Composed prayer distinguished as secret or social 2/2

 Great and rich are the returns which in Scripture we find to be sent from heaven upon the solitary ad­venture of the saints in this bottom.  ‘This poor man cried,’ said David, ‘and the Lord...saved him out of all his troubles,’ Ps. 34:6.  As if he had said, Haply you are afraid to be so bold to go alone and visit God in secret.  Though you dare venture to join with others in prayer, and hope to find welcome when you go with such good company, yet you are ready to say, Will God look upon me, or my single prayer?  Yes, behold me, saith David, who am newly come from his door, where I lay praying in as poor a condition, and as sad a plight, as ever beggar was at man’s—a poor exile, in the midst of enemies that thirsted for my blood.  Yet I—and that when I betrayed so much das­tardly unbelief as to scrabble on the wall like a mad­man—cried, and God heard.  Who then need be afraid, either from his outward straits or inward in­firmities, if sincere, to go with a humble boldness unto God?  Nay, further, as God hath a pitiful eye to see when we pray in secret, so also an angry eye, that sees when we do not.  I have read of a prince that would, in the evening, walk abroad in a disguise, and listen under his subjects’ windows, whether they talked of him, and what they said.  To be sure God’s eye and ear watcheth us, ‘the Lord hearkened, and heard it,’ Mal. 3:16.  And he that hath a book of re­membrance for his saints that fear him and think upon his name, hath also a black bill for their names who shut him out of their hearts and closets.  ‘The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.’  Though his seat be in heaven, yet his eye is on earth; and what doth he observe but whether men ‘understand and seek after God?’

           (2.) In regard of ourselves—the more to prove our sincerity.  I do not say that to pray in secret amounts to an infallible character of sincerity—for hypocrisy may creep into our closet when the door is shut closest, as the frogs did into Pharaoh's bed-chamber.  Yet this is not the hypocrite’s ordinary walk.  And though his heart may be naught that fre­quently performs secret duty, yet, to be sure, his heart cannot be good whose devotion is all spent before men, and is a mere stranger to secret communion with God; or else our Saviour, in drawing the hypo­crite’s picture, would not have made this to be the very cast of his countenance, ‘When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues,’ &c.  ‘But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet,’ Matt. 6:5, 6. The command sends us as well to the closet as to the church; and he is a hypocrite that chooseth one and neglects the other; for thereby it appears he makes conscience of neither.  He likes that which may gain him the name of religious in the opinion of men, and therefore puts on a religious habit abroad, but in the meantime lives like an atheist at home.  Such a one may for a time be the world’s saint, but God will at last uncase him, and present him before the eyes of all the world for a hypocrite.  The true lover delights to visit his friend when he may find him alone, and enjoy privacy with him; and I have read of a devout person who, when the set time for his private devo­tions were come, would, whatever company he was in, break from them with this handsome speech, ‘I have a friend that stays for me, farewell!’ It is worth parting with our best friends on earth, to enjoy communion with the God of heaven.  One called his friends thieves, because they stole time from him.  None worse thieves than they who rob us of our praying seasons.

           (3.) In regard of the duty itself, and the influ­ence which the holy management of it would have upon the Christian’s life.  This duty is a main pillar to uphold the whole frame of our spiritual building. Without this the Christian’s house—as Solomon saith of the sluggard’s—will drop out at the windows. That which is most necessary to keep the house standing is underground—I mean the foundation. That which keeps the man alive is the heart in his breast, that is unseen.  Cease your secret communion, and you undermine your house—you stab godliness to the heart.  If the tree grow not in the root, it will ere long wither in the branch.  He that declines this way, can be a gainer in no other.  How zealous soever he may appear, all, without this, is but a distempered heat, as when the outward parts burn but the inward chill.  Such a one may pray to the quickening and comforting of others, but he will get little of either himself.  The truth is, this is the first step toward apostasy.  Backsliders grow first out of acquaintance with God in secret.  Their delight in this duty declines by little and little.  then are they less frequent in their visits.  Upon which follows a casting off of the duty quite—and yet they may appear great sticklers and zealots in public ordinances.  But, if they recover not what they have lost in their secret trade, they will ere long break here also.