“One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require; even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit His Temple.” Psalm xxvii. 4.
What the Psalmist desired, we Christians enjoy to the full,—the liberty of holding communion with God in His Temple all through our life. Under the Law, the presence of God was but in one place; and therefore could be approached and enjoyed only at set times. For far the greater part of their lives, the chosen people were in one sense “cast out of the sight of His eyes;” [Psalm xxxi. 24.] and the periodical return to it which they were allowed, was a privilege highly coveted and earnestly expected. Much more precious was the privilege of continually dwelling in His sight, which is spoken of in the text. “One thing,” says the Psalmist, “have I desired of the Lord … that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit His Temple.” He desired to have continually that communion with God in prayer, praise, and meditation, to which His presence admits the soul; and this, I say, is the portion of Christians. Faith opens upon us Christians the Temple of God wherever weare; for that Temple is a spiritual one, and so is everywhere present. “We have access,” says the Apostle,—that is, we have admission or introduction, “by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” And hence he says elsewhere, “Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, Rejoice.” “Rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing; in every thing give thanks.” And St. James, “Is any afflicted? let him pray: is any merry? let him sing Psalms.” [Rom. v. 2. Phil. iv. 4. 1 Thess. v. 16-18. James v. 13.] Prayer, praise, thanksgiving, contemplation, are the peculiar privilege and duty of a Christian, and that for their own sakes, from the exceeding comfort and satisfaction they afford him, and without reference to any definite results to which prayer tends, without reference to the answers which are promised to it, from a general sense of the blessedness of being under the shadow of God’s throne.
I propose, then, in what follows, to make some remarks on communion with God, or prayer in a large sense of the word; not as regards its external consequences, but as it may be considered to affect our own minds and hearts.
What, then, is prayer? It is (if it may be said reverently) conversing with God. We converse with our fellow-men, and then we use familiar language, because they are our fellows. We converse with God, and then we use the lowliest, awfulest, calmest, concisest language we can, because He is God. Prayer, then, is divine converse, differing from human, as God differs from man. Thus St. Paul says, “Our conversation is in heaven” [Phil. iii. 20.]—not indeed thereby meaning converse of words only, but intercourse and manner of living generally; yet still in an especial way converse of words or prayer, because language is the special means of all intercourse. Our intercourse with our fellow-men goes on, not by sight, but by sound, not by eyes, but by ears. Hearing is the social sense, and language is the social bond. In like manner, as the Christian’s conversation is in heaven, as it is his duty, with Enoch and other Saints, to walk with God, so his voice is in heaven, his heart “inditing of a good matter,” of prayers and praises. Prayers and praises are the mode of his intercourse with the next world, as the converse of business or recreation is the mode in which this world is carried on in all its separate courses. He who does not pray, does not claim his citizenship with heaven, but lives, though an heir of the kingdom as if he were a child of earth.
Now, it is not surprising if that duty or privilege, which is the characteristic token of our heavenly inheritance, should also have an especial influence upon our fitness for claiming it. He who does not use a gift, loses it; the man who does not use his voice or limbs, loses power over them, and becomes disqualified for the state of life to which he is called. In like manner, he who neglects to pray, not only suspends the enjoyment, but is in a way to lose the possession, of his divine citizenship. We are members of another world; we have been severed from the companionship of devils, and brought into that invisible kingdom of Christ which faith alone discerns,—that mysterious Presence of God which encompasses us, which is in us, and around us, which is in our heart, which enfolds us as though with a robe of light, hiding our scarred and discoloured souls from the sight of Divine Purity, and making them shining as the Angels; and which flows in upon us too by means of all forms of beauty and grace which this visible world contains, in a starry host or (if I may so say) a milky way of divine companions, the inhabitants of Mount Zion, where we dwell. Faith, I say, alone apprehends all this; but yet there is something which is not left to faith,—our own tastes, likings, motives, and habits. Of these we are conscious in our degree, and we can make ourselves more and more conscious; and as consciousness tells us what they are, reason tells us whether they are such as become, as correspond with, that heavenly world into which we have been translated.