"But thou when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Matt. vi, 6."
We have here our blessed Lord's instructions for the management of secret prayer, the crown and glory of a child of God.
I. The direction prescribed for our deportment in secret duty in three things: 1. Enter thy closet. This word signifies a secret or recluse habitation, and sometimes it is rendered a hiding-place for treasure. 2. "Shut thy door," or lock it, as the word intimates. The Greek word furnishes the term "key," as appears by Rev. iii, 7, and xx, 1, 3, implying that we must bar or bolt it. 3. "Pray to thy Father which is in secret." "Father." Tertullian notes this name, as intimating both piety and power; "thy Father" denoting intimacy and propriety.
II. A gracious promise which may be branched into three parts: 1. For thy Father sees thee in secret, his eye is upon thee with a gracious aspect, when thou art withdrawn from all the world. 2. He will reward thee. The word used here is sometimes translated by, rendering, Matt. xxii, 21; Rom. ii, 6, and xiii, 7; by delivering, Matt. xxvii, 58; Luke ix, 42; by yielding or affording, Heb. xii, 11; Rev. xxii, 2. All which comes to this; he will return thy prayers or thy requests amply and abundantly into thy bosom. 3. He will do it openly, manifestly; before the world sometimes, and most plentifully and exuberantly before men and angels at the great day; secret prayers shall have open and public answers.
III. Here is a demonstration of sincerity, from the right performance of the duty set forth by the antithesis in the fifth verse. "But thou shalt not be as the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men." Enter not thy house only, or thy common chamber, but thy closet, the most secret and retired privacy, that others may neither discern thee nor rush in suddenly upon thee. God will answer thee and perform thy request as a gracious return to thy secret sincerity. God is pleased by promise to make himself a debtor to secret prayer. It brings nothing to God but empty hands and naked hearts; to show that reward in scripture sense does not flow in on the streams of merit, but of grace. It is monkish divinity to assert otherwise; for what merit strictly taken can there be in prayer? The mere asking of mercy cannot merit it at the hands of God. Mal. ii, 3. Our most sincere petitions are impregnated with sinful mixtures. We halt, like Jacob, both in and after our choicest and strongest wrestlings. But such is the grace of our heavenly Father who spies that little sincerity of our hearts in secret, that he is pleased to accept us in his beloved, and to smell a sweet savor in the fragrant perfumes and odors of his intercession.
Though I might draw many notes hence, I shall treat of but one, containing the marrow and nerves of the text.
That secret prayer duly managed is the mark of a sincere heart and hath the promise of a gracious return.
Prayer is the soul's colloquy with God, and secret prayer is a conference with God upon admission into the privy chamber of heaven. When thou hast shut thine own closet, when God and thy soul are alone, with this key thou openest the chambers of paradise and entreast the closet of divine love. When thou art immured as in a curious labyrinth apart from the tumultuous world, and entered into that garden of Lebanon in the midst of thy closet, thy soul like a spiritual Dædalus, takes to itself the wings of faith and prayer and flies into the midst of heaven among the cherubims. I may style secret prayer the invisible flight of the soul into the bosom of God. Out of this heavenly closet rises Jacob's ladder, whose rounds are all of light; its foot stands upon the basis of the covenant in thy heart, its top reaches the throne of grace. When thy reins have instructed thee in the night season with holy petitions, when thy soul hath desired him in the night, then with thy spirit within thee wilt thou seek him early. When the door of thy heart is shut, and the windows of thy eyes are sealed up from all vain and worldly objects, up thou mountest and hast a place given thee to walk among angels that stand by the throne of God. Zech. iii, 7. In secret prayer the soul, like Moses is in the back side of the desert, and talks with the angel of the covenant in the fiery bush. Ex. iii, 1. Here's Isaac in the field at eventide, meditating and praying to the God of his father Abraham. Gen. xxiv, 63. Here's Elijah under the juniper tree at Rithmah in the wilderness, and anon in the cave hearkening to the still small voice of God. 1 Kings xix, 4, 12. Here's Christ and the spouse alone in the wine cellar, and the banner of love over her, and she utters but half words, having drunk of the sober excess of the spirit. Cant. ii, 4; Eph. v, 18. Here we find Nathanael under the fig-tree, though it may be at secret prayer, yet under a beam of the eye of Christ. John i, 48. There sits Austin in the garden alone sighing with the Psalmist, "How long, O Lord," and listening to the voice of God, take up the Bible and read. (Confessions, 1st book, 8th chapter). It is true hypocrites may pray and pray alone, and pray long, and receive their reward from such whose observations they desire, but a hypocrite takes no sincere delight in secret devotion, he has no spring of affection to God. But O my dove, says Christ, that art in the cleft of the rocks, let me hear thy voice, for the melody thereof is sweet. A weeping countenance and a wounded spirit are most beautiful prospects to the eye of heaven, when a broken heart pours out repentant tears like streams from the rock smitten by the rod of Moses' law in the hand of a mediator. O how amiable in the sight of God the cry, "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee;" which Chrysostom glosses thus, to "draw sighs from the furrows of the heart." Let thy prayer become a hidden mystery of divine secrets, like good Hezekiah upon the bed with his face to the wall, that none might observe him; or like our blessed Lord, that grand example, who retired into mountains and solitudes apart, and saw by night the illustrious face of his heavenly Father in prayer.
The reasons why secret prayer is the mark of a sincere heart are as follows: 1. Because a sincere heart busies itself about heart work, to mortify sin, to quicken grace, to observe and resist temptation, to secure and advance his evidences; therefore it is much conversant with secret prayer. The glory of the king's daughter shines within, arrayed with clothes of gold, but they are the spangled and glittering hangings of the closet of her heart when she entertains communion with her Lord. The more a saint converses with his own heart, the more he searches his spiritual wants, and feels his spiritual joys. 2. Because a sincere heart aims at the eye of God, he knows that God, being a spirit, loves to converse with our spirits, and to speak to the heart more than the outward ear; he labors to walk before God as being always in his sight, but especially when he presents himself at the footstool of mercy. An invisible God is delighted with invisible prayers, when no eye sees but his; he takes most pleasure in the secret glances of a holy heart. But no more of this; let us descend to the question deducible from the text, a question of no less importance than daily use, and of peculiar concernment to the growth of every Christian.
How to manage secret prayer that it may be58prevalent with God to the comfort and satisfaction of the soul.
For method's sake, I shall divide it into two branches.
I. How to manage secret prayer that it may prevail with God.
II. How to discern and discover answers to secret prayer that the soul may acquiesce and be satisfied that it hath prevailed with God.
Before I handle these, I would briefly prove the duty and its usefulness, leaving some cases about its attendants and circumstances toward the close.
As to the DUTY itself the text is plain and distinct in the point; yet further observe in Solomon's prayer, that if any man besides the community of the people of Israel shall present his supplication to God, he there prays for a gracious and particular answer: and we know Solomon's prayer was answered by fire, and so we learn a promise given forth to personal prayer. 1 Kings viii, 38, 39; 2 Chron. vi, 29, 30; 2 Chron. vii, 1. Besides the many special and particular injunctions to individual persons, as Job xxii, 27, and xxxiii, 26; Psalm xxxii, 6; Psalm i, 15. Wives as well as husbands are to pray apart. Zech. xii, 14; solitary, by themselves; James v, 13.
We may argue this point from the constant practice of the holy saints of God in all ages, but especially of our blessed Lord; and it is our wisdom to walk in the way of good men and keep the paths of the righteous, as Abraham, Eliezer, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Hannah, Hezekiah, David, Daniel. The time would fail me to bring in the cloud of witnesses. Our Lord we find sometimes in a desert, in a mountain, in a garden, at prayer; Cornelius in his house, and Peter upon the house-top, in secret supplication to God.
There is the experience of God's gracious presence and answers sent in upon secret prayer, as in the stories of Eliezer, Jabez, Nehemiah, Zechariah, Cornelius and Paul. For this cause, because David was heard, shall every one that is godly pray unto him.
I might urge the usefulness, nay in some cases the necessities, of secret applications to God.
1. Are we not guilty of secret sins in the light of God's countenance, that cannot, ought not to be confessed before others, inasmuch that near relations are exhorted to secret and solitary duties? Zech. xii, 12; 1 Cor. vii, 4. 2. Are there not personal wants that we would prefer to God alone? 3. Are there not some special mercies and deliverances that concern our own persons more peculiarly, which should engage us to commune with our own hearts and offer the sacrifices of righteousness to God? 4. May there not be found some requests to be poured out more particularly in secret as to other persons, and as to the affairs of the church of God, which may not be commodiously insisted upon in common? 5. Do not sudden and urgent passions spring out of the soul in secret that would be unbecoming in social prayer? 6. To argue from the text, may not the soul's secret addresses about inward sorrows and joys be a sweet testimony of the sincerity and integrity of the heart, when the heart knows its own bitterness and a stranger intermeddles not with his joy? Perhaps a man has an Ishmael, an Absalom, a Rehoboam to weep for, and therefore gets into an inward chamber, where behold his witness is in heaven, and his record on high, and when others may scorn or pity, his eye poureth out tears unto God.
To end this, when a holy soul is close in secret, what complacency does it take when it has bolted out the world and retired to a place that none knows of, to be free from the disturbances and distractions that often violate family communion. When the soul is in the secret place of the Most High, and in the shadow of the Almighty, O how safe, how comfortable!
Nor can I insist upon secret prayer, under the variety of mental and vocal, nor enlarge upon it as sudden, occasional, or ejaculatory, referring somewhat of this toward the end.
I must remark that there are some things which aptly belong to secret prayer, yet being coincident with all prayer, public, social, and secret, it is proper to treat of those which are important to our present duty, and must therefore refer to a double head.
I. How shall we manage secret prayer, as it is coincident with prayer in general, so that it may prevail?
1. Use some preparation before it, rush not suddenly into the awful presence of God. Sanctuary preparation is necessary to sanctuary communion. Such suitable preparatory frames of mind come down from God. It was a good saying of one, "He never prays ardently that does not premeditate devoutly." It is said of Daniel, when he made that famous prayer, he set his face to seek the Lord. Dan. ix, 3. Jehoshaphat also set himself to seek the Lord. 2 Chron. xx, 3. The church in her soul desires the Lord in the night, and then in the morning she seeks him early. Desires blown by meditation are the sparks that set prayer in a light flame. The work of preparation may be cast under five heads, when we apply to solemn, set prayer.
1. The consideration of some attributes in God that are proper to the intended petitions. 2. A digestion of some peculiar and special promises that concern the affair. 3. Meditation on suitable arguments. 4. Ejaculations for assistance. 5. An engagement of the heart to a holy frame of reverence and keeping to the point in hand. That was good advice from Cyprian: "Let the soul think upon nothing but what it is to pray for," and he adds that therefore the ministers of old prepared the minds of the people with "let your hearts be above." For how can we expect to be heard of God when we do not hear ourselves, when the heart does not watch while the tongue utters? The tongue must be like the pen of a ready writer, to set down the good matter which the heart indites. Take heed of ramblings. To preach or tell pious stories, while praying to the great and holy God, is a branch of irreverence and a careless frame of spirit. Heb. xii, 28.
2. Humble confession of such sins as concern and refer principally to the work in hand. Our filthy garments must be put away when we appear before the Lord who hath chosen Jerusalem. Zech. iii, 4. "Look upon my afflictions," says David, and "forgive all my sins." There are certain sins that often relate to afflictions. First "Deliver me from transgression, then hear my prayer, O Lord." This is the heavenly method; he first forgiveth all our iniquities, and then healeth all our diseases. Psa. ciii, 3. A forgiven soul is a healed soul. While a man is sick at heart with the qualms of sin unpardoned, it keeps the soul in dismay that it cannot cry strongly to God, and therefore in holy groans must discharge himself of particular sins. Thus did David in that great penitential psalm. Psalm li. Sin, like a thick cloud, hides the face of God, that our prayers cannot enter. Isa. lix, 2. We must blush with Ezra, and our faces look red with the flashings of conscience if we expect any smiles of mercy. Ezra ix, 6. Our crimson sins must dye our confessions, and the blood of our sacrifices must sprinkle the horns of the golden altar, before we receive an answer of peace from the golden mercy-seat. When our persons are pardoned, our suits are accepted, and our petitions crowned with the olive branch of peace.
3. An arguing and pleading spirit in prayer. This is properly wrestling with God; humble yet earnest expostulations about his mind toward us. "Why hast thou cast us off forever? why doth thine anger smoke? Be not wroth very sore, O Lord; remember not iniquity forever; see, we beseech thee, we are thy people." Psa. lxxiv, 1; Isa. lxiv, 9. If so, why is it thus? as affrighted Rebekah flies out into prayer. Gen. xxv, 22. An arguing frame in prayer, cures and appeases the frights of spirit and then inquires of God. The temple of prayer is called the soul's inquiring place. I must refer to Abraham, Jacob and Moses, Joshua, David and Daniel, how they used arguments with God. Sometimes from the multitudes of God's mercies. Psa. v, 7, and vi, 4, and xxxi, 16. From the experience of former answers. Psa. iv, 1, and vi, 9, and xxii, 4. From their trust and reliance upon him. Psa. ix, 10, and xvi, 1. From the equity of God. Psa. xvii, 1. From the shame and confusion of face that God will put his people to if not answered, and that others will be driven away from God. Psa. xxxi, 17, and xxxiv, 1. And lastly from the promise of peace. Psa. xx, 5, and xxxv, 18. These and many like pleadings we find in scripture, for patterns in prayer, which being suggested by the Spirit, kindled from the altar, and perfumed with Christ's incense, rise up like memorial pillars before the oracle. Let us observe in one or two particular prayers, what instant arguments holy men have used and pressed in their perplexities. What a working prayer did Jehoshaphat make, taking pleas from God's covenant, dominion and powerful strength; from his gift of the land of Canaan, and driving out the old inhabitants; ancient mercies! from his sanctuary and promise to Solomon; from the ingratitude and ill requital of his enemies, with an appeal to God's equity in the case, and an humble confession of their own impotency; and yet that in their anxiety their eyes are fixed upon God. 2 Chron. xx, 10, &c. You know how gloriously it prevailed when he set ambushments round about the court of heaven, and the Lord turned his arguments into ambushments against the children of Edom. Yes this is set as an instance how God will deal against the enemies of his church in the latter days. Joel iii, 2. Another instance is that admirable prayer of the angel of the covenant to God for the restoration of Jerusalem [Zech. i, 12], wherein he pleads from the length of time and the duration of his indignation for threescore and ten years; from promised mercies and the expiration of prophecies; and behold an answer of good and comfortable words from the Lord; and pray observe that when arguments in prayer are very cogent upon a sanctified heart, such being drawn from the divine attributes, from precious promises and sweet experiments of God's former love, it is a rare sign of prevailing prayer. It was an ingenious remark of Chrysostom concerning the woman of Canaan: The poor distressed creature was turned an acute philosopher with Christ and disputed the mercy from him. O 'tis a blessed thing to attain to this heavenly philosophy of prayer, to argue blessings out of the hands of God. Here is a spacious field. I have given but a small prospect, where the soul like Jacob enters the list with omnipotency, and by holy force obtains the blessing.
4. Ardent affections in prayer, betokening a heart deeply sensible, are greatly prevalent; a crying prayer pierces the depths of heaven. We read not a word that Moses spoke, but God was moved by his cry. Ex. xiv, 15. I mean not an obstreperous noise, but melting moans of heart. Yet sometimes the sore and pinching necessities and distresses of spirit extort even vocal cries not unpleasant to the ear of God. "I cried to the Lord with my voice and he heard me out of his holy hill." And this encourages David to a fresh onset. "Hearken to the voice of my cry, my King and my God; give ear to my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears." Another time he makes the cave echo with his cries: "I cried, attend to my cry, for I am brought very low." And what is the issue? Faith gets courage by crying; his tears watered his faith so that it grew into confidence; and so concludes: "Thou shalt deal bountifully with me, and the righteous shall crown me for conqueror." Psa. cxlii, 1, 5, 6, 7. Plentiful tears bring bountiful mercies, and a crying crier proves a triumphant praiser. Holy Jacob was just such another at the fords of Jabbok; he wept and made supplication and prevailed with the angel. The Lord told Hezekiah he had heard his prayer, for he had seen his tears. Such precedents may well encourage backsliding Ephraim to return and bemoan himself, and then the bowels of God are troubled for him. Nay, we have a holy woman also weeping sore before the Lord in Shiloh, and then rejoicing in his salvation. 1 Sam. i, 10; ii, 1. The cries of saints are like vocal music joined with the instrumental of prayer; they make heavenly melody in the ears of God. The bridegroom calls to his mourning dove, "Let me hear thy voice, for it is pleasant." What Gerson says of the sores of Lazarus, we may say of sighs, "As many wounds, so many tongues." Cries and groans in prayer are so many eloquent orators at the throne of God.
5. Importunity and assiduity in prayer are highly prevalent. Not that we should lengthen out our prayers with tedious and vain repetitions, as the heathen did of old, but we should be frequent and instant in prayer. As Christ bids us to pray always, and the apostle Paul to pray without ceasing, we learn the duty of constancy in prayer. As the morning and evening sacrifices at the temple is called the continual burnt-offering [Num. xxviii, 4, 6]; as Mephibosheth is said to eat bread continually at David's table, and Solomon's servants to stand continually before him, that is, at the set and appointed times, so it is required of us to be constant and assiduous at prayer, and to offer our prayers with perseverance. When the soul perseveres in prayer, it is a sign of persevering faith, and such may have what they will at the hand of God, when praying according to divine direction. John xvi, 23. Nay, urgent prayer is a token of a mercy at hand. When Elijah prayed seven times, one after another, for rain, the clouds presently march up out of the sea at the command of prayer. 1 Kings xviii, 43. "Ask of me things to come, and concerning the works of my hands command ye me," saith the Lord. Isa. xlv, 11. When we put forth our utmost strength in prayer, and will as it were receive no nay from heaven, our prayers must be like the continual blowing of the silver trumpets over the sacrifices, for a memorial before the Lord. Num. x, 10. Like the watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem which never hold their peace day nor night, we are commanded not to keep silence, nor give him rest. Isa. lxii, 6, 7. Nay, God seems offended at another time that they did not lay hands on him, that they might not be consensual in their impetues. Such prayers are as it were a holy molestation to the throne of grace. Isa. lxiv, 7. It is said of the man that rose at midnight to give out three loaves to his friend, that he did it not for friendship's sake, but because he was pressing, so importunate as to trouble him at such a season as twelve o'clock at night. Luke xi, 8. Our Lord applies the parable to instant prayer. It was so with the success of the widow with the unjust judge, because she did vex and molest him with her solicitations. Luke xviii, 5. But of all, the pattern of the woman of Canaan is most admirable, when the disciples desired her to be dismissed because she troubled them by crying after them, and yet she persists. Matt. xv, 23. May I say it reverently, Christ delights in such a troublesome person. Augustine observes, by comparing both evangelists, that first she cried after Christ in the streets, but our Lord taking to a house, she follows him thither and falls down at his feet, but as yet he answered her not a word; then our Lord going out of the house again, she follows him with stronger importunity, and argues the mercy into her bosom, and Christ ascribes it to the greatness of her faith. To knock at midnight is deemed no incivility at the gate of heaven. An energetic prayer is likely to be an efficacious prayer. Cold petitioners must have cold answers. If the matter of prayer be right, and the promise of God fervently urged, thou art likely to prevail like princely Israel, that held the angel and would not let him go until he had blessed him.
Query. But can God be moved by our arguments or affected with our troubles? He is the unchangeable God and dwells in the inaccessible light, and with him is no variableness nor shadow of turning.
I reply. These holy motions upon the hearts of saints in prayer are the fruits of his love to them, and the appointed ushers-in of mercy. God graciously determines to give a praying, arguing, warm, affectionate frame as the forerunner of a decreed mercy. That is the reason that carnal men can enjoy no such mercies, because they pour out no such prayers. The spirit of prayer prognosticates mercy near at hand. When the Lord by Jeremiah foretold the end of the captivity, he also predicts the prayers that should open the gates of Babylon. Cyrus was prophesied of, to do his work for Jacob his servant's sake, and Israel his elect, but yet they must ask him concerning those things to come, and they should not seek him in vain. Isa. xlv, 1, 2, 4; 19. The coming of Christ is promised by himself; but yet "the Spirit and bride say, Come; and he that heareth must say, Come," and when Christ says he will "come quickly," we must add, "even so, come Lord Jesus."
Divine grace kindles these ardent affections when the mercies promised are upon the wing. Prayer is that chain, as Dionysius calls it, that draws the soul up to God, and the mercy down to us; or like the cable that draws the ship to land, though the shore itself remains unmoveable. Prayer has its kindling from heaven, like the ancient sacrifices, that were inflamed with celestial fire.—Lee.