{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_63486/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_63486","id":"gutenberg_63486","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63486","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Clergy -- Religious life","Prayer"],"text":"Note: Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive. See\n      https://archive.org/details/preacherpray00boun\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s note:\n\n      Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.\n\n\n\n\n\n  PREACHER AND   PRAYER\n\n  E. M. BOUNDS\n\n  Washington, Ga.\n\n\n  _Three things make a divine--prayer, meditation,\n  temptation._--_Luther._\n\n  _If you do not pray, God will probably lay you aside from your\n  ministry as he did me, to teach you to pray. Remember Luther\u2019s maxim,\n  \u201cTo have prayed well is to have studied well.\u201d Get your text from\n  God, your thoughts, your words._--_McCheyne._\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Christian Witness Co.\nChicago\n\nCopyright 1907\nby\nE. M. Bounds.\n\nCopyright now owned by\nThe Christian Witness Co.\n\n\n\n  _Recreation to a minister must be as whetting is with the mower--that\n  is, to be used only so far as is necessary for his work. May a\n  physician in plague-time take any more relaxation or recreation than\n  is necessary for his life, when so many are expecting his help in a\n  case of life and death? Will you stand by and see sinners gasping\n  under the pangs of death, and say: \u201cGod doth not require me to make\n  myself a drudge to save them?\u201d Is this the voice of ministerial or\n  Christian compassion or rather of sensual laziness and diabolical\n  cruelty?_--RICHARD BAXTER.\n\n  _Misemployment of time is injurious to the mind. In illness I have\n  looked back with self-reproach on days spent in my study: I was\n  wading through history and poetry and monthly journals, but I was\n  in my study! Another man\u2019s trifling is notorious to all observers,\n  but what am I doing? Nothing, perhaps, that has a reference to the\n  spiritual good of my congregation. Be much in retirement and prayer.\n  Study the honor and glory of your Master._--RICHARD CECIL.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n  _Study universal holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on\n  this, for your sermons last but an hour or two; your life preaches\n  all the week. If Satan can only make a covetous minister a lover of\n  praise, of pleasure, of good eating, he has ruined your ministry.\n  Give yourself to prayer, and get your texts, your thoughts, your\n  words from God. Luther spent his best three hours in prayer._--ROBERT\n  MURRAY MCCHEYNE.\n\n\nWe are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new\nmethods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure\nenlargement and efficiency for the gospel. This trend of the day has\na tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or\norganization. God\u2019s plan is to make much of the man, far more of him\nthan of anything else. Men are God\u2019s method. The Church is looking for\nbetter methods; God is looking for better men. \u201cThere was a man sent\nfrom God whose name was John.\u201d The dispensation that heralded and\nprepared the way for Christ was bound up in that man John. \u201cUnto us a\nchild is born, unto us a son is given.\u201d The world\u2019s salvation comes\nout of that cradled Son. When Paul appeals to the personal character\nof the men who rooted the gospel in the world, he solves the mystery\nof their success. The glory and efficiency of the gospel is staked on\nthe men who proclaim it. When God declares that \u201cthe eyes of the Lord\nrun to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in\nthe behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him,\u201d he declares the\nnecessity of men and his dependence on them as a channel through which\nto exert his power upon the world. This vital, urgent truth is one that\nthis age of machinery is apt to forget. The forgetting of it is as\nbaneful on the work of God as would be the striking of the sun from his\nsphere. Darkness, confusion, and death would ensue.\n\nWhat the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new\norganizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost\ncan use--men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not\nflow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery,\nbut on men. He does not anoint plans, but men--men of prayer.\n\nAn eminent historian has said that the accidents of personal character\nhave more to do with the revolutions of nations than either philosophic\nhistorians or democratic politicians will allow. This truth has its\napplication in full to the gospel of Christ, the character and conduct\nof the followers of Christ--Christianize the world, transfigure nations\nand individuals. Of the preachers of the gospel it is eminently true.\n\nThe character as well as the fortunes of the gospel is committed to the\npreacher. He makes or mars the message from God to man. The preacher is\nthe golden pipe through which the divine oil flows. The pipe must not\nonly be golden, but open and flawless, that the oil may have a full,\nunhindered, unwasted flow.\n\nThe man makes the preacher. God must make the man. The messenger is,\nif possible, more than the message. The preacher is more than the\nsermon. The preacher makes the sermon. As the life-giving milk from\nthe mother\u2019s bosom is but the mother\u2019s life, so all the preacher says\nis tinctured, impregnated by what the preacher is. The treasure is\nin earthen vessels, and the taste of the vessel impregnates and may\ndiscolor. The man, the whole man, lies behind the sermon. Preaching is\nnot the performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life. It takes\ntwenty years to make a sermon, because it takes twenty years to make\nthe man. The true sermon is a thing of life. The sermon grows because\nthe man grows. The sermon is forceful because the man is forceful.\nThe sermon is holy because the man is holy. The sermon is full of the\ndivine unction because the man is full of the divine unction.\n\nPaul termed it \u201cMy gospel;\u201d not that he had degraded it by his\npersonal eccentricities or diverted it by selfish appropriation,\nbut the gospel was put into the heart and lifeblood of the man\nPaul, as a personal trust to be executed by his Pauline traits, to\nbe set aflame and empowered by the fiery energy of his fiery soul.\nPaul\u2019s sermons--what were they? Where are they? Skeletons, scattered\nfragments, afloat on the sea of inspiration! But the man Paul, greater\nthan his sermons, lives forever, in full form, feature, and stature,\nwith his molding hand on the Church. The preaching is but a voice. The\nvoice in silence dies, the text is forgotten, the sermon fades from\nmemory; the preacher lives.\n\nThe sermon cannot rise in its life-giving forces above the man. Dead\nmen give out dead sermons, and dead sermons kill. Everything depends on\nthe spiritual character of the preacher. Under the Jewish dispensation\nthe high priest had inscribed in jeweled letters on a golden frontlet:\n\u201cHoliness to the Lord.\u201d So every preacher in Christ\u2019s ministry must\nbe molded into and mastered by this same holy motto. It is a crying\nshame for the Christian ministry to fall lower in holiness of character\nand holiness of aim than the Jewish priesthood. Jonathan Edwards said:\n\u201cI went on with my eager pursuit after more holiness and conformity\nto Christ. The heaven I desired was a heaven of holiness.\u201d The gospel\nof Christ does not move by popular waves. It has no self-propagating\npower. It moves as the men who have charge of it move. The preacher\nmust impersonate the gospel. Its divine, most distinctive features\nmust be embodied in him. The constraining power of love must be in the\npreacher as a projecting, eccentric, an all-commanding, self-oblivious\nforce. The energy of self-denial must be his being, his heart and blood\nand bones. He must go forth as a man among men, clothed with humility,\nabiding in meekness, wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove; the\nbonds of a servant with the spirit of a king, a king in high, royal,\nindependent bearing, with the simplicity and sweetness of a child.\nThe preacher must throw himself, with all the abandon of a perfect,\nself-emptying faith and a self-consuming zeal, into his work for the\nsalvation of men. Hearty, heroic, compassionate, fearless martyrs must\nthe men be who take hold of and shape a generation for God. If they\nbe timid timeservers, place seekers, if they be men pleasers or men\nfearers, if their faith has a weak hold on God or his Word, if their\ndenial be broken by any phase of self or the world, they cannot take\nhold of the Church nor the world for God.\n\nThe preacher\u2019s sharpest and strongest preaching should be to himself.\nHis most difficult, delicate, laborious, and thorough work must be\nwith himself. The training of the twelve was the great, difficult,\nand enduring work of Christ. Preachers are not sermon makers, but men\nmakers and saint makers, and he only is well-trained for this business\nwho has made himself a man and a saint. It is not great talents nor\ngreat learning nor great preachers that God needs, but men great in\nholiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for\nGod--men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives\nout of it. These can mold a generation for God.\n\nAfter this order, the early Christians were formed. Men they were\nof solid mold, preachers after the heavenly type--heroic, stalwart,\nsoldierly, saintly. Preaching with them meant self-denying,\nself-crucifying, serious, toilsome, martyr business. They applied\nthemselves to it in a way that told on their generation, and formed in\nits womb a generation yet unborn for God. The preaching man is to be\nthe praying man. Prayer is the preacher\u2019s mightiest weapon. An almighty\nforce in itself, it gives life and force to all.\n\nThe real sermon is made in the closet. The man--God\u2019s man--is made\nin the closet. His life and his profoundest convictions were born in\nhis secret communion with God. The burdened and tearful agony of his\nspirit, his weightiest and sweetest messages were got when alone with\nGod. Prayer makes the man; prayer makes the preacher; prayer makes the\npastor.\n\nThe pulpit of this day is weak in praying. The pride of learning is\nagainst the dependent humility of prayer. Prayer is with the pulpit too\noften only official--a performance for the routine of service. Prayer\nis not to the modern pulpit the mighty force it was in Paul\u2019s life\nor Paul\u2019s ministry. Every preacher who does not make prayer a mighty\nfactor in his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God\u2019s work\nand is powerless to project God\u2019s cause in this world.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n  _But above all he excelled in prayer. The inwardness and weight\n  of his spirit, the reverence and solemnity of his address and\n  behavior, and the fewness and fullness of his words have often struck\n  even strangers with admiration as they used to reach others with\n  consolation. The most awful, living, reverend frame I ever felt or\n  beheld, I must say, was his prayer. And truly it was a testimony.\n  He knew and lived nearer to the Lord than other men, for they that\n  know him most will see most reason to approach him with reverence and\n  fear._--WILLIAM PENN OF GEORGE FOX.\n\n\nThe sweetest graces by a slight perversion may bear the bitterest\nfruit. The sun gives life, but sunstrokes are death. Preaching is to\ngive life; it may kill. The preacher holds the keys; he may lock as\nwell as unlock. Preaching is God\u2019s great institution for the planting\nand maturing of spiritual life. When properly executed, its benefits\nare untold; when wrongly executed, no evil can exceed its damaging\nresults. It is an easy matter to destroy the flock if the shepherd be\nunwary or the pasture be destroyed, easy to capture the citadel if the\nwatchmen be asleep or the food and water be poisoned. Invested with\nsuch gracious prerogatives, exposed to so great evils, involving so\nmany grave responsibilities, it would be a parody on the shrewdness\nof the devil and a libel on his character and reputation if he did\nnot bring his master influences to adulterate the preacher and the\npreaching. In face of all this, the exclamatory interrogatory of Paul,\n\u201cWho is sufficient for these things?\u201d is never out of order.\n\nPaul says: \u201cOur sufficiency is of God, who also hath made us able\nministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit:\nfor the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.\u201d The true ministry\nis God-touched, God-enabled, and God-made. The Spirit of God is on the\npreacher in anointing power, the fruit of the Spirit is in his heart,\nthe Spirit of God has vitalized the man and the word; his preaching\ngives life, gives life as the spring gives life; gives life as the\nresurrection gives life; gives ardent life as the summer gives ardent\nlife; gives fruitful life as the autumn gives fruitful life. The\nlife-giving preacher is a man of God, whose heart is ever athirst for\nGod, whose soul is ever following hard after God, whose eye is single\nto God, and in whom by the power of God\u2019s Spirit the flesh and the\nworld have been crucified and his ministry is like the generous flood\nof a life-giving river.\n\nThe preaching that kills is nonspiritual preaching. The ability of the\npreaching is not from God. Lower sources than God have given to it\nenergy and stimulant. The Spirit is not evident in the preacher nor\nhis preaching. Many kinds of forces may be projected and stimulated\nby preaching that kills, but they are not spiritual forces. They may\nresemble spiritual forces, but are only the shadow, the counterfeit;\nlife they may seem to have, but the life is magnetized. The preaching\nthat kills is the letter; shapely and orderly it may be, but it is\nthe letter still, the dry, husky letter, the empty, bald shell.\nThe letter may have the germ of life in it, but it has no breath of\nspring to evoke it; winter seeds they are, as hard as the winter\u2019s\nsoil, as icy as the winter\u2019s air, no thawing nor germinating by them.\nThis letter-preaching has the truth. But even divine truth has no\nlife-giving energy alone; it must be energized by the Spirit, with all\nGod\u2019s forces at its back. Truth unquickened by God\u2019s Spirit deadens as\nmuch as, or more than, error. It may be the truth without admixture;\nbut without the Spirit its shade and touch are deadly, its truth error,\nits light darkness. The letter-preaching is unctionless, neither\nmellowed nor oiled by the Spirit. There may be tears, but tears cannot\nrun God\u2019s machinery; tears may be but summer\u2019s breath on a snow-covered\niceberg, nothing but surface slush. Feelings and earnestness there\nmay be, but it is the emotion of the actor and the earnestness of the\nattorney. The preacher may feel from the kindling of his own sparks,\nbe eloquent over his own exegesis, earnest in delivering the product\nof his own brain; the professor may usurp the place and imitate the\nfire of the apostle; brains and nerves may serve the place and feign\nthe work of God\u2019s Spirit, and by these forces the letter may glow and\nsparkle like an illumined text, but the glow and sparkle will be as\nbarren of life as the field sown with pearls. The death-dealing element\nlies back of the words, back of the sermon, back of the occasion,\nback of the manner, back of the action. The great hindrance is in\nthe preacher himself. He has not in himself the mighty life-creating\nforces. There may be no discount on his orthodoxy, honesty, cleanness,\nor earnestness; but somehow the man, the inner man, in its secret\nplaces has never broken down and surrendered to God, his inner life\nis not a great highway for the transmission of God\u2019s message, God\u2019s\npower. Somehow self and not God rules in the holy of holies. Somewhere,\nall unconscious to himself, some spiritual nonconductor has touched\nhis inner being, and the divine current has been arrested. His inner\nbeing has never felt its thorough spiritual bankruptcy, its utter\npowerlessness; he has never learned to cry out with an ineffable cry\nof self-despair and self-helplessness till God\u2019s power and God\u2019s fire\ncomes in and fills, purifies, empowers. Self-esteem, self-ability in\nsome pernicious shape has defamed and violated the temple which should\nbe held sacred for God. Life-giving preaching costs the preacher\nmuch--death to self, crucifixion to the world, the travail of his own\nsoul. Crucified preaching only can give life. Crucified preaching can\ncome only from a crucified man.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n  _During this affliction I was brought to examine my life in relation\n  to eternity closer than I had done when in the enjoyment of health.\n  In this examination relative to the discharge of my duties toward my\n  fellow-creatures as a man, a Christian minister, and an officer of\n  the Church, I stood approved by my own conscience; but in relation\n  to my Redeemer and Saviour the result was different. My returns of\n  gratitude and loving obedience bear no proportion to my obligations\n  for redeeming, preserving, and supporting me through the vicissitudes\n  of life from infancy to old age. The coldness of my love to Him who\n  first loved me and has done so much for me overwhelmed and confused\n  me; and to complete my unworthy character, I had not only neglected\n  to improve the grace given to the extent of my duty and privilege,\n  but for want of that improvement had, while abounding in perplexing\n  care and labor, declined from first zeal and love. I was confounded,\n  humbled myself, implored mercy, and renewed my covenant to strive and\n  devote myself unreservedly to the Lord._--BISHOP MCKENDREE.\n\n\nThe preaching that kills may be, and often is, orthodox--dogmatically,\ninviolably orthodox. We love orthodoxy. It is good. It is the best.\nIt is the clean, clear-cut teaching of God\u2019s Word, the trophies won\nby truth in its conflict with error, the levees which faith has\nraised against the desolating floods of honest or reckless misbelief\nor unbelief; but orthodoxy, clear and hard as crystal, suspicious\nand militant, may be but the letter well-shaped, well-named, and\nwell-learned, the letter which kills. Nothing is so dead as a dead\northodoxy, too dead to speculate, too dead to think, to study, or to\npray.\n\nThe preaching that kills may have insight and grasp of principles,\nmay be scholarly and critical in taste, may have every minuti\u00e6 of the\nderivation and grammar of the letter, may be able to trim the letter\ninto its perfect pattern, and illume it as Plato and Cicero may be\nillumined, may study it as a lawyer studies his text-books to form his\nbrief or to defend his case, and yet be like a frost, a killing frost.\nLetter-preaching may be eloquent, enameled with poetry and rhetoric,\nsprinkled with prayer, spiced with sensation, illumined by genius, and\nyet these be but the massive or chaste, costly mountings, the rare and\nbeautiful flowers which coffin the corpse. The preaching which kills\nmay be without scholarship, unmarked by any freshness of thought or\nfeeling, clothed in tasteless generalities or vapid specialties, with\nstyle irregular, slovenly, savoring neither of closet nor of study,\ngraced neither by thought, expression, or prayer. Under such preaching\nhow wide and utter the desolation! how profound the spiritual death!\n\nThis letter-preaching deals with the surface and shadow of things, and\nnot the things themselves. It does not penetrate the inner part. It\nhas no deep insight into, no strong grasp of, the hidden life of God\u2019s\nWord. It is true to the outside, but the outside is the hull which must\nbe broken and penetrated for the kernel. The letter may be dressed so\nas to attract and be fashionable, but the attraction is not toward God\nnor is the fashion for heaven. The failure is in the preacher. God\nhas not made him. He has never been in the hands of God like clay\nin the hands of the potter. He has been busy about the sermon, its\nthought and finish, its drawing and impressive forces; but the deep\nthings of God have never been sought, studied, fathomed, experienced\nby him. He has never stood before \u201cthe throne high and lifted up,\u201d\nnever heard the seraphim song, never seen the vision nor felt the rush\nof that awful holiness, and cried out in utter abandon and despair\nunder the sense of weakness and guilt, and had his life renewed, his\nheart touched, purged, inflamed by the live coal from God\u2019s altar.\nHis ministry may draw people to him, to the Church, to the form and\nceremony; but no true drawings to God, no sweet, holy, divine communion\ninduced. The Church has been frescoed but not edified, pleased but not\nsanctified. Life is suppressed; a chill is on the summer air; the soil\nis baked. The city of our God becomes the city of the dead; the Church\na graveyard, not an embattled army. Praise and prayer are stifled;\nworship is dead. The preacher and the preaching have helped sin, not\nholiness; peopled hell, not heaven.\n\nPreaching which kills is prayerless preaching. Without prayer the\npreacher creates death, and not life. The preacher who is feeble in\nprayer is feeble in life-giving forces. The preacher who has retired\nprayer as a conspicuous and largely prevailing element in his own\ncharacter has shorn his preaching of its distinctive life-giving power.\nProfessional praying there is and will be, but professional praying\nhelps the preaching to its deadly work. Professional praying chills\nand kills both preaching and praying. Much of the lax devotion and\nlazy, irreverent attitudes in congregational praying are attributable\nto professional praying in the pulpit. Long, discursive, dry, and\ninane are the prayers in many pulpits. Without unction or heart, they\nfall like a killing frost on all the graces of worship. Death-dealing\nprayers they are. Every vestige of devotion has perished under their\nbreath. The deader they are the longer they grow. A plea for short\npraying, live praying, real heart praying, praying by the Holy\nSpirit--direct, specific, ardent, simple, unctuous in the pulpit--is\nin order. A school to teach preachers how to pray, as God counts\npraying, would be more beneficial to true piety, true worship, and true\npreaching than all theological schools.\n\nStop! Pause! Consider! Where are we? What are we doing? Preaching to\nkill? Praying to kill? Praying to God! the great God, the Maker of all\nworlds, the Judge of all men! What reverence! what simplicity! what\nsincerity! what truth in the inward parts is demanded! How real we must\nbe! How hearty! Prayer to God the noblest exercise, the loftiest effort\nof man, the most real thing! Shall we not discard forever accursed\npreaching that kills and prayer that kills, and do the real thing, the\nmightiest thing--prayerful praying, life-creating preaching, bring\nthe mightiest force to bear on heaven and earth and draw on God\u2019s\nexhaustless and open treasure for the need and beggary of man?\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n  _Let us often look at Brainerd in the woods of America pouring out\n  his very soul before God for the perishing heathen without whose\n  salvation nothing could make him happy. Prayer--secret, fervent,\n  believing prayer--lies at the root of all personal godliness. A\n  competent knowledge of the language where a missionary lives,\n  a mild and winning temper, a heart given up to God in closet\n  religion--these, these are the attainments which, more than all\n  knowledge, or all other gifts, will fit us to become the instruments\n  of God in the great work of human redemption._--CAREY\u2019S BROTHERHOOD,\n  SERAMPORE.\n\n\nThere are two extreme tendencies in the ministry. The one is to shut\nitself out from intercourse with the people. The monk, the hermit\nwere illustrations of this; they shut themselves out from men to be\nmore with God. They failed, of course. Our being with God is of use\nonly as we expend its priceless benefits on men. This age, neither\nwith preacher nor with people, is much intent on God. Our hankering\nis not that way. We shut ourselves to our study, we become students,\nbookworms, Bible worms, sermon makers, noted for literature, thought,\nand sermons; but the people and God, where are they? Out of heart, out\nof mind. Preachers who are great thinkers, great students must be the\ngreatest of prayers, or else they will be the greatest of backsliders,\nheartless professionals, rationalistic, less than the least of\npreachers in God\u2019s estimate.\n\nThe other tendency is to thoroughly popularize the ministry. He is no\nlonger God\u2019s man, but a man of affairs, of the people. He prays not,\nbecause his mission is to the people. If he can move the people, create\nan interest, a sensation in favor of religion, an interest in Church\nwork--he is satisfied. His personal relation to God is no factor in\nhis work. Prayer has little or no place in his plans. The disaster and\nruin of such a ministry cannot be computed by earthly arithmetic. What\nthe preacher is in prayer to God, for himself, for his people, so is\nhis power for real good to men, so is his true fruitfulness, his true\nfidelity to God, to man, for time, for eternity.\n\nIt is impossible for the preacher to keep his spirit in harmony with\nthe divine nature of his high calling without much prayer. That the\npreacher by dint of duty and laborious fidelity to the work and routine\nof the ministry can keep himself in trim and fitness is a serious\nmistake. Even sermon-making, incessant and taxing as an art, as a duty,\nas a work, or as a pleasure, will engross and harden, will estrange\nthe heart, by neglect of prayer, from God. The scientist loses God in\nnature. The preacher may lose God in his sermon.\n\nPrayer freshens the heart of the preacher, keeps it in tune with God\nand in sympathy with the people, lifts his ministry out of the chilly\nair of a profession, fructifies routine and moves every wheel with the\nfacility and power of a divine unction.\n\nMr. Spurgeon says: \u201cOf course the preacher is above all others\ndistinguished as a man of prayer. He prays as an ordinary Christian,\nelse he were a hypocrite. He prays more than ordinary Christians,\nelse he were disqualified for the office he has undertaken. If you as\nministers are not very prayerful, you are to be pitied. If you become\nlax in sacred devotion, not only will you need to be pitied but your\npeople also, and the day cometh in which you shall be ashamed and\nconfounded. All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared\nwith our closets. Our seasons of fasting and prayer at the Tabernacle\nhave been high days indeed; never has heaven\u2019s gate stood wider; never\nhave our hearts been nearer the central Glory.\u201d\n\nThe praying which makes a prayerful ministry is not a little praying\nput in as we put flavor to give it a pleasant smack, but the praying\nmust be in the body, and form the blood and bones. Prayer is no petty\nduty, put into a corner; no piecemeal performance made out of the\nfragments of time which have been snatched from business and other\nengagements of life; but it means that the best of our time, the heart\nof our time and strength must be given. It does not mean the closet\nabsorbed in the study or swallowed up in the activities of ministerial\nduties; but it means the closet first, the study and activities second,\nboth study and activities freshened and made efficient by the closet.\nPrayer that affects one\u2019s ministry must give tone to one\u2019s life. The\npraying which gives color and bent to character is no pleasant, hurried\npastime. It must enter as strongly into the heart and life as Christ\u2019s\n\u201cstrong crying and tears\u201d did; must draw out the soul into an agony\nof desire as Paul\u2019s did; must be an inwrought fire and force like the\n\u201ceffectual, fervent prayer\u201d of James; must be of that quality which,\nwhen put into the golden censer and incensed before God, works mighty\nspiritual throes and revolutions.\n\nPrayer is not a little habit pinned on to us while we were tied to\nour mother\u2019s apron strings; neither is it a little decent quarter of\na minute\u2019s grace said over an hour\u2019s dinner, but it is a most serious\nwork of our most serious years. It engages more of time and appetite\nthan our longest dinings or richest feasts. The prayer that makes much\nof our preaching must be made much of. The character of our praying\nwill determine the character of our preaching. Light praying will make\nlight preaching. Prayer makes preaching strong, gives it unction, and\nmakes it stick. In every ministry weighty for good, prayer has always\nbeen a serious business.\n\nThe preacher must be pre\u00ebminently a man of prayer. His heart must\ngraduate in the school of prayer. In the school of prayer only can the\nheart learn to preach. No learning can make up for the failure to pray.\nNo earnestness, no diligence, no study, no gifts will supply its lack.\n\nTalking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is\ngreater still. He will never talk well and with real success to men\nfor God who has not learned well how to talk to God for men. More than\nthis, prayerless words in the pulpit and out of it are deadening words.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\n  _You know the value of prayer: it is precious beyond all price.\n  Never, never neglect it._--SIR THOMAS BUXTON.\n\n  _Prayer is the first thing, the second thing, the third thing\n  necessary to a minister. Pray, then, my dear brother; pray, pray,\n  pray._--EDWARD PAYSON.\n\n\nPrayer, in the preacher\u2019s life, in the preacher\u2019s study, in the\npreacher\u2019s pulpit, must be a conspicuous and an all-impregnating force\nand an all-coloring ingredient. It must play no secondary part, be no\nmere coating. To him it is given to be with his Lord \u201call night in\nprayer.\u201d The preacher, to train himself in self-denying prayer, is\ncharged to look to his Master, who, \u201crising up a great while before\nday, went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.\u201d\nThe preacher\u2019s study ought to be a closet, a Bethel, an altar, a\nvision, and a ladder, that every thought might ascend heavenward ere it\nwent manward; that every part of the sermon might be scented by the air\nof heaven and made serious, because God was in the study.\n\nAs the engine never moves until the fire is kindled, so preaching, with\nall its machinery, perfection, and polish, is at a dead standstill, as\nfar as spiritual results are concerned, till prayer has kindled and\ncreated the steam. The texture, fineness, and strength of the sermon\nis as so much rubbish unless the mighty impulse of prayer is in it,\nthrough it, and behind it. The preacher must, by prayer, put God in the\nsermon. The preacher must, by prayer, move God toward the people before\nhe can move the people to God by his words. The preacher must have\nhad audience and ready access to God before he can have access to the\npeople. An open way to God for the preacher is the surest pledge of an\nopen way to the people.\n\nIt is necessary to iterate and reiterate that prayer, as a mere habit,\nas a performance gone through by routine or in a professional way, is a\ndead and rotten thing. Such praying has no connection with the praying\nfor which we plead. We are stressing true praying, which engages\nand sets on fire every high element of the preacher\u2019s being--prayer\nwhich is born of vital oneness with Christ and the fullness of the\nHoly Ghost, which springs from the deep, overflowing fountains of\ntender compassion, deathless solicitude for man\u2019s eternal good; a\nconsuming zeal for the glory of God; a thorough conviction of the\npreacher\u2019s difficult and delicate work and of the imperative need of\nGod\u2019s mightiest help. Praying grounded on these solemn and profound\nconvictions is the only true praying. Preaching backed by such praying\nis the only preaching which sows the seeds of eternal life in human\nhearts and builds men up for heaven.\n\nIt is true that there may be popular preaching, pleasant preaching,\ntaking preaching, preaching of much intellectual, literary, and brainy\nforce, with its measure and form of good, with little or no praying;\nbut the preaching which secures God\u2019s end in preaching must be born of\nprayer from text to exordium, delivered with the energy and spirit\nof prayer, followed and made to germinate, and kept in vital force in\nthe hearts of the hearers by the preacher\u2019s prayers, long after the\noccasion has past.\n\nWe may excuse the spiritual poverty of our preaching in many ways,\nbut the true secret will be found in the lack of urgent prayer for\nGod\u2019s presence in the power of the Holy Spirit. There are preachers\ninnumerable who can deliver masterful sermons after their order; but\nthe effects are short-lived and do not enter as a factor at all into\nthe regions of the spirit where the fearful war between God and Satan,\nheaven and hell, is being waged because they are not made powerfully\nmilitant and spiritually victorious by prayer.\n\nThe preachers who gain mighty results for God are the men who have\nprevailed in their pleadings with God ere venturing to plead with men.\nThe preachers who are the mightiest in their closets with God are the\nmightiest in their pulpits with men.\n\nPreachers are human folks, and are exposed to and often caught by the\nstrong driftings of human currents. Praying is spiritual work; and\nhuman nature does not like taxing, spiritual work. Human nature wants\nto sail to heaven under a favoring breeze, a full, smooth sea. Prayer\nis humbling work. It abases intellect and pride, crucifies vainglory,\nand signs our spiritual bankruptcy, and all these are hard for flesh\nand blood to bear. It is easier not to pray than to bear them. So\nwe come to one of the crying evils of these times, maybe of all\ntimes--little or no praying. Of these two evils, perhaps little praying\nis worse than no praying. Little praying is a kind of make-believe, a\nsalvo for the conscience, a farce and a delusion.\n\nThe little estimate we put on prayer is evident from the little time\nwe give to it. The time given to prayer by the average preacher\nscarcely counts in the sum of the daily aggregate. Not infrequently\nthe preacher\u2019s only praying is by his bedside in his nightdress, ready\nfor bed and soon in it, with, perchance, the addition of a few hasty\nsnatches of prayer ere he is dressed in the morning. How feeble, vain,\nand little is such praying compared with the time and energy devoted\nto praying by holy men in and out of the Bible! How poor and mean our\npetty, childish praying is beside the habits of the true men of God in\nall ages! To men who think praying their main business and devote time\nto it according to this high estimate of its importance does God commit\nthe keys of his kingdom, and by them does he work his spiritual wonders\nin this world. Great praying is the sign and seal of God\u2019s great\nleaders and the earnest of the conquering forces with which God will\ncrown their labors.\n\nThe preacher is commissioned to pray as well as to preach. His mission\nis incomplete if he does not do both well. The preacher may speak\nwith all the eloquence of men and of angels; but unless he can pray\nwith a faith which draws all heaven to his aid, his preaching will be\n\u201cas sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal\u201d for permanent God-honoring,\nsoul-saving uses.\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\n  _The principal cause of my leanness and unfruitfulness is owing to an\n  unaccountable backwardness to pray. I can write or read or converse\n  or hear with a ready heart; but prayer is more spiritual and inward\n  than any of these, and the more spiritual any duty is the more my\n  carnal heart is apt to start from it. Prayer and patience and faith\n  are never disappointed. I have long since learned that if ever I\n  was to be a minister faith and prayer must make me one. When I can\n  find my heart in frame and liberty for prayer, everything else is\n  comparatively easy._--RICHARD NEWTON.\n\n\nIt may be put down as a spiritual axiom that in every truly successful\nministry prayer is an evident and controlling force--evident and\ncontrolling in the life of the preacher, evident and controlling in\nthe deep spirituality of his work. A ministry may be a very thoughtful\nministry without prayer; the preacher may secure fame and popularity\nwithout prayer; the whole machinery of the preacher\u2019s life and work may\nbe run without the oil of prayer or with scarcely enough to grease one\ncog; but no ministry can be a spiritual one, securing holiness in the\npreacher and in his people, without prayer being made an evident and\ncontrolling force.\n\nThe preacher that prays indeed puts God into the work. God does not\ncome into the preacher\u2019s work as a matter of course or on general\nprinciples, but he comes by prayer and special urgency. That God\nwill be found of us in the day that we seek him with the whole heart\nis as true of the preacher as of the penitent. A prayerful ministry\nis the only ministry that brings the preacher into sympathy with\nthe people. Prayer as essentially unites to the human as it does to\nthe divine. A prayerful ministry is the only ministry qualified for\nthe high offices and responsibilities of the preacher. Colleges,\nlearning, books, theology, preaching cannot make a preacher, but\npraying does. The apostles\u2019 commission to preach was a blank till\nfilled up by the Pentecost which praying brought. A prayerful minister\nhas passed beyond the regions of the popular, beyond the man of mere\naffairs, of secularities, of pulpit attractiveness; passed beyond\nthe ecclesiastical organizer or general into a sublimer and mightier\nregion, the region of the spiritual. Holiness is the product of his\nwork; transfigured hearts and lives emblazon the reality of his work,\nits trueness and substantial nature. God is with him. His ministry\nis not projected on worldly or surface principles. He is deeply\nstored with and deeply schooled in the things of God. His long, deep\ncommunings with God about his people and the agony of his wrestling\nspirit have crowned him as a prince in the things of God. The iciness\nof the mere professional has long since melted under the intensity of\nhis praying.\n\nThe superficial results of many a ministry, the deadness of others, are\nto be found in the lack of praying. No ministry can succeed without\nmuch praying, and this praying must be fundamental, ever-abiding,\never-increasing. The text, the sermon, should be the result of prayer.\nThe study should be bathed in prayer, all its duties impregnated with\nprayer, its whole spirit the spirit of prayer. \u201cI am sorry that I have\nprayed so little,\u201d was the deathbed regret of one of God\u2019s chosen ones,\na sad and remorseful regret for a preacher. \u201cI want a life of greater,\ndeeper, truer prayer,\u201d said the late Archbishop Tait. So may we all\nsay, and this may we all secure.\n\nGod\u2019s true preachers have been distinguished by one great feature: they\nwere men of prayer. Differing often in many things, they have always\nhad a common center. They may have started from different points, and\ntraveled by different roads, but they converged to one point: they were\none in prayer. God to them was the center of attraction, and prayer\nwas the path that led to God. These men prayed not occasionally, not\na little at regular or at odd times; but they so prayed that their\nprayers entered into and shaped their characters; they so prayed as to\naffect their own lives and the lives of others; they so prayed as to\nmake the history of the Church and influence the current of the times.\nThey spent much time in prayer, not because they marked the shadow\non the dial or the hands on the clock, but because it was to them so\nmomentous and engaging a business that they could scarcely give over.\n\nPrayer was to them what it was to Paul, a striving with earnest effort\nof soul; what it was to Jacob, a wrestling and prevailing; what it\nwas to Christ, \u201cstrong crying and tears.\u201d They \u201cprayed always with\nall prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto\nwith all perseverance.\u201d \u201cThe effectual, fervent prayer\u201d has been the\nmightiest weapon of God\u2019s mightiest soldiers. The statement in regard\nto Elijah--that he \u201cwas a man subject to like passions as we are,\nand he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on\nthe earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed\nagain, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her\nfruit\u201d--comprehends all prophets and preachers who have moved their\ngeneration for God, and shows the instrument by which they worked their\nwonders.\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\n  _The great masters and teachers in Christian doctrine have always\n  found in prayer their highest source of illumination. Not to go\n  beyond the limits of the English Church, it is recorded of Bishop\n  Andrewes that he spent five hours daily on his knees. The greatest\n  practical resolves that have enriched and beautified human life in\n  Christian times have been arrived at in prayer._--CANON LIDDON.\n\n\nWhile many private prayers, in the nature of things, must be short;\nwhile public prayers, as a rule, ought to be short and condensed; while\nthere is ample room for and value put on ejaculatory prayer--yet in our\nprivate communions with God time is a feature essential to its value.\nMuch time spent with God is the secret of all successful praying.\nPrayer which is felt as a mighty force is the mediate or immediate\nproduct of much time spent with God. Our short prayers owe their point\nand efficiency to the long ones that have preceded them. The short\nprevailing prayer cannot be prayed by one who has not prevailed with\nGod in a mightier struggle of long continuance. Jacob\u2019s victory of\nfaith could not have been gained without that all-night wrestling.\nGod\u2019s acquaintance is not made by pop calls. God does not bestow his\ngifts on the casual or hasty comers and goers. Much with God alone is\nthe secret of knowing him and of influence with him. He yields to the\npersistency of a faith that knows him. He bestows his richest gifts\nupon those who declare their desire for and appreciation of those gifts\nby the constancy as well as earnestness of their importunity. Christ,\nwho in this as well as other things is our Example, spent many whole\nnights in prayer. His custom was to pray much. He had his habitual\nplace to pray. Many long seasons of praying make up his history and\ncharacter. Paul prayed day and night. It took time from very important\ninterests for Daniel to pray three times a day. David\u2019s morning, noon,\nand night praying were doubtless on many occasions very protracted.\nWhile we have no specific account of the time these Bible saints spent\nin prayer, yet the indications are that they consumed much time in\nprayer, and on some occasions long seasons of praying was their custom.\n\nWe would not have any think that the value of their prayers is to be\nmeasured by the clock, but our purpose is to impress on our minds the\nnecessity of being much alone with God; and that if this feature has\nnot been produced by our faith, then our faith is of a feeble and\nsurface type.\n\nThe men who have most fully illustrated Christ in their character,\nand have most powerfully affected the world for him, have been men\nwho spent so much time with God as to make it a notable feature of\ntheir lives. Charles Simeon devoted the hours from four till eight in\nthe morning to God. Mr. Wesley spent two hours daily in prayer. He\nbegan at four in the morning. Of him, one who knew him well wrote:\n\u201cHe thought prayer to be more his business than anything else, and I\nhave seen him come out of his closet with a serenity of face next to\nshining.\u201d John Fletcher stained the walls of his room by the breath of\nhis prayers. Sometimes he would pray all night; always, frequently, and\nwith great earnestness. His whole life was a life of prayer. \u201cI would\nnot rise from my seat,\u201d he said, \u201cwithout lifting my heart to God.\u201d His\ngreeting to a friend was always: \u201cDo I meet you praying?\u201d Luther said:\n\u201cIf I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets\nthe victory through the day. I have so much business I cannot get on\nwithout spending three hours daily in prayer.\u201d He had a motto: \u201cHe that\nhas prayed well has studied well.\u201d\n\nArchbishop Leighton was so much alone with God that he seemed to be\nin a perpetual meditation. \u201cPrayer and praise were his business and\nhis pleasure,\u201d says his biographer. Bishop Ken was so much with God\nthat his soul was said to be God-enamored. He was with God before the\nclock struck three every morning. Bishop Asbury said: \u201cI propose to\nrise at four o\u2019clock as often as I can and spend two hours in prayer\nand meditation.\u201d Samuel Rutherford, the fragrance of whose piety is\nstill rich, rose at three in the morning to meet God in prayer. Joseph\nAlleine arose at four o\u2019clock for his business of praying till eight.\nIf he heard other tradesmen plying their business before he was up, he\nwould exclaim: \u201cO how this shames me! Doth not my Master deserve more\nthan theirs?\u201d He who has learned this trade well draws at will, on\nsight, and with acceptance of heaven\u2019s unfailing bank.\n\nOne of the holiest and among the most gifted of Scotch preachers\nsays: \u201cI ought to spend the best hours in communion with God. It is\nmy noblest and most fruitful employment, and is not to be thrust\ninto a corner. The morning hours, from six to eight, are the most\nuninterrupted and should be thus employed. After tea is my best hour,\nand that should be solemnly dedicated to God. I ought not to give up\nthe good old habit of prayer before going to bed; but guard must be\nkept against sleep. When I awake in the night, I ought to rise and\npray. A little time after breakfast might be given to intercession.\u201d\nThis was the praying plan of Robert McCheyne. The memorable Methodist\nband in their praying shame us. \u201cFrom four to five in the morning,\nprivate prayer; from five to six in the evening, private prayer.\u201d\n\nJohn Welch, the holy and wonderful Scotch preacher, thought the day ill\nspent if he did not spend eight or ten hours in prayer. He kept a plaid\nthat he might wrap himself when he arose to pray at night. His wife\nwould complain when she found him lying on the ground weeping. He would\nreply: \u201cO woman, I have the souls of three thousand to answer for, and\nI know not how it is with many of them!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\n  _The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human\n  mind is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of\n  the faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are\n  absolutely incapable of prayer._--COLERIDGE.\n\n\nBishop Wilson says: \u201cIn H. Martyn\u2019s journal the spirit of prayer, the\ntime he devoted to the duty, and his fervor in it are the first things\nwhich strike me.\u201d\n\nPayson wore the hard-wood boards into grooves where his knees pressed\nso often and so long. His biographer says: \u201cHis continuing instant in\nprayer, be his circumstances what they might, is the most noticeable\nfact in his history, and points out the duty of all who would rival\nhis eminency. To his ardent and persevering prayers must no doubt be\nascribed in a great measure his distinguished and almost uninterrupted\nsuccess.\u201d\n\nThe Marquis DeRenty, to whom Christ was most precious, ordered his\nservant to call him from his devotions at the end of half an hour. The\nservant at the time saw his face through an aperture. It was marked\nwith such holiness that he hated to arouse him. His lips were moving,\nbut he was perfectly silent. He waited until three half hours had\npassed; then he called to him, when he arose from his knees, saying\nthat the half hour was so short when he was communing with Christ.\n\nBrainerd said: \u201cI love to be alone in my cottage, where I can spend\nmuch time in prayer.\u201d\n\nWilliam Bramwell is famous in Methodist annals for personal holiness\nand for his wonderful success in preaching and for the marvelous\nanswers to his prayers. For hours at a time he would pray. He almost\nlived on his knees. He went over his circuits like a flame of fire. The\nfire was kindled by the time he spent in prayer. He often spent as much\nas four hours in a single season of prayer in retirement.\n\nBishop Andrewes spent the greatest part of five hours every day in\nprayer and devotion.\n\nSir Henry Havelock always spent the first two hours of each day alone\nwith God. If the encampment was struck at 6 A.M., he would rise at four.\n\nEarl Cairns rose daily at six o\u2019clock to secure an hour and a half for\nthe study of the Bible and for prayer, before conducting family worship\nat a quarter to eight.\n\nDr. Judson\u2019s success in prayer is attributable to the fact that he gave\nmuch time to prayer. He says on this point: \u201cArrange thy affairs, if\npossible, so that thou canst leisurely devote two or three hours every\nday not merely to devotional exercises but to the very act of secret\nprayer and communion with God. Endeavor seven times a day to withdraw\nfrom business and company and lift up thy soul to God in private\nretirement. Begin the day by rising after midnight and devoting some\ntime amid the silence and darkness of the night to this sacred work.\nLet the hour of opening dawn find thee at the same work. Let the hours\nof nine, twelve, three, six, and nine at night witness the same. Be\nresolute in his cause. Make all practicable sacrifices to maintain it.\nConsider that thy time is short, and that business and company must\nnot be allowed to rob thee of thy God.\u201d Impossible, say we, fanatical\ndirections! Dr. Judson impressed an empire for Christ and laid the\nfoundations of God\u2019s kingdom with imperishable granite in the heart of\nBurmah. He was successful, one of the few men who mightily impressed\nthe world for Christ. Many men of greater gifts and genius and learning\nthan he have made no such impression; their religious work is like\nfootsteps in the sands, but he has engraven his work on the adamant.\nThe secret of its profundity and endurance is found in the fact that he\ngave time to prayer. He kept the iron red-hot with prayer, and God\u2019s\nskill fashioned it with enduring power. No man can do a great and\nenduring work for God who is not a man of prayer, and no man can be a\nman of prayer who does not give much time to praying.\n\nIs it true that prayer is simply the compliance with habit, dull\nand mechanical? A petty performance into which we are trained till\ntameness, shortness, superficiality are its chief elements? \u201cIs it\ntrue that prayer is, as is assumed, little else than the half-passive\nplay of sentiment which flows languidly on through the minutes or\nhours of easy reverie?\u201d Canon Liddon continues: \u201cLet those who have\nreally prayed give the answer. They sometimes describe prayer with the\npatriarch Jacob as a wrestling together with an Unseen Power which\nmay last, not unfrequently in an earnest life, late into the night\nhours, or even to the break of day. Sometimes they refer to common\nintercession with St. Paul as a concerted struggle. They have, when\npraying, their eyes fixed on the Great Intercessor in Gethsemane,\nupon the drops of blood which fall to the ground in that agony of\nresignation and sacrifice. Importunity is of the essence of successful\nprayer. Importunity means not dreaminess but sustained work. It is\nthrough prayer especially that the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence\nand the violent take it by force. It was a saying of the late Bishop\nHamilton that \u2018No man is likely to do much good in prayer who does not\nbegin by looking upon it in the light of a work to be prepared for and\npersevered in with all the earnestness which we bring to bear upon\nsubjects which are in our opinion at once most interesting and most\nnecessary.\u2019\u201d\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\n  _I ought to pray before seeing any one. Often when I sleep long,\n  or meet with others early, it is eleven or twelve o\u2019clock before I\n  begin secret prayer. This is a wretched system. It is unscriptural.\n  Christ arose before day and went into a solitary place. David says:\n  \u201cEarly will I seek thee;\u201d \u201cThou shalt early hear my voice.\u201d Family\n  prayer loses much of its power and sweetness, and I can do no good\n  to those who come to seek from me. The conscience feels guilty, the\n  soul unfed, the lamp not trimmed. Then when in secret prayer the\n  soul is often out of tune. I feel it is far better to begin with\n  God--to see his face first, to get my soul near him before it is near\n  another._--ROBERT MURRAY MCCHEYNE.\n\n\nThe men who have done the most for God in this world have been early on\ntheir knees. He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunity\nand freshness, in other pursuits than seeking God will make poor\nheadway seeking him the rest of the day. If God is not first in our\nthoughts and efforts in the morning, he will be in the last place the\nremainder of the day.\n\nBehind this early rising and early praying is the ardent desire which\npresses us into this pursuit after God. Morning listlessness is the\nindex to a listless heart. The heart which is behindhand in seeking God\nin the morning has lost its relish for God. David\u2019s heart was ardent\nafter God. He hungered and thirsted after God, and so he sought God\nearly, before daylight. The bed and sleep could not chain his soul in\nits eagerness after God. Christ longed for communion with God; and so,\nrising a great while before day, he would go out into the mountain to\npray. The disciples, when fully awake and ashamed of their indulgence,\nwould know where to find him. We might go through the list of men who\nhave mightily impressed the world for God, and we would find them early\nafter God.\n\nA desire for God which cannot break the chains of sleep is a weak thing\nand will do but little good for God after it has indulged itself fully.\nThe desire for God that keeps so far behind the devil and the world at\nthe beginning of the day will never catch up.\n\nIt is not simply the getting up that puts men to the front and makes\nthem captain generals in God\u2019s hosts, but it is the ardent desire which\nstirs and breaks all self-indulgent chains. But the getting up gives\nvent, increase, and strength to the desire. If they had lain in bed and\nindulged themselves, the desire would have been quenched. The desire\naroused them and put them on the stretch for God, and this heeding and\nacting on the call gave their faith its grasp on God and gave to their\nhearts the sweetest and fullest revelation of God, and this strength of\nfaith and fullness of revelation made them saints by eminence, and the\nhalo of their sainthood has come down to us, and we have entered on the\nenjoyment of their conquests. But we take our fill in enjoyment, and\nnot in productions. We build their tombs and write their epitaphs, but\nare careful not to follow their examples.\n\nWe need a generation of preachers who seek God and seek him early, who\ngive the freshness and dew of effort to God, and secure in return the\nfreshness and fullness of his power that he may be as the dew to them,\nfull of gladness and strength, through all the heat and labor of the\nday. Our laziness after God is our crying sin. The children of this\nworld are far wiser than we. They are at it early and late. We do not\nseek God with ardor and diligence. No man gets God who does not follow\nhard after him, and no soul follows hard after God who is not after him\nin early morn.\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\n  _There is a manifest want of spiritual influence on the ministry of\n  the present day. I feel it in my own case and I see it in that of\n  others. I am afraid there is too much of a low, managing, contriving,\n  maneuvering temper of mind among us. We are laying ourselves\n  out more than is expedient to meet one man\u2019s taste and another\n  man\u2019s prejudices. The ministry is a grand and holy affair, and it\n  should find in us a simple habit of spirit and a holy but humble\n  indifference to all consequences. The leading defect in Christian\n  ministers is want of a devotional habit._--RICHARD CECIL.\n\n\nNever was there greater need for saintly men and women; more imperative\nstill is the call for saintly, God-devoted preachers. The world moves\nwith gigantic strides. Satan has his hold and rule on the world, and\nlabors to make all its movements subserve his ends. Religion must do\nits best work, present its most attractive and perfect models. By every\nmeans, modern sainthood must be inspired by the loftiest ideals and\nby the largest possibilities through the Spirit. Paul lived on his\nknees, that the Ephesian Church might measure the heights, breadths,\nand depths of an unmeasurable saintliness, and \u201cbe filled with all the\nfullness of God.\u201d Epaphras laid himself out with the exhaustive toil\nand strenuous conflict of fervent prayer, that the Colossian Church\nmight \u201cstand perfect and complete in all the will of God.\u201d Everywhere,\neverything in apostolic times was on the stretch that the people of\nGod might each and \u201call come in the unity of the faith, and of the\nknowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of\nthe stature of the fullness of Christ.\u201d No premium was given to dwarfs;\nno encouragement to an old babyhood. The babies were to grow; the old,\ninstead of feebleness and infirmities, were to bear fruit in old age,\nand be fat and flourishing. The divinest thing in religion is holy men\nand holy women.\n\nNo amount of money, genius, or culture can move things for God.\nHoliness energizing the soul, the whole man aflame with love, with\ndesire for more faith, more prayer, more zeal, more consecration--this\nis the secret of power. These we need and must have, and men must be\nthe incarnation of this God-inflamed devotedness. God\u2019s advance has\nbeen stayed, his cause crippled, his name dishonored for their lack.\nGenius (though the loftiest and most gifted), education (though the\nmost learned and refined), position, dignity, place, honored names,\nhigh ecclesiastics cannot move this chariot of our God. It is a fiery\none, and fiery forces only can move it. The genius of a Milton fails.\nThe imperial strength of a Leo fails. Brainerd\u2019s spirit can move it.\nBrainerd\u2019s spirit was on fire for God, on fire for souls. Nothing\nearthly, worldly, selfish came in to abate in the least the intensity\nof this all-impelling and all-consuming force and flame.\n\nPrayer is the creator as well as the channel of devotion. The spirit\nof devotion is the spirit of prayer. Prayer and devotion are united\nas soul and body are united, as life and the heart are united. There\nis no real prayer without devotion, no devotion without prayer. The\npreacher must be surrendered to God in the holiest devotion. He is\nnot a professional man, his ministry is not a profession; it is a\ndivine institution, a divine devotion. He is devoted to God. His aim,\naspirations, ambition are for God and to God, and to such prayer is as\nessential as food is to life.\n\nThe preacher, above everything else, must be devoted to God. The\npreacher\u2019s relations to God are the insignia and credentials of his\nministry. These must be clear, conclusive, unmistakable. No common,\nsurface type of piety must be his. If he does not excel in grace,\nhe does not excel at all. If he does not preach by life, character,\nconduct, he does not preach at all. If his piety be light, his\npreaching may be as soft and as sweet as music, as gifted as Apollo,\nyet its weight will be a feather\u2019s weight, visionary, fleeting as\nthe morning cloud or the early dew. Devotion to God--there is no\nsubstitute for this in the preacher\u2019s character and conduct. Devotion\nto a Church, to opinions, to an organization, to orthodoxy--these\nare paltry, misleading, and vain when they become the source of\ninspiration, the animus of a call. God must be the mainspring of the\npreacher\u2019s effort, the fountain and crown of all his toil. The name and\nhonor of Jesus Christ, the advance of his cause, must be all in all.\nThe preacher must have no inspiration but the name of Jesus Christ, no\nambition but to have him glorified, no toil but for him. Then prayer\nwill be a source of his illuminations, the means of perpetual advance,\nthe gauge of his success. The perpetual aim, the only ambition, the\npreacher can cherish is to have God with him.\n\nNever did the cause of God need perfect illustrations of the\npossibilities of prayer more than in this age. No age, no person,\nwill be ensamples of the gospel power except the ages or persons of\ndeep and earnest prayer. A prayerless age will have but scant models\nof divine power. Prayerless hearts will never rise to these Alpine\nheights. The age may be a better age than the past, but there is an\ninfinite distance between the betterment of an age by the force of an\nadvancing civilization and its betterment by the increase of holiness\nand Christlikeness by the energy of prayer. The Jews were much better\nwhen Christ came than in the ages before. It was the golden age of\ntheir Pharisaic religion. Their golden religious age crucified Christ.\nNever more praying, never less praying; never more sacrifices, never\nless sacrifice; never less idolatry, never more idolatry; never more of\ntemple worship, never less of God worship; never more of lip service,\nnever less of heart service (God worshiped by lips whose hearts and\nhands crucified God\u2019s Son!); never more of church-goers, never less of\nsaints.\n\nIt is prayer-force which makes saints. Holy characters are formed\nby the power of real praying. The more of true saints, the more of\npraying; the more of praying, the more of true saints.\n\n\n\n\nXI.\n\n  _I urge upon you communion with Christ, a growing communion. There\n  are curtains to be drawn aside in Christ that we never saw, and\n  new foldings of love in him. I despair that I shall ever win to\n  the far end of that love, there are so many plies in it. Therefore\n  dig deep, and sweat and labor and take pains for him, and set by\n  as much time in the day for him as you can. He will be won in the\n  labor._--RUTHERFORD.\n\n\nGod has now, and has had, many of these devoted, prayerful\npreachers--men in whose lives prayer has been a mighty, controlling,\nconspicuous force. The world has felt their power, God has felt and\nhonored their power, God\u2019s cause has moved mightily and swiftly by\ntheir prayers, holiness has shone out in their characters with a divine\neffulgence.\n\nGod found one of the men he was looking for in David Brainerd, whose\nwork and name have gone into history. He was no ordinary man, but was\ncapable of shining in any company, the peer of the wise and gifted\nones, eminently suited to fill the most attractive pulpits and to labor\namong the most refined and the cultured, who were so anxious to secure\nhim for their pastor. President Edwards bears testimony that he was \u201ca\nyoung man of distinguished talents, had extraordinary knowledge of men\nand things, had rare conversational powers, excelled in his knowledge\nof theology, and was truly, for one so young, an extraordinary divine,\nand especially in all matters relating to experimental religion. I\nnever knew his equal of his age and standing for clear and accurate\nnotions of the nature and essence of true religion. His manner in\nprayer was almost inimitable, such as I have very rarely known equaled.\nHis learning was very considerable, and he had extraordinary gifts for\nthe pulpit.\u201d\n\nNo sublimer story has been recorded in earthly annals than that of\nDavid Brainerd; no miracle attests with diviner force the truth of\nChristianity than the life and work of such a man. Alone in the savage\nwilds of America, struggling day and night with a mortal disease,\nunschooled in the care of souls, having access to the Indians for a\nlarge portion of time only through the bungling medium of a pagan\ninterpreter, with the Word of God in his heart and in his hand, his\nsoul fired with the divine flame, a place and time to pour out his soul\nto God in prayer, he fully established the worship of God and secured\nall its gracious results. The Indians were changed with a great change\nfrom the lowest besotments of an ignorant and debased heathenism to\npure, devout, intelligent Christians; all vice reformed, the external\nduties of Christianity at once embraced and acted on; family prayer\nset up; the Sabbath instituted and religiously observed; the internal\ngraces of religion exhibited with growing sweetness and strength.\nThe solution of these results is found in David Brainerd himself,\nnot in the conditions or accidents but in the man Brainerd. He was\nGod\u2019s man, for God first and last and all the time. God could flow\nunhindered through him. The omnipotence of grace was neither arrested\nnor straightened by the conditions of his heart; the whole channel was\nbroadened and cleaned out for God\u2019s fullest and most powerful passage,\nso that God with all his mighty forces could come down on the hopeless,\nsavage wilderness, and transform it into his blooming and fruitful\ngarden; for nothing is too hard for God to do if he can get the right\nkind of a man to do it with.\n\nBrainerd lived the life of holiness and prayer. His diary is full and\nmonotonous with the record of his seasons of fasting, meditation,\nand retirement. The time he spent in private prayer amounted to many\nhours daily. \u201cWhen I return home,\u201d he said, \u201cand give myself to\nmeditation, prayer, and fasting, my soul longs for mortification,\nself-denial, humility, and divorcement from all things of the world.\u201d\n\u201cI have nothing to do,\u201d he said, \u201cwith earth, but only to labor in\nit honestly for God. I do not desire to live one minute for anything\nwhich earth can afford.\u201d After this high order did he pray: \u201cFeeling\nsomewhat of the sweetness of communion with God and the constraining\nforce of his love, and how admirably it captivates the soul and makes\nall the desires and affections to center in God, I set apart this day\nfor secret fasting and prayer, to entreat God to direct and bless me\nwith regard to the great work which I have in view of preaching the\ngospel, and that the Lord would return to me and show me the light of\nhis countenance. I had little life and power in the forenoon. Near\nthe middle of the afternoon God enabled me to wrestle ardently in\nintercession for my absent friends, but just at night the Lord visited\nme marvelously in prayer. I think my soul was never in such agony\nbefore. I felt no restraint, for the treasures of divine grace were\nopened to me. I wrestled for absent friends, for the ingathering of\nsouls, for multitudes of poor souls, and for many that I thought were\nthe children of God, personally, in many distant places. I was in such\nagony from sun half an hour high till near dark that I was all over\nwet with sweat, but yet it seemed to me I had done nothing. O, my dear\nSaviour did sweat blood for poor souls! I longed for more compassion\ntoward them. I felt still in a sweet frame, under a sense of divine\nlove and grace, and went to bed in such a frame, with my heart set on\nGod.\u201d It was prayer which gave to his life and ministry their marvelous\npower.\n\nThe men of mighty prayer are men of spiritual might. Prayers never die.\nBrainerd\u2019s whole life was a life of prayer. By day and by night he\nprayed. Before preaching and after preaching he prayed. Riding through\nthe interminable solitudes of the forests he prayed. On his bed of\nstraw he prayed. Retiring to the dense and lonely forests, he prayed.\nHour by hour, day after day, early morn and late at night, he was\npraying and fasting, pouring out his soul, interceding, communing with\nGod. He was with God mightily in prayer, and God was with him mightily,\nand by it he being dead yet speaketh and worketh, and will speak and\nwork till the end comes, and among the glorious ones of that glorious\nday he will be with the first.\n\nJonathan Edwards says of him: \u201cHis life shows the right way to success\nin the works of the ministry. He sought it as the soldier seeks victory\nin a siege or battle; or as a man that runs a race for a great prize.\nAnimated with love to Christ and souls, how did he labor? Always\nfervently. Not only in word and doctrine, in public and in private,\nbut in prayers by day and night, wrestling with God in secret and\ntravailing in birth with unutterable groans and agonies, until Christ\nwas formed in the hearts of the people to whom he was sent. Like a true\nson of Jacob, he persevered in wrestling through all the darkness of\nthe night, until the breaking of the day!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXII.\n\n  _For nothing reaches the heart but what is from the heart, or pierces\n  the conscience but what comes from a living conscience._--WILLIAM\n  PENN.\n\n  _In the morning was more engaged in preparing the head than the\n  heart. This has been frequently my error, and I have always felt the\n  evil of it, especially in prayer. Reform it, then, O Lord! Enlarge my\n  hearty and I shall preach._--ROBERT MURRAY MCCHEYNE.\n\n  _A sermon that has more head infused into it than heart will not come\n  home with efficacy to the hearers._--RICHARD CECIL.\n\n\nPrayer, with its manifold and many-sided forces, helps the mouth to\nutter the truth in its fullness and freedom. The preacher is to be\nprayed for, the preacher is made by prayer. The preacher\u2019s mouth is to\nbe prayed for; his mouth is to be opened and filled by prayer. A holy\nmouth is made by praying, by much praying; a brave mouth is made by\npraying, by much praying. The Church and the world, God and heaven,\nowe much to Paul\u2019s mouth; Paul\u2019s mouth owed its power to prayer.\n\nHow manifold, illimitable, valuable, and helpful prayer is to the\npreacher in so many ways, at so many points, in every way! One great\nvalue is, it helps his heart.\n\nPraying makes the preacher a heart preacher. Prayer puts the preacher\u2019s\nheart into the preacher\u2019s sermon; prayer puts the preacher\u2019s sermon\ninto the preacher\u2019s heart.\n\nThe heart makes the preacher. Men of great hearts are great preachers.\nMen of bad hearts may do a measure of good, but this is rare. The\nhireling and the stranger may help the sheep at some points, but it is\nthe good shepherd with the good shepherd\u2019s heart who will bless the\nsheep and answer the full measure of the shepherd\u2019s place.\n\nWe have emphasized sermon-preparation until we have lost sight of the\nimportant thing to be prepared--the heart. A prepared heart is much\nbetter than a prepared sermon. A prepared heart will make a prepared\nsermon.\n\nVolumes have been written laying down the mechanics and taste of\nsermon-making, until we have become possessed with the idea that this\nscaffolding is the building. The young preacher has been taught to lay\nout all his strength on the form, taste, and beauty of his sermon as\na mechanical and intellectual product. We have thereby cultivated a\nvicious taste among the people and raised the clamor for talent instead\nof grace, eloquence instead of piety, rhetoric instead of revelation,\nreputation and brilliancy instead of holiness. By it we have lost the\ntrue idea of preaching, lost preaching power, lost pungent conviction\nfor sin, lost the rich experience and elevated Christian character,\nlost the authority over consciences and lives which always results from\ngenuine preaching.\n\nIt would not do to say that preachers study too much. Some of them do\nnot study at all; others do not study enough. Numbers do not study\nthe right way to show themselves workmen approved of God. But our\ngreat lack is not in head culture, but in heart culture; not lack\nof knowledge but lack of holiness is our sad and telling defect--not\nthat we know too much, but that we do not meditate on God and his word\nand watch and fast and pray enough. The heart is the great hindrance\nto our preaching. Words pregnant with divine truth find in our hearts\nnonconductors; arrested, they fall shorn and powerless.\n\nCan ambition, that lusts after praise and place, preach the gospel of\nHim who made himself of no reputation and took on Him the form of a\nservant? Can the proud, the vain, the egotistical preach the gospel of\nhim who was meek and lowly? Can the bad-tempered, passionate, selfish,\nhard, worldly man preach the system which teems with long-suffering,\nself-denial, tenderness, which imperatively demands separation from\nenmity and crucifixion to the world? Can the hireling official,\nheartless, perfunctory, preach the gospel which demands the shepherd to\ngive his life for the sheep? Can the covetous man, who counts salary\nand money, preach the gospel till he has gleaned his heart and can say\nin the spirit of Christ and Paul in the words of Wesley: \u201cI count it\ndung and dross; I trample it under my feet; I (yet not I, but the grace\nof God in me) esteem it just as the mire of the streets, I desire it\nnot, I seek it not?\u201d God\u2019s revelation does not need the light of human\ngenius, the polish and strength of human culture, the brilliancy of\nhuman thought, the force of human brains to adorn or enforce it; but\nit does demand the simplicity, the docility, humility, and faith of a\nchild\u2019s heart.\n\nIt was this surrender and subordination of intellect and genius to\nthe divine and spiritual forces which made Paul peerless among the\napostles. It was this which gave Wesley his power and radicated his\nlabors in the history of humanity. This gave to Loyola the strength to\narrest the retreating forces of Catholicism.\n\nOur great need is heart-preparation. Luther held it as an axiom: \u201cHe\nwho has prayed well has studied well.\u201d We do not say that men are not\nto think and use their intellects; but he will use his intellect best\nwho cultivates his heart most. We do not say that preachers should\nnot be students; but we do say that their great study should be the\nBible, and he studies the Bible best who has kept his heart with\ndiligence. We do not say that the preacher should not know men, but he\nwill be the greater adept in human nature who has fathomed the depths\nand intricacies of his own heart. We do say that while the channel\nof preaching is the mind, its fountain is the heart; you may broaden\nand deepen the channel, but if you do not look well to the purity and\ndepth of the fountain, you will have a dry or polluted channel. We do\nsay that almost any man of common intelligence has sense enough to\npreach the gospel, but very few have grace enough to do so. We do say\nthat he who has struggled with his own heart and conquered it; who\nhas taught it humility, faith, love, truth, mercy, sympathy, courage;\nwho can pour the rich treasures of the heart thus trained, through\na manly intellect, all surcharged with the power of the gospel on\nthe consciences of his hearers--such a one will be the truest, most\nsuccessful preacher in the esteem of his Lord.\n\n\n\n\nXIII.\n\n  _Study not to be a fine preacher. Jerichos are blown down with\n  rams\u2019 horns. Look simply unto Jesus for preaching food; and what is\n  wanted will be given, and what is given will be blessed, whether\n  it be a barley grain or a wheaten loaf, a crust or a crumb. Your\n  mouth will be a flowing stream or a fountain sealed, according as\n  your heart is. Avoid all controversy in preaching, talking, or\n  writing; preach nothing down but the devil, and nothing up but Jesus\n  Christ._--BERRIDGE.\n\n\nThe heart is the saviour of the world. Heads do not save. Genius,\nbrains, brilliancy, strength, natural gifts do not save. The gospel\nflows through hearts. All the mightiest forces are heart forces. All\nthe sweetest and loveliest graces are heart graces. Great hearts make\ngreat characters; great hearts make divine characters. God is love.\nThere is nothing greater than love, nothing greater than God. Hearts\nmake heaven; heaven is love. There is nothing higher, nothing sweeter,\nthan heaven. It is the heart and not the head which makes God\u2019s great\npreachers. The heart counts much every way in religion. The heart must\nspeak from the pulpit. The heart must hear in the pew. In fact, we\nserve God with our hearts. Head homage does not pass current in heaven.\n\nWe believe that one of the serious and most popular errors of the\nmodern pulpit is the putting of more thought than prayer, of more\nhead than of heart in its sermons. Big hearts make big preachers;\ngood hearts make good preachers. A theological school to enlarge and\ncultivate the heart is the golden desideratum of the gospel. The\npastor binds his people to him and rules his people by his heart. They\nmay admire his gifts, they may be proud of his ability, they may be\naffected for the time by his sermons; but the stronghold of his power\nis his heart. His scepter is love. The throne of his power is his heart.\n\nThe good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. Heads never make\nmartyrs. It is the heart which surrenders the life to love and\nfidelity. It takes great courage to be a faithful pastor, but the heart\nalone can supply this courage. Gifts and genius may be brave, but it is\nthe gifts and genius of the heart and not of the head.\n\nIt is easier to fill the head than it is to prepare the heart. It is\neasier to make a brain sermon than a heart sermon. It was heart that\ndrew the Son of God from heaven. It is heart that will draw men to\nheaven. Men of heart is what the world needs to sympathize with its\nwoe, to kiss away its sorrows, to compassionate its misery, and to\nalleviate its pain. Christ was eminently the man of sorrows, because he\nwas pre\u00ebminently the man of heart.\n\n\u201cGive me thy heart,\u201d is God\u2019s requisition of men. \u201cGive me thy heart!\u201d\nis man\u2019s demand of man.\n\nA professional ministry is a heartless ministry. When salary plays a\ngreat part in the ministry, the heart plays little part. We may make\npreaching our business, and not put our hearts in the business. He who\nputs self to the front in his preaching puts heart to the rear. He\nwho does not sow with his heart in his study will never reap a harvest\nfor God. The closet is the heart\u2019s study. We will learn more about how\nto preach and what to preach there than we can learn in our libraries.\n\u201cJesus wept\u201d is the shortest and biggest verse in the Bible. It is\nhe who goes forth _weeping_ (not preaching great sermons), bearing\nprecious seed, who shall come again rejoicing, bringing his sheaves\nwith him.\n\nPraying gives sense, brings wisdom, broadens and strengthens the\nmind. The closet is a perfect school-teacher and school-house for the\npreacher. Thought is not only brightened and clarified in prayer, but\nthought is born in prayer. We can learn more in an hour praying, when\npraying indeed, than from many hours in the study. Books are in the\ncloset which can be found and read nowhere else. Revelations are made\nin the closet which are made nowhere else.\n\n\n\n\nXIV.\n\n  _One bright benison which private prayer brings down upon the\n  ministry is an indescribable and inimitable something--an unction\n  from the Holy One.... If the anointing which we bear come not\n  from the Lord of hosts, we are deceivers, since only in prayer\n  can we obtain it. Let us continue instant, constant, fervent\n  in supplication. Let your fleece lie on the thrashing floor of\n  supplication till it is wet with the dew of heaven._--SPURGEON.\n\n\nAlexander Knox, a Christian philosopher of the days of Wesley, not\nan adherent but a strong personal friend of Wesley, and with much\nspiritual sympathy with the Wesleyan movement, writes: \u201cIt is strange\nand lamentable, but I verily believe the fact to be that except among\nMethodists and Methodistical clergyman, there is not much interesting\npreaching in England. The clergy, too generally, have absolutely lost\nthe art. There is, I conceive, in the great laws of the moral world\na kind of secret understanding like the affinities in chemistry,\nbetween rightly promulgated religious truth and the deepest feelings\nof the human mind. Where the one is duly exhibited, the other will\nrespond. Did not our hearts burn within us?--but to this devout feeling\nis indispensable in the speaker. Now, I am obliged to state from my\nown observation that this _onction_, as the French not unfitly term\nit, is beyond all comparison more likely to be found in England in a\nMethodist conventicle than in a parish Church. This, and this alone,\nseems really to be that which fills the Methodist houses and thins the\nChurches. I am, I verily think, no enthusiast; I am a most sincere\nand cordial churchman, a humble disciple of the School of Hale and\nBoyle, of Burnet and Leighton. Now I must aver that when I was in this\ncountry, two years ago, I did not hear a single preacher who taught me\nlike my own great masters but such as are deemed Methodistical. And\nI now despair of getting an atom of heart-instruction from any other\nquarter. The Methodist preachers (however I may not always approve of\nall their expressions) do most assuredly diffuse this true religion and\nundefiled. I felt real pleasure last Sunday. I can bear witness that\nthe preacher did at once speak the words of truth and soberness. There\nwas no eloquence--the honest man never dreamed of such a thing--but\nthere was far better: a cordial communication of vitalized truth. I say\nvitalized because what he declared to others it was impossible not to\nfeel he lived on himself.\u201d\n\nThis unction is the art of preaching. The preacher who never had this\nunction never had the art of preaching. The preacher who has lost this\nunction has lost the art of preaching. Whatever other arts he may have\nand retain--the art of sermon-making, the art of eloquence, the art of\ngreat, clear thinking, the art of pleasing an audience--he has lost the\ndivine art of preaching. This unction makes God\u2019s truth powerful and\ninteresting, draws and attracts, edifies, convicts, saves.\n\nThis unction vitalizes God\u2019s revealed truth, makes it living and\nlife-giving. Even God\u2019s truth spoken without this unction is light,\ndead, and deadening. Though abounding in truth, though weighty with\nthought, though sparkling with rhetoric, though pointed by logic,\nthough powerful by earnestness, without this divine unction it issues\nin death and not in life. Mr. Spurgeon says: \u201cI wonder how long we\nmight beat our brains before we could plainly put into word what\nis meant by preaching with unction. Yet he who preaches knows its\npresence, and he who hears soon detects its absence. Samaria, in\nfamine, typifies a discourse without it. Jerusalem, with her feast\nof fat things, full of marrow, may represent a sermon enriched with\nit. Every one knows what the freshness of the morning is when orient\npearls abound on every blade of grass, but who can describe it, much\nless produce it of itself? Such is the mystery of spiritual anointing.\nWe know, but we cannot tell to others what it is. It is as easy as it\nis foolish, to counterfeit it. Unction is a thing which you cannot\nmanufacture, and its counterfeits are worse than worthless. Yet it is,\nin itself, priceless, and beyond measure needful if you would edify\nbelievers and bring sinners to Christ.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXV.\n\n  _Speak for eternity. Above all things, cultivate your own spirit.\n  A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear and your heart\n  full of God\u2019s Spirit is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief\n  and sin. Remember that God, and not man, must have the glory. If the\n  veil of the world\u2019s machinery were lifted off, how much we would find\n  is done in answer to the prayers of God\u2019s children._--ROBERT MURRAY\n  MCCHEYNE.\n\n\nUnction is that indefinable, indescribable something which an old,\nrenowned Scotch preacher describes thus: \u201cThere is sometimes somewhat\nin preaching that cannot be ascribed either to matter or expression,\nand cannot be described what it is, or from whence it cometh, but with\na sweet violence it pierceth into the heart and affections and comes\nimmediately from the Lord; but if there be any way to obtain such a\nthing, it is by the heavenly disposition of the speaker.\u201d\n\nWe call it unction. It is this unction which makes the word of God\n\u201cquick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing\neven to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and\nmarrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.\u201d\nIt is this unction which gives the words of the preacher such point,\nsharpness, and power, and which creates such friction and stir in many\na dead congregation. The same truths have been told in the strictness\nof the letter, smooth as human oil could make them; but no signs of\nlife, not a pulse throb; all as peaceful as the grave and as dead. The\nsame preacher in the meanwhile receives a baptism of this unction, the\ndivine inflatus is on him, the letter of the Word has been embellished\nand fired by this mysterious power, and the throbbings of life\nbegin--life which receives or life which resists. The unction pervades\nand convicts the conscience and breaks the heart.\n\nThis divine unction is the feature which separates and distinguishes\ntrue gospel preaching from all other methods of presenting the truth,\nand which creates a wide spiritual chasm between the preacher who has\nit and the one who has it not. It backs and impregns revealed truth\nwith all the energy of God. Unction is simply putting God in his own\nword and on his own preacher. By mighty and great prayerfulness and\nby continual prayerfulness, it is all potential and personal to the\npreacher; it inspires and clarifies his intellect, gives insight and\ngrasp and projecting power; it gives to the preacher heart power, which\nis greater than head power; and tenderness, purity, force flow from the\nheart by it. Enlargement, freedom, fullness of thought, directness and\nsimplicity of utterance are the fruits of this unction.\n\nOften earnestness is mistaken for this unction. He who has the divine\nunction will be earnest in the very spiritual nature of things, but\nthere may be a vast deal of earnestness without the least mixture of\nunction.\n\nEarnestness and unction look alike from some points of view.\nEarnestness may be readily and without detection substituted or\nmistaken for unction. It requires a spiritual eye and a spiritual taste\nto discriminate.\n\nEarnestness may be sincere, serious, ardent, and persevering. It goes\nat a thing with good will, pursues it with perseverance, and urges it\nwith ardor; puts force in it. But all these forces do not rise higher\nthan the mere human. The _man_ is in it--the whole man, with all that\nhe has of will and heart, of brain and genius, of planning and working\nand talking. He has set himself to some purpose which has mastered him,\nand he pursues to master it. There may be none of God in it. There may\nbe little of God in it, because there is so much of the man in it. He\nmay present pleas in advocacy of his earnest purpose which please or\ntouch and move or overwhelm with conviction of their importance; and\nin all this earnestness may move along earthly ways, being propelled\nby human forces only, its altar made by earthly hands and its fire\nkindled by earthly flames. It is said of a rather famous preacher of\ngifts, whose construction of Scripture was to his fancy or purpose,\nthat he \u201cgrew very eloquent over his own exegesis.\u201d So men grow\nexceeding earnest over their own plans or movements. Earnestness may be\nselfishness simulated.\n\nWhat of unction? It is the indefinable in preaching which makes it\npreaching. It is that which distinguishes and separates preaching from\nall mere human addresses. It is the divine in preaching. It makes the\npreaching sharp to those who need sharpness. It distills as the dew to\nthose who need to be refreshed. It is well described as:\n\n            \u201ca two-edged sword\n    Of heavenly temper keen,\n  And double were the wounds it made\n    Where\u2019er it glanced between.\n  \u2019Twas death to sin; \u2019twas life\n    To all who mourned for sin.\n  It kindled and it silenced strife,\n    Made war and peace within.\u201d\n\nThis unction comes to the preacher not in the study but in the closet.\nIt is heaven\u2019s distillation in answer to prayer. It is the sweetest\nexhalation of the Holy Spirit. It impregnates, suffuses, softens,\npercolates, cuts, and soothes. It carries the Word like dynamite, like\nsalt, like sugar; makes the Word a soother, an arraigner, a revealer, a\nsearcher; makes the hearer a culprit or a saint, makes him weep like a\nchild and live like a giant; opens his heart and his purse as gently,\nyet as strongly as the spring opens the leaves. This unction is not the\ngift of genius. It is not found in the halls of learning. No eloquence\ncan woo it. No industry can win it. No prelatical hands can confer it.\nIt is the gift of God--the signet set to his own messengers. It is\nheaven\u2019s knighthood given to the chosen true and brave ones who have\nsought this anointed honor through many an hour of tearful, wrestling\nprayer.\n\nEarnestness is good and impressive; genius is gifted and great. Thought\nkindles and inspires, but it takes a diviner endowment, a more powerful\nenergy than earnestness or genius or thought to break the chains\nof sin, to win estranged and depraved hearts to God, to repair the\nbreaches and restore the Church to her old ways of purity and power.\nNothing but this holy unction can do this.\n\n\n\n\nXVI.\n\n  _All the minister\u2019s efforts will be vanity or worse than vanity if\n  he have not unction. Unction must come down from heaven and spread a\n  savor and feeling and relish over his ministry; and among the other\n  means of qualifying himself for his office, the Bible must hold the\n  first place, and the last also must be given to the Word of God and\n  prayer._--RICHARD CECIL.\n\n\nIn the Christian system unction is the anointing of the Holy Ghost,\nseparating unto God\u2019s work and qualifying for it. This unction is the\none divine enablement by which the preacher accomplishes the peculiar\nand saving ends of preaching. Without this unction there are no true\nspiritual results accomplished; the results and forces in preaching do\nnot rise above the results of unsanctified speech. Without unction the\nformer is as potent as the pulpit.\n\nThis divine unction on the preacher generates through the Word of God\nthe spiritual results that flow from the gospel; and without this\nunction, these results are not secured. Many pleasant impressions may\nbe made, but these all fall far below the ends of gospel preaching.\nThis unction may be simulated. There are many things that look like it,\nthere are many results that resemble its effects; but they are foreign\nto its results and to its nature. The fervor or softness excited by a\npathetic or emotional sermon may look like the movements of the divine\nunction, but they have no pungent, penetrating, heart-breaking force.\nNo heart-healing balm is there in these surface, sympathetic, emotional\nmovements; they are not radical, neither sin-searching nor sin-curing.\n\nThis divine unction is the one distinguishing feature that separates\ntrue gospel preaching from all other methods of presenting truth. It\nbacks and interpenetrates the revealed truth with all the force of\nGod. It illumines the Word and broadens and enrichens the intellect\nand empowers it to grasp and apprehend the Word. It qualifies the\npreacher\u2019s heart, and brings it to that condition of tenderness, of\npurity, of force and light that are necessary to secure the highest\nresults. This unction gives to the preacher liberty and enlargement of\nthought and soul--a freedom, fullness, and directness of utterance that\ncan be secured by no other process.\n\nWithout this unction on the preacher the gospel has no more power to\npropagate itself than any other system of truth. This is the seal of\nits divinity. Unction in the preacher puts God in the gospel. Without\nthe unction, God is absent, and the gospel is left to the low and\nunsatisfactory forces that the ingenuity, interest, or talents of men\ncan devise to enforce and project its doctrines.\n\nIt is in this element that the pulpit oftener fails than in any other\nelement. Just at this all-important point it lapses. Learning it may\nhave, brilliancy and eloquence may delight and charm, sensation or less\noffensive methods may bring the populace in crowds, mental power may\nimpress and enforce truth with all its resources; but without this\nunction, each and all these will be but as the fretful assault of the\nwaters on a Gibraltar. Spray and foam may cover and spangle; but the\nrocks are there still, unimpressed and unimpressible. The human heart\ncan no more be swept of its hardness and sin by these human forces than\nthese rocks can be swept away by the ocean\u2019s ceaseless flow.\n\nThis unction is the consecration force, and its presence the continuous\ntest of that consecration. It is this divine anointing on the preacher\nthat secures his consecration to God and his work. Other forces and\nmotives may call him to the work, but this only is consecration. A\nseparation to God\u2019s work by the power of the Holy Spirit is the only\nconsecration recognized by God as legitimate.\n\nThe unction, the divine unction, this heavenly anointing, is what\nthe pulpit needs and must have. This divine and heavenly oil put on\nit by the imposition of God\u2019s hand must soften and lubricate the\nwhole man--heart, head, spirit--until it separates him with a mighty\nseparation from all earthly, secular, worldly, selfish motives and\naims, separating him to everything that is pure and Godlike.\n\nIt is the presence of this unction on the preacher that creates the\nstir and friction in many a congregation. The same truths have been\ntold in the strictness of the letter, but no ruffle has been seen, no\npain or pulsation felt. All is quiet as a graveyard. Another preacher\ncomes, and this mysterious influence is on him; the letter of the Word\nhas been fired by the Spirit, the throes of a mighty movement are felt,\nit is the unction that pervades and stirs the conscience and breaks the\nheart. Unctionless preaching makes everything hard, dry, acrid, dead.\n\nThis unction is not a memory or an era of the past only; it is a\npresent, realized, conscious fact. It belongs to the experience of the\nman as well as to his preaching. It is that which transforms him into\nthe image of his divine Master, as well as that by which he declares\nthe truths of Christ with power. It is so much the power in the\nministry as to make all else seem feeble and vain without it, and by\nits presence to atone for the absence of all other and feebler forces.\n\nThis unction is not an inalienable gift. It is a conditional gift, and\nits presence is perpetuated and increased by the same process by which\nit was at first secured; by unceasing prayer to God, by impassioned\ndesires after God, by estimating it, by seeking it with tireless ardor,\nby deeming all else loss and failure without it.\n\nHow and whence comes this unction? Direct from God in answer to prayer.\nPraying hearts only are the hearts filled with this holy oil; praying\nlips only are anointed with this divine unction.\n\nPrayer, much prayer, is the price of preaching unction; prayer, much\nprayer, is the one, sole condition of keeping this unction. Without\nunceasing prayer the unction never comes to the preacher. Without\nperseverance in prayer, the unction, like the manna overkept, breeds\nworms.\n\n\n\n\nXVII.\n\n  _Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire\n  nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen\n  or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the\n  kingdom of heaven on earth. God does nothing but in answer to\n  prayer._--JOHN WESLEY.\n\n\nThe apostles knew the necessity and worth of prayer to their ministry.\nThey knew that their high commission as apostles, instead of relieving\nthem from the necessity of prayer, committed them to it by a more\nurgent need; so that they were exceedingly jealous else some other\nimportant work should exhaust their time and prevent their praying as\nthey ought; so they appointed laymen to look after the delicate and\nengrossing duties of ministering to the poor, that they (the apostles)\nmight, unhindered, \u201cgive themselves continually to prayer and to the\nministry of the word.\u201d Prayer is put first, and their relation to\nprayer is put most strongly--\u201cgive themselves to it,\u201d making a business\nof it, surrendering themselves to praying, putting fervor, urgency,\nperseverance, and time in it.\n\nHow holy, apostolic men devoted themselves to this divine work of\nprayer! \u201cNight and day praying exceedingly,\u201d says Paul. \u201cWe will\ngive ourselves continually to prayer\u201d is the consensus of apostolic\ndevotement. How these New Testament preachers laid themselves out in\nprayer for God\u2019s people! How they put God in full force into their\nChurches by their praying! These holy apostles did not vainly fancy\nthat they had met their high and solemn duties by delivering faithfully\nGod\u2019s word, but their preaching was made to stick and tell by the ardor\nand insistence of their praying. Apostolic praying was as taxing,\ntoilsome, and imperative as apostolic preaching. They prayed mightily\nday and night to bring their people to the highest regions of faith\nand holiness. They prayed mightier still to hold them to this high\nspiritual altitude. The preacher who has never learned in the school\nof Christ the high and divine art of intercession for his people will\nnever learn the art of preaching, though homiletics be poured into him\nby the ton, and though he be the most gifted genius in sermon-making\nand sermon-delivery.\n\nThe prayers of apostolic, saintly leaders do much in making saints\nof those who are not apostles. If the Church leaders in after years\nhad been as particular and fervent in praying for their people as the\napostles were, the sad, dark times of worldliness and apostasy had not\nmarred the history and eclipsed the glory and arrested the advance\nof the Church. Apostolic praying makes apostolic saints and keeps\napostolic times of purity and power in the Church.\n\nWhat loftiness of soul, what purity and elevation of motive, what\nunselfishness, what self-sacrifice, what exhaustive toil, what ardor of\nspirit, what divine tact are requisite to be an intercessor for men!\n\nThe preacher is to lay himself out in prayer for his people; not\nthat they might be saved, simply, but that they be mightily saved.\nThe apostles laid themselves out in prayer that their saints might be\nperfect; not that they should have a little relish for the things of\nGod, but that they \u201cmight be filled with all the fullness of God.\u201d Paul\ndid not rely on his apostolic preaching to secure this end, but \u201cfor\nthis cause he bowed his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.\u201d\nPaul\u2019s praying carried Paul\u2019s converts farther along the highway of\nsainthood than Paul\u2019s preaching did. Epaphras did as much or more by\nprayer for the Colossian saints than by his preaching. He labored\nfervently always in prayer for them that \u201cthey might stand perfect and\ncomplete in all the will of God.\u201d\n\nPreachers are pre\u00ebminently God\u2019s leaders. They are primarily\nresponsible for the condition of the Church. They shape its character,\ngive tone and direction to its life.\n\nMuch every way depends on these leaders. They shape the times and\nthe institutions. The Church is divine, the treasure it incases is\nheavenly, but it bears the imprint of the human. The treasure is\nin earthen vessels, and it smacks of the vessel. The Church of God\nmakes, or is made by, its leaders. Whether it makes them or is made\nby them, it will be what its leaders are; spiritual if they are so,\nsecular if they are, conglomerate if its leaders are. Israel\u2019s kings\ngave character to Israel\u2019s piety. A Church rarely revolts against or\nrises above the religion of its leaders. Strongly spiritual leaders;\nmen of holy might, at the lead, are tokens of God\u2019s favor; disaster\nand weakness follow the wake of feeble or worldly leaders. Israel had\nfallen low when God gave children to be their princes and babes to rule\nover them. No happy state is predicted by the prophets when children\noppress God\u2019s Israel and women rule over them. Times of spiritual\nleadership are times of great spiritual prosperity to the Church.\n\nPrayer is one of the eminent characteristics of strong spiritual\nleadership. Men of mighty prayer are men of might and mold things.\nTheir power with God has the conquering tread.\n\nHow can a man preach who does not get his message fresh from God in\nthe closet? How can he preach without having his faith quickened, his\nvision cleared, and his heart warmed by his closeting with God? Alas,\nfor the pulpit lips which are untouched by this closet flame. Dry and\nunctionless they will ever be, and truths divine will never come with\npower from such lips. As far as the real interests of religion are\nconcerned, a pulpit without a closet will always be a barren thing.\n\nA preacher may preach in an official, entertaining, or learned way\nwithout prayer, but between this kind of preaching and sowing God\u2019s\nprecious seed with holy hands and prayerful, weeping hearts there is an\nimmeasurable distance.\n\nA prayerless ministry is the undertaker for all God\u2019s truth and for\nGod\u2019s Church. He may have the most costly casket and the most beautiful\nflowers, but it is a funeral, notwithstanding the charmful array.\nA prayerless Christian will never learn God\u2019s truth; a prayerless\nministry will never be able to teach God\u2019s truth. Ages of millennial\nglory have been lost by a prayerless Church. The coming of our Lord has\nbeen postponed indefinitely by a prayerless Church. Hell has enlarged\nherself and filled her dire caves in the presence of the dead service\nof a prayerless Church.\n\nThe best, the greatest offering is an offering of prayer. If the\npreachers of the twentieth century will learn well the lesson of\nprayer, and use fully the power of prayer, the millennium will come to\nits noon ere the century closes. \u201cPray without ceasing\u201d is the trumpet\ncall to the preachers of the twentieth century. If the twentieth\ncentury will get their texts, their thoughts, their words, their\nsermons in their closets, the next century will find a new heaven and a\nnew earth. The old sin-stained and sin-eclipsed heaven and earth will\npass away under the power of a praying ministry.\n\n\n\n\nXVIII.\n\n  _If some Christians that have been complaining of their ministers\n  had said and acted less before men and had applied themselves with\n  all their might to cry to God for their ministers--had, as it were,\n  risen and stormed heaven with their humble, fervent, and incessant\n  prayers for them--they would have been much more in the way of\n  success._--JONATHAN EDWARDS.\n\n\nSomehow the practice of praying in particular for the preacher has\nfallen into disuse or become discounted. Occasionally have we heard the\npractice arraigned as a disparagement of the ministry, being a public\ndeclaration by those who do it of the inefficiency of the ministry. It\noffends the pride of learning and self-sufficiency, perhaps, and these\nought to be offended and rebuked in a ministry that is so derelict as\nto allow them to exist.\n\nPrayer, to the preacher, is not simply the duty of his profession, a\nprivilege, but it is a necessity. Air is not more necessary to the\nlungs than prayer is to the preacher. It is absolutely necessary for\nthe preacher to pray. It is an absolute necessity that the preacher\nbe prayed for. These two propositions are wedded into a union which\nought never to know any divorce: _the preacher must pray; the preacher\nmust be prayed_ for. It will take all the praying he can do, and all\nthe praying he can get done, to meet the fearful responsibilities and\ngain the largest, truest success in his great work. The true preacher,\nnext to the cultivation of the spirit and fact of prayer in himself, in\ntheir intensest form, covets with a great covetousness the prayers of\nGod\u2019s people.\n\nThe holier a man is, the more does he estimate prayer; the clearer\ndoes he see that God gives himself to the praying ones, and that the\nmeasure of God\u2019s revelation to the soul is the measure of the soul\u2019s\nlonging, importunate prayer for God. Salvation never finds its way to a\nprayerless heart. The Holy Spirit never abides in a prayerless spirit.\nPreaching never edifies a prayerless soul. Christ knows nothing of\nprayerless Christians. The gospel cannot be projected by a prayerless\npreacher. Gifts, talents, education, eloquence, God\u2019s call, cannot\nabate the demand of prayer, but only intensify the necessity for the\npreacher to pray and to be prayed for. The more the preacher\u2019s eyes are\nopened to the nature, responsibility, and difficulties in his work,\nthe more will he see, and if he be a true preacher the more will he\nfeel, the necessity of prayer; not only the increasing demand to pray\nhimself, but to call on others to help him by their prayers.\n\nPaul is an illustration of this. If any man could project the gospel\nby dint of personal force, by brain power, by culture, by personal\ngrace, by God\u2019s apostolic commission, God\u2019s extraordinary call, that\nman was Paul. That the preacher must be a man given to prayer, Paul\nis an eminent example. That the true apostolic preacher must have the\nprayers of other good people to give to his ministry its full quota of\nsuccess, Paul is a pre\u00ebminent example. He asks, he covets, he pleads\nin an impassioned way for the help of all God\u2019s saints. He knew that\nin the spiritual realm, as elsewhere, in union there is strength;\nthat the concentration and aggregation of faith, desire, and prayer\nincreased the volume of spiritual force until it became overwhelming\nand irresistible in its power. Units of prayer combined, like drops\nof water, make an ocean which defies resistance. So Paul, with his\nclear and full apprehension of spiritual dynamics, determined to make\nhis ministry as impressive, as eternal, as irresistible as the ocean,\nby gathering all the scattered units of prayer and precipitating\nthem on his ministry. May not the solution of Paul\u2019s pre\u00ebminence in\nlabors and results, and impress on the Church and the world, be found\nin this fact that he was able to center on himself and his ministry\nmore of prayer than others? To his brethren at Rome he wrote: \u201cNow\nI beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ\u2019s sake, and for\nthe love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in prayers\nto God for me.\u201d To the Ephesians he says: \u201cPraying always with all\nprayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with\nall perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that\nutterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to\nmake known the mystery of the gospel.\u201d To the Colossians he emphasizes:\n\u201cWithal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of\nutterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in\nbonds: that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.\u201d To the\nThessalonians he says sharply, strongly: \u201cBrethren, pray for us.\u201d Paul\ncalls on the Corinthian Church to help him: \u201cYe also helping together\nby prayer for us.\u201d This was to be part of their work. They were to lay\nto the helping hand of prayer. He in an additional and closing charge\nto the Thessalonian Church about the importance and necessity of their\nprayers says: \u201cFinally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the\nLord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you:\nand that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men.\u201d He\nimpresses the Philippians that all his trials and opposition can be\nmade subservient to the spread of the gospel by the efficiency of their\nprayers for him. Philemon was to prepare a lodging for him, for through\nPhilemon\u2019s prayer Paul was to be his guest.\n\nPaul\u2019s attitude on this question illustrates his humility and his deep\ninsight into the spiritual forces which project the gospel. More than\nthis, it teaches a lesson for all times, that if Paul was so dependent\non the prayers of God\u2019s saints to give his ministry success, how much\ngreater the necessity that the prayers of God\u2019s saints be centered on\nthe ministry of to-day!\n\nPaul did not feel that this urgent plea for prayer was to lower his\ndignity, lessen his influence, or depreciate his piety. What if it\ndid? Let dignity go, let influence be destroyed, let his reputation\nbe marred--he must have their prayers. Called, commissioned, chief of\nthe Apostles as he was, all his equipment was imperfect without the\nprayers of his people. He wrote letters everywhere, urging them to\npray for him. Do you pray for your preacher? Do you pray for him in\nsecret? Public prayers are of little worth unless they are founded on\nor followed up by private praying. The praying ones are to the preacher\nas Aaron and Hur were to Moses. They hold up his hands and decide the\nissue that is so fiercely raging around them.\n\nThe plea and purpose of the apostles were to put the Church to praying.\nThey did not ignore the grace of cheerful giving. They were not\nignorant of the place which religious activity and work occupied in the\nspiritual life; but not one nor all of these, in apostolic estimate\nor urgency, could at all compare in necessity and importance with\nprayer. The most sacred and urgent pleas were used, the most fervid\nexhortations, the most comprehensive and arousing words were uttered to\nenforce the all-important obligation and necessity of prayer.\n\n\u201cPut the saints everywhere to praying\u201d is the burden of the apostolic\neffort and the keynote of apostolic success. Jesus Christ had striven\nto do this in the days of his personal ministry. As he was moved by\ninfinite compassion at the ripened fields of earth perishing for lack\nof laborers--and pausing in his own praying--he tries to awaken the\nstupid sensibilities of his disciples to the duty of prayer as he\ncharges them, \u201cPray ye the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth\nlaborers into his harvest.\u201d \u201cAnd he spake a parable unto them to this\nend, that men ought always to pray and not to faint.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXIX.\n\n  _This perpetual hurry of business and company ruins me in soul if\n  not in body. More solitude and earlier hours! I suspect I have been\n  allotting habitually too little time to religious exercises, as\n  private devotion and religious meditation, Scripture-reading, etc.\n  Hence I am lean and cold and hard. I had better allot two hours or an\n  hour and a half daily. I have been keeping too late hours, and hence\n  have had but a hurried half hour in a morning to myself. Surely the\n  experience of all good men confirms the proposition that without a\n  due measure of private devotions the soul will grow lean. But all may\n  be done through prayer--almighty prayer, I am ready to say--and why\n  not? For that it is almighty is only through the gracious ordination\n  of the God of love and truth. O then, pray, pray, pray!_--WILLIAM\n  WILBERFORCE.\n\n\nOur devotions are not measured by the clock, but time is of their\nessence. The ability to wait and stay and press belongs essentially to\nour intercourse with God. Hurry, everywhere unseeming and damaging, is\nso to an alarming extent in the great business of communion with God.\nShort devotions are the bane of deep piety. Calmness, grasp, strength,\nare never the companions of hurry. Short devotions deplete spiritual\nvigor, arrest spiritual progress, sap spiritual foundations, blight\nthe root and bloom of spiritual life. They are the prolific source of\nbacksliding, the sure indication of a superficial piety; they deceive,\nblight, rot the seed, and impoverish the soil.\n\nIt is true that Bible prayers in word and print are short, but the\npraying men of the Bible were with God through many a sweet and holy\nwrestling hour. They won by few words but long waiting. The prayers\nMoses records may be short, but Moses prayed to God with fastings and\nmighty cryings forty days and nights.\n\nThe statement of Elijah\u2019s praying may be condensed to a few brief\nparagraphs, but doubtless Elijah, who when \u201cpraying he prayed,\u201d spent\nmany hours of fiery struggle and lofty intercourse with God before he\ncould, with assured boldness, say to Ahab, \u201cThere shall not be dew\nnor rain these years, but according to my word.\u201d The verbal brief of\nPaul\u2019s prayers is short, but Paul \u201cprayed night and day exceedingly.\u201d\nThe \u201cLord\u2019s Prayer\u201d is a divine epitome for infant lips, but the man\nChrist Jesus prayed many an all-night ere his work was done; and his\nall-night and long-sustained devotions gave to his work its finish and\nperfection, and to his character the fullness and glory of its divinity.\n\nSpiritual work is taxing work, and men are loath to do it. Praying,\ntrue praying, costs an outlay of serious attention and of time, which\nflesh and blood do not relish. Few persons are made of such strong\nfiber that they will make a costly outlay when surface work will pass\nas well in the market. We can habituate ourselves to our beggarly\npraying until it looks well to us, at least it keeps up a decent form\nand quiets conscience--the deadliest of opiates! We can slight our\npraying, and not realize the peril till the foundations are gone.\nHurried devotions make weak faith, feeble convictions, questionable\npiety. To be little with God is to be little for God. To cut short the\npraying makes the whole religious character short, scrimp, niggardly,\nand slovenly.\n\nIt takes good time for the full flow of God into the spirit. Short\ndevotions cut the pipe of God\u2019s full flow. It takes time in the secret\nplaces to get the full revelation of God. Little time and hurry mar the\npicture.\n\nHenry Martyn laments that \u201cwant of private devotional reading and\nshortness of prayer through incessant sermon-making had produced much\nstrangeness between God and his soul.\u201d He judged that he had dedicated\ntoo much time to _public_ ministrations and too little to _private_\ncommunion with God. He was much impressed to set apart times for\nfasting and to devote times for solemn prayer. Resulting from this\nhe records: \u201cWas assisted this morning to pray for two hours.\u201d Said\nWilliam Wilberforce, the peer of kings: \u201cI must secure more time for\nprivate devotions. I have been living far too public for me. The\nshortening of private devotions starves the soul; it grows lean and\nfaint. I have been keeping too late hours.\u201d Of a failure in Parliament\nhe says: \u201cLet me record my grief and shame, and all, probably, from\nprivate devotions having been contracted, and so God let me stumble.\u201d\nMore solitude and earlier hours was his remedy.\n\nMore time and early hours for prayer would act like magic to revive and\ninvigorate many a decayed spiritual life. More time and early hours\nfor prayer would be manifest in holy living. A holy life would not be\nso rare or so difficult a thing if our devotions were not so short\nand hurried. A Christly temper in its sweet and passionless fragrance\nwould not be so alien and hopeless a heritage if our closet stay were\nlengthened and intensified. We live shabbily because we pray meanly.\nPlenty of time to feast in our closets will bring marrow and fatness\nto our lives. Our ability to stay with God in our closet measures our\nability to stay with God out of the closet. Hasty closet visits are\ndeceptive, defaulting. We are not only deluded by them, but we are\nlosers by them in many ways and in many rich legacies. Tarrying in\nthe closet instructs and wins. We are taught by it, and the greatest\nvictories are often the results of great waiting--waiting till words\nand plans are exhausted, and silent and patient waiting gains the\ncrown. Jesus Christ asks with an affronted emphasis, \u201cShall not God\navenge his own elect which cry day and night unto him?\u201d\n\nTo pray is the greatest thing we can do: and to do it well there must\nbe calmness, time, and deliberation; otherwise it is degraded into the\nlittlest and meanest of things. True praying has the largest results\nfor good; and poor praying, the least. We cannot do too much of real\npraying; we cannot do too little of the sham. We must learn anew the\nworth of prayer, enter anew the school of prayer. There is nothing\nwhich it takes more time to learn. And if we would learn the wondrous\nart, we must not give a fragment here and there--\u201cA little talk with\nJesus,\u201d as the tiny saintlets sing--but we must demand and hold with\niron grasp the best hours of the day for God and prayer, or there will\nbe no praying worth the name.\n\nThis, however, is not a day of prayer. Few men there are who pray.\nPrayer is defamed by preacher and priest. In these days of hurry and\nbustle, of electricity and steam, men will not take time to pray.\nPreachers there are who \u201csay prayers\u201d as a part of their programme,\non regular or state occasions; but who \u201cstirs himself up to take\nhold upon God?\u201d Who prays as Jacob prayed--till he is crowned as a\nprevailing, princely intercessor? Who prays as Elijah prayed--till all\nthe locked-up forces of nature were unsealed and a famine-stricken\nland bloomed as the garden of God? Who prayed as Jesus Christ prayed\nas out upon the mountain he \u201ccontinued all night in prayer to God?\u201d\nThe apostles \u201cgave themselves to prayer\u201d--the most difficult thing to\nget men or even the preachers to do. Laymen there are who will give\ntheir money--some of them in rich abundance--but they will not \u201cgive\nthemselves\u201d to prayer, without which their money is but a curse. There\nare plenty of preachers who will preach and deliver great and eloquent\naddresses on the need of revival and the spread of the kingdom of God,\nbut not many there are who will do that without which all preaching and\norganizing are worse than vain--pray. It is out of date, almost a lost\nart, and the greatest benefactor this age could have is the man who\nwill bring the preachers and the Church back to prayer.\n\n\n\n\nXX.\n\n  _I judge that my prayer is more than the devil himself; if it were\n  otherwise, Luther would have fared differently long before this. Yet\n  men will not see and acknowledge the great wonders or miracles God\n  works in my behalf. If I should neglect prayer but a single day, I\n  should lose a great deal of the fire of faith._--MARTIN LUTHER.\n\n\nOnly glimpses of the great importance of prayer could the apostles\nget before Pentecost. But the Spirit coming and filling on Pentecost\nelevated prayer to its vital and all-commanding position in the gospel\nof Christ. The call now of prayer to every saint is the Spirit\u2019s\nloudest and most exigent call. Sainthood\u2019s piety is made, refined,\nperfected, by prayer. The gospel moves with slow and timid pace when\nthe saints are not at their prayers early and late and long.\n\nWhere are the Christly leaders who can teach the modern saints how to\npray and put them at it? Do we know we are raising up a prayerless set\nof saints? Where are the apostolic leaders who can put God\u2019s people\nto praying? Let them come to the front and do the work, and it will\nbe the greatest work which can be done. An increase of educational\nfacilities and a great increase of money force will be the direst curse\nto religion if they are not sanctified by more and better praying than\nwe are doing. More praying will not come as a matter of course. The\ncampaign for the twentieth or thirtieth century fund will not help\nour praying but hinder if we are not careful. Nothing but a specific\neffort from a praying leadership will avail. The chief ones must lead\nin the apostolic effort to radicate the vital importance and _fact_ of\nprayer in the heart and life of the Church. None but praying leaders\ncan have praying followers. Praying apostles will beget praying saints.\nA praying pulpit will beget praying pews. We do greatly need somebody\nwho can set the saints to this business of praying. We are not a\ngeneration of praying saints. Nonpraying saints are a beggarly gang\nof saints who have neither the ardor nor the beauty nor the power\nof saints. Who will restore this breach? The greatest will he be of\nreformers and apostles, who can set the Church to praying.\n\nWe put it as our most sober judgment that the great need of the Church\nin this and all ages is men of such commanding faith, of such unsullied\nholiness, of such marked spiritual vigor and consuming zeal, that their\nprayers, faith, lives, and ministry will be of such a radical and\naggressive form as to work spiritual revolutions which will form eras\nin individual and Church life.\n\nWe do not mean men who get up sensational stirs by novel devices, nor\nthose who attract by a pleasing entertainment; but men who can stir\nthings, and work revolutions by the preaching of God\u2019s Word and by the\npower of the Holy Ghost, revolutions which change the whole current of\nthings.\n\nNatural ability and educational advantages do not figure as factors in\nthis matter; but capacity for faith, the ability to pray, the power\nof thorough consecration, the ability of self-littleness, an absolute\nlosing of one\u2019s self in God\u2019s glory, and an ever-present and insatiable\nyearning and seeking after all the fullness of God--men who can set the\nChurch ablaze for God; not in a noisy, showy way, but with an intense\nand quiet heat that melts and moves everything for God.\n\nGod can work wonders if he can get a suitable man. Men can work wonders\nif they can get God to lead them. The full endowment of the spirit\nthat turned the world upside down would be eminently useful in these\nlatter days. Men who can stir things mightily for God, whose spiritual\nrevolutions change the whole aspect of things, are the universal need\nof the Church.\n\nThe Church has never been without these men; they adorn its history;\nthey are the standing miracles of the divinity of the Church; their\nexample and history are an unfailing inspiration and blessing. An\nincrease in their number and power should be our prayer.\n\nThat which has been done in spiritual matters can be done again, and\nbe better done. This was Christ\u2019s view. He said: \u201cVerily, verily, I\nsay unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do\nalso; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my\nFather.\u201d The past has not exhausted the possibilities nor the demands\nfor doing great things for God. The Church that is dependent on its\npast history for its miracles of power and grace is a fallen Church.\n\nGod wants elect men--men out of whom self and the world have gone by a\nsevere crucifixion, by a bankruptcy which has so totally ruined self\nand the world that there is neither hope nor desire of recovery; men\nwho by this insolvency and crucifixion have turned toward God perfect\nhearts.\n\nLet us pray ardently that God\u2019s promise to prayer may be more than\nrealized.\n\n\n\n\n      *      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s note:\n\nObvious typographical errors have been corrected.","title":"Preacher and Prayer","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":21309}