Thomas Brooks cuts straight to our hearts on secret prayer and public prayer. We see the need and duty of public prayer, but many Christians do not see the same necessity and duty with private prayer. Brooks begins with a doctrinal truth.
Doctrine: That closet prayer or private prayer is an indispensable duty, that Christ himself hath laid upon all that are not willing to lie under the woeful brand of being hypocrites.
If any prayer be a duty, then secret prayer must needs be a duty; for secret prayer is as much prayer as any other prayer is prayer; and secret prayer prepares and fits the soul for family prayer, and for public prayer. Secret prayer sweetly inclines and strongly disposes a Christian to all other religious duties and services.
Every time I read these lines I hear the hammer hit the anvil especially hard and loud in two places. The first is that our private prayer time prepares and fits us for other prayers. The second strike is the sweetness in which secret prayer prepares us for all other areas of christian life and duties, outside the prayer closet. I don’t know how strongly you believe these to be true. I believe that our hearts bear witness that they are true but our selfish nature doesn’t want them to be so. If I fully acknowledge these statements to be true and authentic and yet shelve them or down-play them, what does that mean? And yet, if I know these statements to be true and I embrace them and act on them, will I not find myself experiencing the promised rewards that come from meeting with the heavenly Father in the secret place (Matthew 6:6)?
———————-
Brooks, T. (1866). The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks. (A. B. Grosart, Ed.) (Vol. 2, p. 162). Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert.
Leave a Reply