Private prayer

“ That is the place for private confessions of sin, for private prayers for help; for all the secrets which we dare not, and need not tell to any human being. They indeed are not out of place here in church. Those who composed our Prayer Book felt that, and have filled our services, the Litany especially, with prayers in which each of us can offer up his own troubles to God, if he but remember that he is offering up to God his neighbour’s troubles also, and the troubles of all mankind. ”

“ Does any one suppose that private prayer is necessarily candid—necessarily goes to the roots of action? Private prayer is inaudible speech, and speech is representative: who can represent himself just as he is, even in his own reflections? ”

“ And so we are taught, at the very outset of our search after the secret of effectual prayer, to remember that it is in the inner chamber, where we are alone with the Father, that we shall learn to pray aright. The Father is in secret: in these words Jesus teaches us where He is waiting us, where He is always to be found. Christians often complain that private prayer is not what it should be. They feel weak and sinful, the heart is cold and dark; it is as if they have so little to pray, and in that little no faith or joy. ”

“ That is the general scheme of a Christian's private prayers. They should include in due proportion the several elements of adoration, thanksgiving, penitence, petition, and intercession. They need not be lengthy. "Use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." It is quality and not quantity of prayer that counts. And the prayers of a busy man must necessarily be short. ”

“ In public and in family worship we may go to prayer, and pass through the form, while our hearts and thoughts may be wholly given to something else. But not so in private prayer. To be alone with God is too solemn to admit of any other feeling than that of deep reverence and true worship. Christian parents should urge upon their children and give them every possible encouragement to have their time and place for secret or private prayer. It becomes to them a means of grace that has much to do in moulding their Christian character. ”

“ I believe that to obtain pro- gress in love there is only one means : prayer — not public prayer in churches, plainly forbidden by Jesus,* but private prayer, like the sample given us by Jesus, consisting of the renewing and strengthening, in our own consciousness, of the meaning of our life and of our complete dependence on the will of God. ”

“ I do not want to leave the impression that the ordinary means of grace have no value. They most assuredly have. Private prayer should be practiced by every Christian. Long periods of Bible meditation will purify our gaze and direct it; church attendance will enlarge our outlook and increase our love for others. Service and work and activity; all are good and should be engaged in by every Christian. ”

“ Private prayer, on the contrary, is that which is offered by private individuals, whether for themselves or for others; and its nature does not demand that it should be vocal. At the same time, we can use our voices in this kind of prayer, and this for three reasons: Firstly, in order to excite interior devotion whereby our minds may, when we pray, be lifted up to God; for men's minds are moved by external signs—whether words or acts—to understand, and, by consequence, also to feel. ”

“ Assurances are given on every side, that the invocation of the saints and of the Virgin is nothing more than a request, that they would intercede with God, and implore his mercy for the suppliants. But whatever implicit reliance we may place on the good faith with which these declarations are made, we can discover no new key by which to interpret the forms of prayer and praise satisfactorily. Confessedly there are no changes in the authorized services. We discover no traces of change in the worship of private devotion. ”

“ If we tell them that the inspired Apostles and early Christians attended the public service of God continually, it will have little or no effect upon them; they do not alter their own habits in consequence. They think private prayer sufficient. I hope there will be an increasing number amongst us of a different mind; many, who, if they are once really convinced that the Bible commands, or promises a special blessing to the use of public worship, will at once determine that they will make a principle of attending it when they can. ”

“ Prayer recited or chanted—prayer extemporaneous or in forms grown venerable by use, is common alike to public and private worship, to the worship of the individual in his closet, the family, or the gathering of families. It cannot be the essential element of public worship. ”

“ If there were no praying but secret praying, if the social element were eliminated from prayer and praise, faith would take on ascetic forms, devotion would become rancid, sympathy would be smothered, and the character of the worshiper would be hardened and belittled. There is a place and a time, as we have seen, for private devotion; probably many of us make far less use of it than would be good for us; but any attempt to shut our religion into the closet would be suicidal. ”

“ Our private and family devotions are acts of worship. They enter into its obligation, are comprehended by it, but do not fill it out. They are not sufficient alone. The due acknowledgment before others of our belief in and reverence for God, the blessings which attend only upon the use of united praise and prayer and of Sacraments, the honor of God, the rendering of "thanks for the great benefits that we have received at His hands," the setting forth of "His most worthy praise,"—all demand the public act of worship. ”

“ It requires the entire man in praying till high and proud and unspiritual ecclesiastics become gentle, lowly and religious, till godliness and gravity bear rule in Church and in State, in home and in business, in public as well as in private life.
It is man’s business to pray; and it takes manly men to do it. It is godly business to pray and it takes godly men to do it. And it is godly men who give over themselves entirely to prayer. ”

“ And his prayers, public and private—prayers put up for us on every possible occasion—effectual fervent prayers of a righteous man standing ever in thought and feeling in the presence of God, and in the sweet, bracing, healthful atmosphere of unfeigned love to man, these are responsibilities which none can evade. ”

“ Is not prayer to the Church what the bayonet is to the soldier—that which the private member has to use? Those who cannot preach or write books, or even teach in the Sunday School, can pray. We ask the question—Are there as many praying-people in proportion to our numbers as there used to be? ”

“ Liturgical prayer, such as we have it in the Office and as is laid upon us by the Church, is no private devotion; it is the prayer which the Word Incarnate is ever pouring forth in behalf of the mystical body of which He is the head. Those who say it are the willing instruments placed at His disposal by His Spouse, the Church. We abide in Him and He in us. The words we speak, we speak not of ourselves, but in His person. In liturgical prayer we have the most perfect means of adoring and thanking God, and of making supplication and atonement, that the Eternal Wisdom could provide. ”

“ Each one must say his prayer alone by himself, and this is not conditional on a private place; that is, both at home and in the worshipping-place, which is a gathering-place, it is allowable for one to say his prayer ”

“ The Moralization of Prayer.—When we come to consider the moral quality of the act of prayer, this contrast between the spirit of public and private religion is fundamental for all but the most advanced forms of cult. In its public rites the community becomes conscious of common ends and a common edification. ”

“ But it is chiefly in the prayers used by the illiterate and poor among the peasantry that we would expect to find some trace of Catholicism, for the prayer employed in private and secret is precisely where no interference could affect the convictions and habits formed by ages, and communicated traditionally at the most impressible age. ”

“ Without unction or heart, they fall like a killing frost on all the graces of worship. Death-dealing prayers they are. Every vestige of devotion has perished under their breath. The more dead they are the longer they grow. A plea for short praying, live praying, real heart praying, praying by the Holy Spirit—direct, specific, ardent, simple, unctuous in the pulpit—is in order. A school to teach preachers how to pray, as God counts praying, would be more beneficial to true piety, true worship, and true preaching than all theological schools. ”

“ You should be a priest unto your family,—a leader in home-communion with God. Your children have a right to expect this from you. If you are a church member, how strange and startling must be the enunciation in heaven, that you are a prayerless Christian, and your home destitute of the altar! And do you think that, continuing thus, you will be admitted into that heavenly home where there is one unbroken voice of prayer and praise to God? Do you not tremble at the prospect of those tremendous denunciations which the Lord has uttered against those who neglect and abuse the privilege of prayer? ”

“ For our prayers for the kingdom are not uttered on the housetops; and the kingdom itself cometh not with observation.
But if it were not too delicate a subject I could recite instances, to me the most remarkable answers to prayer in my experience, of changed character and enlarged Christian life, resulting from definite intercession. It is an experiment which any loving and humble soul can easily make. Take your friends, or better still the members of the church to which you belong, and set yourself systematically to pray for them. ”

“ Now, almost all the ancient liturgies, both Eastern and Western, are so constructed that the point upon which each service converges is the saying of the Lord’s Prayer. That is the point up to which they climb. That is their central act; because the highest thing in the way of worship that the Christian can do is to say Christ’s own prayer in the freedom of that approach to God once won for him by the Son of Man. ”

“ She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that after the damsel had repeated the words of that Holy Tradition the doctor cried, "Thou hast replied aright: now say me, what is prayer?" "Prayer is communion between the slave and his lord, and in it are ten virtues: (1) it illumineth the heart; (2) it maketh the face shine ”

“ In public prayer we often go beyond our convictions, beyond the honest standpoint of fervent desire. If we Public exaggerations are not secretly yearning and openly striving for the accomplishment of all we ask, our prayers are “vain repetitions,” such as the heathen use. If our petitions are sincere, we labor for what we ask; and our Father, who seeth in secret, will reward us openly. ”

“ Let us pray then, most beloved brethren, as our teacher, God, has instructed us. It is a welcome and friendly prayer to petition God from his own, to mount up to his ears by the prayer of Christ. Let the Father recognize the words of his Son. When we offer a prayer let Him who dwelleth inwardly in our breast, Himself be in our voice; and since we have Him as our advocate with the Father for our sins, when as sinners we are petitioning for our sins let us put forth the words of our Advocate. ”

“ There is with some an idea that to ask and expect an answer is not the highest form of prayer. Fellowship with God, apart from any request, is more than supplication. About the petition there is something of selfishness and bargaining—to worship is more than to beg. With others the thought that prayer is so often unanswered is so prominent, that they think more of the spiritual benefit derived from the exercise of prayer than [p2] the actual gifts to be obtained by it. ”

“ So far from its being true that the remark in this story was applied to the Episcopal or any other liturgy, it was applied to what are called extemporaneous prayers in Congregational and Presbyterian prayer-meetings. We were reprehending the practice of praying without sincerity or real religious feeling. We said that when men began to lead in public prayer they should be simple, truthful, and strictly individual, expressing their own wants or feelings with child-like truthfulness. ”

“ God’s decree for the glory of His Son’s kingdom is dependent on prayer for its fulfilment: “Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thy inheritance, and the uttermost part of the earth for thy possession.” God the Father gives nothing to His Son only through prayer. And the reason why the Church has not received more in the missionary [Pg 140] work in which it is engaged is the lack of prayer. ”

“ Let it be noted with emphasis that a Church which is careless of discipline will be careless in praying. A Church which tolerates evil doers in its communion, will cease to pray, will cease to pray with agreement, and will cease to be a Church gathered together in prayer in Christ’s name. ”

“ A much-praying minister will receive an entrance into God’s will he would otherwise know nothing of; will be brought to praying people where he does not expect [p27] them; will receive blessing above all he asks or thinks. The teaching and the power of the Holy Ghost are alike unalterably linked to prayer.
Our next reference will show us faith in the power that the Church’s prayer has with its glorified King, as it is found, not only in the apostles, but in the Christian community. ”