Arguments to enkindle our zeal and fervency in prayer 2/2

  Argument 2.  God deserves the prime and strength of thy soul should be bestowed on him in thy prayers.

• He gave thee the powers of thy soul and all thy affections.  According to the mould so is the stat­ue that is cast in it; such thou art as thou wert in the idea of the divine mind.  Now, may not thy Maker call for that which was his gift?  He that made the stone an inanimate being, and confined the narrow souls of brutes to act upon low sensitive good, en­nobleth thee with a rational appetite and spiritual affections.  Now, wilt thou not employ those divine powers in the worship of thy God, from whom, thou hadst them?  This were hard indeed—that God should be denied what himself gave, and not suffered to taste of his own cost.  ‘I came unto my own,’ saith Christ, ‘and they would not receive me.’  Thus here, I came to my own creature; he had his life from me, and brings a dead heart unto me!  Suppose a friend should give you notice that he will ere long be at your house, and sends you in beforehand a vessel of rich wine; which you, when he comes, grudge to broach it for his entertainment, and put him off with that which is dead and flat?  Expectest thou a better friend to be thy guest than thy God?  The psalmist calls upon us to ‘serve the Lord with gladness,’ and what is his enforcement?  ‘Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us,’  100:2, 3.  Who plants a vineyard and looks not to drink  of the wine?  If God calls our corn and wine his, he therefore expects to be served with them; much more with our love and joy, for surely he allows us not to alienate the best of his gifts from him.  When thou art therefore going to pray, call up thy affections, which haply are asleep on some creature's lap, as Jonah in the sides of the ship: ‘What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God.’

           (2.) He deserves thy affections because he gives thee his.  He is jealous of thee because he is zealous for thee.  Well may he complain of thy cold dreaming prayers whose heart is on a flame of love to thee. High and admirable are the expressions with which he sets forth his dear love to his people; whatever he doth for them is with a zeal.  In protecting of them, ‘as birds flying, so will the Lord defend Jerusalem,’ that is, swiftly, as a bird flies full speed to her nest when she perceives her young is in danger; in aven­ging them of their enemies, ‘the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall perform this;’ in hearing their prayers he doth it ‘with delight;’ in forgiving their sins he is ready to forgive,’ ‘multiplies to pardon;’ when they ask one talent he gives them two.  Jacob desires a safe egress and regress.  He doth this and more than he desired, for he brings him home with two bands.  Not the least mercy he gives but he draws forth his souls and heart with it; even in his afflicting providences, where he seems to show least love, there his heart overflows with it.  ‘O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? mine heart is turned within me.’

           (3.) He is a good pay-master for his people’s zeal.  ‘He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him,’ Heb. 11:6.  Never did fervent prayer find cold welcome with him.  Elias’ {Elijah’s} prayer fetched fire from heaven because it carried fire to heaven. The tribe of Levi for their zeal were preferred to the priesthood.  And why?  Surely they who were so zealous in doing justice on their brethren would be no less zealous in making atonement for them by their sacrifices.  Most men lose their fervency and strength of their desires by misplacing them; they are zealous for such things as cannot, and persons that oft will not, pay them for their pains.  O how hot is the covet­ous man in his chase after the world's pelf!  He ‘pants after the dust of the earth,’ and that ‘on the head of the poor.’  But what reward hath he for his labour? After all his getting, like the dogs in pursuit of the hare, he misseth his game, and at last goes often poor and supperless to bed in his grave; to be sure he dies ‘a fool,’ Jer. 17:11.  How many court-spaniels—that have fawned and flattered, yea, licked up their mas­ter’s spittle, and all for some scraps of preferment —have befooled themselves, when at last they have seen their creeping sordid practices rewarded with the fatal stroke of the headsman, or a lingering consump­tive death in their prince’s favour?  Which made that ambitious cardinal say too late, If he had been as observant of his heavenly Master as he had been of his earthly, he could not have been left so miserable at last.  In a word, do we not see the superstitious person knocking his breast and cutting his own flesh, out of a zeal to his wooden god, that hath neither ear to hear nor hand to help him?  Now, doth not the liv­ing God, thy loving Father, deserve thy zeal more than their dead and dumb idols do theirs?  For shame!  Let not us be cold in his worship when the idolater sweats before his god of clouts; let not the worldling’s zeal in pursuit of his earthly mammon leave thee lagging behind with a heedless heartless serving of thy God.  Neither fear the world’s hooting at thee for thy zeal; they think thee a fool, but thou knowest them to be so.

Arguments to enkindle our zeal and fervency in prayer 1/2

           Argument 1.  Consider the excellency of zeal and fervency.  If a saint, thou hast a principle that in­clines thee to approve of things that are excellent; and such is this.  Life is the excellency of beings, yea, even in inanimate creatures there is an analogical life, and therein consists its excellency.  The spirits of wine commend it; what is it worth when dead and flat?  In the diamond, the sparkle gives the worth; in fountain water, that which makes it more excellent than other is its motion, called therefore ‘living water.’  Much more in beings that have true life; for this the flea or fly are counted nobler creatures than the sun.  The higher kind of life that beings have, their nature is thereby the more advanced—beasts above plants, men above beasts, and angels above men.  Now as life gives the excellency to being, so vivacity and vigour in operating gives excellency to life.  Indeed the nobler the life of the creature is, the greater energy is in its actings.  The apprehension of an angel is quicker, and zeal stronger, than in a man. So that, the more lively thou art in thy duty, and the more zeal thou expres­sest therein, the nearer thou comest to the nature of those glorious spirits who, for their zeal in service of God, are called ‘a flame of fire.’ 

 I confess, to be calm and cool in inferior things, and in our own matters betwixt man and man, is better than zeal.  So Solomon saith, ‘A man of understanding is of an excellent spirit,’ Prov. 17:27.  In the Hebrew it is a cool spirit.  Injuries do not put him into a flame, neither do any occurrences in the world heat him to any height of joy, grief, or anger.  Who more temperate in these than Moses? but set this holy man to pray, he is fire and tow, all life and zeal. Indeed it is one excel­lency of this fervency of spirit in prayer, that it allays all sinful passions.  David’s fervency in praying for his child when alive, made him bear the tidings of his death so calmly and patiently.  We hear not an angry word that Hannah replies to her scolding companion Peninnah.  And why, but because she had found the art of easing her troubled spirit in prayer?  What need she contend with her adversary, who could, by wrest­ling with God, persuade him to espouse her quarrel? And truly were there nothing else to commend fer­vency of spirit in prayer, this is enough—that, like David's harp, it can charm the evil spirit of our passions, which in their excess the saint counts great sins, and I am sure finds them grievous troubles. When are you more placate and serene, than when the most life and fervour your souls can mount up in the flame of your sacrifices into the bosom of God? Possibly you may come, like Moses, down the mount with greater heat, but it will be against sin, not for self; whereas a formal prayer, like a plaster, which hath good ingredients in it, yet being laid cold upon the wound, hurts it rather than heals it.