Directions for Daily Communion with God (continued)
an ax. What are you called for into the fellowship of Christ, but that by him you may have fellowship with God. You cannot pray so well as others, pray as well as you can, and God will accept of you.
Let none plead they have no time in a morning for prayer; I dare say, you can find time for other things that are less needful; you had better take time from sleep, than want time for prayer; and how can you spend time better, and more to your satisfaction and advantage? All the business of the day will prosper the better, for your beginning it thus with God.
Let none plead, that they have not a convenient place to be private in for this work; Isaac retired into the field to pray; and the Psalmist could be alone with God in a corner of the house-top. If you cannot perform it with so much secrecy as you would, yet perform it; it is doing it with ostentation that is the fault, not doing it under observation, when it cannot be avoided. I remember when I was a young man, coming up hither to London in the stage coach, in King James' time, there happened to be a gentleman in the company, that then was not afraid to own himself a Jesuit; many encounters he and I had upon the road, and this was one; he was praising the custom in popish countries of keeping the church doors always open, for people to go into at any time to say their prayers: I told him it looked too like the practice of the pharisees, that prayed in the synagogues; and did not agree with Christ's command, thou when thou prayest thyself, enter not into the church with the doors open, but into thy closet and shut thy doors; when he was pressed with that argument he replied with some vehemence, I believe, you protestants say your prayers no where; for (said he) I have travelled a great deal in the coach in company with protestants, have often lain in inns in the same room with them, and have carefully watched them, and could never perceive that any of them said his prayers night or morning but one, and he was a presbyterian. I hope there was more malice than truth in what he said; but I mention it as an intimation, that though we cannot be so private as we would be in our devotions, yet we must not omit them, lest the omission should prove not a sin only, but a scandal.
2. Make a business of your secret worship, and be not slothful in this business, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Take heed lest it degenerate into a formality, and you grow customary in your accustomed services. Go about the duty solemnly. Be inward with God in it; it is not enough to say your prayers, but you must pray your prayers, must pray in praying, as Elijah did, JAMES 5:17. James 5:17 (KJV) Let us learn to labour frequently in prayer, as Epaphras did, COL 4:12, Colossians 4:12 (KJV) and we shall find it is the hand of the diligent in this duty that maketh rich. God looks not at the length of your prayers, nor shall you be heard for your much speaking, or fine speaking; but God requires truth in the inward part, and it is the prayer of the upright that is his delight. When you have prayed look upon yourselves as thereby engaged and encouraged, both to serve God and to trust in him; that the comfort and benefit of your morning devotions may not be as the morning cloud which passeth away, but as the morning light which shines more and more.
The Second Discourse: Showing How to
Spend Every Day With God
"On thee do I wait all the day." - Psalm 25:5 (KJV)
Which of us is there that can truly say thus! That lives this life of communion with God, which is so much our business, and so much our blessedness? How far short do we come of the spirit of holy David, though we have much better assistances for our acquaintance with God, than the saints then had by the clearer discoveries of the mediation of Christ. Yet that weak Christians who are sincere may not therefore despair, be it remembered, that David himself was not always in such a frame as that he could say so; he had his infirmities, and yet was a man after God's own heart: We have ours, which if they be sincerely lamented and striven against, and the habitual bent of our souls be towards God, and heaven, we shall be accepted through Christ, for we are not under the law, but under grace.
However David's profession in the text, shews us what should be our practice, on God we must wait all the day. That notes two things, a patient