A Goodly Heritage

Our realization of the presence of God may be accompanied with little or no emotion. Our spirits may lie as if dead under the hand of God. Vision and rapture may alike be withdrawn. But we ought not therefore to grow sluggish in prayer. So far from interupting the exercise at such times, we ought to redouble our energy. And it may be that the prayer which goes up through darkness to God will bring to us a blessing such as we have not received in our most favoured hours. The prayer which rises from "the land of forgetfulness," "the place of darkness," "the belly of hell," may have an abundant and glorious return. At the same time, there are seasons of special privilege when the winds of God are unbound about the throne of grace, and the breath of spring begins to stir in the King's gardens. The Scottish preachers used to talk much of gaining access. And it is related of Robert Bruce that when two visitors presented themselves before him on a certa...

This is the first reward of the secret place; through prayer our graces are quickened, and holiness is wrought in us. "Holiness," says Hewitson, "is a habit of mind-a setting of the Lord continually before one's eyes, a constant walking with God as one with whom we are agreed." And in the attainment and maintenance of unbroken communion, "Prayer is amongst duties, as faith is amongst graces." Richard Sibbes reminds us that "Prayer exercises all the graces of the Spirit," and Flavel confirms the sentence: "You must strive," he writes, "to excel in this, forasmuch as no grace within or service without can thrive without it." Berridge affirms that "all decays begin in the closet; no heart thrives without much secret converse with God, and nothing will make amends for the want of it." On the other hand, he acknowledges, "I never rose from secret prayer without some quickening. Even when I set about it with h...