CHAPTER II. PRAY WITHOUT CEASING. "Man's plea to man is, that he never more "Pray without ceasing."-1 THESS. V. 17. SEVEN more practical, compressed, and sententious prescriptions, for daily life, could not be selected, than those which begin at the 16th verse, and end at the 22d verse, of the 5th chapter of 1 Thessalonians. We have seen the intimate connection of one with the other. Do you wish to enjoy all the sweetness of the first- "Rejoice evermore -you must "pray without ceasing." Do you wish to pray without ceasing, you must give thanks in every thing for what you have, as the best preface to asking for things which you have not. Do you desire to pray without ceasing, and in every thing to give thanks? Then "quench not," or grieve not, him who inspires all prayer - the Holy Spirit. And do you long to know how to think of this blessed and Divine Being, and not to quench the Spirit? Then "despise not prophecy." And do you long to be sure that you are right? Then "prove all things." But do not 3* (29) And do you desire in all respects to 66 stop there, but "hold," and not hold only, but "hold fast that which is good." appear what you are? Abstain," not from all evil only, but from all constructive evil, "from all appearance of evil." In our last chapter we endeavored to unfold the meaning of "Rejoice evermore." We now proceed to open the spring from which, that joy must flow, and to exhibit the root on which its pleasant fruit must ripen. There is no true joy in a Christian's heart unless there be living and real prayer in a Christian's practice. The two are inseparable. God will not give privilege without duty; and, blessed be his name, he never gives duty without the accompaniment of precious privilege. "Pray without ceasing." Prayer is the spring of joy, the secret of emancipation from trouble. "Is any man afflicted? Let him pray." The Pentecost of 1800 years ago was an answer to prayer. And what a change that made! the timid, cowardly, vacillating Peter becomes the intrepid champion of the truths which terrified him even by their utterance before. The obscure became the teacher of nations; reserve burned into eloquence; and he that was once afraid to confess his Master before a servant-maid, now confronts kings and royal cabinets, and, like Paul, reasons, unabashed, of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment. The very first inquiry suggested by the apostolic prescription is, What is prayer? I do not know that I can answer that question in language more succinct or more expressive than that which is given in a document of far greater value than some are disposed to set upon it at this day—a document that many have known in youth, and, I doubt not, have not forgotten in riper years the Shorter Catechism. The question is asked in that beautiful formulary of sound doctrine, What is prayer? and the answer given is, “Prayer -- is an offering up of our desires to God for things agreeable to his will in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies:" a very beautiful and a very comprehensive definition. It is the offering up of our desires to God. In Scripture prayer is scarcely defined. Its meaning is assumed. It is an instinct; it was born of the first want; it was understood in the human heart at its first ache. Man needs not a definition of that which the deepest instincts of his nature explain, the moment that he knows what it is to be hungry, and thirsty, and naked, and in need of any thing. Prayer is hunger's appeal for food; it is thirst's cry for living water; it is sin's yearning for forgiveness; it is death's last look for everlasting and glorious life. We need not a dogmatic definition; we feel what it is. The duty and necessity of prayer belong to this present dispensation; in the future dispensation there will be no wants, and therefore no prayer. In the present there are nothing but wants without ceasing, there must must be therefore prayer without ceasing. The psalmist says very beautifully, "Whom have I in heaven but thee?" heaven is the place of having; "and there is none," he adds, "upon the earth I desire beside thee." Earth is the place of desire. That is heaven, where all is having and must be all praise; that is earth, where all is desire, and must be all prayer or asking. This sense of the duty and necessity of prayer, which we all more or less feel, is plain proof that none of us are at home. Our inmost and deepest wants and longings, our sorrows, our griefs, and our bitterness, that rise and fall, and come and go, like the successive waves of the ocean in their rise and ebb, and roll like these across the human heart, all tell us unmistakably, what indeed we cannot but feel, that this is not our rest, and that there must still remain a rest for the people of God. On the other hand, those deep -- yearnings that we all feel, those longings that we never can express in prayer, and the humblest peasant has had thoughts that the most gifted orator never uttered, so that the unwritten wants of the human heart would form the richest and the deepest poetry,· those desires after satisfaction and rest, tell us either that the tide that once covered the world with its light and joy has ebbed away, and left us; or that an ocean fulness is yet to roll inwards, and to cover heaven and earth with perpetual and unbroken happiness. Our wants are prophecies of their satisfaction; our sorrows are presentiments of everlasting comfort. Nature is as it is because there is a day of restoration before it. Man is said to be vanity; he would be so absolutely were it not that he can feel it. The fact that man feels he is vanity, is evidence that beneath all the vanity there underlies a grand nature that looks forward to a glorious destiny. Prayer is less a duty we are commanded to fulfil, and more a heavenly privilege we are invited to enjoy. The real question is not, Must we pray? but, May we pray? The true question is not, Ought we pray? but, Will God hear us when we pray? There is great evil in regarding prayer as mere duty. The moment we regard it as a duty we begin to perform it. Very justly, and not oftener than true, it is said - "Service was performed." Yes, it was performed; it was a performance from beginning to end; and so the consequence of regarding prayer as a duty is, that we go forth to perform our duty, and having expressed our wants in prayer, we conclude our duty has been done. But this is a great mistake; this is accepting the means as the end. You go to the well deeper than Jacob's well; you draw water-living water; but, instead of drinking the water as you should, you are satisfied with having raised the bucket to the ground, and you retire, having done your duty. The end of drawing living water is to drink it; the meaning of praying is to reach something beyond it. Prayer is not a religious duty, but the means of attaining religious blessings. By its very nature it is the instrument of religious progress, comfort, and peace. As prayer is not a duty, so it is not a penance. It is not an expiation of any sin we have ever done, or an atonement for any deed that cleaves to our memory. Prayer is not an effort to prevail on God to diminish his claims on us, or an attempt on our part to make an atonement to him for the transgressions of which we have been guilty. You may repeat "Pater Nosters" twelve hours without ceasing, and yet you may never have prayed at all; and when you have prayed with all the fervor of a saint, and all the fulness of the apostolical description without ceasing-you have not made an atonement for a single sin, nor is it able, nor was it meant to do so. Prayer is not the expression of a love we feel; it is not the expiation of a sin we have committed; it is not the payment of a debt we owe; it is not in any sense the performance of a duty that devolves upon us; it is something far better and nobler than all these. We must regard prayer as a means, not an end; as a precious and great privilege; not as a provision for God, but a provision for us. And hence one earnest "Our Father" on the beaten streets of London, rises to heaven with infinitely more acceptance than all the "Pater Nosters" that were ever offered on the encausted tiles and consecrated pavements of the cathedrals of Europe. Prayer is not-and our Lord warns us against this a display or an exercise to be seen of men. Often and again he warns his disciples against imitating the practice. or accepting the prescription of the Pharisees. They made long prayers at corners of the streets and the highways, expecting to be seen of men. respect be not ye as them." Our Lord says, "In this But in our days it may be ! |