DIRECTION XI.—SECOND GENERAL PART. [How to perform the duty commanded—a directory for prayer.]
‘Praying always with all prayer and supplication,’ &c. (Eph. 6:18).
H
aving despatched the duty of prayer in general, we now come to give an account of the several branches in the exhortation; which together make up an excellent directory to the Christian for his better performing of this duty. Indeed, the apostle here not only teacheth the Christian how to pray, but the minister how to preach, in that he doth not nakedly tell them what is their duty—and so leave them to their own skill in the management of it; but that he may facilitate the duty unto them, he annexeth such directions, and so rules their copy for them, that they shall not easily miscarry in the performance thereof. That preacher that presseth a duty—though with never so much zeal—but doth not chalk out the way how it is to be done, is like one that brings a man to a door that is locked, and bids him go into the house; but gives him no key to open it. Or, that sends a company to sea, but lends them no chart by which they should steer their course. But to come to the directions. They are six. First. The time for prayer—‘praying always.’ Second. The kinds or sorts of prayer—‘with all prayer and supplication.’ Third. The inward principle of prayer from which it may flow—‘in the Spirit.’ Fourth. The guard to be set about the duty of prayer—‘watching thereunto.’ Fifth. The unwearied constancy to be exercised in the duty—‘with all perseverance.’ Sixth. The comprehensiveness of the duty or persons for whom we are to pray—‘for all saints.’
We shall begin with the first.
Division First.—The Time for Prayer.
‘Praying always.’
We shall begin with the first direction, which points to the time of performing the duty of prayer —‘always.’ This word ‘always’ hath a threefold importance. First. To pray ‘always’ is as much as if he had said, ‘pray in everything,’ according to that of the same apostle in another epistle—‘In every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.’ Second. To pray ‘always’ may import as much as to pray in all conditions. Third. To pray ‘always’ is to pray daily.
[Threefold import of the expression ‘praying always.’]
First. To pray always is to pray in everything. Prayer is a catholic duty, with which, like a girdle, we are to compass in all our affairs. It is to be as bread and salt on our table; whatever else we have to our meal, these are not forgot to be set on: whatever we do, or would have, prayer is necessary, be it small or great. Not as the heathen, who prayed for some things to their gods, and not for other. If poor, they prayed for riches; if sick, for health; but as for the good things of the mind, such as patience, contentment, and other virtues, they thought they could carve well enough in these for themselves, without troubling their gods to help them. The poet it seems was of this mind—
Hoc satis est orare Jovem, qui donat et aufert.
Det vitam, det opes; animum mî æquum ipse parabo—
It is enough,
To pray of Jove who gives and takes away
That he may give me life and wealth:
I will myself prepare the equal soul.
O how proud is ignorance! let God give the less, and man will do the greater.
But their folly is not so much to wondered at, as the irreligion of many among ourselves, who profess to know the true God, and have the light of his word to direct them what worship to give him. Some are so brutish in their knowledge, that they hardly pray to God for anything others for everything. May be they look upon pardon of sin, and salvation of their souls —as fruit on the top branches of a tree—out of the reach of their own arm, and therefore now and then put up some slighty prayers to God for them. But as for temporals, which seem to hang lower, they think they can pluck them by their own industry, without setting up the ladder of prayer to come at them. They that should see some—how busy they are in laying their plots, and how seldom in prayer—could not but think they expected their safety from their own policy, and not God’s providence. Or, should they observe how hard they work in their shop, and how seldom and lazy they are at prayer for God’s blessing on their labour in their closet, they must conclude these men promise themselves their estates more from their own labour than the divine bounty.