Three heads of inquiry in searching into our heart and life 1/2

1. For the sins thou hast committed.  The great business of a fast lies in the practice of repentance, and this cannot be done without a narrow scrutiny of the heart: ‘Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord,’ Lam. 3:40.  The thief must be found before he can be tried, and tried before he is con­demned and executed.  Some sins no doubt may be taken and apprehended with little pains; but if thou beest true to God and thy own soul, thou wouldst not willingly let any of the company escape.  How canst thou expect pardon for any that desirest not justice on all? and how canst thou say thou desirest justice on those sins which thou endeavourest not to appre­hend?  That constable that having a hue and cry brought him for a pack of thieves, and lets any get away rather than he will rise to search for them, shows his zeal to justice is little. I do not say thou wilt be able to find all.  It is enough if by thy diligence thou givest proof of thy sincerity that thou wouldst not conceal any.  Set thyself, therefore, in good earnest to the work.  Beset thy heart and life round, as men would do a wood where murderers are lodged.  Hunt back to the several stages of thy life, youth, and riper years all the capacities and relations thou hast stood in, thy calling general and particular—every place where thou hast lived, and thy behaviour in them.  Bid memory bring in its old records, and read over what passages are there written.  Call conscience in to depose what it knows concerning thee, and encourage it to speak freely without mincing the matter: and take heed thou dost not snib this witness, as some corrupt judges use when they would favour a bad cause, or give it secret instructions—as David did Joab—to deal gently with thee.  Be willing to have thy condition opened fully and all thy coverings turned up.  For many times foul designs are his with fair pretences, as the barrels of powder in the parliament cellar under coals and billets.  Now, when thou hast gone as far as thou canst, begging Heaven’s help in the thing, to search and try thee whether there be any further wickedness that thou hast not found out, then burden thy soul, judge thyself for them with all the brokenness of heart thou canst get, justifying God in the sentence denounced against thee for them.  God will have thee lay thy neck on the block, though he means not to give the stroke.  In a word, labour in thy meditations to give every sin its due accent, and suffer thy thoughts to dwell on them till thou findest the fire of thy indignation kindle in thy heart against them, yea, flame forth into such a holy zeal against them as makes thee put thyself under an oath to endeavour their utter ruin and destruction.  Then thou art fit to beg thy own life when thou hast vowed the death of thy sins.

Three PREPARATORY directions 2/2

 (2.) The end may be, though not intrinsically evil, yet evil from some irregularity in misplacing it; as when we make that our ultimate end which should only be our subordinate end in the duty.  That which would be lawful standing in its proper place, becomes sinful when the ultimate end is crowded down to make room for that.  The glory of God is to be the ultimate end, not only in every duty of worship, but in all our common actions also, even to eating and drinking.  Those low actions are to be elevated to this high end, I Cor. 10:31.  And good reason he should be our utmost end from whom we received our begin­ning.  All things are of him, and therefore fit they should be to him.  The river-water empties itself into the bosom of the sea from whence it flows.  Now, if we are to have so high an end in our lowest actions, then surely in our highest; and such are acts of wor­ship, in which we have immediately to do with God, and are thence called priests, ‘to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ,’ I Peter 2:5.  There is indeed another end also for which ordinances are appointed, viz. to conduit-pipes for conveying all kind of blessings from God unto us; but this is an inferior end, and to be subordinated to the former, or else we make the glory of God an under­ling to our particular good, which God will not endure.  Possibly we are in some great affliction.  This sets us to prayer for deliverance.  Thus far we keep our way.  But then we turn aside when our deliver­ance is more regarded by us than his glory.  This is to set the subject in his prince’s chair; uti Deo ut frua­mur mundo—to make use of God that we may enjoy the creature.  Beware of this.  Whatever we prefer in our desires above the glory of God is an idol-worship by us.  The heart can engrave as well as the hand, and an idol in the heart is as bad as one set up in the house.

           Question.  But how may I find whether the glory of God, or the particular good thing I pray for, be that which I make my chief end in duty?

           Answer.  It may be discovered two ways: (a) By thy carriage in prayer. (b) By thy carriage after prayer.

           (a) By the carriage of thy heart in prayer.  If the glory of God be chiefly aimed at by thee, this will give a tincture to the whole duty, and be influential into every part of it; thou wilt suit thy requests to this end. For, as there is a secret force from the arm that draws the bow impressed on the arrow which carries it to the mark aimed at by the shooter, so there is a secret power which carries the soul out in duty to act suit­ably to the end he chiefly propounds and desires to obtain; for no man would willingly obstruct and hin­der what above all he wisheth for.  We will suppose pardon of sin is the mercy thou prayest for.  Now if thou desirest sincerely the glory of God as well as this mercy, yea, above it, this will direct thee in thy con­fession of sin to afflict thy soul more for the dis­honour thou hast by it reflected on God than the wrath thou hast incurred thyself.  So in thy petition, thou darest not beg thy pardon on terms that were dishonourable for God to give it on, but will desire the mercy in such a way as his glory may be both secured and advanced.  Now God cannot pardon the sin of an impenitent wretch that holds still the love and liking of his lust without infinite wrong to his glorious name.  And therefore, if his glory be so high in thy eye as thou sayest, thou wilt cry as earnestly for his sanctifying grace as for pardoning mercy, and not merely because thou canst not have pardon without it—as a sick man desires a bitter potion to save his life, not that he loves it—but because by it thou shalt be fitted to glorify him.

           (b) It may be discovered by thy carriage after duty, and that in two particulars: when the thing prayed for is obtained, and also when denied.

           When the mercy prayed for is obtained.  If thou didst chiefly aim at the glory of God in begging it, thy chief care will be to lay it out for his glory now thou hast it; whereas he that aimed at himself in praying for it, will as little regard God in the using of it as he did in begging it.  It is natural for things to resolve into their principles.  The child that Hannah obtain­ed of God she dedicates unto the Lord—and why? but because this was her end in praying for him, I Sam. 1:11 compared with ver. 28.  When David’s prayer is heard, and he delivered, mark what his resolve from this is, ‘I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living,’ Ps. 116:9.  And again, ‘O Lord, truly I am thy servant,...thou hast loosed my bonds,’ ver. 16.  He re­turns the mercy to God by improving it for him in a holy life. How can we think he aimed at the glory of God in praying for health that runs away from God as soon as he is set upon his legs? or, in praying for wealth, that lays it out upon his lusts?

           Again, when the thing prayed for is denied.  He that aims sincerely at God’s glory in prayer for a mer­cy—I speak now of such mercies as are but conditionally promised—he will cheerfully submit to the will of God in a denial thereof, because God can in such petitions glorify himself by denying as well as granting them.  David prayed and fasted for the life of his sick child.  It dies notwithstanding.  Now, does this denial make him fall out with God? is he clam­orous and discontent?  No, it raiseth no storm in his heart or lowering weather in his countenance to hin­der him in the service of God.  He washeth his tears from his blubbered cheeks, changes his apparel, and goes cheerfully into the house of God and worship­peth, II Sam. 12:20, so powerfully did the will of God determine his will.  Thus, as the heavenly bodies are by the primum mobile carried contrary to their par­ticular inclination, so grace in a saint overrules his natural affection, and carries him into a compliance with the will of God when it crosseth his own.  Our blessed Saviour had natural affections, which made him pray the bitter cup of his passion might, if pos­sible, pass from him; yet not so but he was willing to take a denial, and therefore desires his Father to glorify himself, though it were by taking away his life, John 12:27, 28.

           Second.  The second thing thou art to do, having fixed thy end right, is to make a private search into thy heart and life, whereby thou mayest be enabled more fully and feelingly to lay open thy condition before the Lord.  Now there are three heads of inquiry thou art to go upon: 1. For the sins thou hast committed.  2. For the mercies thou hast received.  3. For the wants thou liest under.

Three PREPARATORY directions 1/2

First.  Examine thy soul, what end thou pro­poundest to thyself in the intended service of extraordinary prayer.  None but a child or a fool will run before he knows what is his errand.  The end is that which a wise man looks to before he sets his hand to any work, and the more weighty the enter­prise is the more necessary this is.

1. Consider, if the end thou propoundest be evil, the duty cannot be good, because thy heart is not sincere in it.  The sincerity of the heart discovers itself in the mark it sets up and end it aims at in a duty, not in the external performance of it.  The thief and the honest traveller may be found riding in the same road, but they have different aims therein, and this distinguisheth them.  Thus the saint and hypo­crite join in the same duty, shoot as it were the same bow, but their eye takes not the same aim, and therefore the arrows meet not in the same butt.  The prayers of one are rejected as abominable, and the other graciously accepted.  Who more seemingly de­vout than the captive Jews that kept up a fast for seventy years together? yet God gives them but little thanks for their pains, because their end was not right: ‘When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?’ Zech. 7:5.  The faster a man gallops, if he be out of his way, it is the worse. Zeal is the best or worst thing in a duty.  If the end be right, O it is excellent! but if wrong, stark naught.  And it is no easy thing to propound a right end.  The eye must be set right in the head before it can look right.  If the piece be wrong made it will never carry the bullet straight to the mark.  A false heart—and every carnal heart is such—cannot have a true end.
2. Consider that your endeavour in the duty will bear proportion, and be commensurate, to the end you propound therein.  If your end be low, your endeavour will be no more than to reach that end; as he that intends to build a little cot­tage contents himself with ordinary stuff, clay and thatch; but he that designs some stately palace provides more precious materials.  Thus David was very curious in the materials he laid aside for the temple: ‘For the palace,’ saith he, ‘is not for man, but for the Lord God.’  Therefore he ‘prepared with all his might gold and silver,’ &c., I Chr. 29:1-3.  The hypocrite’s ends in a fast are low and base—his credit with men, carnal profit, and the like.  Accordingly, his endeavour is laid out on the external duty—a demure counten­ance, devout posture, and such expressions in prayer as may most take with those that hear him, and this is all he looks at.  But the gracious soul saith with David, This palace I build, this duty I perform, ‘is not for man, but for the Lord God,’ and therefore his chief care is to provide more precious materials—a broken heart for sin in his confessions, faith and fervency in his petitions, love and thankfulness in his acknowledgments of mercies received.

           Question.  But when is an evil end propounded in this duty?

           Answer.  The end we propound may be evil, either intrinsically, when the thing we aim at is evil in its own nature, or else from some irregularity in placing it too high or low in our aim.

           (1.) The ends that are intrinsically evil.  To name two,

           (a) When a person or a people shall fast and pray to cover and more sleightily carry on any wicked enterprise.  This is a horrid evil, a monstrous abomin­ation.  What is this but to hang out the sign of an angel at the door, that they may play the devil within the less suspected?  Yet, such deep hypocrisy hath the heart of man discovered, that it dare come and lay its cockatrice egg under the very wing of God, and make use of this solemn ordinance as an expedient to hatch their wicked designs.  The fox, they say, when hard put to it, will, to save himself, fall in among the dogs, and hunt among them as one of their company.  Thus the hypocrite, the better to conceal his wicked proj­ects, will run among the saints, and make as loud a cry in this duty and others as the best of them all.  It is the devil’s old trick, and he hath learned it his instruments, to wrap up wicked plots in the gilded covers of God’s ordinances.  What plotting and counterplotting was there between Shechem the son of Hamor and Simeon and Levi? and the expedient both used to accomplish their designs was an ordin­ance of God.  The one hopes by submitting to it to hook into his hands the whole estate of Jacob’s family —‘shall not their substance be ours?’ and the other persuades them to it that when they were sore they might butcher them without resistance.  Absalom, that he might better play the traitor against his father, begs leave to pay his vow at Hebron.  Jezebel sets her trap for Naboth, and that he may the more surely fall into her clutches, she croucheth and humbleth herself even before God in a fast.  And the demure Pharisee, who bragged so much of his fasting, our Saviour was bold to tell him it was to ‘devour the widows’ houses.’ But, as the father hath it, manducant in terris quod apud inferos digerunt—they devour on earth those morsels that will lie heavy on their stomachs in hell to be digesting to eternity.  Thus the hypocrite, like antichrist, sits in the temple of God, and there com­mits his execrable abominations, turning a house of prayer into a den of thieves.  O tremble at this great wickedness!  It gives a crimson tincture to a sin when it is committed under the disguise of religion.

           (b) When a person thinks by fasting and prayer to satisfy God for his sin, or merit any favour at the hands of God.  This is wicked and abominable, and as contrary to the nature of prayer as buying is to begging.  ‘The poor,’ saith Solomon, ‘useth en­treaties,’ Prov. 18:23.  ‘Whom, though I were righteous, yet would I not answer, but I would make supplica­tion to my judge,’ Job 9:15.  We cannot have the bene­fit of the throne of grace till we quit our legal plea. Christ indeed pleads as righteous, and therefore desires what he asks for us as just, because he hath paid for it; but we pray as sinners, and therefore crave all as mercy, yea, though we plead Christ’s merit, because he is the greatest and freest gift of all other. Yet, such is the pride of man's heart, that he had rather play the merchant, and truck his duties for God’s blessings, than be thought to receive them gratis.  This was the temper of the carnal Jews.  They thought to pacify God for their sin, as Jacob his angry brother, with the droves and flocks of duties which they presented him with, and thought their services undervalued when they were not accepted for good payment.  Hence their bold expostulating the case with the Lord, ‘Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge?’ Isa. 58:3.  Such a high opinion they had of themselves.  O take heed of this: pride turns an ordinance into an idol.  God accepts our fasts and prayers when used for humilia­tion, but abhors them when we bring them for our justification.  The Pharisee lost himself by his proud brags how oft he fasted, while the poor publican got the prize by a humble confession of his sin, Luke 18.  He that thinks to wash his face with puddle water, instead of making it clean will leave it fouler.  Truly our best tears are not over clean, and can they make us clean that need themselves to be washed?  Holy Job durst not rely on his purity: ‘If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.  For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment,’ Job 9:30-32.

Directions for extraordinary prayer 2/2

   (2.) There is more close and immediate prepa­ration required, and this I call actual preparation.  It is true, indeed, he that is conscientious and careful in the ordinary exercises of religion, hath a great advan­tage of him that either neglects them or is loose in them, for his heart must needs stand in a nearer disposition to this extraordinary service than the other—as he that is up and hath his clothes on, is more ready to go on his master’s errand than he that is asleep in his bed.  Yet, besides this care in our daily walking, there needs some further pains to be taken with his heart to raise it unto such a frame as may comport with this solemn service.  The neat house­wife, though she endeavours to keep her house clean, yet, against some good time, as they call it, she is more than ordinary curious in washing her rooms, and scouring her vessels, that they might not only be clean but bright; and so should the Christian.  Now is the time for thee to scour off the dust thou contract­est in thy daily course, and to brighten thy graces unto a further glory that appears in thy everyday walking, to do which will cost pains and require time.

           The Christian is like some heavy birds, as the bustard and others, that cannot get upon the wing without a run of a furlong or two; or a great bell that takes some time to the raising of it.  Now, meditation is the great instrument thou art to use in this pre­paratory work.  Allow thyself some considerable por­tion of time, before the day of extraordinary prayer, for thy retirement, wherein thou mayest converse most privately with thy own heart.  This cannot be done in a crowd, neither must it be left to the time of engaging in the extraordinary duty.  We cannot do both duties together.  The husbandman cannot whet his scythe and cut grass at once.  Betake thyself there­fore to thy closet, and in the first place call thy thoughts off the world, and as much as is possible clear thy soul of all that is foreign to the work thou art about; this is the wiping of the table‑book before we can write anything well on it. Now the more effec­tually to gather in thy heart to a holy seriousness, and compact thy thoughts together, it were expedient for thee at first to lay before thee the grand importance of the approaching service.  Thou art going to stand be­fore the great God, and that very near in an extra­ordinary duty, wherein thou wilt either sanctify or profane his reverend in a high degree, and accordingly art to expect his love or wrath in some choice blessing or dreadful curse, to be the issue and result of thy undertaking!  Gird the loins of thy mind with some such awful apprehensions as these.  As natural fear makes the spirits retire from the outward parts of the body to the heart, so this holy fear of miscarrying in so solemn a duty would be a means to call thy thoughts from all exterior carnal objects, and fix them upon the duty in hand; 'In thy fear will I worship,’ Ps. 5:7.  Such will the print on the wax be as the sculpture is on the seal.  If the fear of God be deeply engraven on thy heart, there is no doubt but it will make a suit­able impression on the duty thou performest.  Well, now the court is set and silence commanded, a few particulars I shall propound for thy thoughts to go upon in this preparatory work.

Directions for extraordinary prayer 1/2

           Question Fifth.  What counsel or direction may be given to the acceptable and successful performance of this solemn duty?

           Answer.  I come now to shut up my discourse on this point, in answering this last question.  A serious necessary one it is, for indeed it is an edge‑tool of excellent use, but dangerous in his hand that knows not how to use it.  Like some physic, if it doth not purge it poisons.  In the same fat soil where the corn is best the weeds also are rankest.  Neither grace nor sin grow to such a height anywhere as in those that converse much with this solemn ordinance.  And therefore, as they who are in a ship upon a swift stream had need the more look to the steerage of it, because they will be carried amain either to their port or wreck; so have they to be reason to be very careful in the managery of this service, the issue whereof cannot be ordinary because the duty is extraordinary. Now the counsel or direction to be given must neces­sarily be divided into these three general heads.  1. Some preparatory direction before the duty.  2. Something to be observed in the performance of the duty.  3. Something after the despatch of it.

The city cannot be safe unless the whole line be kept. It is all one whether the enemy breaks in at the front flank or rear of an army; or whether the ship be taken at sea, or sink in the haven when the voyage is over.

What is needful before extraordinary prayer

1. Requisite.  Some preparatory direction before the duty.  Now there is a double preparation requisite —the one more remote, the other immediate; or, if you please, habitual preparation and actual.

           (1.) There is a remote and habitual preparation, of great use to the performance of this solemn duty of extraordinary prayer.  It lies in this, to look, Chris­tian, that thou showest a conscionable care in thy daily walking, and the constant exercise of this duty in thy ordinary daily offices of devotion, or else thou art like to make but bad work when thou comest to engage in the extraordinary.

           (a) Thy neglect in the ordinary duty will exceed­ingly indispose thee for the extraordinary.  Who would take a foggy horse out of the pasture to run a race?  In extraordinary prayer the soul is to be put on her full speed, all her powers to strained to their utmost ability, and to continue long in the work also. Is he fit for so swift and long a race, whose soul is not kept in breath by the daily exercise of ordinary prayer, but lets his graces, if he hath any, to be choked up with sloth or formality?  The more any member is used, the stronger it is.  The right hand, which is our working hand, hath more activity than the left, that is used less.  A weakness will certainly invade the powers of thy lazy soul, which, though thou perceivest not as thou sittest in thy chair of sloth, will appear when thou risest, and thinkest to go forth in any solemn duty, as thou wert wont to do; then thou wilt find, with Samson, that thou hast lost thy strength in the lap of sloth and negligence.  As fasting is too strong for new bottles, so it is too sweet wine for to be put into fusty and mouldy ones.  Now the only way to keep a bottle or cask sweet, is to not let it stand long empty without any liquor in it.

           (b) As it will indispose thee for this solemn duty, so it is a bad symptom concerning thy spiritual state itself, which is worse than the former.  Grace works uniformly, and discovers a comely proportion in its actings.  Haply you may see the son of a prince on some high day in richer and more glorious apparel than on another day that is ordinary; but you shall never find him in sordid, ragged, and beggarly clothes. Still he will be clad as becomes a king's son.  Possibly, yea, it is likely, that you may see the Christian come forth, in an extraordinary day and duty, with more enlargement of affections in prayer, and all his graces raised to a higher glory in their actings, than ordinary, but you shall never find him with his robe of grace laid aside.  Still the true saint will declare his high birth by his everyday course.  He will not live in the neglect of ordinary duties, and cast off communion with God, in his daily walking.  O, it is the brand of a hypocrite to have his devotion come by fits, and, like a drift of snow, to lie thick in one place and none in another; to seem for zeal like angels at a time and live like atheists many weeks after.  Surely grace acts more evenly and is never so unlike itself.  It is ill living in that miser's house who hath never any good meat on his table but when he makes a feast, and that is very seldom; or with him that upon an occasion hath a day of prayer, but starves himself and family, or pinches them in their daily fare.  Well, never think of med­dling with this extraordinary duty till thou inurest thyself to the ordinary exercise of prayer, and takest more care in thy daily walking with God.

        

The reasons for extraordinary prayer

           Question Fourth. But why is extraordinary prayer to be superadded by the Christian to his ordinary exercise of it in his daily course?

           Answer 1. Extraordinary prayer is superadded in obedience to the command of God.  He commands not only that we should ‘pray always,’ but ‘with all prayer’ also, and extraordinary prayer is one kind among the rest.  And let none of us say it is not enough to pray once or twice every day, but we must upon some occasions devote a whole day also, to the damage of calling and family?  O what niggards would some be towards God, were they left free to devote what time they thought fit for his worship?  This cavil sounds too like that of Judas: ‘To what purpose is this waste?  For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor,’ Matt. 26:8, 9.  ‘But this he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief.’  Truly so, when I hear some carnal wret­ches cry out against this waste of time in praying and fasting—‘how much might the improvement of that time, if laid out in their callings, have advantaged their families, wives, and children’—I am ready to think it is not because they have such a care of their relations as they pretend (for they who grudge a day for prayer can throw, some of them, many away at the ale-house or in idleness), but they carry thievish hearts in their bosoms, which love to rob God of his due, and care not how little service they put him off with.  Is he a loyal subject that pays the ordinary tribute to his prince, but, if occasion of state requires a subsidy, refuseth this, or doth it grudgingly?  God’s commands are none of them, no not this which car­ries some outward severity on it, so grievous, that any should need to groan or grumble under them.  Those yokes—duties and commands, I mean—whose out­side seem most hard have the softest lining within. What seem harder than suffering? and yet when are the saints fuller of heaven's joy?  What duty more austere than this of fasting and afflicting our souls? and yet in the breast of this lion, that scares sensual wretches, the Christian finds the sweetest honey-comb of inward comforts.  Temple-work is sure to be well paid if well done; though it be never so little work in his house, God will not have it done gratis. None shall kindle a fire on his altar for naught.  And therefore he takes it in great disdain at their hands who durst say, ‘What profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?’ Mal. 3:14.  Whereas the fault was not in the duty, but in themselves, that they got no more by it.  As if a naughty servant should bring himself by his riot and excess to poverty, and then give out a hard master hath undone him.

           Answer 2. It is superadded to comport with the providence of God, by a suitable return of duty to his actings and dispensations towards us.  When God is extraordinary in his providence, he expects his people should be more than ordinary in seeking of him. What else means that of the prophet? ‘Thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel,’ Amos 4:12.  Here God alarms them by his extraordinary proceedings intended against them, to take the hint of this warning, and apply themselves speedily to the solemn practice of repentance and humbling their souls, as a suitable posture to meet God in, and keep off the storm of his wrath now gathering against them. Is it not high time for a nation to betake them to their defensive arms when a mighty host is marching against them?  So, Isa. 26:20, 21, ‘Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee,’ &c.  Here he sends his people to their chambers and closets, that they may, by afflicting their souls and fervent prayers, find a hiding in the day of his indignation.  And why must they do thus? ‘For behold the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,’ ver. 21.  The rising of God out of his place imports some notable enterprise he is about to do; and when the master riseth, it is not manners for the servant to sit still, but to rise also and prepare to follow him where he goes.  God takes special notice how we be­have ourselves and comport with is dispensations of judgment or mercy, ‘In that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning;’ Isa. 22:12, that is, he called them by the voice of his providence as well as his prophets, the nature of which was such, that had not their lusts bunged up their ears and made them deaf, they could not but hear and under­stand that now was the time, if ever, that God ex­pected to see them in sackcloth and tears humbling their souls before him.  Now see how heinously he takes their security and profane slighting of his provi­dence, ‘And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord of hosts,’ ver. 14.  Few sins more provoke God than this.  ‘Because they re­gard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them, and not build them up,’ Ps. 28:5.  So, ‘And thou...O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this,’ Dan. 5:22.  This lost him his life and kingdom, as the contrary saved Ahab’s for a time, though it was not so sincere as it ought.  A temporal humiliation got him a temporal benefit.

           Answer 3. It is superadded for the great influ­ence that this extraordinary duty solemnly performed would have upon our whole life and course of godliness.  To keep the body healthful requires not only daily food, but now and the physic also; for in the soundest constitution, and that advantaged with the best care and temperance, there will, in time, such a quantity of superfluous humours gather, that nature without help cannot digest.  And truly the temper of the soul is as infirm and needs as much tending as the body.  Ordinary prayer is the saint’s food.  He can as little miss the constant returns of it as his usual meals.  But extraordinary is his physic, to clear and discharge his soul of those distempers which it con­tracts, and cannot conquer by the use of ordinary means; as also to advance and heighten the Chris­tian’s graces unto a further degree of strength and activity.  As God hath, in his wise providence, ordered one star of great influence to be at a certain season of the year in conjunction with the sun, for the more effectual ripening of the harvest in these colder parts of the world; so hath he, in the same wisdom, ap­pointed for the Christian's spiritual advantage and help in this cold climate of the world, that this sol­emn duty should now and then be taken into con­junction with our ordinary exercise of devotion; for want of which it is that many ripen slower both in their graces and comforts than some of their fellow-saints who sit often under the influences of this powerful quickening ordinance.

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  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.

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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.

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           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.

       

By whom extraordinary prayer is to be performed

           Question Second.  Who are they that are called to the practice of this duty of extraordinary prayer?

           Answer.  The command comprehends all that by age are enabled to understand the nature of this duty when any extraordinary occasion occurs for the per­formance of the same.  We find it required of a church and nation.  It is the magistrate’s duty, when there is a national cause, to call his subjects to the public practice of this duty, Joel 2:15; Neh. 9:1; and he that re­fuseth his call thereunto makes himself an of­fender both to God and man, Lev. 23:29.  It reacheth to private families.  Esther and her maidens keep a re­ligious fast together Est. 4:16.  Yea, it is a duty bound upon single persons, and reacheth to the secret closet, ‘But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret,’ Matt. 6:17, 18.  The circumstances of the place show it is meant of a secret fast in the closet.  We have them all together in one place, ‘The land shall mourn;’ there is a national fast: every family apart, the family of the house of David, and the house of Nathan apart,’ &c.; there is domestical: ‘and their wives apart;’ Zech. 12:12; there is a personal secret fast in the closet.

           Objection.  But is not this extraordinary prayer and fasting too austere and rigid a duty for gospel times?  Where doth Christ command his people in gospel times to macerate their bodies with such sever­ities as these?  Joy and praise better becomes the free­dom and liberty of the gospel.

           Objection met.  Such wild stuff hath been vented by some in our late loose times.  These are a new sort of saints, which the world hath hardly been ac­quainted with before these unhappy days of ours; they would be in heaven before their time, and leave no tears on their cheeks for Christ at death to wipe away.  If any of these could live without sin and suffering they would have some colour for their plea; though even then, being yet ‘in the body,’ they should owe those tears to their brethren which they need not drop for themselves.  The apostle I am sure bids us ‘weep with those that weep,’ and mourn with those that mourn, Rom. 12:15.  Thus did Nehemiah fast for his afflicted brethren in Jerusalem when his own affairs were prosperous enough—being surrounded with the beams of the Persian emperor’s favour.  But there are none in mortal flesh free from sin or exempted from sorrow; and therefore a mourning habit may sometimes become the best of saints on earth.  ‘They that wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses,’ Matt. 11:8.

           Glorified saints, who dwell in the King of heav­en’s court, are always clad with joy, but this on earth is the saint’s holiday suit.  As he hath now and then his rejoicing days, so he wants not his days for mourning.  ‘The days will come,’ saith our Saviour of his disciples, ‘when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast,’ Matt. 9:15—and surely they lived in gospel times.  If these merry pro­fessors had been by Paul to see him how he beat down his body and chastised himself with fasting, they sure­ly would have chid him for his pains, and thought him ignorant of his Christian liberty.  The worst I wish these poor deluded souls is, that they who are so much for joy here meet with no mourning in another world.  It is but an ill sign when men quarrel with a duty for its strictness, and slip the yoke off their necks because the wanton flesh saith it is uneasy.  These are like Ephraim, whom the prophet compares to a heifer ‘that loveth to tread out the corn,’ but not to plough.  That is hard hungry work.  A thanksgiving day, that brings a feast with it.  This they like, and are content it should pass for a gospel duty.  But a day of prayer and fasting, wherein they are to pinch their carcass a little, this will not go down.  But is there no feast ex­cept that it goes down the throat and fills the belly? Certainly this blessed duty deserves not the ill name it hath given unto it by men of sensual spirits.  It is indeed to carnal wretches a heavy yoke, a tedious work.  As the milk kine carried the ark went bellowing for their calves that were taken from them, so do these in a fast‑day after their employments and enjoy­ments of the world, from which they are for that time restrained.  Alas! poor creatures, as the ark was noth­ing but a burden to the kine, so the duty is no other to them.  But the true saint, that knows what ease his poor heart feels in exonerating his conscience by humble confession of sin, what sweet satisfaction his soul meets with in communion with God, and what faith and inward peace he carries away with him from the duty, will give you another character of this ordin­ance than so.  He will tell you he had rather be fasting with God that feasting at a king’s table.  What saint had not rather be fasting on the mount with Moses, than eating and playing with the carnal Israelites below the hill?  Who would not miss a meal for his body, to satiate his soul with those delights that the presence of God in such an ordinance affords?  Who would not take pleasure in mourning and weeping for sin, to have the tears he shed dried up with kisses from his Saviour's mouth?  It is indeed to him that stands sucking of the bush—I mean the external part of the duty—a dry sapless service; but to him that is taken into the wine‑cellar, and there drinks full draughts of the love of God, it is a most sweet soul-ravishing ordinance.  The lower exterior part of the duty, like the bottom of Jacob’s ladder, stands on the earth, and leaves the creature on the earth also where it found him—for ‘bodily exercise profiteth little;’ but the top and spiritual part of it reacheth to heaven, and mounts the gracious soul thither, even unto bosom communion with God.  There is as much dif­ference between a saint and a hypocrite or carnal soul in this duty, as there is between a thief locked up with his keeper in a prison, and a scholar locking up him­self in his study to read some book that he is greatly delighted with; to the one it is a grievous burden, to the other an incomparable pleasure.