Audience of Prayer Made Out More Distinctly Than Formerly

O W let James Fraser, our old and deeply experienced fellow-countryman, come forward to-night and tell us, and with all his wonted plainness of speech, just how he attained to a true and a sure audience of Almighty God. Well, like Brother Lawrence of Lorraine, Fraser of Brea at last came to this — he would never leave the time and the place of prayer till he felt sure that he had been in the King’s Presence and had seen His face and had gained the ear and had had a gracious audience of his Sovereign. Fraser was no longer content to enter his closet, and to shut his door, and to fall down on his knees, and to offer up an earnest prayer and then to rise up and go away. He was no longer content to do that. For, nowadays, often after he had done all that and was on his feet again and was half out of his chamber, he would return to it again and would shut his door again and would go to his knees again, and would not rise from off his knees this time till he felt far more sure of his audienee than he was of his own existence. And then when he comes to enter all that into The Book of the Intricacies of his Heart, he puts it in this somewhat learned-looking way. Writing first to Mr, Thomas Ross of Tain, and then through him to all the well-read and much-experienced ministers of the North, he puts his experience in this so characteristic way. ‘ I was wont,’ he writes, ‘ at one time to rest in my devotional duties as if they were my whole end and my one object. I did not as yet make my devotional duties the divinely ordained means to carry me up beyond themselves. I did not yet make them the appointed means to carry me up to Jesus Christ Himself. I stupidly looked on every prayer of mine as so much opus operatum; and thus I did not run my pipe past the cistern and up to the Fountain.’

And then to his less learned readers among the Highland people he went on to put the same thing in this striking and instructive way. ‘ To get your petition to the king written out,’ he said, ‘ and that in the most approved, and respectful, and submissive style, and then to drop it into the post office — that is not enough for your so urgent case of life or death. You must take trouble. You must arise, and leave home, ay, and take a whole world of trouble; and that at any cost. At any cost you must find your way all the way up to London. And you must manage, somehow, one way or other, to get past all the king’s servants and bodyguards so as to push your way into his very presence chamber. And then you must cast yourself down on your face at the king’s feet. And if need be you must lay hold of the supports of the throne so as not to let any one drag you out of the audience-chamber till your sealed pardon is put into your hand.’ So James Fraser taught and wrote about prayer till Mr. T. H., his house, and Mr. Thomas Ross of Tain, both took up the opus operatum lesson, and laid it ever after to heart. And till all the poor people in the Highlands talked around their peat fires on winter nights about their journeys up to London, and about their experiences on the way, and about the reception they got, and all they came through, till they were back in their own houses again. And till The Book of the Intricacies of James Fraser s Heart lay always open beside their Gaelic Bible and their Gaelic Bunyan.

But a very singular thing comes in here. And it is a thing that I confess I had not heard of till I read it in James Fraser and in Thomas Goodwin. ‘ The king,’ says Fraser, ‘ will sometimes himself see to it that all your expenses in London are paid till he has had time to take up your case. He will sometimes both board you and lodge you, and for weeks together at a time, in his own royal palace. He will speak to the comptroller of his household and will instruct that officer to pay special attention to all your wants and all your comforts till you go home again.’ ‘ Your cause is in dependence,’ he goes on. ‘ Your cause is by no means overlooked or overthrown. And, meantime, you will receive out of the royal exchequer what will bear up all your expenses till a gracious decision is come to in your case.’

And the other divine named above dwells at still greater length on the same thing and in his own incomparably rich way. ‘ Even when your matter has not yet passed the king’s seal,’ he says, ‘ you will meantime meet with such entertainment at Court that you will be well content just to live on where you are and as you are. To be treated like a prince of the blood, so as not seldom to be summoned in to take your seat at the royal table — how astonished and how delighted they are at home to get your daily letters telling them about all that.^’ Some light, I think, begins to dawn on my mind as to what those two so intricate and so experienced men mean to teach me by all that. I think they mean to teach me that even when my most pressing and most importunate prayers are not answered as yet; still, just to draw near to God, just to dwell in His house, just to meditate on His ways with His people, and just to continue to call upon His Name; all that will keep my soul in life; ay, and even in abundance, till God’s time comes to take up my whole case, and to finish it for ever for me. Yes, you have often felt yourselves, my brethren, have you not? that it was good for you still to wait upon God, all your accumulated and ’ unanswered prayers notwithstanding. That, I think, is what James Fraser and Thomas Goodwin mean when they say that their Sovereign meantime pays all their travelling expenses and all their waiting expenses out of His own pocket till their cases come up for His final adjudication. What intimate, and what intricate, and what interesting men those old divines were. And what a delight it is to unravel their intricacies of soul, and then to go on to imitate them!

But with all that I am downright afraid, and I shrink back from telling you the kind of case and the kind of confession and supplication that this same man had to make when he was alone with his heavenly King. I am afraid to tell you all that Fraser told his Saviour about himself lest he should lose all his good name with you. For if you had been hiding behind the mercy-seat and wholly out of his sight and had been let hear him when he was lying on his face before the mercy-seat in his tears and in his blood, you would have broken out in your scorn and contempt of him, and would have exclaimed. Away with him! Away with him! Such a man as he is by his own confession is not fit to live! All the same, and all your indignation and scorn notwithstanding, so it was with him. Now shall I give you — and are you able and willing to bear it — just one or two sentences out of Fraser’s secret book, when he was a student at the University in this city F “Well, as he read the Epistle to the Romans one Sabbath night in his lodgings he laid it down and made this entry in his intricate book; and that not as a divinity student taking notes about Paul, mind you, but about himself, this: ‘ The so holy and the so spiritual law of God has so entered my evil heart to-night that my inward sinfulness has become exceedingly sinful. And till I have had such a sight of myself and of my God that I am terrified both at myself and at Him. For my awakened and guilty conscience seizes me by the throat and says to me that I so smell of hell to¬ night that how can the God of heaven put me among His people? The brand of the reprobate is upon thee! says my exasperated conscience to my face, and I cannot deny it. But with all that I ventured to my knees, and I think I prayed all that night as I never had prayed before. If I die, I said, I shall die on the steps of the mercy-seat and holding by its horns. And, a while after midnight, I arose and went out to the fields under Arthur’s Seat. And as I went about praying, I had this expression: Lord, Lord, said I, if Thou wilt compassionate me for nothing else yet com¬ passionate me for my young years. And as I stumbled home in the darkness I remember that this came to me: Surely the deceiver himself has his hand in all this! For as long as I served him, as long as I knew not the sinfulness of my heart, I had none of this awful agony. But ever since God’s holy law has entered my sinful heart, and ever since I have given myself up to Christ to save me, all this awful distress has come upon me. And, as I remember, I had a whole night of reasoning with myself about all that. I continued in this extremity of soul for many days, never attempting to open my mind, no, not even to my much-experienced minister. For, I said to myself, much as he knows about sin, he can never have known a sinful heart quite like mine. Till next Sabbath night I was led on to read the eighth of the Romans. After which I wrote this in my book: Ever blessed be the Comforter Who inspired that golden chapter! And ever blessed be the penman who put that golden chapter into Holy Writ! ’

Now I will put it to you all, students like him and all: What do you think about all that? And what do you say to all that? Was James Fraser mad, think you? Was he beside himself in all that? Was he gone clean out of his mind? No! you know better! Now, come away. Suppose this night was to be the last on which you were to be allowed to neglect God,andtodespise His mercy-seat! And, mind you, it is quite possible! Suppose He is at last quite wearied out with the way you spend your Sabbath nights. Suppose before to-morrow you, now sitting there were to be in that place where you will no more be preached at and persecuted about prayer or about anything else of that kind. I tell you, sirs, you will all remember these Sabbath nights in this house, and will unavailingly wish that you had one of them back again. ‘ I have five brethren on earth,’ said the rich man in hell. Well, here is something for you. Here is the prayer of a family of brothers and sisters, like his and yours, after a Sabbath night like this — I will give you their very words: ‘ O God I ’ — they all said, they all joined in saying — ‘we have all neglected Thee in our house! We have all contemned Thee, and all Thou couldest say to us I AVe have scorned Thee, seeking us. We have despised and turned our backs on Thee, loving us. We have stopped our ears against Thee, pleading with us. We have despised all Thy warnings. We have laughed at all Thy threatenings. We have boldly withstood Thee up to this night. But if Thy mercy-seat is not for ever withdrawn, and if indeed Thou art still waiting to be gracious to us: then hear us at last and take away all our insult and neglect of Thee, with all our other iniquities, and, to-night, receive us graciously.’ And it was so. For, from that night, that whole house was at peace with God, and with one another, as they had never been before. Mad! Beside himself! Out of his mind! ‘ When he came to himself,’ says our Saviour, telling us the story of a young man’s conversion — ‘ when he came to himself, he said, ‘ I will arise and go to my father I ’ And when his father saw him he said, “This my son was dead, and is alive again! He was lost, and is found.” And they began to be merry.’

But to come back for one moment to where we began. That is to say to take a student’s view of an audience of prayer. For students like to take all the processes and all the experiences connected with their salvation in a student-like way. And nothing is more pleasing to God than that they should do that. For He is the God of all truth and all knowledge and all wisdom and all true philosophy as well as of all true theology. And He will bless and will accept all their studies who seek first the Kingdom of God; and, especially, who seek first the righteousness of His Son. All their University studies will then work together to make them perfect men unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. From whom the whole body of their studies fitly joined and compacted together by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working of every part, maketh increase of the mind unto the edifying of itself in love. In other words, when they themselves are rooted and grounded in Christ then their Greek and their Latin and their French and their German and their Italian and their English Classics will all genuinely refine their minds. Their mathematics also will give a new clearness and a new acuteness to their minds. Their history will as never before both civilise and enlarge their minds. Their philosophy, and of all schools, will deepen and soften and sweeten their minds. And more than all, their astronomy will overwhelm and prostrate their minds, and will overawe and enthral their hearts. And, then, their religion, if it is spiritual enough, and if it is evangelical enough, will do all that to their minds and to their hearts over again, and all that, in a still better than the best way before. In his own strong and deep and calm and wise way Butler says:. Divinity, that being what I chose for

the business of my life; it being, I think, of all other studies, the most suitable to a reasonable nature.’ Now, as many of you as being of a reasonable nature, have chosen divinity for the business of your life, be sure you never come short but follow out your life choice to its utmost perfection. That is to say, follow it out to a life of audience of prayer; follow it out to a personal life of the most son-like and the most saint-like audience of prayer. Seek an audience of God every day and many times every day and about every person and every thing that in any way concerns you. For this is to be a true student, this is to be a truly learned man and a truly wise man!

O gentlemen! open your minds to the over¬ powering magnificence of the very thought! Open your imaginations to the transcending picture of it! You in an audience with Almighty God; you in an audience, and as often as you please, and as intimate and alone as you please, with the King of kings: the Maker and the Ruler of heaven and earth! In an audience with Him, while His holiest angels stand afar oft’ covering their faces and their feet with their wings, till they are summoned in to serve you. O, I beseech you, be men at once of an audience of prayer! And when the time comes be great preachers of that same gracious audience. And may your own audience grow ever more and more distinct, till you see the King’s face in glory and dwell for ever in His presence!