Reason 1. The first reason may be taken from God, who, to show his great delight in his children’s prayers, lets his door stand always wide open, that whenever we have but a heart, and will be so kind as to step in to visit him with a prayer at what hour of the day or night soever it be, we shall be welcome. Nay, he doth not only give us a liberty, but he lays it as a law upon us, to let him hear from us as oft as possibly we can, and therefore commands us to ‘pray without ceasing,’ I Thes. 5:17, and ‘whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him,’ Col. 3:17. What do these and such like places signify, but that we should take every occasion that his Spirit and providence bring to our hand to the lifting our hearts up to him in prayer? And an we suppose that a prayer at our first setting forth in the morning, with never thinking of God any more till we come to our round for prayer at night again, will pass for a praying continually? When a father chargeth his son, that lives abroad, to let him as oft as may be hear from him, though he doth not expect a long epistle from him by every messenger that comes that way, yet he looks for some short remembrance of his duty by word of mouth, and that is accepted, till he hath more leisure to write his full mind. God bids pray continually. Now, he knows we cannot be always on our knees in the solemn performance of this duty. But, therefore, he expects to hear the oftener from us in these occasional remembrances of him—hinted to us all along the day by emerging providences—which the Holy Spirit stands ready as our messenger to convey unto him.
Reason 2. The second reason may be taken from the excellent use of ejaculatory prayers in the Christian’s whole course of life.
(1.) They are of excellent use to be set against those sudden injections of Satan, which he will be darting into our minds. It were strange if the best of saints should not find the devil busy with them in this kind. None so pure whose chastity of mind this foul spirit dares not to assault. And when his temptations have once coloured our imagination, it is hard wiping them off before they soak so deep as to leave some malignant tincture on our affections. Now, when any such dart from hell is shot in at thy window, no such way to wind out of the temptation as to shoot thy darts to heaven in some holy ejaculation. Our Saviour taught his disciples the use of this weapon: ‘Pray that ye enter not into temptation.’ Now when thou canst not draw out the long sword of a solemn prayer, then go to the short dagger of ejaculatory prayer; and with this—if in the hand of faith—thou mayest stab thy enemy to the heart. He that at one short prayer of David could infatuate Ahithophel, an oracle for policy, can befool the devil himself, and will at thy prayer of faith. ‘The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan,’ said Christ. It is time now for Satan to be gone, when heaven takes the alarm; as when thieves are about a house to rob it, and they within beat a drum, or give a sudden shriek to call in help, presently they flee. And if God for thy trial should not come at first call, to rid thee of these unwelcome guests, yet thy very crying out—if affectionate and cordial—will clear thee from consenting to their villainy.
(2.) They are a sovereign means to allay the Christian’s affections to the world—one of the worst enemies he hath in the field against him; for it chokes the soul, thickens the Christian’s spirit, and changes his very complexion. Who but dying men smell of the earth and carry its colour in their countenance? Grace dieth apace where the heart savours much of the earth. Now, prayer, what is it, but the lifting of the soul from earth to heaven? Were we oftener in a day sucking in, as it were, fresh air and new influences of grace from God, our spirits could not possibly be so much poisoned with worldly affections. When one was asked, ‘Whether he did not admire the goodly structure of a stately house?’ he answered, ‘No. For,’ saith he, ‘I have been at Rome, where more magnificent fabrics are to be seen.’ Thus, when Satan presents the world’s pleasures or treasures to the Christian—that he may inveigle his affections to dote on them—a gracious soul can say, ‘I have been at heaven; there is not an hour in the day wherein I enjoy not better than these in communion with my God.’
Reason 3. Ejaculatory prayers keep the Christian’s heart in a holy disposition for the more solemn performance of his duty. He that is so heavenly in his earthly employments will be the less worldly in his heavenly. It was a sweet speech of a dying saint, ‘That he was going to change his place but not his company.’ A Christian that is frequent in these ejac¬ulations, when he goes to pray more solemnly, he goes not from the world to God, but from God to God—from a transient view of him to a more fixed; whereas, another discontinues his acquaintance with God, after his morning visit, and comes not in his company till called in by his customary performance. O! how hard a business will such a one find it to pray with a heavenly heart! What you fill the vessel with, you must expect to draw thence. If water be put in, we cannot without a miracle think to draw wine. What! art thou all day filling thy heart with earth —God not in all thy thoughts—and dost thou look to draw heaven thence at night? If you would have fire for your evening sacrifice, expect not new from heav¬en to be dropped, but labour to keep what is already on thine altar from going out; which thou canst not better do than by feeding it with this fuel.
Reason 4. Ejaculatory prayers are of excellent use to alleviate any great affliction that lies heavy upon soul or body. While others sit disconsolate, grinding their souls and wasting their spirits with their own anxious thoughts; these are his wings with which he flieth above his troubles, and in an instant shoots his soul to heaven, out of the din and noise of his af¬flictions. How can he be long uncomfortable, who, when anything begins to disquiet him, lets it not lie boking and belking in his mind—as a thorn in the flesh—but presently gives vent to it, by some heavenly meditation or heart-easing prayer to God? Those heavenly tidings which came to Job, one upon the neck of another, it was not possible for him to have stood under, had his thoughts been employed on no other subject than his affliction. But, being able to lift up his heart to God—‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’—this one devout meditation or ejaculation gave him incomparable ease. Indeed, in afflictions that are very sharp and violent, it is no time for long discourses; the poor creature cannot hold out in a continued duty of prayer, as at another time. When the fight grows hot, and the army comes to grapple hand to hand with their enemy, they have not leisure to charge their great artillery, then their short swords do them most service. Truly thus it is in this case. The poor creature, may be, finds his body weak, and his spirit oppressed with temptations, which Satan pours like so much shot upon him, that all he can well do is to pray quick and short—now fetch a groan for the pain he feels, and then shoot a dart to heaven to call God in to his help. And blessed is the man who hath his quiver full of these arrows. We see Christ in his agony chose to pray oft, rather than long: ‘If it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine be done.’ This short ejaculation he sends to heaven thrice, with some little pause of time between prayer and prayer. ‘And was heard in that he feared,’ Heb. 5:7.
