't is so far from being expedient that 't is very high folly for men to lay open their secret infirmities unto others that will rather deride them than lift up a prayer for them Fourthly Loud prayers may be a hinderance and disturbance to others that may be busied near us in some Religious or Civil exercises Fifthly and lastly Hannah prayed and yet spoke never a word her heart was full but her voice was not heard 1 Sam. 1. 11. Moses prayes and cries and yet le ts fall never a word Exod. 14. 15. And the Lord said unto Moses wherefore cryest thou unto me Moses did not cry with any audible voice but with inward sighs and secret breathings and wrestlings of soul and these inward and secret cries which made no noise carried the day with God for Moses is heard and answered and his people are delivered O the prevalency of those prayers that make no noise in the ears of others Fifthly and lastly This truth looks sourly and sadly upon those that do all they can to hinder and discourage others from this duty of duties Private prayer and that either by deriding or vilifying of the duty or else by denying of it to be a duty or else by their daily neglect of this duty or else by denying them that are under them time and opportunity for the discharge of this duty In Matth. 23. 13. You have a woe pronounced against those that will neither goe to Heaven themselves nor suffer others to goe that are willing to enter into an everlasting rest And so I say woe to those Parents and woe to those Husbands and woe to these Masters and Mistrises that will neither pray in their closets themselves nor suffer their children nor their wives nor their servants to pour out their souls before the Lord in a corner O Sirs how will you answer this to your consciences when you shall lye upon a dying bed and how will you answer it to the Judge of all the world when you shall stand before a Judgment seat Certainly all their sins and all their neglects and all their spiritual losses that might have been prevented by their secret prayers by their closet communion with God will one day be charg'd upon your accounts And O that you were all so wise as to lay these things so to heart that you may never hinder any that are under your care or charge from private prayer any more But Secondly This may serve to exhort us to keep close to our Closets to be frequent and constant in Private prayer to be often with God in a corner The 20 Considerations already laid down may serve as so many motives to provoke your hearts to this noble and necessary duty Objection
But many will be ready to object and say We have much business upon our hands and we cannot spare time for private prayer we have so much to doe in our shops and in our ware-houses and abroad with others that we cannot spare time to waite upon the Lord in our Closets Now to this Objection I shall give these Eight Answers that this Objection may never have a resurrection more in any of your hearts First What are all those businesses that are upon your hands to those great businesses weighty affaires that did lye upon the hands of Abraham Isaac Jacob Moses David Daniel Elias Nehemiah See the first Consideration Peter Cornelius and yet you find all these worthies exercising themselves in Private prayers And the King is commanded every day to read some part of Gods word notwithstanding all his great and weighty imployments Deut. 17. 18 19 20. Now certainly Sirs your great businesses are little more than ciphers compared with theirs And if there were any on earth that might have pleaded an exemption from private prayer upon the account of business of much business of great business these might have done it but they were more honest and more noble than to neglect so choice a duty upon the account of much business these brave hearts made all their publick imployments stoop to private prayer they would never suffer their publick imployments to tread private prayer under foot But Secondly I answer no mens outward affaires did ever more prosper than theirs did who devoted themselves to private prayer notwithstanding their many and great worldly employments Witness the prosperity outward flourishing estates of Moses Abraham Isaac Jacob Nehemiah David Daniel and Cornelius these were much with God in their Closets and God blest their blessings to them how Gen. 22. 17 did their cups over flow what signall favours did God heape upon them and theirs No families have been so prospered protected and graced as theirs who have maintained secret communion with God in a Corner Private prayer 1 Chron. 11. 9. doth best expedite our temporal affairs he that prayes well in his Closet shall be sure to speed well in his Shop or at his Plough or 1 Tim. 4. 8. what-ever else he turns his hand unto 'T is true Abimelech was rich as well as Abraham and so was Laban rich as well as Jacob and Saul was a King as well as David and Julian was an Emperour as well as Constantine But 't was only Abraham Jacob David and Constantine who had their blessings blest unto them all the rest had their blessings curst unto them they had many Prov. 3. 33. Mal. 2. 2. good things but they had not the good will of him that dwelt in the Bush with what they had and therefore all their mercies were but bitter-sweets unto them Though all the sons of Jacob returned laden from Gen. 43. Aegypt with corn and money in their sacks yet Benjamin only had the silver cup in the mouth of his sack So though the men of the world have their Corn and their Money c. yet 't is only God's Benjamin's that have the silver Cup the Grace-Cup the Cup of blessing as the Apostle calls 1 Cor. 10. 16 it for their portion O sirs as ever you would prosper and flourish in the world as ever you would have your water turn'd into wine your temporal mercies into spiritual benefits be much with God in your closets But Thirdly I answer 'T is ten to one but that the objecter every day fools away or trifles away or idles away or sins away one hour in a day and why then should he object the want of time There are none that toyle and moyle and busie themselves most in their worldly imployments but doe Myrmecides a famous Artist spent more time in making a Bee than an unskilful workman would do to build a house Plutarch spend an houre or more in a day to little or no purpose either in gazing about or in dallying or toying or dourting or in telling of stories or in busying themselves in other mens matters or in idle visits or in smoaking the Pipe c. And why then should not these men redeem an hours time in a day for private prayer out of that time which they usually spend so vainly and idly can you notwithstanding all your great worldly imployments find an hour in the day to catch flyes in as Domitian the Emperour did and to play the fool in and cannot you find an hour in the day to wait on God in your closets There were three special faults whereof Cato professed himself to have seriously repented one was passing by water when he might have gone by land another was trusting a secret in a womans bosome but the main was spending an hour unprofirably This heathen will one day rise up in Judgment against them who notwithstanding their great imployments spend many hours in a week unprofitably and yet cry out with the Duke of Alva that they have so much to do on earth that they have no time to look up to heaven 'T was a base and sordid spirit in that King Sardanapalus who spent much of his time amongst women in spinning and carding which should have been spent in Ruling and governing his Kingdome So 't is a base sordid spirit in any to spend any of their time in toying and trifling and then to cry out that they have so much business to do in the World that they have no time for closet-prayer they have no time to serve God nor to save their own precious and immortal souls But Fourthly I answer No man dares plead this objection before the Lord Jesus in the great day of account And why then should any man be so childish foolish so â—ccl 11. 9. Rom 14. 10. 2 Cor. 5. 10. ignorant impudent to plead that before men which is not pleadable before the Judgment seat of Christ O sirs as you love your souls and as you would be happy for ever never put off your own consciences nor others with any plea's arguments or objections now that you dare not own and stand by when you shall lye upon a dying bed and when you shall appear before the whole court of heaven c. In the great day of account when the secrets of all hearts shall be made manifest and God shall call men to a reckoning before Angels Men and Devils for the neglect of private prayer all giulty persons will be found speechless there will not be a man or woman found that shall dare to stand up and say Lord I would have waited upon thee in my closet but that I had so much business to do in the world that I had no time to enjoy secret communion with thee in a Corner 'T is the greatest wisdom in the world to plead nothing by way of excusein this our day that we dare not plead in the great day But.
sleeping and superfluous feasting c. O Sirs good hours and blessed opportunities for closet prayer are merchandise of the highest rate and price and therefore whosoever hath a mind to be rich in grace and to be high in glory should buy up that merchandize they should be still a redeeming precious time O Sirs we should redeem time for private prayer out of our eating time our drinking time our sleeping time our buying time our selling time our sinning time our sporting time rather than neglect our Closet communion with God c. But Sixthly I answer Closet prayer is either a duty or 't is no duty Now that 't is a duty I have so strongly proved I suppose that no man nor devil can fairly or honestly deny it to be a duty And therefore why do men cry out of their great business alass duty must be done what ever business is left undone duty must must be done or the man that neglects it will be undone for ever 'T is a vaine thing to object business when a required duty is to be performed and indeed if the bare objecting of business of much business were enough to excuse men from duty I am afraid that there are but few duties of the Gospel but men would endeavour to evade under a pretence of business of much business He that pretends business to evade private prayer will be as ready to pretend business to evade family prayer and he that pretends business to evade family prayer will be as ready to pretend business to evade publick prayer Well sirs remember what became of those that excused themselves out of heaven by their carnal Apologies secular businesses I have bought a peice of ground and I Luke 14. 16 15. must needs goe and see it I pray thee have me excused saith one I have bought saith another five yoke of Oxen and I go to prove them I pray thee have me excused And I have married a Wife saith another and therefore I cannot come The true reason why they would not come to the supper that the King of Kings had invited them to was not because they had bought Farms and Oxen but because their Farms and Oxen had bought them The things of the world and their carnal relatitions had taken up so much room in their hearts and affections that they had no stomack to heavens danties and therefore it is observable what Christ adds at the end of the parable He that hateth not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters Vers 26. yea and his own Life also much more his Farm and his Oxen he cannot be my disciple By these words 't is evident that 't was not simply the Farm nor the Oxen nor the Wife but a foolish inordinate carnal love and esteeme of these things above better and greater blessings that made them refuse the gracious invitation of Christ They refused the grace and mercy of God offered in the Gospel under a pretence of their worldly business and God peremptorily concludes that not a man of them should tast of his supper And indeed what can be more just and righteous than that they should never so much as tast of spiritual eternal blessings who prefer their earthly business before heavens dainties who with the Reubenites prefer a countrey commodious Num. 23. for the feeding of their Cattle before an interest in the Land of Promise Private prayer is a work of absolute necessity both to the bringing of the heart into a good frame and to the keeping of the heart in a good frame 'T is of absolute necessity both for the discovery of sin and for the preventing of sin and for the imbittering of sin and for the weakning of sin and for the purging away of sin 'T is of absolute necessity both for the discovery of grace and for a full exercise of grace and for an eminent increase of grace 'T is of absolute necessity to arme us both against inward and outward temptations afflictions and sufferings 'T is of absolute necessity to fit us for all other duties and services c. For a man to glorifie God to save his own soul and to further his own everlasting happiness is a work of the greatest necessity Now private prayer is such a work and therefore why should any man plead business great business when a work of such absolute necessity is before him If a mans child or wife were dangerously sick or wounded or near to death he would never plead I have business I have a great deale of business to doe and therefore I cannot stay with my child my wife and I have no time to goe or send to the Physitian c. O! no but he would rather argue thus 'T is absolutely necessary that I should looke after the preservation of the life of my child my wife and this I will attend whatever becomes of my business O sirs your souls are of greater concernment to you than the lives of all the wives and children in the world and therefore these must be attended these must be saved whatever business is neglected But Seventhly I answer That God did never appoint or designe any mans ordinary particular calling to thrust private prayer out of door That 't is a great sin for any professor to neglect his particular calling under any religious pretence is evident enough by Paradise was mans work-house as well as his store-house Gen. 2. 15. Man should not have lived idly though he had not fallen from his innocency these Scriptures Exod. 20. 9. Six dayes shall thou labour and doe all thy work 1 Cor. 7. 20. Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was câ—lled 2 Thess 4. 10 11. 12. For even when we were with you this we commanded you that if any would not work neither should he eate For we hear that there are some which walke among you disorderly working not at all but are busit-bodies Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness they work and eat their own bread 1 Thess 4. 11 12. And that ye studie to be quiet and to doe your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without and that ye may have lack of nothing Ephes 4. 28. But rather let him labour working with his hands the thing which is good that he may have to give to him that needeth 1 Tim. 5. 8. But if any provide not for his own and specially for those of his own house he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel Yea our Lord Jesus Christ was a plain downright Carpenter and was laborious in that particular calling Mark 6. 3. Matth. 13. 55 56. till he entred upon the publick ministry as all the Ancients do agree And we read also that all the Patriarchs had their particular callings Abei was
a keeper of sheep Gen. 4. 2. Noah was a Husbandman Gen. 10. 20. The sons of Jacob were shepherds and keepers of Cattle Gen. 46. 34 c. And all the Apostles before they were called to the work of the Ministry had their particular callings By the law of Mahomet the great Turk himself is bound to exercise some manual Trade or occupation Solon made a Law That the son Plutarch in the life of Solon should not be bound to relieve his father when old unless he had set himself in his youth to some occupation And at Athens every man gave a yearly account to the Magistrate by what trade or course of life he mantained himself which if he could not do he was banished And 't is by all Writers condemned as a very great vanity in Dionysius that would needs be the best Poet. And Caligula that would needs be the best Oratour And in Nero that would needs be the best Fidler and so became the three worst Princes by minding more other mens businesse than their own particular calling But for a man to evade or neglect private prayer under pretence of his particular calling is a greeable to no Scripture yea 't is contrary to very many Scriptures as is evident by the many Arguments formerly cited Certainly no mans calling is a calling away from God or godliness It never entered into the heart of God that our particular callings should ever drive out of doores our general calling of Christianity Look as our general calling must not eat up our particular calling so our particular calling must not eat up our general calling Certainly our partilar calling must give place to our general calling Did not the woman of Samaria leave her water-pot and run into the city and John 4. 28 29. say come see a man that told me all things that ever I did is not this the Christ Did not the shepherds leave their flocks in the field and goe to Bethlehem and declare the good tidings of great joy that they had Luke 2. 8 21. heard of the Angel viz. That there was born that day in the citie of David a Saviour which was Christ the Lord And did not Christ commend Mary Luke 10. 38 ult for that holy neglect of her particular calling when she sat at his seet and heard his word And what do all these instances shew but that our particular callings must give the right hand to the general calling of christianity Certainly the works of our general calling are far more great and glorious more eminent and excellent more high and noble than the works of our particular callings are and therefore 't is much more to lerable for our general calling to borrow time of our particular calling than 't is for our particular calling to borrow time of our general calling Certainly those men are very ignorant or very prophane that either think themselves so closely tied up to follow their particular callings six dayes in the week as that they must not intermeddle with any religious services or that think their particular callings to be a gulf or a grave designed by God to swallow up private prayer in God who is the Lord of time hath reserved some part of our time to himself every day Though the Jews Deut. 6. 6 7 8. were commanded to labour six dayes of the week yet they were Exod. 29. 38 39. Num. 28. 3. commanded also to offer up morning and evening sacrifice daily The Jews divided the day into three parts The first to Prayer The second for the reading of the Law And the third for the works of their lawful callings As bad as the Jews were yet they every day set a part of the day apart for religious exercises Certainly they are worse than Jews that spend all their time about their particular callings and shut closet prayer quite out of doors Certainly that mans soul is in a very ill case who is so entangled with the incumbrances of the world that he can spare no time for private prayer If God be the Lord of thy mercies the Lord of thy time and the Lord of thy soul how can'st thou with any equity or honour put off his service under a pretence of much business that man is lost that man is curst who can find time for any thing but none to meet with God in his Closet That man is doubtless upon the brink of ruine whose worldly business eats up all thoughts of God of Christ of Heaven of Eternity of his Soul and of his soul concernments But Eighthly lastly I answer The more worldly business lyes upon thy hand the more need hast thou to keep close to thy closet Much business layes a man open to many sins and to many snares and to many temptations Now the more sins snares and temptations a mans business lays him open to the more need that man hath to be much in private prayer that his soul may be kept pure from sin and that his foot may not be taken in the Devils trap and that he may stand fast in the hour of temptation Private prayer is so far from Psal 1. 2 3. Psal 127. 1 2. Psal 128. 1. 2. being a hinderance to a mans business that 't is the way of wayes to bring down a blessing from heaven upon a mans business as the first fruits that Gods people gave to him brought down a blessing from heaven upon all the rest Deut. 26. 10 11. Whet is no let Prayer and Provender never hinders a Journey Private prayer is like to Jacob Gen. 30. 27 30. that brought down a blessing from heaven upon all that Laban had Private prayer gives a man a sanctified use both of all his earthly comforts and of all his earthly business and this David and Daniel found by experience and therefore 't was not their great publick imployments that could take them off from their private duties Time spent in heavenly imployments is Deut. 28. 1 to 8. no time lost from worldly business Private prayer makes all we take in hand successful Closet prayer hath made many rich but it never made any man poor or beggarly in this world No man on earth knows what may be the emergencies or the occurrences of a day Prov. 27. 1. Boast not thy self of to morrow for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth Every day is as it it were a great-belly'd day Every day is as it were with child of something but what it will bring forth whether a cross or a comfort no man can tell as whilst a woman is with child no man can tell what kind of birth it will be No man knows what mercies a day may bring forth no man knowes what miseries a day may bring forth no man knows what good a day may bring forth no man knows what evil a day may bring forth no man knowes what afflictions a day may bring forth no man knows
maintain secret communion with God in a corner Certainly God never gave any poor servant a talent of gifts or a talent of grace but in order to his driving of a secret trade heaven-ward Fifthly I answer Though King Darius had made a degree that none should ask any Petition of any God or man for thirty dayes upon the Penalty of being cast into the Den of Lyons yet Daniel who was both a subject and a servant to King Darius and one upon whose Dan. 6. 7 8 9 10. hands the chiefest and greatest affaires of the Kingdom did lye did keep up his private Devotions In the first second verses of that 6th of Daniel you will find that Daniel had abundance of great and weighty imployments upon his hands he was set over the whole affairs of the whole Empire of Persia and he with two other Presidents of whom himself was chief were to receive the accounts of the whole Kingdome from all those hundred and twenty Princes which in the Persian Monarchy were imployed in all publick businesses And yet notwithstanding such a multiplicity of business as lay upon his hands and notwithstanding his servile condition yet he was very careful to redeem time for private prayer yea 't is very observable that the heart of Daniel in the mid'st of all his mighty businesses was so much set upon private prayer upon his secret retirements for Religious exercises that he runs the hazard of losing all his honours profits pleasures yea and life it self rather than he would be deprived of convenient time opportunities to wait upon God in his chamber Certainly Daniel will one day rise in Judgment against all those subjects and servants who think to evade private prayer by their plea's of much business and of their being servants c. But Sixthly I answer If you who are gracious servants notwithstanding your Masters businesses cannot redeem a little time to wrestle with God in a corner what singular thing doe you what doe you more than others Doe you hear So do others Do you read so doe others Do you follow your Masters to publick prayers So do others Doe you joyn with your Masters in family prayers so do others O but now gracious servants should goe beyond all other servants in the world they should do singular things for God Math. 5. 47. What doe you more then others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What extraordinary thing doe you what more ordinary than to find servanâ—s follow their Masters to Publick Prayers and to Family Prayers O but now to finde poor servants to redeem a little time from their Masters business to pour out their souls before the Lord in a corner this is not ordinary yea this is extraordinary and this doth wonderfully well become gracious servants O that all mens servants who are servants to the most high God would seriously consider First How singularly they are priviledged by God above all other servants in the world They are 1 Cor. 3. 22 23. called adopted reconciled pardoned justified before the throne of God which other servants are not c. And why then should not such servants be singular in their services who are so singular in their priviledges Secondly Gracious servants are made partakers of a more excellent nature than other servants are 2 Peter 1. 4. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might be made partakers of the divine nature The Apostle None but Familists will say that we are made partakers of the substance of the Godhead for that is incommunicable to any creature The Essence of God cannot be imparted to any created beings in this expression doth not aime at any essential change and conversion of our substance into the nature of God and Christ but only at the elevation and dignifying of our nature by Christ Though that reall that neer that dear that choice that mysterious that peculiar that singular union that Christians have with Christ doth raise them up to a higher similitude and likeness of God and Christ than ever they had attained to in their primitive perfection yet it doth not introduce any real transmutation either of our bodies or souls into the divine nature 'T is certain that our union and conjunction with Christ doth neither mingle persons nor unite substances but it doth conjoyne our affections and brings our wills into a League of Amity with Christ To be made partaker of of the divine nature notes two things say some First A fellowship with God in his holiness Secondly A fellowship with God in his blessedness viz. In the beatifical vision and brightness of glory To be made partakers of the divine nature say others is to be made partakers of those holy graces those divine qualities which sometimes are called The Image of God the likeness of God the life of God Eph. 4. 24. Col. 3. 10. c. whereby we resemble God not only as a picture doth a man in outward lineaments but as a child doth his father in countenance and conditions Now take the words which way you will how highly doth it concern those servants that are made partakers of the divine nature to doe singular things for God to doe such things for God that other servants that are not partakers of the divine nature have no mind no heart no spirit to do yea that they refuse and scorn to do Thirdly Gracious servants are worthily descended they have the most illustrious extraction and honourable original 1 John 5. 19. John 3. 8. James 2. 5. Fourthly Gracious servants are worthily attended they are nobly guarded Psal 34. 14. Heb. 1. ult Deu. 33. 26 27. Zach. 2. 5. Fifthly Gracious servants are worthily dignified they are dignified with the highest and most honourable Titles Peter 1. 2 9. Rev. 1. 5 6. Rev. 5 10. Sixthly Take many things in one Gracious servants have more excellent graces experiences comforts communions promises assurances discoveries hopes helps principles diet rayment portion than all other servants in the world have and therefore God may well expect better and greater things from them than from all other servants in the world God may very well expect that they should doe singular things for his Glory who hath done such singular things for their good Certainly God expects that gracious servants should be a blessing of him when other servants are a blaspheming of him that they should be a magnifying of him when other servants are a debasing of him that they should be a redeeming of precious time when other servants are a trifling fooling playing or sinning away of procious time that they should be a weeping in a corner when other servants are a sporting and making themselves merry among their jovall companions that they should be a mourning in secret when other servants are a sinning in secret and that they should be at their private devotion when other servants are sleeping and snorting c. Sâ—lâ—mon That was the wisest
private prayer will most clearly and abundantly evidence the singular love the great delight and the high esteem that he hath of private prayer We say those children love their books well and delight much in learning who will be at their books when others are gone to their beds and who will be at their books before others can get out of their beds Certainly they love private prayer well and they delight much in closet communion with God who will be a praying when others are a sleeping and who will be addressing their souls before God in a corner before their mistress is a dressing of her self at the Glass or their fellow-servants a dressing themselves in the shop But Fourthly Because the servants redeeming of time for private prayer from his sleep set meales recreations c. may be of most use to other fellow servants both to awaken them and to convince them that the things of Religion are of the greatest and highest importance and that there is no trade for pleasure or profit to that private Trade that is driven between God and a mans own soul and also to keep them from trifling or fooling away of that time which is truly and properly their Masters time and by the Royal law of heaven ought to be spent solely and wholly in their service business For what ingenious servant is there in the world but will argue thus I see that such and such of my fellow servants will redeem time for private prayer and for other closet services from their very sleep meales recreations c. rather than they will borrow or make bold with that time which my Master saith is his c. and why then should I be so foolish so bruitish so mad to trifle or idle or play or toy away that time wnich should be spent in my masters service and for my masters advantage But Fifthly and lastly Because the servants redeeming of time for private prayer from his Sleep his Meales his Recreations c. cannot but be infinitely pleasing to God and that which will afford him most comfort when he comes to die The more any poor heart acts contrary to flesh and blood the more he pleases God the more any poor heart denyes himself the more he pleases God the more any poor heart acts against the streame of sinful examples the more he pleases God the more difficulties and discouragements a poor heart meets with in the discharg of his duty the more love he shewes to God and the more love a poor heart shewes to God the more he pleases God Jer. 2. 2 3. Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem saying thus saith the Lord I remember thee the kindness of thy youth the love of thine espousals when thou wentest after me in the wilderness in a Land that was not sown Israel was holiness unto the Lord and the first fruits of his increase all that devour him shall offend evil shall come upon them saith the Lord. God was very highly pleased and greatly delighted with the singular love and choice affections of his people towards him when they followed after him and kept close to him in that tedious and uncouth passage through the waste howling wilderness How all these things do comport with that poor pious servant that redeemes time for private prayer upon the hardest termes imaginable I shall leave the ingenious Reader to judge And certainly upon a dying bed no tongue can express nor heart conceive but he that feeles it the unspeakable comfort that closet duties will afford to him that hath been exercised in them upon those hard termes that are under present consideration But Ninthly I answer If thou art a gracious servant then the near and dear relations that is between God and thee and the choice priviledges John 8. 32 33 36. that thou art interested in calls aloud for private prayer As thou art thy Masters servant so thou art the Lords free-man 1 Cor. 7. 22 23. For he that is called in the Lord being a servant is the Lords free-man Likewise also he that is called being free is Christs servant Ye are bought with a price be not ye the servants of men Either when they command you things forbidden by Christ or forbid you things commanded by Christ or when they would exercise a dominion over your faith or a lord-ship over your consciences Suffer not your selves in spiritual things to be brought into such bondage by any men or Masters in the world as not to use that freedom Gal. 5. 1. Col. 2. 20. Gal. 2. 4. and liberty that Christ hath purchased for you with his dearest blood No servants are to serve their masters in opposition to Christ nor no servants are to serve their masters as spiritual masters Nor no servants are to serve their masters as supream masters but as subordinate masters Ephes 6. 5 6 7. And as every gracious servant is the Lords free-man so every gracious servant is the Lords friend Isa 41. 8. James 2. 23. John 15. 13 14 15. And as every gracious servant is the Lords friend so every gracious servant is the Lords son Gal. 4. 5 6. Rom. 8. 16. And as every gracious servant is the Lords son so every gracious servant is the Lords spouse Hos 2. 19 20. 2 Cor. 11. 2. And now I appeal to the consciences of all that have tasted that the Lord is gracious whether the near and dear relations that is between the Lord and pious servants doth not call aloud upon them to take all opportunities and advantages that possibly they can to pour out their souls before the Lord in secret and to acquaint him in a corner with all their secret wants weaknesses wishes c. And as gracious servants are thus nearly and dearly related to God so gracious servants are very highly priviledged by God Gracious servants are as much freed from the reign of sin the dominion of sin and the damnatory Rom. 6. 14. power of sin as gracious masters are Gracious servants are as Rom. 8. 1. much freed from hell from the curse of the Law and from the wrath of God as their gracious masters are Gracious servants are Gal. 3. 13. as much adopted as much reconciled as much pardoned as much justified and as much redeemed as their gracious masters are Gracious servants are as much heirs 1 Thes 1. 10. Col. 3. 11. Gal. 5. 6. Rom. 8. 17. Gal. 6. 14. 1 Pet. 2. 9. heirs of God and joynt heirs with Christ as their gracious masters are Gracious servants are as much a chosen generation a royal priesthood an holy nation a peculiar people called out of darkness into his marvelous light as their gracicious masters are And therefore they being all alike interested in all these great and glorious priviledges which belong to Saints as Saints they are without all peradventure alike obliged and engaged to all those duties which lies upon Saints as Saints among which private prayer
is one and therefore they are to buckle to this duty against all carnal reasons and objections whatsoever But Tenthly and lastly I answer That the promised reward in the Text lies as fair and as open to the Servant as to the Master to the Bond as to the Free to the Peasant as to the Prince Whosoever prays to his heavenly father in secret be he high or low rich or poor honourable or base servant or master he shall receive an open reward The reward in the text is not to be confined or limited to this or that sort or rank of men but 't is to be extended to all ranks and sorts of men that make conscience of private prayer of closet duties So Ephes 6. 5 6 7 8. Servants be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling in singleness of your heart as unto Christ Not with eye-service as men pleasers but as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart The Persian Kings did usually reward the faithful services of their servants Surely the King of Kings will not fall short of the Kings of Persia with good will doing service as to the Lord and not to men Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doth the same shall he receive of the Lord whether he be bond or free Col. 3. 22 23 24. Servants obey in all things your masters according to the flesh not with eye service as men-pleaesers but in singleness of heart fearing God And whatsoever ye do do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance for ye serve the Lord Christ Such servants as serve their masters faithfully cordially and in singleness of spirit shall receive the reward of Grace the reward of the Inheritance The meanest servant that is faithful in the service of his master shall Rom. 8. 15. 16 17. for a recompence recieve the eternal inheritance The recompence of reward in the Scripture last cited is not of merit but of meer grace because the inheritance belongs only to children upon the account of their birth or adoption Faithful servants shall of servants be made sons and so enjoy the heavenly inheritance Christ is so noble a Master that he will not suffer any service that hath been performed to men out of Conscience to his command to pass unrewarded O how much more will he recompence pious servants for those spiritual services that they perform for his sake for his glory God is so liberal a pay master that no Mal. 1. 10. man shall so much as shut the door or kindle a fire upon his altar or give a cup of cold water Mat. 10. 42. one of the least readiest and meanest refreshments that be but he shall be rewarded It is an excellent observation of Calvin upon Gods rewarding of the Rechabites obedience Jer. 35. 19. God saith he often recompenceth the shadows and seeming appearances of vertue to shew that complacency he takes in the ample rewards that he hath reserved for true and sincere piety Nebuchadnezzar though a Tyrant yet being engaged in Gods service against Ezek. 29. 18 19 20. Tyre he shall have Egypt as his pay for his pains at Tyre It is an ancient slur and slander that hath been cast upon God as if he were an austere Master an illiberal Lord and as if there were nothing to be got in his service but knocks blows wounds crosses losses c. whereas he is a rewarder not only of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11. 6. but even of the very worst of men that do any service for him I have read of Herod Agrippa the same that was smitten by the Angel and eaten up of worms because he gave not glory to God Acts 12. 23. that being bound in chains and sent to Prison by Tiberius for wishing Caius in the Empire one Thaumastus a servant Joseph Antiq lib. 18. cap. 8. of Caius carrying a Pitcher of water met him and Agrippa being very thirsty desired him to give him some of his water to drink which he willingly did whereupon Agrippa said This service thou hast done in giving me drink shall do thee good another day And he was as big and as good as his word for afterwards when Caius was Emperour and Agrippa made King of Judea he first got his Liberty then made him chief Officer of his Houshold and after his decease took order that he should continue in the same Office with his Son Now how much more then will the King of Kings reward all those poor pious servants of his that do not only give to him in his Members cups of cold water but do also redeem time from their very rest meals and recreations that they may have some time to seek the face of God in a corner Certainly There shall not be a sigh a groan a prayer a tear let fall by a poor servant in a corner that shall not be at last regarded and rewarded by the great God Lyra saith that Mordecai waited six years before his good service was rewarded by King Ahasuerus It may be God may reward thee sooner for all thy closet services but if he do not reward thee sooner he will certainly reward thee better he will reward thee with higher Honours with greater Dignities 1 Cor. 9. 29 2 Tim. 4. 8. Rev. 2. 10. Jam. 1. 12. 1 Pet. 5. 4. with more glorious Robes and with a more royal Crown even an incorruptible Crown a Crown of righteousness a Crown of life a Crown of glory And therefore hold on and hold out in your secret retirements Though some may deride you and others revile you and your carnal Masters discourage you yet God is faithful and will certainly reward you yea he will openly reward you for all the secret pourings out of your souls in his bosome But Object 3. Some may further Object and say O but we cannot pray alone we want those gifts and endowments which others have we are shut up and know not how to pour out our souls before God in a corner we would willingly pray but we want ability to pour out our souls before the Lord in secret c. Sol. 1. Gods dearest children may sometimes be shut up they may with Zacharias for a time be struck Luke 1. 20. dumb and not able to speak Psal 77. 4. I am so troubled that I cannot speak Psal 38. 9. Lord all my desire is before thee and my groaning is not hid from thee Gods dearest children have sometimes been so shut up that they have been able to say nothing nor to doe nothing but groan A child of God may sometimes meet with such a blow from God from Conscience from Scripture from Satan from the World that may for a time so astonish him that he may not be able to speak to God nor speak to others nor speak to
extraordinary Fourthly There is moral self which includes a freedome from gross hainous enormous wickednesses and a fair sweet harmless behaviour towards men Fifthly There is relative self which takes in our nearest and dearest relations in the flesh as Psal 45. 7 8 9 10 11. Wife Children Father Mother Brothers Sisters c. Now when a man comes thus universally to deny himself for Christ's sake and the Gospels sake and Religion sake then the Spirit of the Lord comes and seals him up unto the day of redemption This is a truth confirmed by the experiences of many Martyrs now in Heaven and by the testimony of many Christians still alive Seventhly Sacrament times are sealing times In that feast of fat things God by his Spirit seals up his love to his people and his covenant to his people and pardon of sin to his people and heaven and happiness to his people There are many precious souls that have found Christ in this Ordinance when they could not find him in other Ordinances though they have sought him sorrowingly In this Ordinance many a distressed soul hath been strengthned comforted and sealed I might give you many instances take one for all There was a gracious woman who after God had filled her soul with comfort and sealed up his everlasting love to her fell under former fears and trouble of Spirit and being at the Lords Supper a little before the bread was administred to her Satan seemed to appear to her and told her that she should not presume to eat but at that very nick of time the Lord was pleased to bring into her mind that passage in the Canticles Eat O my friends Cant. 5. 1. But notwithstanding this Satan still continued terrifying of her and when she had eaten he told her that she should not drink but then the Lord brought that second clause of the Verse to her remembrance Drink yea drink abundantly or be drunk as the Hebrew hath it my beloved or my loves as the Hebrew hath it All faithful souls are Christs Loves and so she drank also and presently was filled with such unspeakable joyes that she hardly knew how she got home Which soul-ravishing joyes continued for a fortnight after and filled her mouth with songs of praise so that she could neither sleep nor eat more than she forced her self to do out of conscience of duty At the fortnights end when God was pleased to abate her measure of joy she came to a setled peace of conscience and assurance of the love of God so that for twenty years after she had not so much as a cloud upon her spirit or the least questioning of her interest in Christ But Eighthly When God calls his people to some great and noble work when he puts them upon some high services some difficult duties some holy and eminent imployments then his Spirit comes and sets his seal upon them Jer. 1. 5. Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctifyed thee and I ordained thee to be a prophet unto the Nations The Lord sending the Prophet Jeremiah to denounce most dreadful judgements against a rebellious people an impudent brazen-faced Nation he assures him of his eternal election and of his choice presence and singular assistance in that work that he set him about vers 8 17 18 19. Thus the Lord dealt with Peter James and John Matth. 17. 1 to the 6th and thus he dealt with Paul Acts 9 to 23. Ninthly When they are taken up into more than ordinary communion with God then is the Spirits sealing time When was it that the Spouse cried out My beloved is mine and I am his but when Christ brought her to his banquetting house and his banner over her was love Cant. 2. 16. 3 4 5 6. compared c. Tenthly and lastly When Christians give themselves up to private prayer when Christians are more than ordinarily exercised in secret prayer in Closet duties then the Spirit comes and seals up the Covenant and the Love of the Father to them When Daniel Dan. 9. 20 21 22 23. had been wrestling and weeping and weeping and wrestling all day long with God in his Closet then the Angel tells him that he was a man greatly beloved of God or a man of great desires as the Original hath it There was a gracious Woman who after much frequenting of Sermons and walking in the ways of the Lord fell into great desertions but being in secret prayer God came in with abundance of light and comfort sealing up to her soul that part of his Covenant viz. I will take the stony heart out of Ezek. 11. 19 20. their flesh and will give them an heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep mine ordinances and do them and they shall be my people and I will be their God And thus I have given you a brief account of the Spirits special sealing times Now mark This seal God sets upon all his wares upon all his adopted children for sooner or later there are none of his but are sealed with this seal God sets his John 3. 3. 2 Thess 2. 13. Heb. 12. 14. seal of Regeneration he stamps his Image of Holiness upon all his people to difference and distinguish them from all prophane moral and hypocritical persons in the World Doubtless the sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost imprinting the draughts and lineaments of Gods Image of Righteousness and Holiness upon Man as a seal or signet doth leave an impression and stamp of its likeness upon the thing sealed is the seal of the Spirit spoken of in Scripture 2 Tim. 2. 19. The foundation of God standeth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are his And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity But to prevent mistakes you must remember that though the Spirit of the Lord first or last will set his seal upon every real Saint yet the impression of that seal is not alike visible in all for some bear this impression as Babes others as men grown up to some maturity All Gods adopted children bear this impression truly but none of them bear it perfectly in this life Sometimes this seal of Regeneration this seal of Holiness is so plain and obvious that a man may run read it in himself and others and at other times 't is so obscure and dark that he can hardly discern it either in himself or others This seal is so lively stampt on some of Gods people that it discovers it self very visibly eminently gloriously but on others it is not alike visible And thus I have made it evident by these seven particulars that all the children of God have the Spirit of God Now mark The Spirit of God that is in all the Saints is a Spirit of prayer and supplication Rom. 8. 15. Ye have received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba
doth not intend to bestow upon us whether we pray in our closets or no and therefore to what purpose do you presse secret prayer so hard upon us c. To this Objection I shall give these Answers First That this Objection lyes as strong against Family Prayer and Publick Prayer as it doth against Private Prayer God knows all thy wants and necessities all thy straits and tryals c. and therefore what needest thou pray in thy Family what needest thou attend Publick Prayers in the Communion of Saints There is no wringing of any mercy out of the hands of Heaven which God doth not intend to bestow This Objection faces all kind of Prayer and fights against all kinds of Prayer But Secondly I answer That Private Prayer is that piece of Divine Worship and Adoration 't is a part of that homage which we owe to God upon the account of a Divine Command as I have already proved Now all Objections must bow before the face of Divine Commands As Josephs Brethren bowed before him Or as King Ahasuerus Gen. 42. 6. Esth 3. 2. his servants bowed before Haman Indeed every Objection that is formed up against a Divine Command should fall before it as Dagon fell before the Ark or as Goliah fell before David He that casts off Private Prayer under any pretence whatsoever he casts off the Dominion of God the Authority of God and this may be as much as a mans life and soul is worth But Thirdly I answer Though Prayer be not the ground the cause of obtaining favours and mercies from God yet 't is the means 't is the Silver Channel 't is the Golden Pipe through which the Lord is Isa 55. 6. Jam. 1. 5. Isa 62. 7. Psal 22. 24. pleased to convey to his people all temporal Spiritual and eternal favours Ezek 36. from the 26. verse to the 37. verse of that Chapter God promises to give them the cream the choycest the sweetest of all spiritual eternal and temporal blessings but mark verse 37. I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them Though God be very prompt and ready to bestow upon his people the best and the greatest of blessings yet the will by prayer be sought unto for the actual enjoyment of them He that hath no heart to pray for a mercy he needs he hath no ground to believe that ever God will give him the mercy he needs There is no receiving without asking no finding without seeking no opening without knocking The threefold promise annexed to the threefold precept in Matth. 7. 7. should encourage all Christians to be instant fervent and constant in prayer The proud beggar gets nothing of men and the dumb sinner gets nothing of God As there is no mercy too great for God to give so there is no mercy too little for us to crave Certainly that man hath little worth in him that thinks any mercy not worth a seeking But Fourthly and lastly I answer Every Christian should labour to enjoy his mercies in mercy he should labour to have his blessings blest unto him he should labour Gen. 22. 17. to have the good-will of him that dwelt in the bush with all he hath Now this is an everlasting truth a maxim to live and die with that whatsoever mercy comes not in upon the wing of prayer is not given in mercy O how sweet is that mercy that comes flying in upon the wing of prayer How sweet was that water to Sampson which streamed to him in the channel of private prayer Judg. 15. 19. he called the name of it En-hakkore the Well of him that prayed Sampson prayed as for life and that water that was handed to him was as sweet as life Every mercy that is gathered by the hand of prayer is as sweet as the Rose of Sharon But Can. 2. 1. that mercy that comes not in at the door of prayer comes not in at the right door and that mercy that comes not in at the right door will do a man no good such mercies will make themselves wings and fly from us Every Christian should Pro. 23. 5. narrowly look that all his mercies 1 Tim. 4. 4 5. are sanctified mercies now every mercy is sanctified by the word prayer Prayer prepares and fits us for mercy and mercy for us 'T is Prayer that gives us a right and holy use of all our mercies Such mercies are but great miseries that come not in upon the wing of prayer Prayerless mens mercies are all given in wrath Psal 76. 23 32. Yea their blessings are curst unto them Prov. 3. 33. Mal. 2. 2. Look as every sacrifice was to be seasoned with salt so every mercy is to be sanctified by prayer Look as Gold sometimes is laid not only upon cloath and silks but also upon Silver it self So Prayer is that Golden duty that must be laid not only upon all our natural and civil actions as eating drinking buying selling c. but also upon all our Silver duties upon all our most religious and spiritual performances as hearing reading meditating conference church-fellowship breaking of bread c. Certainly prayer is very necessary to make every providence and every ordinance and every mercy to be a blessing to us Every mercy that comes in upon the wing of private prayer is a double mercy 't is a great-bellied mercy 't is a mercy that hath many mereies in the womb of it Happy is that Christian that can lay his hand upon every mercy that he enjoyes and say of them all as once Hannah said of her Samuel 1 Sam. 1. 27. For this child I prayed and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him But Fifthly Some may further object and say I would drive a private trade with God I would exercise my self in secret prayer but I want a convenient place to retire into I want a private corner to unbosome my soul to my Father in c. To this Objection I shall give these three short Answers First I suppose this Objection concernes but a few Christians in our dayes That God that hath given a Christ to Believers doth commonly give them a convenient corner Rom. 8. 32. to enjoy private communion with himself in Most Christians I am afraid do rather want a heart for private prayer than a convenient place for private prayer What men set their hearts upon they will find time and place to effect it whether it be good or whether it be evil whether it concerns temporals or spirituals whether it concerns this world or another world this life or a better life If most men would but get better hearts they would quickly find or make convenient places for private prayer He who hath an inflamed love to God will certainly find out a corner to enjoy secret communion with God True lovers will find out corners to enjoy one another in How many men are there that
can easily find out private places for their dogs to lye in and their swine to sleep in and their horses to stand in and their oxen to feed in c. who can't find out a private place to seek the face of God in But did these men but love their God or their souls or private prayer or eternity as well or better than their beasts they would not be such bruiâ—es but that they would quickly find out a hole a corner to wait upon the Lord in But Secondly I Answer If a Christian be on the top of the house with Peter he may pray there or if he be walking in the field with Isaac he may pray there or if he be on the mountain with Christ he may pray there or if he be behind the door with Paul he may pray there or if he be waiting at table with Nehemiah he may secretly pray there or if he be in a wood he may pray there as the primitive Christians in times of persecution did or if he be behind a tree he may pray there or if he be by the Sea side he may pray there as the Apostles did 'T was a choice saying of Austin Every Saint is Gods Temple saith he and he that carryes his temple about him may go to prayer when he pleaseth Some Saints have never had so much of heaven brought down into their hearts as when they have been with God in a corner O the secret manifestations of divine love the secret kisses the secret embraces the secret influences the secret communion with God that many a precious Christian hath had in the most solitary places it may be behind the door or behind the wall or behind the hedge or behind the arbour or behind the tree or behind the rock or behind the bush c. But Thirdly and lastly didst thou never in thy unregenerate estate make use of all thy wits and parts and utmost endeavours to find out convenient seasons and secret corners and solitary places to sin in and to dishonour thy God in and to undoe thine owne and others souls in yes I remember with shame and blushing that 't was so with me when I was dead in Eph. 2. 1 2 3. trespasses and sins and walked according to the course of this world O how much then doth it concern thee in thy renewed sanctified and raised estate to make use of all thy wits and parts and utmost endeavours to find out the fittest seasons and the most secret corners and solitary places thou canst to honour thy God in and to seek the welfare of thine owne and others souls in O that men were but as serious studious and industrious to find out convenient seasons secret places to please and serve and glorifie the Lord in as they have been serious studious and industrious to find out convenient seasons and secret places to displease and grieve the Spirit of the Lord in But Sixthly and lastly others may further object and say we would be often in private with God we would give our selves up to closet prayer but that we can no sooner shut our closet doors but a multitude of infirmities weaknesses and vanities doe face us and rise up against us our hearts being full of distempers and follies and our bodies say some are under great indispositions and our souls say others are under present indispositions and how then can we seek the face of God in a corner how can we wrestle with God in our closets c. Now to this Objâ—ction I shall give these six Answers 1. Iâ— these kinds of reasonings or arguings were sufficient to shut private prayer out of doores where lives that man or woman that husband or wife that father or child that master or servant that Psa 40. 12. Psal 51. 5. Rom. 7. 15 24. Psal 130. 3. 1 Cor. 4. 4. 2 Chr. 6. 36. Phil. 3. 12. would ever bè found in the practise of that duty Where is there a person under heaven whose heart is not full of infirmities weaknesses follies and vanities and whose body and soul is not too often indisposed to closet duties 1 Kings 8. 46. If they sin against thee for there is no man that sinneth not c. Eccl. Grace in this life is like Gold in the ore full of mixture 7. 20. For there is not a just man upon the earth that doth good and sinneth not Prov. 20. 9. Who can say I have made my heart clean I am pure from my sin Job 14. 4. Who can bring a clean thing out of an uncleane not one Job 9. 30 31. If I wash my self with Snow-water and make my hands never so clean Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch and mine owne cloaths shall abhor me Job 9. 20. If I justifie my self my owne mouth shall condemne me If I say I am perfect it shall also prove me perverse Psal 143. 2. And enter not into judgement with thy servant for in thy sight shall no man living be justified James 3. 2. For in many things we offend all 1 John 1. 8. If we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us Such that affirme that men may be fully perfect in this life or without sin in this life they do affirme that which is expresly contrary to the Scriptures last cited and to the universal experience of all Saints who daily feel and lament over that body of sin and death that they bare about with them yea they do affirme that which is quite contrary to the very state or constitution of all the Saints in this life In every Saint the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit lusteth against the flesh and these are contrary one to the other so that they cannot do the things Gal. 5. 17. that they would In every good Eph. 4. 22 23 24. man there are two men the old man and the new the one must be daily put on and the other daily put off All Saints have a law in their members rebelling against the law of their minds so that the Rom. 7. 23. 15. comp good that they would doe they do not and the evil that they would not do that they do They have two contrary principles in them from whence proceeds two manner of actions motions and inclinations continually opposite one to another hence it is that there is a continual combat in them like the strugling of the Twins in Rebecah's womb An absolute perfection is peculiar to the triumphant state of Gods Elect in Heaven Heaven is the onely priviledged place where no unclean thing can Rev. 23. 21 enter in that 's the only place where neither sin nor Satan shall ever get footing Such as dream of an absolute perfection in this life do confound and jumble heaven Heb. 12. 22 23. and earth together the state of the Church militant with the state of the Church Triumphant which are certainly distinct both in
time and place and in order measure and concomitants This dangerous opinion of absolute perfection in this life shakes the very foundation of Religion and overthrows the Gospel of grace it renders the satisfaction of Christ and all his great transactions null and void it tells the world that there is no need of faith of repentance of ordinances of watchfulness They that say they have no sin say they have no need of the blood of Christ to cleanse them 1 John 1. 7 from sin Such as say they have no sin say they have no need of Faith to rest upon Christ for imputed Righteousness to justifie their persons Such as say they have no Mat. 1. 21. 1 Thes 1. ult sin say they have no need of Christ as King to subdue their lusts nor as Priest to expiate offences nor as Prophet to teach and instruct them nor as a Saviour to save them from their sins or from wrath to come They that have a perfect righteousnesse of their own need not be be holden to Christ for his pure perfect spotless matchlesse Righteousnesse Such as are without sin have no cause to repent of sin nor yet to watch against sin Such as are perfect can't say we are unprofitable servants But are they indeed just then they must live by faith Heb. 2. 4. Are they men and not Angels then they must repent Acts â—7 30. For now he commands all men every where to repent Surely the best of men are but men at the best O how bad must those men be who make God himself a lyar 1 John 1. 10 But if these men are absolutely perfect how comes it to passe that they are afflicted and diseased as other men how comes it to passe that they eate and drink and sleep and buy and sell and die as other men are these things consistent with an absolute perfection surely no. An absolute perfection is not a step short of heaven 't is heaven on this side heaven and they that would obtain it must step to heaven before they have it But Secondly I answer That this Objection lyes as strong against Family prayer and against all other kind of prayer as it doth against closet prayer He that shall upon any grounds make this Objection a great bug-bear to scare his soul from Closet Prayer he may upon the same ground make it a great bug-bear to scare his soul not only from all other kind of prayer but from all other duties of Religion also whether private or publick The Spirit of this Objection fights against all Religion at once and therefore you should say to it as Christ said to Peter Get thee behind me Sathan But Thirdly I answer 'T is not the infirmities and weaknesses of a Christian which are seen lamented bewailed and resisted that can A Spiritual infirmity is the sickness or indisposition of the Soul that arises from weakness of Grace obstruct or hinder the efficacy and successe of his prayers Let me clear up this in a few instances Jonah you know was a man full of sinful passions and other weaknesses c. and yet his prayer was very prevalent with God Jonah 2. 1 2 7 10. compared So Elias his prayers were exceeding prevalent with God he could open and shut heaven at his pleasure and yet Jam. 3. 17. subject to like passions as we are Elias was a man of extraordinary sanctity and holinesse a man that 1 King 19. 8. Rom. 11 2 3. lived in heaven whilest he dwelt on earth Enech-like he walked with God and yet subject to like passions as we are God did in an eminent way communicate to him his counsel and secrets he lay in the bosome of the father and yet was a man subject to like passions as we are He was a very powerful and prevalent Prophet his very name imports as much Eli-jah signifies my strong God In that 1 Kings 17. 1. it is Eli-jahu that is the Lord he is my strong God and yet subject to like passions as we are He was a man much in fasting and prayer he was an inferiour mediator between God and his people and yet subject to like passions as we are Now because some from hence might object and say no wonder if such a man as he was could by his prayers open and shut heaven at his pleasure but I am a poor weak low sinful and unworthy creature I am full of infirmities weaknesses and passions and shall my prayers ever find access to God and acceptance with God or gracious answers and returnes from God Now to obviate this objection and to remove this discouragement out of the thoughts and hearts of poor sinners the Holy-Ghost addeth this clause that he was not a God nor an Angel but a man and such a man as was not exempted from common infirmities for he had his passions frailties weaknesses as well as other Saints intimating to us that infirmities in the meanest Saints should no more prejudice the acceptance and success of their prayers with God than they did in Elias himself The word Pession sometimes signifies First a motion of the sensual appetite arising from the imagination of good or ill with some commotion of the body Secondly Sometimes Passions signisie sinful infirmities sinful perturbations of the mind And Thirdly Sometimes Passion is taken more strictly for the special affection of sinful anger and wrath which Chrysostome calls Brevis Daemon a short Divel It makes a man speak he knows not what as you may see in Jonah and to do he knows not what as you may see in Saul Now in these two last sences Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are and yet a man so potent with God that by private prayer he could do even what he listed in the Court of Heaven In that 1 Sam. 21. chap. You may read of Davids round lyes and of his other failings infirmities and unseemly carriages before Achish King of Gath and for which he was turned out of the Kings presence under the notion of a Mad-man and yet at that very time he prayes and prevails with God for savour mercy and deliverance Psal 34. 4. I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me out of all my fears But when was this read the Title of the Psalm and you shall find it A Psalm of David who changed his behaviour before Abimilech who drove him away and he departed In that Numb 20. 10 11 12. Moses his infirmities are pointed out First You have there his immoderate anger 2. His speaking to the people when he should have spoke to the Rock vers 8. 3. His smiting of it when he should only have spoken to it with the Rod in his hand and smiting it twice as in a pang of passion and impatiency 4. his distrusting of the Lords word vers 12. 5. His reviling of the people when he should have convinced them hear ye Rebels 6. He seemes to be so offended at
his Commission that he can hardly forbear murmuring Must we bring water out of the Rock Mark Num. 12. 3. that word must we O how is the meekest man in all the world transported into passion anger unbelief and hurried into sad indecencies yet there was not a man on earth whose prayers were so powerful and prevalent with God as Moses his were Psal 106. 23. Exod 32. 9 -15. Chap. 33. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17. Exod. 14. 13 14 15 16 c. So King Asa was a man full of infirmitities and weaknesses he relyes on the King of Syria and 2 Chron. 16. 7 13. on the Lord he is very impatient and under a great rage upon the Seers reproof He imprisons the Seer he oppressed some of the people or as the Hebrew hath it He crushed or he trampled upon some of the people at the same time And being greatly diseased in his feet he sought to the Physitians and not to the Lord and yet this mans prayer was wonderful prevalent with God 2 Chron. 14. 11 12 13 14 15. The Saints infirmities can never Psal 50. 15. Isa 30. 19. Ch. 65. 24. make void those gracious promises by which God stands engaged to hearken to the prayers of his people Gods hearing of our prayers doth not depend upon sanctification but upon Christ's intercession not upon what we are in our selves but upon what we are in the Lord Jesus both our persons and our prayers are acceptable in the beloved Ephes 1. 6. 1 Pet. 2. 5. When God hears our prayers 't is neither for our own sakes nor yet for our prayers sake but 't is for his own sake and his sons sake and his glory sake and his promise sake c. Certainly God will never cast off his people for their infirmities First 'T is the glory of a man to Pro. 19. 11. passe by infirmities O how much more then must it be the glory of God to pass by the infirmities of his people Secondly Saints are children and what father will cast off his children for their infirmities and Psal 103. 13. 14. 1 Cor. 12. 27. weaknesses Thirdly Saints are members of Christ's body and what man will cut off a member because of a scab or wart that is upon it What man will cut off his Nose saith Luther because there is some filth in it Fourthly Saints are Christ's purchase they are his possession Ephes 1. 22 23. 1 Cor. 6. u't Ch. 7. 23 1 Pet. 13. 18 19 20. his inheritance Now what man is there that will cast away or cast off his purchase his possession his inheritance because of thorns bushes or bryars that grow upon it Fifthly Saints are in a marriage Hos 2 19 20. covenant with God Now what husband is there that will cast off his wife for her failings and infirmities So long as a man is in covenant with God his infirmities can't cut him off from Gods mercy and grace Now 't is certain a man may have very many infirmities upon him and yet not break his covenant with God for no sin breaks a mans covenant with God but such as unties the marriage knot As in other marriages every offence or infirmity doth not disanul the marriage union it i◠only the breach of the marriage vow viz. adultery that untyes the marriage knot So here 't is only those sins which breaks the covenant which unties the marriage knot between God and the Soul 1. When men freely subject to any lust as a new master Or 2. When men take another husband Isa 28 15. 18. and this men doe when they enter into a league with sin or the world eh … they make a new covenant with hell and deach Now from these mischiefs God secures his chosen ones In a word If God should cast off his people for their infirmities then none of the sons or daughters of Adam could be saved For there is not a just man upon the earth that doth good and sinneth not Eccl. 7. 20. Now if God will not cast off his people for their infirmities then certainly he will not cast off the prayers of his people because of those invincible infirmities that hang upon them and therefore our infirmities should not discourage us or take us off from Closet-prayer or from any other Duties of Religion But Fourthly I answer The more infirmities and weaknesses hang upon us the more cause have we to keep close and constant to our Closet duties If grace be weake The omission of good diet breeds diieases the omission of private prayer will make it weaker Look as he that will not eat will certainly grow weaker and weaker So he that will not pray in his c … et will certainly grow weaker and weaker If corruptions be strong the neglect of private prayer will make them stronger The more the remedy is neglected the more the disease is strengthned Whatsoever the distempers of a mans heart be they will never be abated but augmented by the omission of private prayer The more bodily infirmities hang upon us the more need we have of the Physitian and so the more sinful infirmities hang upon our souls the more need we have of private prayer All sinful omissions will make work for repentance for hell or for the Physitian of souls Sinful omissions lead to sinful commissions as you may see in the Angels that fell from heaven to hell and in Adams fall in Paradise Origen going to comfort and encourage a martyr that was to be tormented was himself apprehended by the Officers and constrained either to offer to the Idols or to have his body abused by a Black amore that was ready for that purpose of which hard choice to save his life he bowed unto the Idol but afterwards making a sad confession of his foul fact he said That he went forth that morning before he had been with God in his Closet and so peremptorily concludes that his neglect of Prayer was the cause of his falling into that great sin The neglect of one day of one duty of one hour would undoe us for ever if we had not an Advocate 1 John 2. 1 2. with the father Those years those months those weeks those days those hours that are not filled up with God with Christ with grace with duty will certainly be filled up with vanity and folly All omissions of duty will more and more unfit the soul for duty A Key thrown by gathers rust A Pump not used will be hardly got to go And Armour not used will be hardly made bright c. Look as sinful commissions will stab the Soul so sinful omissions will starve the Soul Such as live Isa 24. 16. Job 16. 8. in the neglect of private prayer may well cry out Our leanness our leanness And therefore away with all these plea's and reasonings about infirmities and weaknesses and indispositions address your selves to Closet-prayer But Fifthly I
his own soul by perpetual poring upon his guilt When Guilt upon the Conscience works a man to water the earth with tears to make Heaven ring with his groans then it works kindly When the sence of Guilt drives a man to God to Duty to the Throne of Grace then it will not be long night with that man He that thinks to shift off Private Prayer under the pretence of Guilt doth but in that increase his own Guilt Neglect of Duty will never get Guilt off the Conscience But then there is an involuntary indisposition to private prayer as in a sick man who would work and walk but cannot being hindered by his disease or as it is with a man that hath a great chain on his leg he would very fain walk or get away but his chain hinders him Now if your indisposition to private prayer be an involuntary indisposition then God will in mercy in course both pardon it remove it Secondly There is a total indisposition to private prayer there is a partial indisposition to private prayer A total indisposition to private prayer is when a man hath no Jer. 4. 22. Chap. 44. 17 18 19. mind at all to private prayer nor no will at all to private prayer nor no love at all to private prayer nor no delight nor no heart at all to private prayer now where this frame of heart is there all is naught very naught stark naught A partial indisposition to private prayer is when a man hath some will to private prayer though not such a will as once he had and some mind to private prayer though not such a mind as once he had and some affections to private prayer though not such warm and burning affections as once he had Now if your indisposition to private prayer be total then you must wait upon the Lord in all his appointments for a changed nature and for union with Christ but if your indisposition to private prayer be only partial then the Lord will certainly pardon it and in the very use of holy means in time remove it But Thirdly and lastly there is a transient accidental occasional or fleeting indisposition to private prayer and there is a customary a constant or permanent indisposition to private prayer Now a transient accidental occasional or fleeting indisposition to that which is good may be found upon the best of Saints as you may see in Moses Exod. 4. 10 11 12 13 14. and in Jeremiah Jer. 1. 5 6 7 8 17 18. 19. and Chap. 20. 9. and in Jonah chap. 1 and in David Psal 39. 2 3. Now if this be the indisposition that thou art under then thou mayest be confident that it will certainly work off by degrees Isa 65. 2. Jer. 9. 3. as theirs did that I have last cited But then there is a customary a constant or permanent indisposition to private prayer and to all other holy Duties of Religion Now if this be the indisposition that thou art under then I may safely conclude that thou art in the very gall of bitternesse and in Acts 8. 21 22 23. the bond of iniquity and thy work lyes not in complaining of thy indisposition but in repenting and believing and in labouring for a change of thy heart and state for till thy heart thy state be changed thou wilt remain for ever indisposed both to Closet-Prayer and to all other Duties of Religion and godlinesse To see a sinner sailing Hell-ward with Wind and Tide on his side to alter his course and Tack about for Heaven to see the earthly man become heavenly the carnal man become spiritual the proud man become humble the vain man become serious to see a sinner move contrary to himself in the wayes of Christ and holiness is as strange as to see the earth fly upward or the Bowl run contrary to its own Byass and yet a divine power of God upon the Soul can effect it and this must be effected before the sinner will be graciously inclined and sincerely disposed to Closet-prayer And let thus much suffice by way of Answer to this Objection also Now for the better management of this great Duty viz. Closet-prayer I beseech you take my advice and counsel in these 11. following particulars First Be frequent in Closet-prayer and not now and then only He will never make any yearnings of Closet-prayer that is not frequent in Closet-prayer Now that this Counsel may stick Consider First Other eminent Servants of the Lord have been frequent in this blessed work Nehem. 1. 6. Let thine earnow be attentive and thine eyes open that thou mayest hear the Prayer of thy Servant which I pray before thee day and night So Daniel he kneeled Dan. 6. 10 upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did before time So David My voyce shalt thou hear in the morning and in the evening will Psal 5. 3. I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up So Psal 88. 13. But unto thee have I cryed O Lord and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee So Psal 119. 147. I prevented the Psal 119. 164. dawning of the morning and cryed unto the Lord. So Psal 55. 17. Evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud Yea he Exod. 29 38 39. Numb 28. 3. Mat. 6. 11. was Vir orationis for his frequency in it Psal 109. 4. For my love they are my adversaries But I give my self unto prayer Or as the Hebrew may be read But I am a man of prayer Of Carolus Magnus it was said Carolus plus cum Deo quam hominibus loquitur that he spake more with God than with men Secondly Consider the blessed Scripture doth not only enjoyn this Duty but it requires frequency in it also Luke 18. 1. 1 Thes 5. 17. Col. 4. 2. In the former part of this discourse I have given light into these Scriptures and therefore the bare citing of them must now suffice Thirdly Christ was frequent in Private Prayer as you may easily see by comparing of these Scriptures together Mark 1. 35. Mat. 14. 23. Luke 22. 39. John 18. 2. In my second Argument for Private Prayer you may see these Scriptures opened and amplified But Fourthly Consider that you have the examples of the very worst of men in this case Papists are frequent in their private Devotions And the Mahometans what occasion soever they have either by profit or pleasure to divert them will yet pray five times every day Yea the very Heathens sacrificed to Hercules morning and evening upon the great Altar at Rome Now shall blind nature do more than grace But Fifthly Consider you cannot have too frequent Communion with God you cannot have too frequent intercourse with Jesus you cannot have your hearts too frequently filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory and with that peace that passes understanding you cannot have heaven too frequently brought
down into your hearts nor you cannot have your hearts too frequently carried up to heaven and therefore you cannot be too frequent in Closet-prayer But Sixthly Consider that you are under frequent wants and frequent sins and frequent snares and frequent 1 Pet. 5. 8. Job 1. 7. temptations and frequent allurements and frequent tryals and frequent cares and frequent feares and frequent favours and therefore you had need be frequent with God in your Closets But Seventhly Consider you are the favourites of heaven you are greatly beloved you are highly honoured you are exceedingly esteemed and valued in the Court of the Most High and remember that the Petitions of many weak Christians and of many benighted Christians and of many tempted Christians and of many clouded Christians and of many staggering Christians and of many doubting Christians and of many bewildred Christians and of many fainting Christians c. are put into your hands for a quick and speedy dispatch to the Throne of Grace so that you had need be frequent in your Closets and improve your interest in heaven or else many of these poor hearts may be wronged betrayed and prejudiced by your neglect Such as are Favourites in Princes Courts if they are active diligent careful and watchful they may doe much good for others they may come as often as they please into their Princes presence and with Queen Esther have Esth 8. for asking what they please both for themselves and others Esth 7. O what a world of good may such doe for others that are Gods Favourites if they would be but frequent with God in their Closets O Sirs If you have not that love that regard that pitty that compassion to your own souls as you should have yet O let not others suffer by your neglect of private prayer O let not Zion suffer O let not any particular Saint suffer by your being found seldom in your Closets Certainly It might have gone better with the Churches of Christ and with the concernments of Christ and with many of the poor people of Christ if most Christians had been more frequent with God in their Closets But Eighthly and lastly Consider that this liberty to approach nigh Sanguis Christi clavis Coeli to God in your Closets cost Christ his dearest blood Ephes 2. 13. Heb. 10. 20. Now he that is not frequent with God in his Closet tells all about him that he sets no great value upon that liberty that Christ hath purchased with his blood The incomparable the unparalel'd 1 Pet. 1. 19. price which Christ hath paid down upon the nail above sixteen hundred years agoe that we might have liberty and free access to his Father in your Closets argues very strongly yea irrefragably the superlative excellency of that liberty O therefore let us improve to purpose this blessed purchase of our Lord Jesus by being frequent with God in our closets 'T is disputed by some whether one drop of Christs blood was sufficient for the pardon of our sins and redemption of our souls My intention is not to dispute but to offer a few things to your Consideration First It must be granted that One little drop of Christ's blood is more worth than heaven and earth Luther by reason of the hypostatical union a drop of Christ's blood was of an inestimable worth and excellency and the value of his passion is to be measured by the dignity of his person But Secondly a proportion was to be observed betwixt the punishment due to men and that which What is the blood of the Grape or the blood of a son an only son to the blood of a Saviour was suffered for man that his sufferings might be satisfactory two things were necessary Poenae gravitas as well as personae dignitas That the least drop of Christ's blood was not sufficient for the redemption of our souls may thus appear First If it were then the Circumcision of Christ was enough for there was a drop if not many drops of blood shed Secondly Then his being Crown'd with a crown of Thorns was sufficient for it is most probable that they drew blood-from him Thirdly Then all Christ's sufferings besides were superfluous and vain Fourthly Then God was unjust and unrighteous to take more than was due to his justice But for any man to affirm that God hath taken beyond what was his just due is high blasphemy Fifthly Then Christ was weak and imprudent to pay more than he needed for what need was there of his dearest heart blood if a drop from his hand would have saved our souls Let School-men fancie what they please 't is certain that not one dram of that bitter Cup that Christ drunk off could be abated in order to his Fathers full satisfaction and mans eternal redemption Christ hath given under his own hand that it was necessary that he should suffer many things Mark 8. 3. Luke 24. 26. O Sirs shall Christ shed not only a few drops of blood but his very heart blood to purchase you a freedom and liberty to be as often in your Closets with his Father as you please and will you only now and then give God a visit in private the Lord forbid My Second Advise and counsel is this Take the fittest seasons and opportunities that possibly you can for Closet-prayer Many take unfit seasons for private prayer which do more obstruct the importunity of the soul in prayer than all the suggestions and instigations of Satan As First When the body is drowsie Cant. 3. 1. and sleepy this is a very unfit season for closet-closet-prayer Take heed of laying cushions of sloath under your knees or pillows of idlenesse under your elbows or of mixing nods with your petitions or of being drowsily devoted when you draw neer to God in your closets Secondly When a mans head and heart is filled with worldly 1 Cor. 7. 35. Ezek. 33. 31. cares and distractions this is a very unfit season for closet-closet-prayer When Dinah must needs be gadding abroad to see fashions Shechem Prince of that country meets with her and forces her virginity So when our hearts Dinah-like must needs be a roving and gadding abroad after the things of the world then Satan the Prince of the air usually seizes upon us commits a rape upon our souls and either leads us off from prayer or else he doth so distract us in prayer that it were better not to have prayed at all than to have offered the sacrifice of foolish and distracted prayer I have read a story how that one offered to give his horse to his fellow upon condition he would but say the Lords Prayer and think upon nothing but God the proffer was accepted and he began Our Father which art in Heaven Hallowed be thy name But I must have the bridle too said he no nor the Horse neither said the other for thou hast lost both already The application is easie Certainly the most free
and lively seasons for Closet-prayer is the mornings before a mans spirit be blunted or cooled deadned damped or flatted by worldly businesses A man should speak with God in his Closet before he speaks with his worldly affairs and occasions A man should say to all his worldly businesseg as Abraham said unto his young men when he went to offer up his only Isaac abide you here and I will goe yonder and worship and then return to you again He that will attend Closet-prayer without distraction or disturbance must not first slip out of the world into his Closet but he must first slip into his Closet before he be compassed about with a crowd of worldly employments It was a Precept of Pythagoras that when we enter into the Temple to worship God we must not so much as speak or think of any worldly business least we make Gods service an idle perfunctory and lazy recreation The same I may say of Closet-prayer Jerome complains very much of his distractions dulness and indisposedness to prayer and chides himself thus What dost thou think that Jonah prayed thus when he was in the Whales belly or Daniel when he was among the Lyons or the Thief when he was upon the Cross Thirdly When men or women are under rash and passionate 1 Tim. 2. 8. distempers for when passions are up holy affections are down and this is a very unfit season for closet-Closet-prayer for such prayers will never reach Gods eare which do not first warm our own hearts In the Muscovy Churches if the Minister mistake in reading or stammer in pronouncing his words or speak any word that is not well heard the hearers doe very much blame him and are ready to take the book from him as unworthy to read therein And certainly God is no less offended with the giddy rash passionate precipitate and inconsiderate prayers of those who without a deliberate understanding do send their petitions to heaven in post-hast Solomons advice is worthy of all commendation and acceptation Be not Eccl. 5 2. rash with thy mouth and let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God Or as the Hebrew may be read Let not thy heart through hast be so troubled or disturbed as to tumble over and throw out words without wisdome or premeditation Good men are apt many times to be too hasty rash and unadvised in their prayers complaints and deprecations Psal 31. 2. 2 Psal 116. 11 Job 10. 1 2 3. Jer. 18. 15. 18. Jon. 4. 2 3 4. Matth. 20. 20 21. witness David Job Jeremiah Jonah and the Disciples No Christian to him that doth wisely seriously weigh over his prayers and praises before he pours out his soul before the Lord. He never repents of his requests who first duly deliberates what to request but he that blurts out whatsoever lyes uppermost and that brings into the presence of God his rash raw tumultuary and indigested petitions confessions complaints c. he doth but provoke God he doth but brawl with God instead of praying to him or wrestling with him Suiters at Court observe their fittest times and seasons of begging they commonly take that very nick of time when they have the King in a good mood and so seldome or never come off but with good success Sometimes God strongly enclines the heart to closet-Closet-prayer sometimes he brings the heart before hand into a praying frame sometimes both body and soul are more enlivened quickned raised and divinely enflamed than at other times sometimes Conscience is more stirring working and tender c. O now strike while the Iron is hot O now lay hold on all such blessed opportunities by applying of thy self to private prayer O Sirs can you take your fittest times seasons and opportunities for plowing and sowing and reaping and buying and selling and eating and drinking and marrying c. And can't you as well take your fittest times and seasons to seek the Lord in your Closets Must the best God be put off with the least and worst of your time the Lord forbid Neglect not the seasons of grace slip not your opportunities for Closet-prayer thousands have lost their seasons and their souls together My Third Advice and counsel is this Be marvelous careful that you do not perform Closet Duties meerly to still your Consciences you must perform them out of Conscience but you must not perform them only to quiet Conscience Some have such a light set up in their understandings that they cannot omit An ill Conscience saith Austin is like a scolding wife a man saith he that hath an ill Conscience he cares not to be at at home he cares not to look into his own soul but loves to be abroad Closet-prayer but Conscience is upon their backs Conscience is still upbraiding and disquieting of them and therefore they are afraid to neglect Closet-prayer least Conscience should question arraign and condemn them for their neglects Sometimes when men have greatly sinned against the Lord Conscience becomes impatient and is still accusing condemning and terrifying of them and now in these Agonies they will run to their Closets and cry and pray and mourn and confess and bitterly bewail their transgressions but all this is only to quiet their Consciences and sometimes they find upon their performances of Closet-duties that their Consciences are a little allayed and quieted and for this very end and purpose do they take up Closet-prayer as a charm to allay their Consciences and when the storm is over and their Consciences quieted then they lay aside Closet-prayer as the Monk did the net when the fish was caught and are ready to transgresse again O Sirs take heed of this for this is but plain hypocrisie and will be bitternesse in the end He that performs Closet-prayer only to bribe his Conscience that it may not be clamorous or to stop the mouth of Conscience that it may not accuse him for sin he will at length venture upon such a trade such a course of sinning against Conscience as will certainly turn his troubled Conscience into a seared Conscience And a seared Conscience is like a sleepy Lyon when 2 Tim. 4. 2. he awakes he roars and tears his prey in pieces and so will a seared Conscience when 't is awakened roar and tear the secure sinner in pieces When Dionysius Conscience was awakened he was so troubled with fear and horrour of Conscience that not daring to trust his best friends with a razor he used to singe his beard with burning coals as Cicero reports All the mercy that a seared a benummed Conscience doth afford the sinner when it doth most befriend him when it deals most seemingly kind with him is this that it will not cut that it may kill it will not convince that it may confound it will not accuse that it may condemn it will spare the sinner a while that it may torment him for ever it will spare him here that it may gnaw
resting place 't is his free grace 't is his singular mercy 't is his infinite love that is your resting place 't is the bosome of Christ the favour of Christ the satisfaction of Christ and the pure perfect spotlesse marchless and glorious righteousnesse of Christ that is your resting place and therefore say to all your Closet-duties and performances farewell prayer farewell reading farewell fasting farewell tears farewell sighs and groanes farewell meltings and humblings I will never trust more to you I will never rest more on you but I will now return to my resting place I will now rest only in God and Christ I will now rest wholly in God and Christ I will now rest for ever in God and Christ It was the saying of a precious Saint that he was more afraid of his duties than of his sins for the one made him often proud the other made him always humble But My fifth advice and counsel is this Labour to bring your hearts into all your closet-Closet-prayers and performances Look that your tongues and your hearts keep time tune Psal 17. 1. Give ear unto my prayer that goeth not out of feigned lips or as it is in the Hebrew without lips of deceit Heart and tongue must goe together word and work lip and life prayer and practise must eccho one to another or else thy prayers and thy soul will be lost together the labour of the lips and the travail of the heart must go together The Egyptians of all fruits made choice of the Peach to consecrate Plutark to their Goddess and for no other cause but that the fruit thereof is like to ones heart and the leaf like to ones tongue These very Heathens in the worship of their gods thought it necessary that mens hearts and tongues should go together Ah Christians when in your Closet-duties your hearts and your tongues go together then you make that sweet and delightful melody that is most taking and pleasing to the King of Kings The very soul of prayer lyes in the 1 Sam. 1. 15. pouring out of the Soul before God Psal 42. 4. When I remember these things I pour out my soul in me So the Israelites poured out their souls like water before the Lord So the Church The desire of our soul is to thy name and to the remembrance of thee VVith my soul have I desired thee in the night yea with my spirit within me will I seek thee early Isa 26. 8 9. So Lament 3. 41. Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens So Heb. 10. 22. Let us draw neer with a true heart c. So Rom. 1. 9. For God is my witnesse whom I serve in the Spirit 1 Cor. 14 15. I will pray with the spirit and sing with the spirit Phil. 3. 3. VVe are the Circumcision which worship God in the spirit Under the Law the inward parts were only to be offered to God in sacrifice the skin belonged to the Priests whence we may easily gather that truth in the inward parts is that which is most pleasing in a sacrifice When the Athenians would know of the Oracle the cause of their often unprosperous successes in battel against the Lacedemonians seeing they offered the choycest things they could get in sacrifice to the gods which their enemies did not the Oracle gave them this answer that the gods were better pleased with their inward supplication without ambition than with all their outward pomp in costly Sacrifices Ah Sirs the reason why so many are so unsuccessful in their Closet-duties and services is because there is no more of their hearts in them No man can make sure work or happy work in prayer but he that makes heart work on it When a mans heart is in his prayers then great and sweet will be his returns from heaven that is no prayer in which the heart of the person bears no part When the Soul is separated from the body the man is dead and so when the heart is separated from the lip in prayer the prayer is dead The Jews at this day write upon the walls of their Synagogues these words Tephillah belo cavannah ceguph belo neshamah that is a prayer without the heart or without the intention of the affection is like a body without a soul In the Law of Moses the Priest was commanded to wash the inwards and the feet of the Sacrifices in water and this was done saith Philo not without a mystery to teach us to keep our hearts and affections clean when we draw nigh to God In all your Closet-duties God looks first and most to your hearts My Son Pro. 23. 26. give me thy heart It is not a piece it is not a corner of the heart that will satisfie the maker of the heart the heart is a treasure a bed of spices a royal throne wherein he delights God looks not at the clegancy of your prayers to see how neat they are nor yet at the Geometry of your prayers to see how long they are nor yet at the Arithmetick of your prayers to see how many they are nor yet at the Musick of your prayers nor yet at the sweetness of your voice nor yet at the Logick of your prayers but at the sincerity of your prayers how hearty they are There is no prayer acknowledged approved accepted recorded or rewarded by God but that wherein the heart is sincerely and wholly The true mother would not have the Psal 51. 17. James 1. 8. child divided As God loves a broken and a contrite heart so he loaths a divided heart God neither loves halting nor halving he will be served truly and totally The Royal Law is Thou shalt love and serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul Among the Heathens when the beasts were cut up for sacrifice the first thing the Priest looked upon Pro. 21. 27. Isa 1. 11 12. Chap. 29. 13. Mat. 15. 7 8 9. Ezek. 33. 30 31 32. Zech. 7. 4 5 6. 2 Chron. 25 1 2. Psal 78. 36 37. was the heart and if the heart was naught the sacrifice was rejected Verily God rejects all those services and sacrifices wherein the heart is not as you may see by comparing the Scriptures in the margent together Prayer without the heart is but as sounding brass or a tinckling Cymbal Prayer is only lovely and weighty as the heart is in it and no otherwise It is not the lifting up of the voyce nor the wringing of the hands nor the beating of the breasts nor an affected tone nor studied notions nor seraphical expressions but the stirrings of the heart that God looks at in prayer God hears no more than the heart speaks if the heart be dumb God will certainly be deaf no prayer takes with God but that which is the travel of the heart The same day Julius Caesar came to the imperial dignity sitting in his Golden Chair he offered a
beast in Sacrifice to the gods but when the beast was opened it was without a heart which the South-sayers looked upon as an ill omen 'T is a sad omen that thou wilt rather provoke the Lord than prevail with him who art habitually heartlesse in thy Closet-duties Of the heart God seemeth to say to us as Joseph did to his Brethren concerning Benjamin Ye shall not see my face without it It was the speech of blessed Bradford that he would never leave a Duty till he had brought his heart into the frame of the duty he would not leave confession of sin till his heart was broken for sin he would not leave petitioning for grace till his heart was quickened and enlivened in a hopeful expectation of more grace he would not leave gratulation till his heart was enlarged with the sence of the mercies he enjoyed and quickened in the return of praise My sixth advice and counsel is this Be fervent be warm be importunate with God in all your Closet-duties and performances James 5. 17. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much or as the Greek hath it the working prayer that is such working 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prayer as sets the wholeman on work as sets all the faculties of the soul and all the graces in the Psal 55. 1. Psal 61. 1. Psal 64. 1. Psal 88. 1 13. Psal 119. 164. Jon. 2. 1 2. Joel 2. 13. Psal 119. 145 147. Psal 119. 20. soul at work the word signifies such a working as notes the liveliest activity that can be Certainly all those usual phrases of crying wrestling and striving with God which are scattered up and down in Scripture do strongly argue that holy importunity and sacred violence that the Saints of old have expressed in their addresses to God Fervency feathers the wings of prayer and makes them fly the swifter to Heaven An Arrow if it be drawn up but a little way flyes not far but if it be drawn up to the head it will fly far and pierce deeply So fervent Qui timide rogat docet negare saith the Philosopher prayer flyes as high as Heaven and will certainly bring down blessings from thence Cold prayers bespeak a denyal but fervent prayers offer a sacred violence both to heaven and earth Look as in a painted fire there is no heat so in a cold prayer there is no heat no warmth no omnipotency no devotion no blessing Cold prayers are like Arrows without heads as swords without edges as Birds without wings they pierce not they cut not they fly not up to heaven Such prayers as have no heavenly fire in them do alwayes freez before they reach as high as heaven But fervent prayer is very prevalent with God Acts 12. 5. Peter therefore was kept in prison but prayer was made without ceasing The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies instant prayer earnest prayer stretched-out prayer prayer stretched-out upon the tenters as it were These gracious souls did in prayer strain and stretch themselves as men do that are running in a race they prayed with all the strength of their souls and with all the fervency of their spirits and accordingly they carryed the day with God as you may see in the following verses So Acts 26. 7. Vnto which promise our Twelve Tribes instantly serving God day and night or rather as the Greek hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a stretched-out manner serving God day and night These Twelve Tribes or the godly Jews of the Twelve Tribes of Israel stretched out their hearts their affections their graces to the utmost in prayer In all your private retirements do as the Twelve Tribes did Rom. 12. 11. Fervent in spirit serving the Lord. The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies seething hot God loves to see his people zealous and warm in his service Without fervency of spirit no service finds acceptance in heaven God is a pure act and he loves that his people should be lively and active in his service vers 12. Continuing instant in prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 continuing with all your might in prayer 'T is a Metaphor from hunting dogs that will never give over the game till they have got it Rom. 15. 30. That ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 strive mightily strive as Championsstrive even to an Agony as the word imports 'T is a military word and notes such fervent wrestling or striving as is for life and death Col. 4. 12. Alwayes labouring fervently for you in prayer The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is here used signifies to strive or wrestle as those do that strive for mastery it notes the vehemency and fervour of Epaphras his prayers for the Colossians Look as the wrestlers do bend and writhe and stretch and strain every joynt of their bodies that they may be victorious so Epaphras did bend writh and stretch strain every joynt of his soul if I may so speak that he might be victorious with God upon the Colossians account So when Jacob was with God alone ah how earnest Gen. 32. 24 27. Hos 12. 4 5. and fervent was he in his wrestlings with God! he wrestles and weeps and weeps and wrestles he tugs hard with God he holds his hold and he will not let God go till as a Prince he had prevailed with him Fervent prayer is the Souls contention the Souls strugling with God it is a sweating work it is the sweat and blood of the soul it s a laying out to the uttermost all the strength and powers of the Soul He that would gain victory over God in private prayer must strain every string of his heart he must in beseeching God besiedge him and so get the better of him he must be like importunate beggars that will not be put off with frowns or silence or sad answers Those that would be masters of their requests must like the importunate Widdow press God so far as to put him to an holy blush as I may say with reverence They must with an holy impudence as Basil speaks make God ashamed to look them in the face if he should deny the importunity of theirs souls Had Abraham had a little more Dor. Don. Fol. p. 522. Gen. 18. 22 23. of this impudence saith one when he made suit for Sodom it might have done well Abraham brought down the price to ten righteous and there his modesty staid him had he gone lower God only knows what might have been done for God went not away saith the Text till he had left communing with Abraham that is till Abraham had no more to say to God Abraham left over asking before God left over granting he left over praying before God left over bating and so Sodom was lost O the heavenly fire the holy fervency that was in Daniels Closet-prayer O Lord hear O Lord forgive O Lord hearken and
as the Greek article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he Elaphos doth manifest now in the females the passions of thirst are more strong as the naturalists observe By this David discovers what a vehement and inflamed thirst there was in his Soul after communion with God And as nothing could satisfie the hunted Hart but the water brooks so nothing could satisfie his soul but the enjoyments of God Psal 43. 4. Then will I go unto the Altar of God unto God my exceeding joy The altar of God is here put for the worship of God now it was not barely the Worship of God but communion with God in his Worship that was David'e exceeding joy Psal 63. 1 2 O God thou art my God early will I seek thee my Soul thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty Land where no water is To see thy power and thy glory so as I have seen thee in the Sanctuary Davids soul did not thirst after a Crown a Kingdom or any worldly greatnesse or glory but after a choise and sweet enjoyment of God in his wildernesse estate Never did any Woman with Child long more after this or that than Davids Soul did long to enjoy sensible communion with God in the midst of all his sorrows and sufferings Psal 84. 2. My Soul longeth yea even fainteth for the Courts of the Lord My heart and my flesh cryeth out for the living God By the Courts of the Lord we are to understand the ordinances now these without communion with God would never satisfie Davids Soul I commend that speech of Bernard Nanquam abs te absque te recedo I never come to thee but by thee Bern. epist 116. I never come from thee without thee When ever you go into your Closets press hard after real and sensible Communion with God that so you may come out of your Closets with some shines of God upon your spirits as Moses came down from the Mount with his Exod. 34. 29 35. face shining O do not take up in your closet-Closet-prayers or tears or joyes or enlargements but labour and long to enjoy that inward and close Fellowship with God in your Closets as may leave such a choice and sweet favour of God both upon your hearts and lives as others may be forced to say surely Acts 4. 13. these have been with Jesus 'T is sad when Christians return from their Closets to their shops their trades their families their commerce c. without the least visible rayes of divine glory upon them O Sirs Closet-prayer will be found to be but a dry saplesse live-lesse heartlesse comfortlesse thing if you do not enjoy Communion with God in it Communion with God is the very Life Soul and Crown of all your Closet-duties and therefore press after it as for Life When you go into your Closets let every thing go that may hinder your fruition of Christ and let every thing be embraced that makes way for your enjoyment of Christ O let Closet-prayer be a golden bridge a wherry a Chariot to convey your Souls over to God and to bring you into a more intimate Communion with God Let no Closet-duty satisfie you or content you wherein you have not conversed with God as a Child converseth with his Father or as a wife converseth with her Husband or as a Friend converseth with his Friend even face to face Nothing speaks out more unsoundness falsness and baseness of heart than this when men make Duty the end of Duty Prayer the end of Prayer than when men can begin a Duty and go on in a Duty and close up a Duty and bless and stroake themselves after a Duty and yet never enjoy the least Communion with God in the Duty But how shall a man know when he Quest hath a real Communion with God in a Duty or no This is a very noble and necessary Question and accordingly it calls for a cleer and satisfactory Answer and therefore thus First A man may have Communion Sol. with God in sorrow and tears when he hath not Communion with God in joy delight a Psal 51. 17. man may have Communion with God in a heart-humbling a heart-melting and a heart-abasing way when he hath not Communion with God in a heart reviving a heart-cheering and a heart-comforting way 'T is a very great mistake among many tender spirited Christians to think that they have no Communion with God in their Closets except they meet with God embracing and kissing Cant. 2. 4 5 6. cheering and comforting up of their souls when they find God raising the springs of joy and comfort in their souls when they find God a speaking peace unto them when they find the singular sensible Psal 85. 8. presence of God cheering refreshing and enlarging of them in their Closets O then they are willing to grant that they have had sweet Communion with God in their Closets But if God meets with them in their Closets and only breaks their hearts for sin and from sin if he meets with them and only makes his power and his presence manifest in debasing and casting down of their souls upon the sight and sence of their strong corruptions and many imperfections how unwilling are are they to believe that they have had any Communion with God Well Friends remember this once for all viz. That a Christian may have as real Communion with God in a heart-humbling way as he can have in a heart-comforting way a Christian may have as choice Communion with God John 20. 11 19. when his eyes are full of tears as he can have when his heart is full of joy Sometimes God meets with a poor Christian in his Closet and exceedingly breaks him and humbles him and at other times he meets with the same Christian in his Closet and mightily cheers him and comforts him sometimes God meets with a poor Soul in his Closet and there he sweetly quiets him and stills him and at other times he meets with the same Soul in his Closet and then he greatly revives him and quickens him God doth not alwayes come upon the Soul one way he doth not alwayes come in at one and the same door We John 3. 8. sometimes look for a Friend to come in at the fore-door and then he comes in at the back-door and at other times when we look for him at the back door then he comes in at the fore-door and just so 't is with Gods coming into his peoples souls Sometimes they go into their Closets and look that God will come in at the fore-door of joy and comfort and then God comes in at the back-door of sorrow and grief and at other times when they look that God should come in at the back-door of humiliation breaking and melting their hearts then God comes in at the fore-door of joy and consolation cheering and rejoycing their souls But. Secondly I answer That all Christians do not enjoy a
out of Heaven for and therefore in all your private duties and services labour after that communion with God in them that may break the neck and heart of your most bosome sins When Darius fled before Alexander that he might run the faster out of danger he threw away his Massie Crowne from his head As ever you would be safe from eternal danger throw away your golden and your silver Idols throw away your bosome sins your darling lusts And thus I have done with the Answers to that noble and necessary Question that was last proposed My Ninth Advice and Counsel is this In all your Closet-Duties look that your ends be right look Christus opera nostra non tam actibus quam finibus pensat Zanch. that the Glory of God be your ultimate end the mark the white that you have in your eye There is a great truth in that old saying Quod non actibus sed finibus pensantur officia That duties are esteemed not by their acts but by their ends Look as the shining Sun puts out the light of the fire so the glory of God must consume all other ends There may be malum opus in bona materia as in Johu's zeal Two things make a good Christian good actions and good aims And though a good aim doth not make a bad action good as in Vzzah yet a bad aim makes a good action bad as in Jehu whose Justice was approved but his Policy punished God writes a nothing upon all those services wherein mens ends are not right Jer. 32. 23. They obeyed not thy voyce neither walked in thy Law they have done nothing of all that thou hast commanded them to do So Dan. 9. 13. All this evill is come upon us yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God The Jewes were very much in religious Duties and Services witness Isa 1. 11 12 13 14 15. Isa 58. 1 2 3. Zech. 7. 5 6. I might produce a hundred more witnesses to confirm it were it necessary but because they did not aim at the Glory of God in what they did therefore the Lord writes a nothing upon all their Duties and Services It was Ephraims folly that he brought forth fruit unto himself Hos 10. 1. And it was the Pharisees hypocrisie that in all their duties and Mat. 6. 1 2 3 4 5. services they lookt at the praise of men Verily saith Christ you have your reward a poor a pitiful reward indeed Such men shall be sure to fall short of divine acceptance and of a glorious recompence that are not able to look above the praises of men Woe to that man that with Augustus is ambitious to go off the Stage of Duty with a plaudite Peter was See more of this in my Treatise on Holiness page 157 to p. 168. not himself when he denyed his Lord and cursed himself to get credit amongst a cursed crew As ever you would ask have speak and speed seek and find look that the glory of the Lord be engraven upon all your closet-duties He shall be sure to speed best whose heart is set most upon glorifying of God in all his secret retirements When God Crowns us he doth but Crown his own gifts in us and when we give God the Glory of all we do we do but give him the glory that is due unto his Name for 't is he and he alone that works all our works in us and for us All Closet Duties are good or bad as the mark is at which the soul aims He that makes God the object of Closet Prayer but not the end of Closet Prayer doth but lose his Prayer and take pains to undoe himself God will be Alexander or Nemo he will be All in All or he will be nothing at all Such prayers never reach the Ear of God nor delight the heart of God nor shall ever be lodg'd in the bosome of God that are not directed to the glory of God The end must be as noble as the means or else a man may be undone after all his doings A mans most glorious actions will at last be found to be but glorious sins if he hath made himself and not the glory of God the end of those actions My Tenth Advice and Counsel is this Be sure that you offer all your Closet Prayers in Christs Name and in his alone John 14. 13 14. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I do that the father may be glorified in the son If ye shall ask any thing in my name I will do it John 15. 16. That whatsoever ye shall ask of the father in my name he may give it you John 16. 23 24 26. Verily verily I say unto you whatsoever ye shall ask the father in my name he will give it you Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name ask and ye shall receive that your joy may be full At that day ye shall ask in my name and I say unto you that I will pray the father for you O Sirs this is your Priviledg as well as your comfort that you never deal with God but by a Mediator When you appear before God Jesus Christ appears with you and he appears for you when you do invocare then he doth advocare when you put up your petitions then he doth make intercession for you Christ gives you a commission to put his name upon all your requests and whatsoever prayer comes up with this name upon it he will procure it an answer In the state of innocency man might worship God without a Mediator but since sin hath made so wide a breach between God and Man God will accept of no worship from man but what is offered up by the hand of a Mediator Now this Mediator is Christ alone 1 Tim. 2. 5. For there is one God and one Mediator between God men the man Christ Jesus One Mediator not of Redemption only as the Papists grant but of Intercession also which they deny The Papists make Saints and Angels co mediators with Christ but in this as in other things they fight against cleer Scripture-light The Apostle plainly tells us that the Office of Intercession pertaineth unto Christ as part of his Mediation Heb. 7 25. And 't is certain that we need no other Master of requests in Heaven but the man Christ Jesus who being so neer to the Father and so dear to the Father and so much in with the Father can doubtlesse carry any thing with the Father that makes for his glory and our good This was typified in the Law The High Priest alone did enter into Ex. 28. 29. the Sanctuary and carry the names of the Children of Israel before the Lord whil'st the people stood all without this pointed out Christs Mediation In that Lev. 16. 13 14. you read of two things First of the cloud of Incense that covered the Mercy-Seat Secondly Of the blood of the Bullock that was
James 5. 7 8. wait for the return of his ships and shall the Wife wait for the return of her Husband that is gone a long journey and shall not a Christian wait for the return of his prayers Noah patiently waited for the return of the Dove to the Ark with an Olive branch in his mouth So must you patiently wait for the return of your prayers When children shoot their Arrows they never mind where they fall but when prudent Archers shoot their Arrowes up into the aire they stand and watch where they fall You must deal by your prayers as prudent Archers do by their Arrowes Hab. 2. 1. I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the Tower and will watch to see what he will say unto me The Prophet in the former Chapter having been very earnest in his expostulations and very fervent in his supplications he gets now upon his Watch-Tower to see what becomes of his prayers he stands as a sentinel and watches as vigilantly and as carefully as a spy a scout earnestly longing to hear and see the event the issue and success of his prayers That Christian that in prayer hath one eye upon a divine precept and another upon a gracious promise that Christian will be sure to look after his prayers He that prayes and waits and waits and prayes shall Psal 40. 1 2 3 4. be sure to speed he shall never fail of rich returns He that can want as well as wait and he that can be contented that God is glorified though he be not gratified he that dares not antedate Gods promises but patiently wait for the accomplishment of them he may be confident that he shall have seasonable and suitable answers to all those prayers that he hath posted away to heaven Though God seldome comes at our time yet he never fails to come at his own time He that shall come will come Heb. 10. 37. and will not tarry The mercies of God are not styled the swift but the sure mercies of David He that makes as much Conscience to Isa 55. 3. look after his prayers as to pray he shall shortly clap his hands for joy and cry out with that blessed Mr. Glover Acts mon. Martyr He is come Austin he is come he is come Certainly there is little worth in that mans heart or in that mans prayers who keeps up a trade of prayer but never looks what becomes of his prayers When you are in your Closets marshal your prayers see that every prayer keeps his place and ground and when you come out of your closets then look up for an answer only take heed that you be not too hasty and hot with God Though mercy in the promise be yours yet the time of giving it out is the Lords and therefore you must wait as well as pray And thus much by way of counsel and advice for the better carrying on of Closet-prayer I have now but one thing more to do before I shut up this discourse and that is to lay down some means rules or directions that may be of use to help you on in a faithful and conscientious discharge of this great duty viz. Closet-prayer And therefore thus First As ever you would give up your selves to private prayer Take heed of an idle and sloathful spirit If Adam in the state of Innocency must work and dress the Garden and if after his fall when he was Monarch of all the world he must yet labour why should any be idle or sloathful Idleness is a sin against the law of Creation God creating man to labour the idle person violates this Law of Creation for by his idleness he casts off the authority of his Creator who made him for labour Idleness is a contradiction to the August de Gen ad lit lib. 8. cap. 8. principles of our Creation Man in Innocency should have been freed from weariness but not from employment he was to dress the Garden by divine appoyntment And the Lord God took the man and put Gen. 2. 15. him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it All weariness in labour and all vexing tyring and tormenting labour came in by the fall In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat Gen. 3. 19. bread The bread of idleness is neither sweet nor sure An idle person shall suffer Pro. 19. 15. hunger saith Solomon An idle life an holy heart are far enough asunder By doing nothing saith the Heathen man men learn to do evil things It is easie slipping out of an idle life into an evil and wicked life yea an idle life is of it self evil for man was made to be active not to be idle The Cyclopes thought mans happiness did consist in nihil agendo in doing nothing But no excellent thing 1 Cor. 1. 17. Eph. 4. 28. 2 Thes 3. 10 12. can be the child of idleness Idleness is a mother sin a breeding sin 't is pulvinar diaboli the devils cushion on which he sits the devils anvile on which he frames very great and very many sins Look as Toads and Serpents breed most in standing waters so sin thrives most in idle persons Idleness is that which provokes the Lord to forsake mens bodies and the Devil to possess their souls No man hath less means to preserve his body and more temptations to infect his soul than an idle person O shake off sloth The sluggish Christian will be sleeping or idling or trifling when he should be in his closet a praying Sloth is the Green-sickness of the soul get it cured or 't will be your eternal bane Of all Devils 't is the idle Devil that keeps men most out of their Closets There is nothing that gives the devil so much advantage against us as idleness 'T was Hierom. ep 4. good counsel that Jerom gave to his friend Facito aliquid operis ut te semper Diabolus inveniat occupatum that when the Devil comes with a temptation you may answer him you are not at leasure It was the speech of Mr. Greenham sometimes a famous painful preacher of this nation that when the Devil tempted a poor soul she came to him for advice how she might resist the temptation and he gave her this answer Never be idle but be alwayes well employed for in my own experience I have found it when the Devil came to tempt me I told him that I was not at leasure to hearken to his temptations and by this means I resisted all his assaults Idleness is the hour of temptation and an idle person is the Devils Tennis-Ball tossed by him at his pleasure He that labours said the old Hermite is tempted but by one Devil but he that is idle is assaulted by all Cupid complained that he could never fasten upon the Muses because he could never find them idle The Fowler bends his bow and spreads his net for Birds when they are set not when
outside of the house then help runs in then help on all hands is ready He that sins in secret debars himself of all publick Remedy and takes great pains to damn his soul in a corner and to go to Hell in the dark But Secondly Secret sins will make way for publick sins He that makes no Conscience of sinning in the secret Chamber will e're long with Absolom be ready to spread a Tent upon the top of the 2 King 16. 21 22 house and to go in to his Concubines in the sight of all Israel Such as have made no Conscience of stealing a few pins or pence or a few shillings in private have in time come to be so bold as to take a purse on the road at high-noon The Cockatrice must be crushed in the Egge else it will soon become a Serpent The very thought of sin if not thought on will break forth into action action into custom custom into habit and then both body and soul are irrecoverably lost to all eternity If Satan can but wound our heel as the Poets feign of Achilles he will make a hard shift but he will send death from the heel to the heart If this subtile Serpent can but wriggle in his tayl by an ill thought he will soon get in his head by a worse action Hence it is that Christ calls hatred murder and a wanton eye adultery Secret hatred often issues in upon murder and secret wanton glances of the eye do often issue in visible adultery If Ammon be sick with the sinful conceptions of incestuous lust how will his soul be in pain and travail till he hath brought forth And how many are there that in secret have taken now and then but one Cup more than enough who now may be seen at high-noon reeling against every Post Look as secret diseases in the body if not cured will in time openly break forth so secret sins in the soul if not pardoned and purged will in time be openly revealed Covetousness was Judas his secret sin and no sooner doth an occasion or a temptation present it self but he is very ready and forward to betray and sell his Lord and Master for thirty pieces of Silver before all the world Lust having conceived brings forth sin and James 1. 15. that thus First Sin hath its conception and that 's delight and then its formation and that 's design and then its birth and that 's action and then its growth and that 's custome and then its end and that 's damnation But Thirdly Secret sinning puts far more respect fear upon men than upon God Thou wilt be unjust in secret and wanton in secret and unclean in secret and treacherous in secret c. and why but because thou art afraid that such or such men should know it or that such and such Friends should know it or that such and such Relations should know it Ah poor wretch art thou afraid of the eye of a man of a man that shall Isa 51. 12. dye and of the Son of man which shall be made as Grass and yet not tremble under his eye whose eyes are as a flame of fire sharp and terrible such as pierce into the inward Rev. 1. 14. Heb. 4. 13. parts Ah how full of atheisme is that mans heart that tacitly saith If my sins be but hid from the eyes of the world I do not care though the Lord knows them though the Lord strictly observes them though the Lord sets a mark a Memorandum upon them What is this O Man but to brave it out with God and to tempt him and provoke him to to his very face who is Light and in whom there is no darkness at all Ah sinner sinner can man 1 John 1. 5 6. damn thee can man dis-inherit thee can man fill thy Conscience with horrors and terrors can man make thy life a very Hell can man bar the gates of Glory against thee can man speak thee into the Grave by a word of his mouth and after all can man cast thee into endless easeless and remediless torments O no can God do all this O yes why then doth not thy heart stand more in awe of the eye of the great God than it doth of the eye of a poor weak mortal man I have insisted the longer on this particular because there is not any one thing in all the world that doth more hinder secret Communion with God and secret prayer than secret sins And Oh that you would all make it your great business to watch against secret sins and to pray against secret sins and to mourn over secret sins and deeply to judge and condemn your selves for secret sins and carefully and Conscientiously to shun and avoid all occasions and provocations that may be as fuel to secret sins Certainly there are no men or women that are so sincere and serious in Closet-prayer or that are so frequent so fervent so constant in Closet-prayer or that are so delightful so resolulute so undaunted or so unwearied in Closet-prayer as those that keep themselves most cleer and free from secret sins For a Close remember this That though secret sins are in some respects more dangerous than other sins are yet in three respects they are not so bad nor so dangerous as other sins are First In that they do not so scandalize Religion as open sins do Secondly In that they do not shame grieve and wound the hearts of the Saints as open sins do Thirdly In that they are not so infectious to others nor such provocations to others to sin against the Lord as open sins are And thus you may see what those things are that you must carefully take heeed of as ever you would adict your selves to Closet-prayer And as you must take heed of these five things So there are several other things that you must carefully and conscienciously apply your selves to as ever you would be found faithful and constant in this great duty viz. Closet-prayer Now they are these First Lament greatly and mourn bitterly over the neglect of this choice Duty He that doth not make Conscience of mourning over the neglect of this Duty will never make Conscience of performing this Duty O that Jer. 9. 1. your heads were waters and your eyes a Fountain of tears that you might weep day and night for the great neglect of Closet-prayer He that mourns most for the neglect of this Duty will be found most in the practise of this Duty He that makes most Conscience to accuse arraign and condemn himself for neglecting closet-Closet-prayer he will make most Conscience of giving himself up to closet-Closet-prayer 'T is said of Adam that he turned his face towards the Garden of Eden and from his heart bitterly lamented his great fall O that you would turn your faces towards your Closets and bitterly lament your rare going into them But Secondly Habituate your selves accustom your selves to Closet-prayer Make private prayer
your constant trade Frequency begets familiarity and familiarity confidence we can go freely boldly into that friends house whom we often visit What we are habituted to we do with ease and delight A man that is habituted or accustomed to write to read to ride to run or to play on this or that musical Instrument c. he doth it all with delight and ease and so a man that doth habituate himself to Closet-prayer he will manage it with delight and ease But Thirdly Keep a Diary of all Deut. 7. 18 19. Psal 66. 12. your Closet-experiences O carefully record and book down all your Closet-mercies O be often in reading over your Closet-experiences and be often in meditating and in pondering upon your Closet-experiences There is no way like this to enflame your love to closet-Closet-prayer and to engage your hearts in this secret trade of private prayer O remember that at such a time you went into your Closets with hard hearts and dry eyes but before you came out of your Closets Psal 6. 6. Psal 39. 12. Psal 56. 8. ah how sweetly how evangelically how powerfully were you melted and humbled before the Lord O remember how that at another time you went into your Closets clouded and benighted but came out of your Closets with as glorious a shine of God upon your souls as Moses had upon his face Exod. 34. 28 29. when he came down from the Mount from communing with God! O remember how often you have gone into your Closets Luke 24. 31 32. Isa 4. 4. with cold frozen spirits but before you come out of your Closets what a fire hath God kindled in your souls what a spirit of burning have you found in your hearts O remember how often you have gone into your Closets streightned and shut up but before you have come out how hath your souls been like the Charriots of Aminnadab O remember what Can. 6. 12. power God hath given you against corruptions in your Closets and what strenth God hath given you against temptations in your Closets O remember the sweet discoveries of divine love that you have had when in your Closets O remember the secret visits the secret kisses the secret embraces the secret whispers the secret love-tokens that Christ hath given you in your Closets O seriously ponder upon these things and then Closet-duties will be sweet unto you 'T was a sweet saying of Bernard O Saint knowest thou not that thy Husband Christ is bashful and will Can. 7. 11 12. not be familiar in company retire thy self by Meditation into thy Closet or into the fields and there thou shalt have Christ's embraces Meditatio nutrix orationis Meditation is the Nurse of Prayer O the more any man Gerson meditates upon his Closet-experiences the more he shall find his heart engaged to Closet-duties the more you ponder upon Closet-experiences the sweeter will Closet-experiences be to your souls and the sweeter Closet-experiences are to your souls the more your souls will delight to be with God in your Closets Pliny tells us of one Messala Corvinus lib. 7. c. 24. whose memory was so bad that he forgot his own name And I am afraid that many of your memories are so bad that you forget your Closet-mercies your Closet-experiences I have read of such a Pestilential disease once at Athens as took away the memories of those that were infected with it so that they forgat their own names O that I had not cause to fear that some Pestilential Disease or other hath so taken away the memories of many that they have quite forgot their Closet-experiences Well Friends remember this though stony hearts are bad yet Iron memories are good and O that you would all labour after Iron memories that so you may remember and ponder upon your Closet-experiences I have read of the Heathens how they made use of white and black stones for these two ends First They gave them to persons at their arraignment before the Judges if any were condemned to death they gave him a black Stone but if absolved and set free a white Stone To which custome the Holy-Ghost seemes to allude in that Rev. 2. 17. To him that overcometh will I give a VVhite Stone A second use of those Stones was this that by them they might keep an account of all the good dayes or evil dayes they had met withal in their lives Hence Giacopo Senzaro having been long in love and much crossed about his match he filled a Pot full of black Stones putting only one white Stone among them and being asked the reason answered There will come one VVhite Day meaning his Marriage Day which will make amends for all my Black Dayes Ah Friends how often hath God given you the White Stone in your Closets Certainly you have had more White Stones than Black Stones your Closet-mercies and experiences have been more than your publick crosses and miseries O Sirs did you but reckon your good dayes according to the White Stones you have had in your Closets it would make you more in love with Closet-prayer than ever But Fourthly Be sure that you do not spend so much of your precious time in publick Duties and Ordinances as that you can spare none for private Duties for secret services Though Pharoah's Kine eat up one another yet our Gen. 41. 4. Duties must not eat up one another publick Duties must not eat up family duties nor family-duties must not eat up publick duties nor neither of them must not eat up Closet-duties The wisdom of a Christian doth most eminently sparkle shine in giving every duty its proper time and place I was going to say that either he was Eccl. 8. 5. no Christian or at least no excellent Christian that is all eye to read or all ear to hear or all tongue to speak or all knee to bow to kneel to pray Ah how many are there that spend so much time in hearing of this man and that and in running up and down from meeting to meeting that they have no time to meet with God in their Closets O Sirs your Duties are never so amiable and lovely they are never so orient and beautiful as when they are seasonably and orderly performed Oh how wise are the men of this world so to order all their civil affairs that no one business shall interferre with another they set apart for each business a convenient proportion of time they allot an hour for one business two for another three for another c. O that we were as wise for our souls as wise for eternity as they are for this world O that our hearts would so consult with our heads that we may never want a convenient time to seek God in a corner That Devil that loves to set one man against another and one Nation against another and one Christian against another that Devil loves to set one Ordinance against another and one Duty against
another Hence t is that on the one hand he works some to cry up publick Prayers in opposition to secret Prayer and one the other hand he works others to cry up private Duties in opposition to all publick Duties whereas all Christians stand oblieged by God so to manage one sort of Duties as not to shut out another sort of Duties Every Christian must find time and room for every Duty incumbent upon him But Fifthly Love Christ with a more enflamed love O strengthen your love to Christ and your love to Closet-duties Lovers love Can 7. 10 11 12. much to be alone to be in a corner together Certainly the more any man loves the Lord Jesus the more he will delight to be with Christ in a corner There was a great deal of love between Jonathan 1 Sam. 18. 19. chap. 20. com and David and according to their love so was their private converse their secret communion one with another they were alwayes best when in the Field together or when in a corner together or when behind the door together or when lockt up together and just so it would be with you did you but love the Lord Jesus Christ with a more raised and a more enflamed love you would be alwayes best when you were most with Christ in a corner Divine Love is like a rod of Myrtle which as Pliny reports makes the traveller that carries it in his hand so lively and cheerful that he never faints or grows weary Ah Friends did you but love the Lord Jesus with a more strong with a more raised love you would never faint in Closet-duties nor you would never grow weary of Closet-duties Look as the Israelites removed their Tents from Mithcah to Hashmonah from sweetness Num. 23. 39. to swiftness as the words import So the sweetness of Divine Love will make a man move swiftly on in a way of Closet-duties Divine Love will make all Closet-duties more easie to the Soul and more pleasant and delightful to the Soul and therefore do all you can to strengthen your love to Christ and your love to Closet-work It was observed among the Primitive Christians that they were so full of love one to another that they could be acquainted one with another as well in half an hour as in half a year O Sirs If your hearts were but more full of love to Christ and Closet-duties you would quickly be better acquainted with them you would quickly know what secret communion with Christ behind the door means But Sixthly Be highly throughly and fixedly resolved in the strength of Christ to keep close to closet-duties in the face of all difficulties and discouragements that you may Psal 44. 17 18 19 20 meet withal A man of no resolution or of weak resolution will be won with a Nut and lost with an Apple Satan and the world and carnal relations and your own hearts will cast in many things to discourage you and take you off from Closet-prayer but be ye nobly and firmly resolved to keep close to your Closet let the World the Flesh and the Devil doe and say what they can Daniel was a man of an invincible resolution rather than he would om it praying in his Chamber he would be cast into the Den of Lyons Of all the Duties of Religion Satan is the most deadly enemy to this of secret Prayer partly because Secret prayer spoiles him in his most secret designs plots and contrivances against the Soul and partly because secret prayer is so musical and delightful to God and partly because secret prayer is of such rare use and advantage to the Soul and partly because it layes not the soul of open to pride vain glory and worldly applause as prayer in the Synagogue doth and therefore he had rather that a man should pray a thousand times in the Synagogues or in the corner of the streets or behind a Pillar than that he should pray once in his Closet and therefore you had need to steel your hearts with holy courage and resolution that what ever suggestions temptations oppositions or objections you may encounter with that yet you will keep close to closet-Closet-prayer There is not any better Bulwark in the day or battel than an heroick resolution of heart before the day of battel Sanctified resolutions doe exceedingly weaken and discourage Satan in his assaults they doe greatly daunt and dishearten him in all his undertakings against the Soul That man will never long be quiet in his Closet who is not stedfastly resolved to seek the Lord in a corner though all the powers of darkness should make head against him O Sir Divine fortitude holy resolutions will make you like a Wall of Brass that no Arrows can pierce they will make you like Armour of proof that no shot can hurt they will make you like that Angel Mat. 28. 2. that rolled away the Stone from before the door of the Sepulchre they will either enable you to remove the greatest Mountaines of opposition that lye between you and Closet prayer or else they will enable you to step over them Lather was a man of great resolution and a man that spent much time in Closet-prayer And such another was Nehemiah who met with so much opposition that had he not been steeled by a strong and obstinate resolution he could never have rebuilded the Temple but would have sunk in the midst of his work Now he was a man for private prayer as I have shewen in the beginning of this Treatise Who more resolute than David who more for secret prayer than David the same I might say of Paul Basil and many others who have been famous in their Generations O Sirs Sanctified Resolutions for Closet-prayer will chain you faster to Closet-prayer than ever Vlisses his resolutions did chain him to the mast of the ship 'T was a noble resolution that kept Ruth close to her mother when her sister Orpah only complements her kisses her and takes her leave of her Be but nobly resolved Ruth 1. 10 20. for Closet-prayer and then you will keep close to it when others only court it and take their leaves of it In the Salentine Country there is mention made of a Lake that is still brim full if you put in never so much it never runs over if you draw out never so much it is still full The resolution of every Christian for Closet-prayer Plin. Hist l. 2. c. 103. should be like this Lake still brim full Tide life tide death come honour or reproach come loss or gain come liberty or bonds come what can come the true bred Christian must be fully and constantly resolved to keep close to his Closet But Seventhly Labour for a greater effusion of the Holy Spirit for the greater measure any man hath of the Spirit of God the more that man will delight to be with God in secret Zech. 12. 10. And I will pour upon the House