PRACTICAL PIETY by Hannah More
PRAYER
Prayer is the application of need to Him who only can relieve it, the voice
of sin to Him who alone can pardon it. It is the urgency of poverty, the
prostration of humility, the fervency of penitence, the confidence of trust.
It is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness,
but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but compunction of soul. It is
the "Lord, save us, we perish," of drowning Peter; the cry of faith to the
ear of mercy.
Adoration is the noblest employment of created beings; confession, the
natural language of guilty creatures; gratitude, the spontaneous expression
of pardoned sinners. Prayer is desire; it is not mere conception of the
mind, nor a mere effort of the intellect, nor an act of the memory; but an
elevation of the soul towards its Maker; a pressing sense of our own
ignorance and infirmity; a consciousness of the perfection of God, of his
readiness to hear, of his power to help, of his willingness to save. It is
not an emotion produced in the senses, nor an effect wrought by the
imagination; but a determination of the will, an effusion of the heart.
Prayer is the guide to self-knowledge, by prompting us to look after our
sins in order to pray against them; a motive to vigilance, by teaching us to
guard against those sins which, through self-examination, we have been
enabled to detect.
Prayer is an act both of the understanding and of the heart. The
understanding must apply itself to the knowledge of the Divine perfections,
or the heart will not be led to the adoration of them. It would not be a
reasonable service, if the mind was excluded. It must be rational worship,
or the human worshiper would not bring to the service the distinguishing
faculty of his nature, which is reason. It must be spiritual worship, or it
would lack the distinctive quality to make it acceptable to him who is a
Spirit, and who has declared that he will be worshiped "in spirit and in
truth."
Prayer is right in itself as the most powerful means of resisting sin and
advancing in holiness. It is above all right, as everything is, in which has
the authority of Scripture, the command of God, and the example of Christ.
There is a perfect consistency in all the ordinations of God; a perfect
congruity in the whole scheme of his dispensations. If man were not a
corrupt creature, such prayer as the Gospel enjoins would not have been
necessary. Had not prayer been an important means for curing those
corruptions, a God of perfect wisdom would not have ordered it. He would not
have prohibited every thing which tends to inflame and promote them, had
they not existed; nor would he have commanded every thing that has a
tendency to diminish and remove them, had not their existence been fatal.
Prayer, therefore, is an indispensable part of his economy, and of our
obedience.
It is a hackneyed objection to the use of prayer, that it is offending the
omniscience of God to suppose he requires information of our needs. But no
objection can be more futile. We do not pray to inform God of our needs, but
to express our sense of the needs which he already knows. As he has not so
much made his promises to our necessities as to our requests, it is
reasonable that our requests should be made before we can hope that our
necessities will be relieved. God does not promise to those who "lack", that
they shall have, but to those who "ask;" nor to those who need, that they
shall "find," but to those who "seek." So far, therefore, from his previous
knowledge of our needs being a ground of objection to prayer, it is in fact
the true ground for our application. Were he not knowledge itself, our
information would be of as little use as our application would be were he
not goodness itself.
We cannot attain to a just notion of prayer while we remain ignorant of our
own nature, of the nature of God as revealed in Scripture, of our relation
to him, and dependence on him. If, therefore, we do not live in the daily
study of the Holy Scriptures, we shall lack the highest motives to this duty
and the best helps for performing it; if we do, the cogency of these
motives, and the inestimable value of these helps, will render argument
unnecessary, and exhortations superfluous.
One cause, therefore, of the dullness of many Christians in prayer, is their
slight acquaintance with the sacred volume. They hear it periodically, they
read it occasionally, they are contented to know it historically, to
consider it superficially; but they do not endeavor to get their minds
imbued with its spirit. If they store their memory with its facts, they do
not impress their hearts with its truths. They do not regard it as the
nutriment on which their spiritual life and growth depend. They do not pray
over it; they do not consider all its doctrines as of practical application;
they do not cultivate that spiritual discernment which alone can enable them
judiciously to appropriate its promises and its denunciations to their own
actual case. They do not apply it as an unerring line to ascertain their own
rectitude or obligations.
In our retirements we too often fritter away our precious moments -- moments
rescued from the world -- in trivial, sometimes, it is to be feared, in
corrupt thoughts. But if we must give the reins to our imagination, let us
send this excursive faculty to range among great and noble objects. Let it
stretch forward, under the sanction of faith and the anticipation of
prophecy, to the accomplishment of those glorious promises and tremendous
threatenings which will soon he realized in the eternal world. These are
topics which, under the safe and sober guidance of Scripture, will fix its
largest speculations and sustain its loftiest flights. The same Scripture,
while it expands and elevates the mind, will keep it subject to the dominion
of truth; while, at the same time, it will teach it that its boldest
excursions must fall infinitely short of the astonishing realities of a
future state.
Though we cannot pray with a too deep sense of sin, we may make our sins too
exclusively the object of our prayers. While we keep, with a self-abasing
eye, our own corruptions in view, let us look with equal intentness on that
mercy which cleanses from all sin. Let our prayers be all humiliation, but
let them not be all complaint. When men indulge no other thought but that
they are rebels, the hopelessness of pardon hardens them into disloyalty.
Let them look to the mercy of the King, as well as to the rebellion of the
subject. If we contemplate his grace as displayed in the Gospel, then,
though our humility will increase, our despair will vanish. Gratitude in
this, as in human instances, will create affection. "We love him, because he
first loved us."
Let us, therefore, always keep our unworthiness in view as a reason why we
stand in need of the mercy of God in Christ; but never plead it as a reason
why we should not draw near to him to implore that mercy. The best men are
unworthy for their own sakes; the worst, on repentance, will be accepted for
his sake and through his merits.
In prayer, then, the perfections of God, and especially his mercies in our
redemption, should occupy our thoughts as much as our sins; our obligations
to him as much as our departures from him. We should keep up in our hearts a
constant sense of our own weakness, not with a design to discourage the mind
and depress the spirits, but with a view to drive us out of ourselves in
search of the Divine assistance. We should contemplate our infirmity in
order to draw us to look for his strength, and to seek that power from God
which we vainly look for in ourselves: we do not tell a sick friend of his
danger in order to grieve or terrify him, but to induce him to apply to his
physician, and to have recourse to his remedy.
Among the charges which have been brought against serious piety, one is,
that it teaches men to despair. The charge is just in one sense as to the
fact, but false in the sense intended. It teaches us to despair, indeed, of
ourselves, while it inculcates that faith in a Redeemer which is the true
antidote to despair. Faith quickens the doubting spirit, while it humbles
the presumptuous. The lowly Christian takes comfort in the blessed promise
that God will never forsake those who are his. The presumptuous man is
equally right in the doctrine, but wrong in applying it. He takes that
comfort to himself which was meant for another class of characters. The
mal-appropriation of Scripture promises and threatenings is the cause of
much error and delusion.
Some have fallen into error by advocating an unnatural and impracticable
disinterestedness, asserting that God is to be loved exclusively for
himself, with an absolute renunciation of any view of advantage to
ourselves; but that prayer cannot be mercenary, which involves God's glory
with our own happiness, and makes his will the law of our requests. Though
we are to desire the glory of God supremely; though this ought to be our
grand actuating principle, yet he has graciously permitted, commanded,
invited us to attach our own happiness to this primary object.
The Bible exhibits not only a beautiful, but an inseparable combination of
both, which delivers us from the danger of unnaturally renouncing our own
happiness for the promotion of God's glory on the one hand; and, on the
other, from seeking any happiness independent of him, and underived from
him. In enjoining us to love him supremely, he has connected an unspeakable
blessing with a paramount duty, the highest privilege with the most positive
command.
What a triumph for the humble Christian, to be assured that "the high and
lofty One who inhabits eternity," condescends at the same time to dwell in
the heart of the contrite– in his heart! to know that God is the God of his
life; to know that he is even invited to take the Lord for his God. To close
with God's offers, to accept his invitations, to receive God as our portion,
must surely be more pleasing to our heavenly Father than separating our
happiness from his glory. To disconnect our interests from his goodness, is
at once to detract from his perfections, and to obscure the brightness of
our own hopes. The declarations of the inspired writers are confirmed by the
authority of the heavenly hosts. They proclaim that the glory of God and the
happiness of his creatures, so far from interfering, are connected with each
other. We know but of one anthem composed and sung by angels, and this most
harmoniously combines "the glory of God in the highest with peace on earth
and good will to men."
"The beauty of Scripture," says the great Saxon reformer, "consists in
pronouns." This God is our God -- God, even our own God shall bless us. How
delightful the appropriation! to glorify him as being in himself consummate
excellence, and to love him from the feeling that this excellence is
directed to our felicity! Here modesty would be ingratitude --
disinterestedness, rebellion. It would be severing ourselves from Him in
whom we live, and move, and are; it would be dissolving the connection which
he has condescended to establish between himself and his creatures.
It has been justly observed, that the Scripture-saints make this union the
chief ground of their grateful exultation: "My strength," "my rock," "my
fortress," "my deliverer!" Again, "let the God of my salvation be exalted!"
Now, take away the pronoun, and substitute the article the, how
comparatively cold is the impression! The consummation of the joy arises
from the peculiarity, the intimacy, the endearment of the relation.
Nor to the liberal Christian is the grateful joy diminished, when he blesses
his God as "the God of all those who trust in him." All general blessings,
will he say, all providential mercies, are mine individually, are mine as
completely as if no other shared in the enjoyment; life, light, the earth
and heavens, the sun and stars, whatever sustains the body and recreates the
spirits! My obligation is as great as if the mercy had been made purely for
me! as great! no, it is greater -- it is augmented by a sense of the
millions who participate in the blessing. The same enlargement of personal
obligation holds good, no, rises higher in the mercies of redemption. The
Lord is my Savior as completely as if he had redeemed only me. That he has
redeemed a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, and
kindreds, and people, and tongues, is diffusion without abatement; it is
general participation without individual diminution. Each has all.
In adoring the providence of God, we are apt to be struck with what is new
and out of course, while we too much overlook long, habitual, and
uninterrupted mercies. But common mercies, if less striking, are more
valuable, both because we have them always, and for the reason above
assigned, because others share them. The ordinary blessings of life are
overlooked for the very reason for which they ought to be most prized
because they are most uniformly bestowed. They are most essential to our
support; and when once they are withdrawn, we begin to find that they are
also most essential to our comfort. Nothing raises the price of a blessing
like its removal, whereas it was its continuance which should have taught us
its value. We require novelties to awaken our gratitude, not considering
that it is the duration of mercies which enhances their value. We want fresh
excitements. We consider mercies long enjoyed as things of course, as things
to which we have a sort of presumptive claim; as if God had no right to
withdraw what he has once bestowed, as if he were obliged to continue what
he has once been pleased to confer.
But that the sun has shone unremittingly from the day that God created it,
is not a less stupendous exertion of power than that the hand which fixed in
the heavens, and marked out its progress through them, once said by his
servant, "Sun, stand you still upon Gibeon." That it has gone on in his
strength, driving its uninterrupted career, and "rejoicing as a giant to run
his course," for six thousand years, is a more astonishing exhibition of
omnipotence than that he should have been once suspended by the hand which
set it in motion. That the ordinances of heaven, that the established laws
of nature should have been for one day interrupted to serve a particular
occasion, is a less real wonder, and certainly a less substantial blessing,
than that in such a multitude of ages they should have pursued their
appointed course, for the comfort of the whole system;
Forever singing, as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine.
As the affections of the Christian ought to be set on things above, so it is
for those who his prayers will be chiefly addressed. God, in promising to
"give to those who delight in him the desire of their heart," could never
mean temporal things; for these they might desire improperly as to the
object, and inordinately as to the degree. The promise relates principally
to spiritual blessings. He not only gives us these mercies, but the very
desire to obtain them is also his gift. Here our prayer requires no
qualifying, no conditioning, no limitation. We cannot err in our choice, for
God himself is the object of it; we cannot exceed in the degree, unless it
were possible to love him too well, or to please him too much.
We should pray for worldly comforts, and for a blessing on our earthly
plans, though lawful in themselves, conditionally, and with a reservation;
because, after having been earnest in our requests for them, it may happen
that when we come to the petition, "your will be done," we may in these very
words be praying that our previous petitions may not be granted. In this
brief request consists the vital principle, the essential spirit of prayer.
God shows his munificence in encouraging us to ask most earnestly for the
greatest things, by promising that the smaller "shall be added unto us." We
therefore acknowledge his liberality most when we request the highest
favors. He manifests his infinite superiority to earthly fathers by chiefly
delighting to confer those spiritual gifts which they less solicitously
desire for their children than those worldly advantages on which God sets so
little value.
Nothing short of a sincere devotedness to God can enable us to maintain an
equality of mind under unequal circumstances. We murmur that we have not the
things we ask amiss, not knowing that they are withheld by the same mercy by
which the things that are good for us are granted. Things good in themselves
may not be good for us. A resigned spirit is the proper disposition to
prepare us for receiving mercies, or for having them denied. Resignation of
soul, like the allegiance of a good subject, is always in readiness, though
not in action; whereas an impatient mind is a spirit of disaffection, always
prepared to revolt when the will of the sovereign is in opposition to that
of the subject. This seditious principle is the infallible characteristic of
an unrenewed mind.
A sincere love of God will make us thankful when our prayers are granted,
and patient and cheerful when they are denied. He who feels his heart rise
against any Divine dispensation, ought not to rest until by serious
meditation and earnest prayer it be molded into submission. A habit of
acquiescence in the will of God will so operate on the faculties of his
mind, that even his judgment will embrace the conviction that what he once
so ardently desired would not have been that good thing which his blindness
had conspired with his wishes to make him believe it to be. He will
recollect the many instances in which, if his importunity had prevailed, the
thing which ignorance requested, and wisdom denied, would have insured his
misery. Every fresh disappointment will teach him to distrust himself and to
confide in God. Experience will instruct him that there may be a better way
of hearing our requests than that of granting them. Happy for us, that He to
whom they are addressed knows which is best, and acts upon that knowledge:
"Still lift for good the supplicating voice,
But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice;
Implore his aid, in his decisions rest;
Secure whatever he gives, he gives the best."
We should endeavor to render our private devotions effectual remedies for
our own particular sins. Prayer against sin in general is too indefinite to
reach the individual case. We must bring it home to our own heart, else we
may be confessing another man's sins and overlooking our own. If we have any
predominant fault, we should pray more especially against that fault. If we
pray for any virtue of which we particularly stand in need, we should dwell
on our own deficiencies in that virtue, until our souls become deeply
affected with our need of it. Our prayers should be circumstantial, not, as
was before observed, for the information of Infinite Wisdom, but for the
stirring up of our own dull affections. And as the recapitulation of our
needs tends to keep up a sense of our dependence, the enlarging on our
special mercies will tend to keep alive a sense of gratitude; while
indiscriminate petitions, confessions, and thanksgivings leave the mind to
wander in indefinite devotion and unaffecting generalities without
personality and without appropriation. It must be obvious that we except
those grand universal points in which all have an equal interest, and which
must always form the essence of public prayer.
On the blessing attending importunity in prayer the Gospel is abundantly
explicit. God perhaps delays to give, that we may persevere in asking. He
may require importunity for our own sakes, that the frequency and urgency of
the petition may bring our hearts into that frame to which he will be
favorable.
As we ought to live in a spirit of obedience to his commands, so we should
live in a frame of waiting for his blessing on our prayers, and in a spirit
of gratitude when we have obtained it. This is that "preparation of the
heart" which would always keep us in a posture for duty. If we desert the
duty because an immediate blessing does not visibly attend it, it shows that
we do not serve God out of conscience, but selfishness; that we grudge
expending on him that service which brings us in no immediate interest.
Though he grant not our petition, let us never be tempted to withdraw our
application.
Our reluctant devotions may remind us of the remark of a certain great
political wit, who apologized for his late attendance in parliament by his
being detained while a party of soldiers were dragging a volunteer to his
duty. How many excuses do we find for not being in time! How many apologies
for brevity! How many evasions for neglect! How unwilling, too often, are we
to come into the Divine presence; how reluctant to remain in it! Those hours
which are least valuable for business, which are least seasonable for
pleasure, we commonly give to religion. Our energies, which were exerted in
the society we have just left, are sunk as we approach the Divine presence.
Our hearts, which were all alacrity in some frivolous conversation, become
cold and inanimate, as if it were the natural property of devotion to freeze
the affections. Our animal spirits, which so readily performed their
functions before, now slacken their vigor and lose their vivacity. The
sluggish body sympathizes with the unwilling mind, and each promotes the
deadness of the other: both are slow in listening to the call of duty; both
are soon weary in performing it. How do our fancies rove back to the
pleasures we have been enjoying! How apt are the diversified images of those
pleasures to mix themselves with our better thoughts, to pull down our
higher aspirations! As prayer requires all the energies of the compound
being of man, so we too often feel as if there were a conspiracy of body,
soul, and spirit to disincline and disqualify us for it.
When the heart is once sincerely turned to religion, we need not, every time
we pray, examine into every truth, and seek for conviction over and over
again; but may assume that those doctrines are true, the truth of which we
have already proved. From a general and fixed impression of these principles
will result a taste, a disposedness, a love, so intimate, that the
convictions of the understanding will become the affections of the heart. To
be deeply impressed with a few fundamental truths, to digest them
thoroughly, to meditate on them seriously, to pray over them fervently, to
get them deeply rooted in the heart, will be more productive of faith and
holiness, than to labor after variety, ingenuity, or elegance. The
indulgence of imagination will rather distract than edify. Searching after
ingenious thoughts will rather divert the attention from God to ourselves,
than promote fixedness of thought, singleness of intention, and devotedness
of spirit. Whatever is subtle and refined is in danger of being
unscriptural. If we do not guard the mind, it will learn to wander in quest
of novelties. It will learn to set more value on original thoughts than
devout affections. It is the business of prayer to cast down imaginations
which gratify the natural activity of the mind, while they leave the heart
unhumbled.
We should confine ourselves to the present business of the present moment;
we should keep the mind in a state of perpetual dependence. "Now is the
accepted time." "Today we must hear his voice." "Give us this day our daily
bread." The manna will not keep until tomorrow: tomorrow will have its own
needs, and must have its own petitions. Tomorrow we must seek afresh the
bread of heaven.
We should, however, avoid coming to our devotions with unfurnished minds. We
should be always laying in materials for prayer, by a diligent course of
serious reading, by treasuring up in our minds the most important truths. If
we rush into the Divine presence with a vacant, or ignorant and unprepared
mind, with a heart full of the world; as we shall feel no disposition or
qualification for the work we are about to engage in, so we cannot expect
that our petitions will be heard or granted. There must be some congruity
between the heart and the object, some affinity between the state of our
minds and the business in which they are employed, if we would expect
success in the work.
We are often deceived both as to the principle and the effect of our
prayers. When from some external cause the heart is glad, the spirits light,
the thoughts ready, the tongue voluble, a kind of spontaneous eloquence is
the result; with this we are pleased, and this ready flow we are willing to
impose on ourselves for piety.
On the other hand, when the mind is dejected, the animal spirits low, the
thoughts confused, when apposite words do not readily present themselves, we
are apt to accuse our hearts of lack of fervor, to lament our weakness, and
to mourn that because we have had no pleasure in praying, our prayers have,
therefore, not ascended to the throne of mercy. In both cases we perhaps
judge ourselves unfairly. These unready accents, these faltering praises,
these ill-expressed petitions, may find more acceptance than the florid talk
with which we were so well satisfied: the latter consisted, it may be, of
shining thoughts floating on the fancy, eloquent words dwelling only on the
lips; the former was the sighing of a contrite heart, abased by the feeling
of its own unworthiness and awed by the perfections of a holy and
heart-searching God. The heart is dissatisfied with its own dull and
tasteless repetitions, which, with all their imperfections, Infinite
Goodness may perhaps hear with favor. We may not only be elated with the
fluency, but even with the fervency of our prayers. Vanity may grow out of
the very act of renouncing it; and we may begin to feel proud at having
humbled ourselves so eloquently.
There is, however, a strain and spirit of prayer equally distinct from that
facility and copiousness for which we certainly are never the better in the
sight of God, and from that constraint and dryness for which we may be never
the worse. There is a simple, solid, pious strain of prayer in which the
supplicant is so filled and occupied with a sense of his own dependence, and
of the importance of the things for which he asks, and so persuaded of the
power and grace of God, through Christ, to give him those things, that while
he is engaged in it he does not merely imagine, but feels assured that God
is near to him as a reconciled father, so that every burden and doubt are
taken off from his mind. "He knows," as John expresses it, "that he has the
petitions he desired of God," and feels the truth of that promise, "While
they are yet speaking I will hear." This is the perfection of prayer.