Secret Prayer

Tue following pages are a reproduction, somewhat extended here and there but otherwise little altered, of a series of addresses delivered at the weekly Devotional Service of the Cambridge University Church Society, in the Lent Term of 1888.

The Subject needs no introduction, and truly no apology. If the writer reads some characteristics of our time at all aright it is a subject not only of permanent but of special and pressing importance, of the highest order, if the spiritual life of the Christian man and the Christian Church is to be maintained indeed under the conditions of the modern world.

‘As he has endeavoured to point out

School of Theology 4964p at Claremont in the first chapter, the practice of Secret Prayer suffers peculiar risks at present from even religious quarters, such as those of multiplied work, and highly developed public worship, and the abundant use of social devotion.

Under this last head indeed one exception must be made, and made with sorrow. Is it not true that in the hurry of modern religious life the practice of FAMILY WORSHIP is on the decline? But if it be so, it is time that every thoughtful Christian who can in the least use action or influence in the matter should withstand that decline in his own person. Nothing, as the writer has attempted to show, can take the place of Secret Prayer. But likewise nothing, where there is a family in any sense, can take the place of Family Prayer, in which the head of the family takes his God-intended position as its pastor and teacher; instructing it from the Word, leading it in praise and prayer, and pledging himself and his circle by that solemn act to a family life in which the Lord shall be honoured. To the spiritual health of the Parish, of the Church, of the Land, Family Worship is of incalculable value.

These remarks are by the way, and offered only under the pressure of a deep conviction. But they have a true connexion with the subject of these chapters. Secret Prayer and Family Prayer are in many respects beset by like risks, and carry with them like blessings.

The present little book is a small contribution to a modern literature on Secret Prayer which is already considerable. Of that literature the writer

IO Preface.

will here mention only one unpretending but precious specimen, a very small book by the late beloved and honoured Rev. Henry Wright, Prebendary of St Paul’s and Honorary Secretary of the Church Missionary Society: ‘ Secre¢ Prayer a great Reality” (published by Messrs. Bemrose). Within thirty-two short pages that book contains. great treasures. The writer has for many years owed much to it, and is glad of this opportunity of a grateful acknowledgment.

May whatever in the following pages is according to the Will and Word of God be used in His mercy for His glory as that glory is intended to be manifested in the life and spirit of His people, who exist that He may employ them for Himself.

GREAT MALVERN,
September 19, 1889.

Hecret JOraper

I invite my reader’s thoughts in the following pages to the subject of SECRET PRAYER, or rather to some particular aspects of that holy and happy subject; to its necessity and blessing, its difficulties and their remedies, its methods and helps, its constituent elements, and the power in which the work is to be done.

. By the words SecreT PRAYER understand, for the present purpose, our deliberate approaches to God in

Matt. vi. the chamber when the doors are shut. We might of course include much more under the words. We might consider the whole action of the Christian believer’s soul in secret divine communion; his ejaculations of heart at common moments, his quick glances anywhere and everywhere into his Master’s face, in adoration, confession, request, reliance, alike in the crowd and when he is physically alone. And before we quite close we shall have something to say on all this. But in the main I limit our view on purpose to Secret Prayer in its more stated and regular aspect.

Only let me say, for this thought must go with us all along, that there is a deep, tender, and most vital connexion between the Secret Prayer of set times and that of all times. Below the surface they are, they must be, one and ofa piece. They must, they will, feed and animate each other. The devout, diligent, practice of regular and unhurried Secret Prayer is needed if only to protect and develope the freedom and the truth of habitual secret communion with God. And the momentary acts, anywhere and everywhere, of inmost heart intercourse with the ever present Lord are needed if only to keep burning the soul’s altar-fire, that it may glow both more promptly and more brightly when we shut ourselves in with Him at the stated hour.

Surely it is not well with the man if it is otherwise. Are our regular times our practically only times of Secret Prayer, our only conscious daily steps in the path of internal communion? God forbid it. The stated prayer-time will sorely suffer if it is so. Either it will sink into that lamentable thing, an act of perfunctory devotion, a mere counterfeit. Or half the precious occasion may have to be given to efforts after a preparedness, and recollection, and realization, which should have been delightfully ready in the soul.

But now we turn altogether to consider the secret season of deliberate approach to God. And in this first chapter we will think particularly of some of its DIFFICULTIES, and of its holy NEcEssITy, be the difficulties what they may.

May He be with our spirits, by His Spirit, who trode the path of Secret Prayer before us. In this as in all things He left us an example that we should follow His dear and worshipped steps. By His own practice of Secret Prayer He told us, once and for ever, that that practice is a vital necessity for the disciple, a necessity which nothing can annul, not the life most occupied for Him, not the life most consecrated to Him. ’

i. What then are the DIFFICULTIES of Secret Prayer, or some of them? Among these we might of course include the difficulties which for us sinners beset all prayer. We might speak of the difficulties of the mind. We might dwell on those minor but real difficulties, the obstinate volatility and vagrancy of thought, which in the very act of adoration can fly to the ends of the earth, even after triviality or folly; or on those severer difficulties, the mind’s struggles over the mystery of prayer, over the ow and the’ why of its power with God, over the revealed fact that prayer is so very much more than a mere exercise of the soul on itself, a mere calming and attuning of itself before the Eternal; that it really asks, for others as well as for the man’s self, asks in order to receive answers and gifts from Him who indeed is “not ourselves.”* And we might speak too of the spiritual difficulties of prayer in general. We might talk of the believer’s too often faint realization of the Presence, yes sometimes of the very Existence, of the unseen Friend, Master, and King; of our inadequate sense of the sinfulness of sin, in the very act of confession; and of our depth of need, in the act of petition; and of our Lord’s blessed zlory, in the act of praise. But here again I only touch the subject and

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