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.

Composed prayer distinguished as secret or social 1/2

           Second Distinction.  What we have called composed prayer may be distinguished as either soli­tary, or social—performed jointly with others.  It is designated composed, because the Christian compos­eth himself more solemnly to the work by setting some considerable time apart from his other occa­sions, for his more free and full communion with God in prayer.  We begin with the first of these.

           First. Secret Prayer.  When the Christian re­tireth into some secret place, free from all company, and there pours out his soul into the bosom of God, none being witness to this trade he drives with heaven but God and himself.  I shall here, 1. Prove this to be a duty incumbent upon us; and, 2. Give the reasons why.

Secret prayer a duty, and the reasons why

1. I shall prove secret or closet prayer to be a duty incumbent upon us.  That is it is the Christian’s duty secretly and solitarily to hold intercourse with God in prayer, I believe will be granted of more than practise it.  Even those that are strangers to the per­formance thereof carry in their own bosom that which will accuse them for their neglect, except by long looking on the light, and rebelling against the same, their foolish minds be darkened and have lost all sight and sense of a deity.  If any prayer be a duty, then secret prayer needs be one.  This is to all the other as the carinaor keel is to the ship—it bears up all the rest.  If we look into the practice of Scripture saints, we shall find them all to have been great dealers with God in this trade of secret prayer.  Abra­ham had his ‘grove,’ whither he retired to ‘call on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God,’ Gen. 21:33. Neither was Rebekah a stranger to this duty, who, upon the babes struggling in her womb, ‘went to inquire of the Lord,’ Gen. 25:22, which, saith Calvin, was to pray in secret.  Jacob is famous for his wres­tling, as it were hand to hand, with God in the night. Holy David’s life was little else, he ‘gave himself to prayer,’ Ps. 109:4.  Allow but some time spent by him for nature’s refection and the necessary occasions of his public employment—which yet came in but as a parenthesis—and you will find most of the rest laid out in meditation and prayer, as appears, Ps. 119.  We have Elias at prayer under the juniper tree, Peter on the leads, Cornelius in a corner of his house; yea, our blessed Saviour—whose soul could have fasted long­est without any inward impair through the want of this repast—yet none more frequent in it.  Early in the morning he is praying alone, Mark 1:35, and late in the evening, Matt. 14:23.  And this was his usual prac­tice, as may be gathered from Luke 22:39 compared with Luke 21:37.  Thus Christ sanctified this duty by his own example.  Yea, we have a sweet promise to the due performance of it—and God doth not use to promise a reward for that work which he command­eth us not to do—but ‘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 which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly,’ Matt. 6:6. Where our Saviour takes it for granted that every child of God will be often praying to his heavenly Fa­ther; and therefore he rather encourageth them in the work he seeth them about, than commands them to it.  ‘I know you cannot live without prayer.’  Now, when you would give God a visit, ‘enter into thy closet,’ &c.  But why must the Christian maintain this secret intercourse with God?
2. I shall give the reasons why secret or closet prayer is incumbent upon us.

           (1.) In regard of God.  He hath an eye to see our secret tears, and an ear to hear our secret groans; therefore we ought to pour them out to him in secret. It is a piece of gross super­stition to bind this only to place or company: ‘I will,’ saith the apostle, ‘that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands,’ &c., I Tim. 2:8.  God is everywhere to be found, at church and at home, with our family and our closet; and therefore we are to pray everywhere.  O what a comfort it is to a gracious soul, that he can never be out of God’s sight or hearing, wherever he is thrown, and therefore never out of his care! for it is out of sight out of mind.  This comforted holy David.  His friends and kins­men, they, alas! were afar off.  He might lie upon his sick-bed, and cry till his heart ached, and not make them hear.  But see how he pacifies himself in this solitude, ‘Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee,’ Ps. 38:9.  Little thought Jacob that he had a son prisoner in Egypt, laden there with irons that entered into his soul.  But he had a God that was nigh unto him all the time of his dis­tress, and heard the cry of the poor prisoner, though his earthly father never dreamed of any such matter.