Ejaculatory Prayer
Ejaculatory Prayer is a sudden, short breathing of the soul toward heaven upon instant and surprising emergency. In holy persons it is quick and lively, rising from a vehement ardor of spirit, swifter than the flight of eagles, and keeps pace with a flash of lightning. It flies upon the wings of a holy thought into the third heavens in the twinkling of an eye, and fetches auxiliary forces in time of need.
There are many precedents recorded in sacred page upon great and notable occasions with strange success. When good magistrates are busy in the work of reformation, let them imitate Nehemiah when redressing the profanation of the Sabbath: “Remember me, O my God, concerning this thing.” Neh. xiii. 14, 22. When captains and generals go forth to war, observe Israel’s appeal to God rnthcr thnn ncclamations to men: “The Lord thy God be with thee, as he was with Moses.” Josh. i. 17. In times of battle, or pursuit of the enemy, valiant Joshua darts up such a prayer as this: “O that the Lord would lengthen this triumphant day,” Josh. X. 12. And the Lord heard his voice. The tribes beyond Jordan in a battle with the Hagarites, 1 Chron. v. 10, 20. When Jehoshaphat was in a sore strait, 2 Chron. xviii. 31. Samson ready to perish at Lehi with thirst, and when blind exposed to contempt in the temple of Dagon, Judges xv. 18. xvi. 23. Elisha at Dothan encompassed with a Syrian host, “Lord, open this young man’s eyes.” 2 Kings vL 17. David near being stoned at Ziklag, 1 Sam. xxx. 6, and when flying from Absalom in the ascent of Mount Olivet. 2 Sam. xv. 31. In the midst of lawful and laborious callings, Boaz to the reapers, “The Lord be with you.” Ruth ii. 4. It sanctifies the plough, as Jerome said of the fields of Bethlehem. “The tillers of the fields and the dressers of the vineyards, sang David’s psalms.” It keeps the shop, and inclines the hearts of customers, it bars the doors, it quenches fires, it blesseth thy children within thee, it preserves thy going out and coining in. Jacob found it to rest upon his children going a journey to Egypt. Gen. xliii. 14. It closes the eye with sweet sleep, Psalm iii. 5, gives songs in the night, and wakens the soul in the arms of mercy. Job xxxT. 10. Psalm cxxxix. 18. It sits at the helm when the storm rises at sea, gives strength to anchors in roads, and prosperous gales to the venturous merchant. Psalm cvii. 23. Jonas i. 6. When in the palace at diimer, Nehemiah presents the cup to his prince, he presents also a Michtam, a golden prayer to the King of Heaven. Neh. ii. 4. At the reading of the law, Josiah was heard as to some secret cries to Heaven. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 27. At a holy conference in a journey, the disciples prayed, “Lord, increase our faith.” Luke xvii. 5. Jacob, on his dying pillow, predicting future events to his children, falls into a holy rapture: “I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.” Gen. xlix. IS. At sacred death in martyrdom Zechariah cries out, “the Lord look upoi it and require it.” 2 Chron. ii. 4. And Stephen under a shower of stones melts into prayer for the stony hearts that flung them. “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” Acts vii. 60. And our blessed Saviour in his greatest agonies makes a tender-hearted prayer: “Father, forgive them,” &c. Luke xxiii. 34. And lastly, in the distresses of others, Eli puts up a sudden prayer for Hannah: “The God of Israel grant thy petition.” 1 Sam. i. 17.
In these and many like cases, the Holy Word stores us with patterns for ejaculation in all extremities, which I cannot now digest and improve; only in a few words let us take a view of the usefulness of such a sudden flight of the soul to heaven.
1. It helps us to a speedy preparation for all duties; with such an ejaculation let us lift up our hands to God m the heavens. Lam. iii. 41.
2. It is a guard against secret sins in the first rising, and the first assaults of temptation.
3. It suffers not divine mercies to slip by unobserved in a wakeful Christian, and proves a fruitful mother of gratitude and praise.
4. It sanctifies all our worldly employments, it fastens the stakes in the hedge of divine protection, and turns every thing to a blcssmg. I Tim. iv. 4, 5.
5. It is a saint’s buckler as’ain’?! ■^nd’lcn accidenLs, a present antidote against frights and evil tidings. It is good at all occasions, and consecrates to us not only our meals, but every gasp of air, &c.
6. It is a sweet companion that the severest enemies cannot abridge us of. Outward ordinances and closet duties they may cut off; the little na:’ in the holy place they may pluck out. Ezra ix. 8. But no labyrinth, no prison, not the worst of company can hinder this; in the very face of adversaries we may lift our souls to God.
Lict us conclude with some uses:
Use 1. To convince such of their dangerous state that neglect secret duties, that have no heart communion, that draw no water out of the sealed fountain. But all they do is in public only. It is a suspicious token of hypocrisy this, since the kernel and soul of religion lies so much in the heart and closet. Mark the phrase in the text. God’s eye is open upon thee in the closet, and if thy eye be open upon his, thou mayst see a glorious beauty. The excellence of grace lies in making conscience of secret sins and secret duties.
Use 2. To examine such as perform secret duty, but not from a sincere principle, like Amaziah; that prays, but not with, a perfect heart. 2 Chron. xxv. 2. Like Ahab, they mourn with but crocodile tears; such as do it only because they find precept or example for it, and therefore to quiet conscience, they converse only in the shell and trunk of a duty, they rest in the naked wrformance; but matter not whether they te of the sweet streams that flow in from heaven in the golden pipe of an ordinance. What account can such render that go into their closet, but like Domitiau, to catch flies only, and when the doors are shut to the world, their hearts are shut to heaven and communion with God 7 He that sees in secret beholds the evil frame of such a heart, and will one day openly punish it.
Use 3. To excite and awaken all to this excellent duty, and to manage it in an excellent milnner. Would ye live delightfully, would you translate heaven to earth, then keep up communion in secret prayer, to know him, to discern his face, to behold the lustre of his eye that shines in secret. Remember the glorious person that meets in your closet; all the world yields no such glittering beauty as a gracious person sees when he is in a happy frame at secret prayer. Shut your eyes when you come out, for all other objects are but vile and sordid, and not worth the glances of a noble soul. O the sweetness of the hidden mauna that the soul tastes when in lively communion with God! It is a part of that which is laid up for saints in glory; let us a little relish our souls with it.
1. Consider what affectionate agonies the soul delights to conflict with in secret; fears that raise confidence, humility that exalts, tremblings that embolden, bright clouds that shine upon Israelites in the night, and darkness that enlightens, solitudes full of heavenly company, and tears brimful of joy, and holy sighs, like a cooling wind in harvest, sick fits that are symptoms of health, and holy faintings that are the soul’s cordials, a weariness to the flesh that is the healthful exercise of it, and vigor to the spirit, and a continual motion that never tires. As Austin said of divine love: “It is the weight of my soul, it carries me up and down in all that I speak and act.”
2. Its ecstacies and heavenly raptures, which allure and draw the heart from rnrthly vanities, and the soul shiuts its eyes to worldlydelights, and says of laughter, with Solomon, It is mad, and of mirth, what doest thou? Can’t warm its thoughts at the crackling of thorns under a pot, nor be joyful in the house of a fool. Ecc. ii. 2; vii. 64. ‘T is the soul’s pleasure to loath pleasure itself; none so beautiful to him as Christ, the chiefest of tea thousand; no sweetness Like that of the tree in the midst of the wood, the tree of life, in the midst of the paradise of God: he sits under it with great delight, while it drops sweeter than honey into his closet. Rev. ii. 7. 1 Sam. xiv. 26.
3. Its admirable prophecies: prayer stands upon Mount Zion with a divining, presaging spirit. It foretells great things, to the church’s joy and its enemies’ terror. Elijah at prayer in Horeb receives answer of the ruin of the house of Ahab, and bid to go and anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi king over Israel. 2 Kings ix. 2. The two witnesses under the Roman defection have power to smite the earth with plagues as often as they will, Rev. xi., consonant to what Tertullian said of old, “The prayers of Christians confounded the nations,” and so it will shortly prove, the doom of Babylon comes out of the temple. When the sanctuary is full of the smoke of the incense of prayer, the seven angels come out with the seven last vials full of the wrath of God to pour them out upon the anti-Christian world. Rev. xv. 7, 8; xvi. 1. Prayer calculates and hastens the ruin of Rome. When the spirit of prayer is once poured out, it brings deliverance to Mount Zion, and gathers the nations into the valley of Jehoshaphat unto judgment. Joel ii. 23, 32, and iii. 1, 2. Let us never be discouraged; if prayer fall to work and awaken Christ in the ship of the church, her storms will cease in a halcyon calm. Luke viii. 24.
4. Its comforting evidences: secret prayer duly managed is a notable evidence of adoption; pray to thy Father who is, and sees in secret, who knows the secrets of thy heart; thy groanings are not hid from him; none but a child of promise has this sweet freedom with God as a Father.
5. Its rewards and reverences: nothing revives and cheers the spirit so much as answers of love and mercy from heaven. As it fejists the conscience with the royal dainties of sincerity, so it sets a lustre upon every mercy as being the child of prayer; our closets exert an influence upon our shops, our ships, our fields, and all that we enjoy, so that they smell of the divine blessing. As David said of the precepts, the soul may say, “This I have because I urged the promises.” Psalm cxix. 56.
Use 4. To pity the miserable blind world that know not where true comfort, joy and strength are to be found, that see no beauty in the ways of God, and feel no sweetness in communion with him, that find no pleasure in closets, but all in play-houses, which Tertullian called the devil’s churches, that cry out with Esau that they have encrugh. Gen. xxxiii. 9. Alas! what enough can be in the creature unless of noise, rattle and vanity! O how ignorant of heavenly treasures, of that fountain of mercies whereof prayer drinks and refreshes the spirit of a saint; who know not that blessed enough whereof Jacob speaks, that ocean of all things to be found in God! Gen. xxxiii. 1 1. Now let Europe be in flames, and the very ark in danger, a prayerless man cares not, though the one be burnt and the other in
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ashes, so he be safe, and if his concerns catch fire he can only repair to Endor or Ekron. 1 Sam. xxviii. 7; 2 Kings i. 2. Such have no acquaintance, no hope from God, no interest in the keeper of souls. The world is a deplorable hospital, the great Lazar house of sick, lame and impotent persons, as Gerson terms it, who have no face nor heart to go to the physician of souls.
But ah! most lamentable is the state of some profligate wretches of our age, that are, I fear, almost incurably gone with spiritual ulcers in their lungs, and putrid cancers in their tongues, that breathe nothing but venom, and openly spit out their rotten atheistical jeers against the spirit of prayer, and make a mock at communion with God, that scoff at what God has promised us as one of the choicest tokens of his love to the church, and sjinptoms of the glory of the latter times, Zech. xii. 10. Joel ii. 23, 32. Rom. X. 13, when God will turn such Ishmaelsinto the desert, and their drunken songs shall expire in dreadful bowlings. Profaner than many heathen, that in the primitive times had some reverence for Christian worship, though they persecuted. Amos viii. 10.
Job XXX. 31. But those of this adulterous Roman age, like brute beasts, speak evil of what they are ignorant, and are in danger to perish in their corruption. 2 Peter ii. 12. Pity such if there be yet hope, and commend their condition to God’s mercy, and to penitent sorrow, that they may weep here where tears smart, not in hell where they scald and burn and swell that river of brimstone.
In the mean time, O ye that fear the Lord, be diligent to observe and interpret messages after secret prayer, for the life and joy of a Christian is improved, by it. God has declared himself graciously pleased with secret pra-er, so as to send an angel, that glorious creature, to fly into Daniel’s chamber, and he weary with flying, he moved so swiftly, as the original text expresses it. Dan. ix. 21. What a high expression is this, that even angels are represented weary with hasty flights to bring saints their answers! and of what great account does the Lord esteem his praying people, that angels are expressed to be tired in bringing tidings of mercy!
6, Meditate on the glory of heaven, where all our prayers shall be turned into praises, when every sigh below shall be an accent
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to the heavenlj’ music above, and the tears of the valley shall be turned into orient gems in the diadem of glory. Here we live 111 wants and desires, but there shall be palms in the hand, white robes and everlasting joy are upon the heads and hearts of saints.