The seasons for extraordinary prayer 3/3

  Again, in affliction we are called to pray, as more inten­sively, so more extensively; I mean longer and oftener.  Thus I find that our Saviour, rendered by Lucas Brugensis and others, prolixius orabat—he prayed longer, that is, he spent more time than ordinary in it.  Thrice one after another we find him at it, Matt. 26:44.  His agony was great and the waves of his affliction vio­lent, and therefore he doubles, yea trebles, his prayer with deep sighs and strong cries to his Father.  Nature never strains so to its utmost, as when it is oppressed; then temples work, lungs heave, and heart pants; so in affliction the spirit of prayer should be increased and intended.

           Season 4.  When the Christian is buffeted with any temptation, or overpowered with a corruption, and cannot, with the use of ordinary means, quench the one or master and mortify the other.  If the short dagger of ordinary prayer will not reach the heart of a lust, then it is time to draw out this long sword of extraordinary prayer upon it.  There is a ‘kind’ of devils, our Saviour tells us, that ‘goes not out but by prayer and fasting,’ Matt. 17:21.  You know the occa­sion of this speech was that complaint of one con­cerning his lunatic son, ‘I brought him to thy disciples and they could not cure him.’  Thus some poor souls complain they have come to the word preached so long, in their daily prayers begged power over such a lust, resolved against it many a time, and none of these means could cure it; what can they now do more?  Here thou art told.  Bring thy condition to Christ in this solemn ordinance of prayer and fasting; this hath at last been the happy means to strengthen many a poor Christian to be avenged on those spir­itual enemies which have outbraved all the former, and like Samson to pull down the devil’s house upon his head.

           Season 5.  When sin doth abound more than or­dinary in the times and places we live in.  Sinning times have ever been the saints’ praying times.  This sent Ezra with a heavy heart to confess the sin of his people, and to bewail their abominations before the Lord, Ezra 9.  And Jeremiah tells the wicked rout of his degenerate age that his ‘should weep in secret places for their pride,’ Jer. 13:17.  Indeed sometimes sin comes to such a height and insolence, that this is almost all the godly can do, to get into a corner and bewail the general pollutions of the present age; as he told Luther, abi, frater, in cellam et dic miserere Domine—go, brother, into a cell and bewail.  ‘If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?’ Ps. 11:3.  Such dismal days of national confusion our eyes have seen, when foundations of government were destroyed, and all hurled into a military confusion. When it is thus with a people, what can the righteous do?  Yes, this they may, and should do, ‘fast and pray.’  There is yet a God in heaven to be sought to, when a people's deliverance is thrown beyond the help of human policy or power.  Now is the fit time to make their appeal to God, as the words following hint, ‘The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven,’ ver. 4; in which words God is pre­sented sitting in heaven as a tem­ple, for their en­couragement, I conceive, in such a desperate state of affairs, to direct their prayers thither for deliverance. And certainly this hath been the engine that hath been above any instrumental to screw up this poor nation again, and set it upon the foundation of that lawful government from which it was so dangerously slid.

           Season 6. To name no more, times of great ex­pectation are times for extraordinary prayer.  When the people of God have been big with expectation of great mercies approaching, then have they been more abounding in prayer.  As the cocks crow thickest to­wards break of day, so the saints, the nearer they have apprehended the accomplishment of promises made to his church, the more instant they use to be in prayer.  When a woman with child her reckoning is near out, then she desires her midwife to be at hand. And prayer hath had the name of old for its excellent usefulness to obstetricate mercies.  ‘The children are come to the birth,’ saith good Hezekiah; and then he desires the help of the prophet’s prayer for the fair delivery of it: ‘Lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left,’ Isa. 37:3, 4.  When Daniel the prophet had learned by study that the happy period of the seventy years' captivity, bound upon the Jews’ neck for their sin, was now at hand, Dan. 9:1, then in an extraordin­ary manner he sets himself to pray and afflict his soul before the Lord.  And we have reason to hope that spir­itual Babylon—Rome, I mean—is not long‑lived; it is high time therefore that the saints should fall more earnestly than ever to dig her grave for her by their prayers.

The seasons for extraordinary prayer 2/3

Season 2. When the Christian is in the dark con­cerning any truth, and cannot satisfy his judgment by humble and diligent inquiry he hath made after it. Now is a fit season to take up this extraordinary duty as an excellent means to be led into the knowledge of the mind of God therein.  Prayer is the proper key to unlock God’s heart, and he alone can open our un­derstandings and satisfy our scruples.  This course Daniel took, and got more understanding by his fasting and prayer than by all his study, for a mes­senger is sent from heaven to ‘give him skill and understanding,’ Dan. 9:20-23, and again, ch. 10:12.  In both he sped.  And the angel is careful to let him know that it was his extraordinary praying that procured this extraordinary favour, and also how acceptable his motion was, by the easy access and quick despatch it found with God; and therefore tells him in both, that he had no sooner set upon this course of afflicting his soul but he was heard, and the messenger ordered to give him an answer to his prayer.  Surely prayer hath not lost its credit in heaven, but is now as welcome to God as ever; and though an angel be not the mes­senger to bring the saint an answer, yet he shall have it by as sure and more honourable hand—even the Holy Spirit, whose office is to lead his people into truth.  Thus Cornelius, Acts 10, came to be instructed in the mystery of the gospel, upon his extraordinary seeking of God by fasting and prayer.  It is very prob­able this good man in those divided times, wherein he saw many zealous for the old way of Jewish worship, and others preach up an new way, stood in some doubt what to do; and this might stir him up by fast­ing and prayer to ask counsel, and beg further light, of God, to direct him in the way of truth, as may seem by the tenor of the message sent him from God in the vision while he was at prayer, which bade him send to Joppa ‘for one Simon, whose surname is Peter,...and he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do,’ ver. 5, 6. And certainly, in our divided times, wherein there is so much difference in judgment, had there been less wrangling among ourselves, and more wrestling with God for his teaching Spirit, we had been in a fairer way to find the door of truth, which so many are yet groping for.  The way of controversies, and conten­tious disputes raise this dust, and blow it most into their eyes that gallop fastest in it, so that they miss the truth, which humble souls find upon their knees at the throne of grace.  When the apostles were quar­relling, then they got nothing from Christ but a chid­ing, Luke 22:24, &c.; but when they were praying to­gether earnestly, then he sent the Spirit to teach them, Acts 2.

Season 3. When the Christian is under any great affliction.  Now is a fit season if he be able for the work.  ‘Is any among you afflicted? let him pray,’ James 5:13.  That is, let him then be more than ordin­ary in this duty; for he must, yea will, if a Christian, pray where he is not afflicted as well as when he is. But the meaning is, he must now pray after an extra­ordinary manner; he must now pray with more vehe­mency; for, though in all our addresses to God, we are to express the lively workings of our hearts to him, without which our prayers are unsavoury (cold prayers ever find cold welcome); yet God expects, and it always hath been the care of, holy men in their extraordinary applications to this duty of prayer, to wind up their affections to a pitch higher than ordin­ary, having the advantage of some special occasion to help them thereunto. Look upon them in some great strait and affliction, and you shall find them exceeding themselves, and put upon them a prince-like spirit.  So Jacob behaved himself in prayer, Gen. 32:28.  As a prince fighting in the field for his crown and kingdom, he wrestled with the angel, who was no other than God himself; that is, he strained as it were, every vein in his heart, and put forth his whole might in prayer, as a wrestler would do that grapples with a potent adversary.  Moses is so transported in zeal for Israel, when a dismal cloud of wrath impended them for their idolatry, that he offers rather to die upon the place, than to go down the mount and not carry the joyful news of a pardon with him, Ex. 32:32.  And Nehemiah, when he had been afflicting his soul and praying before the Lord, it was with such vehemency that the anguish of his spirit looked out at his eyes, and left a mark of sorrow upon his very countenance, which his prince could observe as he waited on him.

The seasons for extraordinary prayer 1/3

           Question Third. What are the special seasons wherein the Christian is to take up the practice of this duty of extraordinary prayer?

           Answer. I answer, in general, any extraordinary occasion, as it emergeth in the course of providence in the Christian’s life.  This kind of prayer is not of constant use, as ordinary prayer is; this is food, that physic.  And it were absurd to be taking physic all the year long; which shows the folly of the Papists in their fasts, which are holden at set times, whether affairs be prosperous or not prosperous, ordinary or extraordin­ary.  I would not be thought here to speak against set fasts; we have had our monthly fasts, but the extra­ordinary cause for which they were appointed contin­ued.  But to instance in a few special seasons wherein the Christian hath a fit occasion to make use of this extraordinary duty.

           Season 1. When the Christian is to set upon any more than ordinary enterprise, wherein he may meet with great difficulty or danger, and the issue whereof will be a great mercy or affliction.  Now is a fit season to take up this extraordinary duty, as an excellent means whereby all mountains of intervening diffi­culties may be levelled, and his undertaking be crowned with happy success.  Thus Esther, before she adventured upon that heroic attempt of going un­called into the king’s presence to beg the life of her people, given to the butchery and slaughter by the king’s seal at bloody Haman’s request—an action that carried death and danger on the face of it—she first goes to God by fasting and prayer, and gets all the auxiliary forces of others’ prayers she can, and, at­tended with this convoy, she, against the Persian law, presents herself before the king, and speeds; for in­stead of losing her own life, which was forfeited by the law for this attempt, she reverseth the unjust judg­ment passed upon the life of her people, and recoils it upon the head of him that laid the plot.  Prayer had so unlocked and opened the king’s heart that she hath but what she asks at the king’s hands.

           No such engine to facilitate and carry on any great design to its desired end as this of extraordinary prayer.  Who could have believed that Ezra and his company of pilgrims should all get safe from Babylon to Jerusalem, being so generally hated everywhere? Now what stratagem doth this leader of his people use to secure his passage and escape the fury of his ene­mies?  Doth he desire a band of the Persian king to be their guard?  No; he hath gloried so much of that God they served, that he is ashamed the king should think now he was not willing to cast himself upon his protection; but he goes to fasting and prayer, Ezra 8:21. Then they take their march, and find the way all along cleared before them, ver. 31.  Our blessed Sav­iour hath sanctified this duty for this end in his own holy example, who, when to choose and send forth the twelve to preach the gospel, that they may speed the better in their embassy, he sends them forth un­der the conduct of prayer, and to that end spends the preceding night himself in prayer, Luke 6:12, 13.  Now, though every Christian is not called forth, or likely to be in all his life, to such great and public enterprises as some others are, yet if he will observe the several passages of his more private employments and turns of providence in the course of his life, he shall find many such actions occur as give him a fair hint to make use of this duty.  Haply thou art to enter upon a calling, or, in the calling thou art, meetest with many difficulties and temptations.  Thou hast a long journey or dangerous voyage to take; thou hast to do with a subtle potent adversary, though thy cause be good, yet like to outwitted or overborne.  Here is a fair errand put into thy mouth to go before the Lord for counsel, assistance, and protection.  May be thou hast children, and these are to be disposed of into callings or new relations; and is not this a great undertaking wherein tou hast a great adventure going in their bottom?  Will not the issue that depends on this great change of their condition lay the foundation of much grief or joy to thee?  Yet how slighty are many herein, as if it were of little more importance to marry a child than it is to put off a horse or cow at a fair! Few matches are, alas! thus made in heaven—I mean by solemn prayer engaging God in the business. Abraham’s servant puts many parents to shame—he hard at prayer for success in his journey when sent to take a wife for his master’s son, and not they for their children.  But I wonder not that they who propound low and carnal ends to themselves in such enter­prises, should forget by prayer both to ask his counsel in the match, or invite him to offer his blessing at the wedding.