William Gurnall: The Christian in Complete Armour
The Inward Principle of Prayer.
‘In the Spirit.’
[To pray in the spirit, we must have FERVENCY.]
Second. We pray in the spirit when
we pray in fervency. The soul keeps the body warm while it is in it. So much as there is our soul and spirit in a duty, so much
heat and fervency. If the prayer be cold, we may certainly conclude the heart
is idle, and bears no part in the duty. Our spirit is an active creature: what
it does is with a force, whether bad or good. Hence in Scripture, to set the
heart and soul upon a thing, imports vehemency and
fervour. Thus the poor labouring man is said to ‘set his heart on his wages,’
Deuteronomy 24:15. The hopes of what he shall have at night makes him sweat at his
work in the day. Darius ‘set his heart on Daniel to deliver him;’ and it
follows, ‘He laboured till the going down of the sun to deliver him,’ Daniel 6:14. When the spirit of a man is set about a work, he will do it to purpose.
‘If you shall seek the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul,’ Deuteronomy 4:29, that is, fervently. This consists not in a violent agitation of the
bodily spirits. A man may put his body into a sweat in duty, and the prayer be cold. That is the fervent prayer that flows from a warm
heart and enkindled affections; like an exhalation which first is set on fire
in the cloud, and then breaks forth into thunder. ‘My heart was hot within me,
while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with
my tongue, Lord, make me to know mine end,’ Psalm 39:3, 4. Now as zeal is not one
single affection, but the edge and vehemency of them
all; so fervency in prayer is, when all the affections act strongly and
suitably to the several parts of prayer.
In confession, then have we
fervency, when the soul melts into a holy shame and sorrow for the sins he
spreads before the Lord, so that he feels a holy smart and pain within, and
does not act a tragical part with a comical heart.
For, as Chrysostom says, ‘To paint tears is worse
than to paint the face.’ Here is true fervency: ‘I mourn in my complaint, and
make a noise,’ Psalm 55:2. There may be fire in the pan, when none in the piece;
a loud wind, but no rain with it. David made a noise with his voice, and
mourned in his spirit.
So, in petition we have
fervency, when the heart is drawn out with vehement desires of the grace it
prays for, not some lazy woundings or wishings, or weak velleities, but
passionate breathings and breakings of heart. Sometimes it is set out by the
violence of thirst, which is thought more tormenting than that of hunger. As
the hunted hart pants after the cool waters, so did David’s soul after God, Psalm 42. Sometimes it is set out by the strainings of a
wrestler—so Jacob is said to wrestle with the angel; and of those that run in a
race, Acts 26:7, ‘instantly serving God day and night,’ - they stretched out themselves. ‘My soul breaks for longing,’ Psalm 119:20, as one that with straining breaks a vein.
[Why we must pray in the spirit fervently.]
Question.
But why must we pray in the spirit fervently?
Answer First. We must pray in
the spirit fervently, from the command. ‘You shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with
all your soul, and with all your might; and these words, which I command you
this day, shall be in your heart,’ Deuteronomy 6:5, 6;
which imports the affectionate performance of every command and duty. Sever the
outward from the inward part of God’s worship, and he owns it not. ‘Who has
required this at your hands?’ Isaiah 1:12. As if he had
said, Did I ever command you to give a beast’s heart
in sacrifice, and keep back your own? Why do you pray at all? Will you say,
Because he commands it? Then, why
not fervently, which the command intends chiefly? When you send for a
book, would you be pleased with him that brings you only the cover? And will
God accept the skin for the sacrifice? The external part of the duty is but as
the cup. Your love, faith, and joy are the wine he desires to taste of. Without
these, you give him but an empty cup to drink in.
Now, what is this but to mock him?
Answer Second. We must pray in
the spirit, to comport with the name of God. The common description of prayer is calling on the name of God. Now, as in prayer we call upon the
name of God, so it must be with a worship suitable to
his name, or else we pollute it and incur his wrath. This is the chief meaning
of the third commandment. In the first, God provides that none besides himself,
the only true God, be worshipped; in the second, that he, the true God, be not
served with will-worship, but his own institutions; and in the third, that he
be not served vainly and slightily in his own
worship. There is no attribute in God but calls for this fervency in his
worship.
1. He is a great and glorious God; and as such it becomes
us to approach his presence with our affections in the best array. Are yawning
prayers fit for a great God’s hearing? Dare you speak to such a majesty before you are well awake, and has such a sacrifice prepared as he will accept? ‘Cursed be the deceiver, which has in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrifices
unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, says
the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen,’ Malachi 1:14. See
here, first, anything less than the best we have is a corrupt thing. He will
accept a little, if the best, but he abhors that you should
save your best for another. Again he that offers not the best—the strength of
his affections—is a deceiver; because he robs him of his due, and he is a great
God. It is fit the prince’s table should be served with the best that the
market affords, and not the refuse. When Jacob intended a present to the
governor of the land, he bids his children ‘take of the best of the fruit of
the land in your vessels.’ Lastly, the awful thoughts which God extorts from
the very heathen by his mighty works, do reproach us who live in the bosom of
the church, and despise his name by our heedless and heartless serving of him.
2. He is the living God. Is a dead-hearted prayer a
sacrifice suitable to a living God? How can that be
accepted of him which never came from him? Lay not your dead prayers by his
side. The lively prayer is his, the dead your own.
What the psalmist says of persons, we may say of
prayers, The living, the living they shall praise
him.’ The glorious angels, who for their zeal are called seraphims,
and a flame of fire, these he chooses to minister to
him in heaven; and the saints below—who, though they sojourn on earth, yet have
their extraction from heaven, and so have spirits raised and refined from the dulness of their earthly constitution—these he sets apart
for himself as priests to offer up spiritual sacrifices unto him. The quicker
any one is himself, the more offensive is a dull leaden heeled messenger or
slow-handed workman to him. How then can God, who is all life, brook your lazy
listless devotions? When he commanded the neck of an ass to be broke, and not
offered up unto him, was it because he was angry with the beast? No sure, it
was his own workmanship; no other than himself made
it; but to teach us how unpleasant a dull heart is to him in his service.
3. He is a loving God, and love will be paid in no coin but
its own. Give God love for love, or he accounts you
give him nothing. ‘If you love me, keep my commandments,’ John 14:15. And, ‘If a
man would give the substance of his house for love, it would be contemned,’
Song 8:7. So, if a man thinks to commute with God, and give him anything in
prayer instead of his love and fervent affection, it will be contemned. Let the
prayer be never so pithy, the posture of the body never so devout, the voice
never so loud, if the affections of the heart be not drawn out after God in the
duty, he disdains and rejects it, because it doth not correspond with the dear
affections which God expresses to us. He draws out
the heart with his purse, and gives his very soul and self with all his gifts
to his people. Therefore he expects our hearts should come with all our
services to him. It is no wonder to see the servant, whose master is hard and
cruel, have no heart to or mettle in his work; but love in the master useth to put life into the servant. And therefore God, who
is incomparably the best master, disdains to be served as none but the worst
among men use to be.
Answer Third. We must pray in
the spirit, because the promise is only to fervent prayer. A still-born child
is no heir, neither is a prayer that wants life heir to any promise. Fervency
is to prayer what fire was to the spices in the censer—without this it cannot
ascend as incense before God. Some have attempted a shorter cut to the Indies
by the north, but were ever frozen up in their way; and so will all sluggish prayers
be served. It were an easy voyage indeed to heaven if
such prayers might find the way thither. But never could they show any of that
good land's gold who prayed thus, though he were a saint. The righteous man
indeed is declared heir, as to all other promises, so to this of having his
prayer heard; but if he has not aptitudinem intrandi (ability to enter) —he is not in a fit posture to enter into the
possession of this promise, or claim present benefit from it, while his heart
remains cold and formal in the duty. There is a qualification to the act of
prayer as necessary as of the person praying: ‘The effectual fervent prayer of
a righteous man avails much.’ When God intends a
mercy for his people, he stirs up a spirit of prayer in them: ‘I said not unto
the seed of Jacob, Seek you me in vain,’ Isaiah 45:19; that is, I never stirred them up to it, and helped them in it, and then let
them lose their labour. ‘Then you shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken
unto you: and you shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with
all your heart,’ Jeremiah 29:12, 13. Feeble desires, like
weak pangs, go over, and bring not a mercy to the birth. As the full time grows
nearer, so the spirit of prayer grows stronger. ‘Shall not God avenge his own
elect, which cry day and night unto him, I tell you that he will avenge them
speedily,’ Luke 18:7, 8. None in the house perhaps will stir for a little
knock at the door; they think he is some idle beggar,
or one in no great haste; but if he raps thick and loud, then they go, yea, out
of their beds. ‘though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend,
yet because of his importunity,’ Luke 11:8.
[Use or
Application.]
Use First. This sadly shows
there is little true praying to be found among us, because few that pray fervently.
Let us sort men into their several ranks.
1. The ignorant, do these pray fervently? Their hearts,
alas! must needs be frozen up in the duty; they dwell
too far from the sun to have any of this divine heat in their devotions.
2. The profane person, that is
debauched with his filthy lusts, his heat runs out another way. Can the heart
which is inflamed with lusts be any other than cold in prayer? Hell-fire must
be quenched before this from heaven can be kindled.
3. The soul under the power of roving thoughts —whose
mind, like Satan, is walking to and fro the earth, while his eyes seem nailed
to heaven—can he be fervent? Can the affections be intended and the mind
inattentive? Fervency unites the soul and gathers in the thoughts to the work
in hand. It will not suffer diversions, but answers all foreign thoughts, as
Nehemiah, in another case, did them that would have called him off from
building, ‘I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the
work cease?’ Nehemiah 6:3. It is said of Elias {Elijah},
‘He prayed earnestly,’ he prayed in praying, so the Greek. As in Ezekiel’s
vision, there was ‘a wheel in a wheel,’ so a prayer in his prayer. Whereas the
roving soul is prayerless, his lips pray and his mind
plays; his eye is up to heaven, as if that were his mark, but he shoots his
thoughts down to the earth.
4. He to whom the duty is tedious and wearisome, who does
not sigh and groan in the duty, but under it; who prays as a sick man works in
his calling, finding no delight or joy in it. True fervency suffers no
weariness, feels no pain. The tradesman, when hot at his work, and the soldier
in fight, the one feels not his weariness nor the
other his wounds. Affections are strong things, able to pull up a weak body.
Therefore, he that shrugs at a duty, and turns this way and that way, as a sick
man from one side of his bed to the other for ease, shows he has little
content in the duty, and therefore less zeal. These aches of the spirit in
prayer—though he be a saint—come of some cold he has
gotten, and declare him to be under a great distemper. A man in health finds
not more savour in his food and refreshing from it, than the Christian does in
the offices of religion, when his heart is in the right temper.
Use Second. For
exhortation. Do you pray? Pray fervently, or you do nothing. Cold
prayer is no more prayer than painted fire is fire. That prayer which warms not
your own heart, will it, you think, move God’s? You draw
the tap, but the vessel is frozen. A man has not the use of his hand clung up
with cold, neither can you have the use of your spirit in duty till your heart
chafed into some sense and feeling of what you pray
for. Now to bring your cold heart into some spiritual heat,