Methods and Helps

We have thought a little of the spécial Difficulties of the work of Secret Prayer, and then, all the more earnestly and steadily, of the absolute Necessity that we should indeed pray in secret,

‘if we would grow and prosper spiritually, and be truly “meet for the Master’s use.” Now, that we may be as practical as possible in our studies, let us come at once to enquire a little about MEeTHops and HE ps in the holy exercise.

We may consider first Methods, and then Helps; not with any attempt to divide them very rigidly, for they run often naturally into one another. But a certain free division will aid the enquiry.

i. MeTHops. — The word suggests of itself a remark by way of caution. If Secret Prayer is to do its distinctive work, that work on which we dwelt in the previous chapter, the work of confession, petition, and praise with closest reference to the individual, no methodization of it must ever be such as to override and injure its individuality, its personal freedom and speciality, of address to God. If by method we mean anything which really hinders and crosses our “boldness,” our humble Het iv. outspokenness, with Him, our statement to Him of precisely the now present thought of the soul, the now present burthen of confession, prayer, and praise, then our method is a mistake.

I would not willingly exaggerate. Not for a’ moment do I mean that formulated prayer, prayer other than extemporary, is necessarily a check upon such outspokenness. It may, and often it will, express exactly our individual need and thought in perfect words. But I mean that it must never be allowed such use in the secret hour as would really cramp the freest personal communication with God. When we use it, it must always leave exactly as much room as the man’s spirit needs for quite unformulated petitions If we would give full development to that holy, worshipping, personal intimacy with God in Christ to which the believing soul is called, we must not let anything, not even thenoblest of historic liturgies, at all imprison, so to speak, the secret outpouring of the recesses of the individual heart before Him.

With this word of caution, we recognize all the while a manifest call for method in Secret Prayer.

And first, we must use method as regards TimE, Very earnestly would I advise the dedication to Secret Prayer of astrictly regular time; a punctual beginning, and, especially in the morning, a measured and liberal allotment. I certainly do not mean a mere mechanical regularity, as if we watched the clock for the moment when to close. But I do mean a time at least as punctual and at least as free from hurry as that which we habitually give to our meals; and this, I repeat, especially in the morning. If I plead less earnestly for a large allowance of time at night I do it with hesitation and reserve, and only because a conscientious Christian, who is doing the will of God through the day, is likely to be physically tired at night in a way in which he will not be, certainly in his youth, in the morning. And our Master knows our frame. But, ah, blessed and richly fruitful is the time really devoted to adoring communion with that beloved Master before we lie down. How can I even suggest an abbreviation of it? In any case, let us be sure that nothing abbreviates it for us that is not the plain will of God.

Let me add that, where the duties of life admit of it, and they almost always will, a methodical giving of even the briefest time to Secret Prayer about midday will prove fruitful of blessing. Five minutes or even less given then to an act of faith, of surrender, of dedication, of prayer, of praise, may be a gift bringing a rich return of “joy, strength, and willingness.” The important point is not the length of time so much as the absence of hurry.

But I return to my main point, the all-importance of the early morning hour alone with the Lord, where it is at all possible. There exists a widespread association of Christians, pledged to one another and to God to observe day by day the Morninc WaTcH; that is, pledged to spend if possible never less than some time specified in their written engagement alone with God Jefore meeting man.* Those who really make this their practice, whether or no they have joined the association, find that they can never again forego it without sure and manifest spiritual loss. Under God, immensely much depends on

‘* The founder and secretary of the association is the Rev. J. T. Wrenford, Vicar of St Paul’s, Newport, Monmouthshire.

Isa.
XXXL 2.

that watch-time, and its exercises of confession, faith, love, prayer, and praise. Its tendency is to open as it were the soul’s window skyward for the day; to make the continuous acts of surrender and faith for that whole day quite different from what they would be otherwise, in their readiness and happiness.

It is then that we lay special hold upon that wonderful promise, so significant in its every word, so precious to the heart which longs for a nonintermittent flow of the peace and strength of faith, — the promise that, to them that wait for Him, He, the Lord, will be “THEIR ARM EVERY MORNING.”

Then there is a need of method not only in punctuality, but in use and distribution of the precious time; a distribution elastic, yet real end regulating. Here the three great elements of worship come in to help us — Confession, Prayer, and Praise; all bound together with the double bond of ‘surrender meek and reverent faith.” Time will commonly be better used, when we know where each of these three elements comes in habitually in our secret worship. Our dear Liturgy suggests to us one order; giving us first confession, then a clear reassurance of our acceptance, and of our spiritual power, in Christ, then adoring praise, and then petitions in detail. Meanwhile our Lord’s own Prayer presents an order in which pure adoration and absolute surrender come first, then petition and confession interlaced together, and renewed adoration and ascription last.

‘To speak briefly, in passing, on Method in secret confession and secret

Diz intercession: — it may be useful to suggest that confession, springing from a true and watchful self-examination, should be a special exercise of the evenzmg hour with God. And the work of intercession, a work which is surely meant to be a most real one for those in true union with the great Intercessor, may be methodized while not restricted by a distribution of its objects, personal or otherwise, between different days of the week, or times of the day.

Perhaps under the head of Method I may place the question of utterance, and of attitude, in Secret Prayer. Here of course I would not for a moment narrowly define or prescribe. No man can quite direct another, or even with priort certainty advise another, in these inmost matters. But I may venture to mention a fact or

Methods and Helps. ay

two of my own experience as what may possibly be of some service.

As regards wtéerance, then, I rarely allow myself to pray quite silently in secret. For myself, I find the wanderings of the mind very much limited and controlled by even the faintest audible utterance of thought. And as regards attitude I very seldom venture to kneel at prayer in secret. At night it leads almost invariably, and very speedily, to sleeping on my knees, and even in the morning hour, I know not how, recollectedness and concentration of heart and mind are usually quickened in my case by a reverent standing attitude as before the visible Master and Lord, or by walking up and down, either indoors or, as I love to do when possible, in the open air. A garden may prove a very truly hallowed oratory. Such details of personal usage, learnt by long necessity, may quite fail to meet my reader’s case. But I give them for what they are worth; they may serve a few.

At all costs, however, let us avoid an easy-going, indolent attitude in Secret Prayer. It is a good thing to

Psal. meditate on our bed in the night-

watches, when the over-tired eyes are

kept waking, or when our portion is

pain or weakness; for then our lying

down is in the way of the will of God.

It is a very different thing to get over

a slovenly and half-dreaming prayer

in bed when it is His plain will that we should be up.

There is a powerful interaction in these matters between the body and the spirit. There is a moral impossibility, surely, in the attempt to hold adoring and loving communication with the King Eternal while we act the sluggard or the lounger with our limbs.

Before leaving the subject of Method, I may touch on a quite different point of it, I spoke in the previous chapter of the loss our Secret Prayers suffer when we come to them without an underlying and continual habit of remembrance of the Lord, and heartcommunion with Him, at common times. We ought not to need, when the prayer time comes, to do all the work of preparation then. But on the other hand, when the time does come, we shall always gain by a first earnest and concentrating act of recollection, by a “sisting ourselves,” to use the old phrase, in the Lord’s presence; by a solemn re-stating to ourselves of WHO He is to whom we are about to speak, of what He is to us and we to Him. Of this latter point, this repeating as it were our creed of spiritual life in secret, I shall speak later at more length; but I allude to it now only as it may be done solemnly but briefly on the threshold of our time of prayer.

Not very many years ago it was a common thing, in pious households, as the hour of evening family prayer approached, for each person to retire apart for a short season of private recollection. Let our souls so retire, and so recollect, before we enter the immediate precincts of the secret Throne of Grace.

ii. I come now to say a few words on HeEtps. Pre-eminent, supreme, among the helps to Secret Prayer I place of course the secret study of the holy written Word of God. Christian, who would indeed speak to God, you must indeed listen to

Methods and Flelps. 4I

the words of God, to the voice of God. Oh read the Bible, learn the Bible, with a view not merely to sermon, or to class, or again with a view to the mere doing of a religious duty, but now especially with a view to Secret Prayer. Read it on your knees, at least on the knees of your spirit. Read it to reassure, to feed, to regulate, to kindle, to give to your Secret Prayer at once body and soul. Read it that you may hold faster your certainty of being heard. Read it that you may know with blessed definiteness WHoM you have believed, and what you have in Him, and how He is able to keep your deposit safe. Read it in the attitude of mind in which the Apostles read it, in which the Lord read it. Read it, not seldom, to turn it at once into prayer. Open the twenty-fifth Psalm: or the hundred and

2 Tim.
i. 12.

nineteenth, or the Saviour’s own High Priestly Prayer; and transmit petition after petition through your own soul to the Throne. Martyn says that he found in such a use of Psalm cxix. one of his surest ways of escape and bright renewal in seasons of spiritual drought within.

Yes, read the Holy Bible, “the Divine Scriptures,” as the early Christian writers loved to call them. Let nothing take their place. Let not good books, be they what they may, oust the Book. Let not books of devotion - usurp the place, in our secret hours, of the Oracles of God.

I scarcely need dwell on the rich treasury of helps for Secret Prayer which we possess in our English Prayer Book, where there lie in one wonderful collection, organized and full of life and truth, chosen specimens of the prayers and praises and confessions of more than a thousand years. “All that the Church of England needs,” said the late Dr Marsh, “to make her the glory of all churches, is the spirit of her own services.” I am not here thinking of a secret daily use of the full order of Morning and Evening Prayer. Iam well aware of the passage in the Preface to the Prayer Book on that subject, and bear it in reverent remembrance as a clergyman, and aim earnestly to follow it out inspirit. But the actual words of the passage in question make the clergyman his own “Ordinary,” in the letter of the matter, so far as I can see. What I mean here is that in isolated fragments of that dear Book we may continually find utterances of our immediate need, and longing, and ascription, and confession, perfect in form, and whose depth and fulness of application seems always to develope with use. I might instance a multitude of Collects for Sundays and Festivals. Let meadd to them, as what are very special treasures to my own soul, the Collects for Peace and Grace at Morning Prayer, ‘the Second Collect at Evening Prayer,” and that all-but inspired act of thanksgiving, surrender, and believing supplication, the first alternative Prayer (following the Lord’s Prayer) after the reception of the Elements in the Communion.

Another and most valuable occasional help in Secret Prayer — such at least I have for long years found it to be — is the use of Hymns. As the immortal sentences of our Liturgy, so the dear remembered hymn may often serve as a true and delightful expression of our own secret and special thoughts in confession, prayer, and praise; always reserving the essential liberty and individuality of secret worship. A large store of such hymns in the memory is thus in its way a true means of grace in our silent room, or on our quiet walk.

But let me close with the appeal which I addressed above to my reader; the earnest and affectionate appeal for a holy freedom in the utterance of Secret Prayer. In our private interviews with that glorious Master before whom we His purchased and surrendered bondservants “stand,” in our private renewals of our conscious contact with that glorious Head in whom and from whom is our life, and who liveth in us by His Spirit, let nothing, no nothing, come between Him and us, Him and me, in this work of the simplest, the most artless, the most individually personal, outspeaking of the soul to Him.

‘When my soul is faint and thirsty, ’neath

the shadow of His wing

There is cool and pleasant shelter, and a fresh and crystal spring;

And my Saviour rests beside me, as we hold communion sweet;

If I tried I could not utter what He says when thus we meet.”