These words imply, in the first place, that our religious life is not an isolated thing between each man and God, with which no other man has anything to do.
All Christians are members of a body. If they come much in contact they are nearly related members. And no one has a right to fancy that his faults concern himself alone, and that no one else has an interest in his being a good man. The text implies further that we may get much help by being open about our faults. The apostle goes on to say, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed.” Prayer is a means by which every one can help his neighbour, and prayer is not the only means, but only one amongst many. Our friends can give us sympathy; can sometimes give us advice; can always give us encouragement; very often a friend’s experience will help out ours, and make us see more clearly than we could do alone that we ought to do. But the chief benefit of being ready to confess faults which our conscience urges us to confess is, that we clear our own minds and strengthen our own wills. In the first place, a concealed fault has a most extraordinary power of infecting the whole character. The sin, while it is concealed, seems to enter into all you think or do. It seems to be a part of yourself. You cannot say, “It is not I that did it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” No, the fact of your concealing it seems to make it peculiarly your own. It is not your fault merely; it is you. And all that comes from you partakes of it. All this is changed the moment you have told it. The act of telling it seems as it were to circumscribe it within its own proper limits. It is wrong; but there is the whole of it clearly in view. It no longer affects the rest of you or of your life. You have not got rid of it by telling of it. But you have got rid of this infection which it formerly carried with it. You have shut it up within itself. You have separated yourself from it, and it from yourself. Again, closely connected with this is the fact that a concealed fault lays a peculiar and very heavy burden on the soul. Over and above the remorse for the fault itself, the shame of having it hid in the heart, and unknown even to dear friends, always makes the hider feel as if he were acting a lie; and he despises himself in the midst of every word of praise that he may win. And, once more, confessing the fault pledges the will to try to prevent a return of it, and no other pledge is equally strong.
The resolution of the man who is hiding within him the memory of wrong is sure to be weak, wavering, fitful. The resolution of the man, whose repentance has been stamped and marked by confession, is clear and strong. However weak he feels, he feels, too, that he knows what he has to do and means to do it. And all this applies particularly to secret faults, which are hidden from all eyes but those of the doers. But much of it applies also to faults which are not hidden; but being known to all who know us intimately, yet are not confessed to be faults. There is a great difference between the repentance which simply endeavours to change, and that which not only endeavours to do so, but openly yet humbly confesses that it means to do so. Two questions remain: To whom you should confess your faults? and how? And both of these questions must be left very much to your own judgment. As a general rule, it may be said that one great duty of intimate friends is to supply each other with that help which Christian sympathy can give. A man has almost always among this friends some one, to whom he would not be utterly unwilling to tell all that lies on his own conscience. There may be some matters that require more experienced advice. There are some confessions which we are bound to make, not for the sake of ourselves and for our own spiritual improvement, but for the sake of justice: thus, for instance, if you have either purposely or unintentionally accused your neighbour falsely, it is to himself that you are bound to make the confession. All these points must be left to your own decision. So, again, it must be left to your own judgment how you will confess a fault. Nothing is more mischievous than to confess it in any such way as to give yourself a pleasure in doing so. (Bp. Temple.)
Confession
Besides that to God, we may hold many sorts of confessions necessary before men; as--
1. Some public. And so by the Church in ordinary or extraordinary humiliation (Lev_16:21; Neh_9:3). So also to the Church, and that either--
(1) Before entrance and admission, in which they did solemnly disclaim the impurities of their former life, professing to walk suitably to their new engagement for time to come (Mat_3:6; Act_19:18). Or--
(2) Upon public scandals after admission, for of secret things the Church judgeth not; but those scandalous acts, being faults against the Church, cannot be remitted by the minister alone; the offence being public, so was the confession and acknowledgment to be made public (2Co 1Ti_5:20). Now this was to be done, partly for the sinner’s sake, that he might be brought to the more shame and conviction; and partly because of them without, that the community of the faithful might not be represented as an ulcerous, filthy body, and the Church not be thought a receptacle of sin, but a school of holiness.
2. Private confession to men. And so--
(1) To a wronged neighbour, which is called a turning to him again after offence given (Luk_17:4), and prescribed by our Saviour (Mat_5:24). God will accept no service or worship at our hands till we have confessed the wrong done to others. So here, confess your faults one to another, it may be referred to injuries. In contentions there are offences on both sides, and every one will stiffly defend his own cause, &c.
(2) To those to whom we have consented in sinning, as in adultery, theft, &c. We must confess and pray for each other (Luk_16:28). It is but a necessary charity to invite them that have shared with us in sin to a fellowship in repentance.
(3) To a godly minister or wise Christian under deep wounds of conscience. It is but folly to hide our sores till they be incurable. When we have disburdened ourselves into the bosom of a godly friend, our conscience findeth a great deal of ease. Certainly they are then more capable to give us advice, and can the better apply the help of their counsel and prayers to our particular case, and are thereby moved to the more pity and commiseration; as beggars, to move the more, will not only represent their general want, but uncover their sores.
(4) When in some special cases God’s glory is concerned; as when some eminent judgment seizeth upon us because of a foregoing provocation, which provocation is sufficiently evidenced to us in gripes of conscience, it is good to make it known for God’s glory (2Sa_12:13; Jos_7:19). So when Divine revenge pursueth us if we are brought to some fearful end and punishment, it is good to be open in acknowledging our sin, that God’s justice may be the more visibly cleared; and hereby God receiveth a great deal of glory, and men a wonderful confirmation and experience of the care and justice of providence. (T. Manton.)
Faults
Nothing can be further from that discreet good sense which pervades the New Testament, than to inculcate a habit of tattling about one’s self. There is a reserve in this matter which belongs to true delicacy, and so to wisdom. Yet we are commanded to confess oar faults. We are to admit them when they occur, and when they are charged upon us.
I. THE TERM “FAULT” IN SCRIPTURE IS FREQUENTLY EMPLOYED AS SYNONYMOUS WITH “SIN.” It also has a special sense, and relates to small sins. Faults represent the unconscious imperfections of moral conduct--the ten thousand little sins of daily life which do not argue intentional wrong, and which yet are annoying and mischievous. Faults in this point of view belong to every part of a man’s nature, and to every portion of his conduct--to the tongue, to the hand, to the temper, to the reason, to the conscience, to every affection, and to every sentiment. There is no one part of a man’s nature that is without fault; and no man can carry himself through a single day without faults multitudinous. They are the signs and tokens of men’s universal imperfection. There are two extremes of opinion respecting faults. The one regards them with an excessive, uncharitable emphasis of blame. The other sometimes utterly ignores them, and sometimes ostentatiously undervalues them, as factors of moral results. Either extreme is wrong. Faults are not sins, necessarily, though they breed sins; and yet, they are not harmless. There is great danger in them, and great mischief in them, and great misery in them. They should therefore be studied, outgrown, corrected.
II. LET US CONSIDER THE EFFECTS, UPON HUMAN LIFE AND CHARACTER, OF FAULTS--not of grave mistakes; not of great sins of the strong arm and nimble foot; but those ten thousand little things that men do which are not just right, which they themselves could wish they had not done, and which everybody else could wish they had not done, but which are passed by, and of which it is said, “These are their weaknesses.” We say, by way of excusing them, “We all have our faults.” And so we brush them away. There is a right charity on this subject; but it is wiser for each of us to take heed of our faults. For--
1. Faults are often stepping-stones to heinous sins. They go before and prepare the way. They tend to dull moral sensibility. This is especially true of faults in the direction of the moral sentiments. A very slight carelessness in truth-telling will lead by and by to the gravest temptations towards falsehood. Small faults are baits and roles to draw men up to greater ones, so that their mischief is not measured by their own diameter, but by that which they lead to. There is a little gipsy girl in the old castle, and some one says to the lord, “You have an enemy there.” “What! that little gipsy girl?” says the lord, “what can she do? Here am I with my armed men; and every gate and door and window is bolted and barred. I guess she cannot take the castle.” No, she cannot take it; but at dead of the night she can go and draw back some bolt, and let men in that can take it.
2. Faults unwatched tend to run together, and so to become far more potent than they are in detail. A little sharpness in a person’s voice occasionally is not unpleasant. A little spirit is necessary. It is of the nature of spice. Life without anything in it, you know, is dough; and therefore a little temper--just a little spice--raises the dough, and makes bread of it. But a little more temper, and a little more, and a little more, and you are a shrew and a scold. The result is of great moment, but it is made up of the sum of little things, each one of which is apparently of not much importance.
3. Faults also prevent true growth in life. There is a great difference, of course, between faults that prevent growth, and those that do not. There are many that do not seem to do it; but there are some that do it. You may give a tree a good soil, and a good summer; and if that tree is a little sluggish, and it falls behind a little, it will be attacked by moss, which is a parasitic plant which draws its nourishment partly from the tree, and partly from the air; and it will very likely be attacked by a fly which is another kind of parasite that feeds upon the leaf. Each particular speck of moss, each particular fungus, that hangs itself upon the tree, amounts to very little. One apple-tree is ten million times bigger than one of those little plants that feed on it; but each one of these epiphytes shoots its little roots into the tree; and being multiplied by millions, they suck out the sap, and diminish the vigour of the tree, and prevent its growth. There are thousands of little faults that multiply on men, and act in the same way. The men become bark-bound, and leaf-blighted, and cease to have moral growth.
4. Faults, again, propagate themselves silently and secretly, and very dangerously; and they do mischief far from the point at which they start, and do mischiefs, too, that apparently are quite beyond their own nature. A picture may be spoiled by being torn, or slashed; a bomb or ball may burst through the canvas and destroy it; but then, a picture in a neglected convent may be steamed by the range, and smoked by the chimney, and dimmed by the gathering dust of ages, and be put out by these silent incrustations of time as effectually as if it were taken out of the frame and burned. And as it is in art, so it is in character. You can overlay beauty, you can mar perfectness of quality and faculty, by little faults. And the displeasure is greater, frequently, when the thing is marred, than when it is destroyed. A man has a large emerald, but it is “feathered,” and he knows an expert would say, “What a pity that it has such a feather!” it will not bring a quarter as much as it otherwise would; and he cannot take any satisfaction in it. A man has a diamond; but there is a flaw in it, and it is not the diamond that he wants. A man has an opal, but it is imperfect, and he is dissatisfied with it. An opal is covered with little seams, but they must be the right kind of seams. If it has a crack running clear across, it is marred, no matter how large it is, and no matter how wonderful its reflections are. And this man is worried all the time because he knows his opal is imperfect; and it would worry him even if he knew that nobody else noticed it. So it is in respect to dispositions, and in respect to character at large. Little cracks, little flaws, little featherings in them, take away their exquisiteness and beauty, and take away that fine finish which makes moral art. How many noble men there are who are diminished, who are almost wasted, in their moral influence 1 How many men are like the red maple I It is one of the most gorgeous trees, both in spring, blossoming, and in autumn, with its crimson foliage. But it stands knee-deep in swamp-water, usually. To get it, you must wade, or leap from bog to bog, tearing your raiment, and soiling yourself. I see a great many noble men, but they stand in a swamp of faults. They bear fruit that you fain would pluck, but there are briars and thistles and thorns all about it; and to get it you must wade your way through all these hindrances.
5. Faults are great wasters of happiness. They are the source of frets. They mar our peace. They keep up petty discords. They are so small as to elude the grasp. They are like a piano that has been standing all summer in an empty house without being tuned. Some of the notes are too low, and some too high; and they are all of them just a little out of tune. The instrument is good and sound, and pretty nearly chorded; but it is not quite in tune. And the not quite takes away all comfort from the musician who sits down to it. He plays, it may be, through the middle range without much discomfort; but when he strikes a note in the upper range, it makes him cringe. And so it is with happiness. Happiness is harmony. It requires the faculties to be harmonious all the way through. Violent excitement is seldom a source of great happiness. It gives joy for the moment, but it is not often the source of what we call true happiness. That comes from a lower range of action.
6. Faults are also dangerous, in their own way, because they have insect fecundity. They art apt to swarm. And though a few of them may not do much harm, when men come to have a great many of them they will avail as much as if they were actual transgressions. It is not necessary that there should be wolves, and lions, and bears in the woods to drive hunters out of them. Black flies, or mosquitos, or gnats, will drive them out, if there are enough of them. These little winged points of creation make up what they lack in individual strength by their enormous multitude.
III. WE ARE COMMANDED, THEN, TO CONFESS OUR FAULTS. TO whom? The priest? Yes. If any man knows a priest who is a good man, and is willing to listen to him and give him good advice, there is no earthly reason why he may not go to him, as a sensible man who has a heart of sympathy, and a desire to help his fellow creatures. But that is not what is meant, evidently, in the text. “Confess your faults one to another.” Frequently a man will admit his great sins, but not his faults. The apostle says, “You are to own your faults.” If a man says,” You were proud,” say, “Yes, I was proud.” “You ought not to have done that.” “Well, I ought not to have done it.” “You said that through vanity.” “It is true, I did. I was under the influence of vanity, and I sacrificed you through vanity. I confess it. Help me out of it next time.” How wise, then, is James’s command, “Confess your faults one to another.” Nor is that all--“and pray one for another.” If we prayed more we should blame less; we should be far more tolerant; we should not suspect so much; we should not carry stories so much; we should not do wrong so much. For, there is nothing that makes a man so charitable as that which he has himself suffered. An old veteran, who has gone through a hundred battles, and is as firm as a rock in the midst of dangers, has a young officer under his command, who in his first action quivers with fear, and trembles like an aspen leaf. If this superior officer had never seen any service, he would scoff at the young man, and laugh him to scorn; but instead of that, the true man and veteran comes up to the frightened soldier, and says, “My young man, keep cool. You are doing well. I was as scared as you are when I first went into action; but I got over it, and you will get over it.” What balm! what magnanimity! There is nothing like the sympathy which is created by our own experience. By confessing our faults one to another, and praying for one another, we learn humility on the one side, and on the other side that large charity which covers transgression and hides a multitude of sins. Finally, while we are striving to bear our own burdens, and to sustain the faults and shortcomings of our fellow-men, let us remember every day what Christ is obliged to bear in and for us. (H. W. Beecher.)
Confession of faults
The case before us supposes a Christian who is sick, and who has committed no great crime, no crying sin, but a fault towards his brother. He is the man whose case was mentioned in the preceding verses. His faults had brought him to his bed, his sickness had brought him to penitence; he desires to be forgiven and healed. He sends for the Church officials, who use first the physical agents of remedy, and then engage in prayer. Now, says the apostle, “Send for your brother, against whom you have committed a fault. Confess your fault to him; perhaps that will bring him to perceive that he has had faults towards you. “When you have prayed together, you for him and he for you, and have come to be loving friends again, then all may go right, and the peace of your mind will advance the recovery of your body, and so you may be healed.” In this whole matter of confession it is important to guard against morbid feeling and mistaken action. Where another is concerned, and such a sin is committed that the acknowledgment to him or to the world would put him in no better position than he is now, why should there be any confession made? Confession to other than the offended party, or even to the injured party, may itself become injurious to a wide circle. The confession should not be made to a third party, but only to the party involved in the difficulty. That confession should always be made in a truly devout spirit; in a spirit consistent with acts of prayer. It must not be done perfunctorily, merely to get through a duty, but must come from the heart, just as prayer must come from the heart; and must leave the confessor in that state of mind which prepares him to go to the Heavenly Father and invoke all blessings upon the brother whom he has offended. And this points us to the ethical lesson on the other side, which is often overlooked. When my brother is convinced that he has committed a fault against me, and being sick and unable to visit me, sends for me and begins to make confession, I must not draw myself up haughtily and tell him I am glad he has come to his senses at length. I must listen very patiently and humbly t,, his confession, examining my own heart to see whether there might not have been something in my conduct to betray my brother into his fault, and whether, also, I may not have resented his fault as to be betrayed by indignation into a fault on my own part. I must listen with the greatest gladness, seeing that he has been brought by the Spirit of God to such a state; and I must earnestly desire to be in as proper a moral position toward him. If all this be done, then immediately after confession will follow forgiveness and prayer. He that had done the wrong and he that had received it will pray each for the other, and there will be real, unaffected love; and a state of love amongst all Christians is that which every man who loves our Lord Christ does most intensely long for. (C. F. Deems, D. D.)
Confession difficult
A very learned man once said,” The three hardest words in the English language are, ‘I was mistaken!’” Frederick the Great once wrote to the Senate: “I have lost a great battle, and it was entirely my own fault.” Goldsmith says, “This confession displayed more greatness than all his victories.” Do not be afraid to acknowledge your mistakes, else you will never correct them; and you are really showing how much wiser you are than when you went astray.
Pray one for another
Intercessory prayer
It is very hard to understand how prayer does good to the person that offers it. It is quite impossible to give any satisfactory explanation of the truth, though we hold it as we hold our lives, that prayer is heard and answered, and all this without a constant miracle. That is hard to understand, though we are quite sure it is all perfectly true. But it is a much more mysterious thing--and in some points of view it is a very awful thing--to think that prayer for others may truly affect their state, both here and hereafter. Now perhaps the best way of bringing our minds in some measure to understand all this, is to set it before us, that all this is no more wonderful than certain other arrangements in God’s Providence. It is just as hard to explain why your eternal destiny may be affected by another person’s conduct, as by his prayers. Yet we know it is. But still, it is all very strange. And so, if you would ask a good man to do you a good turn, you can never do so better than by asking him to pray for you. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” We all need to feel this more than we do. No doubt there are few requests and few promises ever made with so little sense of what is meant by them as that to pray for another. A person will say that his prayer is that such a friend may be happy; while in fact he never really went to God’s footstool with such a prayer at all. And it may be said, in a single sentence, that intercessory prayer for others is sometimes characterised by what is even worse than unreality. Sometimes the most ill-set and malignant thing that one man can do towards another is to pray for him, or to threaten to pray for him. Oh, let there never be admitted to our minds the faintest idea of hitting at somebody in prayer! Let intercessory prayer always be offered in love. And though the humblest and poorest, there is no saying the good you may do--do to your children, do to your friends, do to those who preach the gospel to you, do to the whole Church of God, by your earnest and persevering prayers. Not much need be said as to the way in which we ought to pray fur those we love. We pray for them as we pray for ourselves. We ask God to give them the same things we ask for ourselves. We ask for guidance through this present life, and for glory afterward, through the precious sacrifice of Christ, and the precious influences of the Holy Spirit: and we ask, as the occasion arises, for all the multitude of separate blessings which are included under these. And as the occasion arises, too, we should do all we can to bring about the things for which we pray. You know the great familiar rule for every Christian’s work and prayer: it is to pray as earnestly as if we could do nothing by ourselves; and at the same time to work as hard as if we could do everything by ourselves. It has been well said, that if you want God to hear your prayers for others you must hear them yourselves. It is as mere a mockery to pray that those you love may be brought to Christ, and at last to heaven, while yet you never move a finger to bring them, as it would be for a man to sit down idly amid his heaps of quarried stones and pray that his house may be built, while yet he never moves a hand to build it. And yet, “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it”; they are but the two aspects of one great truth. And indeed, it is only in regard to spiritual things that you will find people so forgetful that pains must go with prayers. You do not pray that your little boy may be a good Greek scholar, and yet never teach him Greek. You do not pray that your friend may not fall into a pit hard by on his way on a dark night, and yet never warn him that the pit is there. Now, just act on these plain rules of sound sense, as regards the most important things of all. You may indeed pray for those for whom you can do nothing else; but there are those for whom you ought to pray, for whom you may do much more. Pray for your children, and try to train them in the right way. Pray for your friends, and never miss the chance of doing them a good turn, for this life or the next. Pray for the heathen, and help the agencies for their conversion. Pray for the sorrowful, and never lose the opportunity of comforting a sad heart, and a kind word may go far here, or even the hearty sympathy, felt though unexpressed. (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)
Mutual prayer
I. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE TEXT.
1. Prayer should be united and mutual; with each other and for each other. The secret root of piety is to be watered in private; but then this will prompt us to social efforts. To prevent selfishness we should pray with others, and learn to say “our Father.” It has a happy effect on men to hear themselves prayed for, and may set them to pray for themselves. It promotes mutual love and sympathy to pray to ether. It also heightens the flame of our devotedness and zeal. It often corrects and regulates our prayers, which in privacy might grow erratic or careless. It is due to the interests of Christ’s Church that we should unite in prayer.
2. Mutual prayer demands mutual confidence and love. Quarrelling and fault-finding separate us from one another. First, we should confess our faults one to another, with real sorrow for them and determination not to repeat them. Then we should forgive each other freely, and from our hearts. Not to forgive hinders prayer (Mar_11:25). To this must be added zealous interest in each other’s spiritual good, not cold and haughty distance and mutual estrangement ever after.
3. True prayer must be righteous. We must seek righteous ends. We must be influenced by righteous motives. We must seek right things.
4. Our prayer must be earnest. The words “effectual fervent” are one in the original, where the term denotes labouring, energetic, agonising prayer; prayer in the spirit; prayer with our whole heart and strength, and under the impulse and guidance of God’s Holy Spirit.
II. THE ILLUSTRATION (1Ki_18:41, &c.).
1. Elijah was a righteous man.
2. Yet he was nothing more than a man.
3. He gave himself to prayer to fulfil the purposes of his mission.
4. His prayer was effectual in regard to material things.
5. His prayer at first was for temporal evil.
6. It was for a public benefit.
III. LESSONS.
1. In some cases unite to prayer for temporal good, when it is for God’s glory.
2. Unite to prayer for spiritual blessings; for the deepening of God’s work in your own hearts--for the conversion of friends--for the welfare of the Church you belong to--for a blessing on God’s Word; for a revival of religion at large. (Congregational Pulpit.)
Intercessory prayer
Christianity brought with it a new phenomenon in the spiritual world, if such an expression be permitted, and that phenomenon was the sudden and extraordinary development of intercessory prayer. There was little of this in the old world among Jews or pagans. Prayer was individual; each man asked of God what he felt himself to be in great need of. If in sickness, he asked for health; if in poverty, he entreated for wealth. At the outside, he only prayed for near friends and relatives when in danger of death. The Jew, no doubt, had a nobler and fuller type of prayer, and he supplicated for Israel. His individuality was but an atom in the great bulk of his people, and he did pray God to deliver His people out of adversity, and to strengthen it against its oppressors. It is doubtful whether the heathen had any such practice of prayer for his race and nation. He offered to the genius the empire, but that was but a homage rendered to the jealous divinity who was supposed to watch over the welfare of Rome. The death of Christ, the proclamation of the kingdom, seems to have opened the eyes of all those who received the gospel to the common brotherhood of mankind. With a shock of surprise they saw that all mankind are members of one family, that all are linked together by common interests. This is an age of philanthropy, when there is a real desire to relieve all of their burdens which weigh unjustly, and to redress all wrongs, and where there is not such a real desire, one is simulated, and it becomes a sort of political and social clap-trap--simply because philanthropy is fashionable. But in this bustling, eager age, when we are all trying to rectify abuses and remedy ills, how much is done on the knees? How much of intercessory prayer goes on? We are, in too many eases, endeavouring to better the world without seeking God’s help and God’s guidance. We are not all able to do much to redress the wrongs done in this world; to relieve the darkness, to ease the burdens, to staunch the tears that are shed, because we have not all the means, or the ability, or the opportunities, but we can all pray, and by our prayers may effect far more than can they who, with means, ability, and opportunity go to work in a philanthropic spirit, but without Christian faith and devout prayer. (S. BaringGould, M. A.)
Intercession
Serjeant William White tells us in his biography of his friend Serjeant William Marjouram that the latter could say, eight years after they first met, when Marjouram led White to the Saviour, that he had not failed one single day to remember him in his prayers.
Litany day
Mr. Romaine used to spend two hours every Friday in intercession for his friends, having their names written down, and pacing his room in thought and prayer about their particular wants. He used to refer to Friday as his “Litany day.”
Intercessory prayer needed
A true Christian will value the intercession of the humblest believer. So did good Dr. Davenant, Master of Queen’s College, Cambridge. Being appointed to the bishopric of Salisbury, and taking leave of the inmates of the college, he asked an old college servant, John Rolfe, to give him his prayers. The old man naturally replied that he had rather need of those of the bishop. “Yea, John,” replied the latter, “and I need thine too, being now to enter into a calling wherein I shall meet with many and great temptations.”
Value of the intercessions of the good
Hamilton says of the departed McCheyne: “Perhaps the heaviest loss to his brethren, his people and the land, is the loss of his intercessions.” (Sword and Trowel.)
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man
Effectual prayer
We are often told that no prayer can be effectual in securing the blessing sought unless it is consistent with God’s will to grant it. But the all-important question at once arises. “How can I know what is and what is not consistent with God’s will?” Suppose I have a sick child for whose recovery I am intensely anxious. I am told that if his restoration to health is in harmony with God’s will, I may pray for it in the confident expectation of receiving an answer to my prayer. But how can I know whether or not it is so? Clearly, I cannot know it unless God Himself informs me. What, then, shall I do? Shall I leave the sick one in the hands of God to have the issue of his sickness determined simply and alone by the will of God? This would be to deny the utility of prayer. But though I know not what God’s will concerning my child may be, I am most diligent to use the power of prayer for his recovery, just as I use the power of medicine or of nursing. Is it said that I am to pray with a submissive spirit? Very true; as soon as any occasion for submission appears. But there is neither occasion nor room for it, till I learn that God cannot grant my request. I saw the other day a man attempting to split a rock with a sledgehammer. Down came the sledge upon the stone as if it would crush it, but it merely rebounded, leaving the rock as sound as before. Again the ponderous hammer was swung, and again it came down, but with the same result. Nothing was accomplished. The rock was still without a crack. I might have asked (as so many are disposed to ask concerning prayer) what good could result from such a waste of time and strength. But that man had faith. He believed in the power of that sledge. He believed that repeated blows had a tendency to split that rock. And so he kept at it. Blow after blow came down all apparently in vain. But still he kept on without a thought of discouragement. He believed that a vigorously swung sledge “has great power.” And at last came one more blow and the work was done. That is the way in which we ought to use prayer. God has told us that “the earnest prayer of the righteous man has great power.” We ought to believe it, just as that man believed that his sledge had power. And believing it, we ought to use prayer for the attainment of spiritual results with just such confidence of success as that man used his sledge. But says one, “I don’t know whether the thing for which I am praying is consistent with the will of God.” No matter whether it is or not. That is not a question that there is any need of determining or asking. We don’t know God’s will about any of our plans for the future. But that doesn’t paralyse our efforts or lead us to distrust the efficiency of the means we use for accomplishing those plans. A young man wishes to secure an education. He knows nothing of God’s will in the matter, nor does he hesitate a moment because of his ignorance. He simply knows that God has established certain means to be used for attaining the end desired, and that if he faithfully and perseveringly uses these, he may reasonably hope to succeed. It is true he may fail. It may be God’s will that he should die within a year. Or some one of the many obstacles in his path may prove entirely insurmountable. But he is to take no notice of any such possibilities. He is to commence and prosecute his studies as if he knew that, if industrious and persevering, he would certainly succeed. This is the way to succeed. And this is the only way. Earnestness, perseverance, unflinching resolution, have ten thousand times made not only possible, but actual, what would otherwise have been impossible. It is just so with prayer. We are no more to concern ourselves about God’s will concerning the things for which we pray, than about His will concerning the things for which we toil. We are to recognise and hold fast the fact with both hands, with memory, mind, and heart, that prayer is a means appointed of God for securing spiritual results, as industry and resolution are for achieving results in temporal things. And that is a universal law of God’s government, that the more earnestly and perseveringly we use any means that God has appointed, the more certain are we to attain the end we seek. And believing these things, we are to act accordingly. We are to use prayer with just as much expectation of accomplishing something by it, as we use industry. We are to believe with all the heart that “the earnest prayer of the righteous man has great power.” (Christian Age.)
Inwrought energetic prayer
A person often says to his friend, or to his minister, “Pray for me. You are a good man, and ‘ the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.’” If that be the meaning of the verse--if “a righteous man” means a good man, who could appropriate it? God says, “There is none righteous; no, not one.” But there was a depth in those words which the centurion said of Christ--which probably he little thought of when he said them, “Truly this was a righteous man!” Observe, “a righteous man”--not by virtue of His Deity, but as man. He became man, and then as a man He fulfilled the whole righteousness of God’s law. That righteousness God accepts as if it were ours. He imputes it to us; He sees us in it; that which that holy, pure eye could never have seen us without--righteousness. Therefore a “righteous man” means a justified man: And here is the comfort: the humblest believer may go and plead the promise, and may go in the simple confidence that Christ has justified him; and though both he and his prayer be utterly vile, still its unworthiness does not destroy its worthiness or destroy its claim--for God hath written it, and He cannot deny it--“The effectual fervent prayer of a justified man availeth much.” But there is another condition: it must be “effectual fervent.” There is some difficulty in arriving at an accurate definition of the meaning of these words--for, in the original, the words are but one; and the first and closest signification is “wrought in”; the wrought-in prayer, “the prayer wrought in the soul of a justified man availeth much.” Therefore the primary idea is that the prayer that “avails much” is a prayer that is wrought into a man’s soul by the Holy Spirit. When you go to pray it may seem to you as if you originated your thoughts. But it is not so. As the flame which bore up the sacrifice from the altar first came down upon the altar from heaven, so the first spring and power of all prayer is from above. Prayer is an inward creation of the Holy Ghost. Let me place this matter in its true arrangement. God, in His sovereign love and His.free mercy, wishes to give you something. Say it is the pardon of your sins. It is a part of His way of doing it that He sends the Holy Ghost to work in your heart a desire after the very thing which He is meaning to give you. So that you do not so much obtain the good because you ask it, as that you asked it because it is God’s mind to give it. The desire, and the prayer that expresses the desire, are the machinery by which God is giving effect to His own preordained plan. Let me offer you one or two suggestions to make more energetic prayer. Much prayer is enfeebled from a want of faith in your own prayers. Fill yourself with appreciations of the power of prayer by carrying in your mind some promise that God has made. Then remember that all prayer--if prayer--must be communion. Prayer alone is not communion. Communion is a double process. It is God speaking to us, and then we speaking to God. That is communion. Therefore listen for voices, and let your prayer be the echo. Throw as much of the Bible as you can into your prayer, because it will be pleasant to God to have His own word brought back to Him. He will give much to His own arguments. Always let there be a little preparation before you kneel down. Tune the mind. Get into a certain atmosphere. Settle your subjects. Give them a little order, not too much, not to make them mechanical, but still with some method. It is a great help in prayer to have determined beforehand a little method. “Take with you words,” is God’s command. When you begin to pray, set before you, and take as the ground of your prayer, some particular attribute of God suited to the subject which you are going to make the special subject of your petition. Deal much with that particular name or title of God. It makes an adequate basis. Have arguments to back your salt; especially that strongest one, “It is for Thy glory.” That is the most important of all things, when we are in prayer, to tell God it is for His own faithfulness and for His own glory; to remind yourself, and remind God, of former answers He has given you in prayer. “Thou hast been my succour.” Whoever would pray to profit must pray praisingly. And then press forward. Pray with a holy, bold resolvedness. And then put the name of Jesus--that grand name of Jesus--clenchingly, commandingly. And when you have done--when you have shot the arrow--wait; follow it with your eye, and look up and see when and where the answer is going to come down. And let me remind you there is one kind of prayer to which the text particularly refers--intercessory. May we never forget it. Do not let us forget it as ministers and people. It is the life, it is the joy, it is the strength of the prayer, when it is held together by intertwining threads of intercessory prayer. (James Vaughan, M. A.)
The prayer of faith
I. THE PRAYER OF FAITH IS CONSISTENT WITH THE UNCHANGEABLENESS OF GOD, WHEN BOTH ARE SCRIPTURALLY DEFINED.
II. IT IS CONSISTENT WITH NATURE AND MIRACLES. God can and will perform what He has promised.
III. THE SCRIPTURAL CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH A MIRACLE MIGHT BE WROUGHT AND THE ANSWER TO PRAYER BELIEVED.
1. There is a plane of prayer which is acceptable, which has true faith, but which is offered in the ordinary conditions of a secular yet pious life, without special stress of emotion or elevation of view.
2. The element of time in prayer is important. In respect to the kingdom we shall not have the harvest with the seed-sowing, but after.
3. There are unlimited possibilities in Christian prayer. The Spirit is given to help our infirmities, when we know not what to ask for. The Church will ask more, receive more, and do more. (R. B. Thurston, D. D.)
Is prayer efficacious?
Has it never happened, when travelling, that you have stopped among the ruins of an old building, and there evoked, by thought, a vanished past? And if the stones which surrounded you were those of a church, have you not experienced a strange emotion in imagining all the generations which had passed through that enclosure, all the prayers which had been heard there. Well! an analogous spectacle in the moral world impresses me. There also we shall meet with ruins which sin heaps up every year, ruins of souls made for a superior life, and degraded by vanity, by selfishness, by lusts But search thoroughly, and, under the thick coating of vice or of indifference, you will find the traces of a sanctuary, you will recognise vestiges which will tell you that those souls ought to belong to God. Of those vestiges I wish to point out only one: it is the instinct of prayer living in the depth of every man’s soul, which is found always and everywhere, which makes the rough face of those poor savages, whose mouth hardly stammers out a human language, to turn towards heaven in their afflictions. How great is that instinct, and how shall we not admire its beauty! Here is a weak, ignorant being, who will pass away, and who unites himself to the all-powerful God, to the Author of all life, of all intelligence; here is a being hitherto selfish and defiled, who returns trembingly to the Author of all love and all holiness; he considers in his soul His sovereign power and goodness, he restores to Him, in acts of thanksgiving, the life he has received from Him. But, while showing what is admirable in that instinct of prayer, how can we help thinking with sorrow of the way in which it has been perverted? What has prayer, almost everywhere, become? An outward act, a religious routine, and nothing more. The spirit has disappeared and the form alone has remained. Is prayer efficacious? What a strange question, you will say, for why should we pray if we believed we were fulfilling a useless act? That is evident; but you must understand us. In a general sense, all will grant that prayer operates; but on whom does it operate? Is it on us simply? Such is the question, First of all, here is a reflection which should occur to you. If prayer can and ought to act only on him who prays, I ask what is the meaning of all the prayers we address to God for others? That remark made, I interrogate the human soul as to that instinctive and universal impulse which induces it to pray. What does it, then, want? To raise itself simply to God, to unite itself to the Source of all good, to calm itself in the contemplation of universal order, to learn to resign itself before inflexible necessity? Ah! who would dare to say so except by denying the reality of things? What! that shipwrecked man who lifts a look of anxious expectation towards God, that mother whose heart is rent at the sight of her child in agony, or that other one who trembles at the thought of the temptations which will destroy her son; do you believe that they do not ask, do you believe that they have not an ardent and profound confidence that they will act on the Divine will, that they will modify the course of things? But you cannot, you dare not, say so, and, behold, you are reduced to maintain that they are all victims of a presumptuous illusion. An illusion! but whence comes that illusion which I find everywhere and always, that illusion which neither education, nor influence, nor example could plant in those depths of the human soul, from whence it comes out at critical hours? Therefore it will be God who must have put it in us; God who must have created in our soul that hunger without nourishment, that thirst without mitigation; God who must have said to His creature, “Thou shall always ask Me, but I will never answer thee.” No, no; I believe in that spontaneous testimony of the soul. God will, God must reply to that desire. Moreover, we are Christians; the best and most sublime things we know respecting God we owe to Jesus Christ. “What idea does Jesus wish to give us of prayer? Is it simply, in His eyes, an exaltation of the soul, a spiritual exercise, and, if there is an idea which is familiar to Him, which comes back each instant to His lips, is it not that prayer is a real request which obtains its reply, that it acts on God, that it can modify events, that its action depends on the intensity of faith? And besides, what Jesus here teaches is that which comes from the whole of Scripture with an evidence that no other explanation will be able to weaken. Recall the sublime scene where Abraham intercedes with God to delay the punishment of Sodom; recall the wrestling of Jacob with the angel, and that name of Israel, which means “a conqueror of God”; then, leaping over centuries, see the Canaanite woman at the feet of Jesus Christ, wresting from Him, by her supplications, her tears, her admirable faith, the cure He seemed at first to refuse her, and tell us if prayer, such as Scripture presents it to us, is not a sovereign act which operates on us first of all, but also, apart from us, on others, on events, on the world, and, to employ the bold paradox of Scripture, even on God Himself. To have both the cry of nature and the Divine word for one’s self, is not that essential, and what more is necessary for Christians? On that ground I place myself, in order to approach the objections by which men seek to shake our faith. You know the first, the oldest objection. They tell us that prayer cannot be efficacious because it would change the laws of nature. Is that true? Well, O reasoner! why then should you act? Why do you take a step, even one? Why do you seek for your nourishment? Why do you sow? Why do yea build? Each of your acts is in the most flagrant contradiction to your system. You cannot modify nature, and every instant you modify it! I know how we shall be answered. It will be said that, when man acts on nature, he does it in an outward, visible manner which every one can appreciate, and that there is no relation between that action and the action claimed for prayer. But that was not the question. It was, you know, to prove that man can modify nature; and we have seen that he can do so. I am told now that it is inconceivable how that action will take place under the influence of prayer. But how many of those hews are there that we could understand and resolve? Do you conceive how the will which is spiritual can act on matter? Do you know how my hand obeys my intellect? Does not mystery surround you here on all hands, and do the most learned penetrate it better than the most simple? There is another objection opposed to us when we affirm that we can, by prayer, modify the course of events and operate on God Himself. Objectors say to us that it is doubting the wisdom and the goodness of God, that it is substituting our action for His, that an inconceivable pride is there, and that the sole attitude which becomes us in respect to Him is the waiting on and submission to His will. Let us remove what is specious from that objection. When we say that a man acts, by his prayer, on God Himself, we babble in the speech of man of things which are beyond us, the Divine will being incapable of yielding to ours, and remaining as the last word and the explanation of all. Having said this, we shall remark that the objection put before us is destroyed, like the preceding, by itself. The wisdom and goodness of God should prevent us from addressing our demands to Him, they tell us; but what would you answer him who, in the name of the same principle, should pretend to condemn the labour of man? We should answer, “Yes, assuredly God wills that I should live, but He wills that I live by labouring, and for that He has placed the instinct for labour in me. Now, if I did not obey that instinct, His will, however good it may be, would not be realised in respect to me. It therefore depends on me, on my labour, that the will of God should be accomplished.” Well! what is true of labour is true of prayer also. Yes, God wills that such an end be attained, that such a result be produced; but there is a condition to it, it is the labour of the soul, in a word, it is prayer. If I do not pray, that Divine will, will never be accomplished. There remains the most popular and oftenest repeated objection; it is that which people pretend to draw from experience. “If prayer were really efficacious,” they say, “if it operated on others, on events, on the world, we should see its effects.” But who are they, then, who pretend thus to judge the results of prayers of faith, and so discern their reality? Do they know if those prayers were true and sincere? Do they know what sentiment dictated them? They are astonished at their small amount of efficacy, but it would be necessary first to know if they could rise to God. What do you think of those selfish or vicious prayers which only interest or passion has inspired? In order to appreciate the visible effect of prayers we must therefore judge what the prayers themselves are worth, and what inspection of man could discern their value? That is what must be first remembered; and now let us view more nearly the objection opposed to us. People show us prayers which remain unanswered, prayers of the most believing, of the most pious, of the most humble redeemed by Jesus Christ, and they tell us it is impossible, in face of such a fact, still to affirm with my text that prayer is efficacious. Well 1 to that argument of experience, experience may reply. I appeal to those who know bow to pray, and who are apparently the best judges in that matter. I appeal to them confidently, and I know that they will testify firmly that prayer is efficacious. Besides, there are visible results of prayer which impress themselves so evidently that none can deny them. When, forty centuries ago, we could have seen, in the plains of Chaldea, the obscure chief of an unknown tribe bending the knee before Jehovah and invoking Him for his son, in the persuasion that all the nations of the earth should be blessed in his name; when, two thousand years later, we could have heard a handful of Galileans Fraying in an upper room in Jerusalem, and imagining that the world would be conquered by the faith of which they were witnesses, we might have been tempted to smile before the prayer of Abraham and before that of the first disciples of Christ. Who to-day would dare to say they were deceived? To-day the third of humanity beholds in Abraham the father of believers, and the prayer of the apostles is repeated by the Church growing in all points of the universe. (E. Bersier, D. D.)
Effectual prayer
I. THAT PRAYER MAY PREVAIL WITH GOD. This fact is more doubted than denied. Let us, then, notice, that all our objections to a full belief in the efficacy of prayer arise from a greater confidence in our own unaided reasonings, and certain intuitive convictions, than in the testimony of God. In this connection, therefore, I would remind you of one or two facts, which tend to modify an extravagant confidence in our reason. One is this: The Author of nature has not consulted human wisdom in the arrangement of even material causes. We know that fire consumes wood. But how do we come to know it? By reasoning beforehand how it ought to be? No; there is not a single law of matter or mind that man has found out by anticipation. But again: The Author of nature has contradicted the wisdom of man in the constitution of the universe. I mean by the wisdom of man, his mere logic, independent of his observation, and those impressions or perceptions to which men yield such firm credence, even in opposition to the Scriptures. For more than five thousand years from the creation of the world, the wisest men were continually making the most egregious blunders in describing the processes of nature. But when Lord Bacon at length arose to disenthral the human mind, he showed that, except in the department of abstract truth, as mathematics and metaphysics, they must look outward; that evidence, not intuition, must guide them. Conjectures concerning the Creator’s plans and modes of action were useless; and, if confided in, injurious. If, then, men have reasoned so short of the truth, in regard to material causes, why should we trust our reason against the testimony of God in the higher departments of truth? These general considerations we adduce before making a more particular examination of the objections which human reason presents to the efficacy of prayer. It is perfectly manifest that there is no solid, rational ground for denying or doubting the efficacy of prayer, because the whole subject lies beyond the sphere of intuitive or abstract reasoning. Yet there are objections which these general views are not sufficient to remove. One may be thus stated: “We are conscious of an immeasurable disparity between the Infinite mind and our limited understandings. We cannot teach Him anything. Is it not, then, a loss of time, and a vain ceremony, to make such addresses to the Deity?” This is the strongest form I can give the objection. Now, there are at least three distinct grounds upon which its entire futility can be shown: the very nature of communion; the relations and feelings of a teacher; and those of a parent. If there be a possibility of such a thing as communion between God and His creatures, then that communion must be the interchange of thoughts and feelings. So that, unless it can be shown that the Creator is for ever to be cut off from all intellectual and social communion with all His creatures (for the objection as really lies against His communion with angels and archangels), then our intellectual disparity is not a good and sufficient reason why we should not pray. Moreover, we can learn from the feelings of a teacher who takes a deep interest in the communication of his pupil, how God can be pleased to hear our prayers. It is not so much that the pupil imparts any information, or that his notions are all correct; but it is because he is making progress, and because this is the way in which he is to be developed. Our Heavenly Father may see that by no exercise we perform do we make such progress in all spiritual attainments as by fervent, energised prayer. And then, again, the parental feelings explain much. In the nursery, words are not weighed with the balance of the schools. A kindred difficulty to this is, that “there is such majesty and grandeur in the King of heaven that we are too mean to approach Him.” It may suffice now to say, in reference to this embarrassment, that it can be turned into an encouragement by applying to it one passage of the Word: “If I be a Father, where is My honour; and if I be a Master, where is My fear?” The legitimate consequence of His majesty and authority and glory is to exact homage, adoration, and praise. There is one blessed line of Scripture worth infinitely more than all the deductions of an earthborn wisdom: the High and Mighty One declares, “Whoso offereth praise, glorifieth Me.” Another doubt arises from the Divine goodness, about which we sometimes reason thus: “If God is infinitely kind, and disposed to promote our welfare, then He will not withhold any blessing, simply because we do not ask for it, or ask without sufficient fervour; nor would He more bestow it for our asking.” Now, upon all this logic we ask two questions: Is it so in fact? and ought it to be so of right? As to the matter of fact, we may make our experiment in any department of life. Man needs, for example, an abundant supply of the fruits of the earth. Let him, then, apply this short-hand inference from God’s goodness to this case. God is kind, and disposed to bestow every good thing on all His creatures; therefore He will not withhold any needful quantity of Indian corn and wheat and vegetables, simply because we do not perform this or that agricultural operation, nor is it reasonable to think He will the more bestow it for our labours. Does Omnipotent Goodness require the aid of ploughs and harrows to feed His children? Here we see the reasons to be entirely contradictory to facts; for we know that it holds true in regard to every department of life, “the hand of the diligent maketh rich, but the sluggard cometh to want.” And there can be no reason, derived from the kindness of God, to show that it is not as true of praying as of ploughing. And as we can see how the welfare of man and of society is promoted by the arrangement which creates a necessity for labour, and how this arrangement is a fruit of the Divine goodness in all the arts and employments of life, so we can see how the goodness of God may have made prayer a necessary means of procuring many indispensable blessings, on account of its direct benefit to us. Nothing in its place more cultivates the character than fervent, effectual, or energised prayer; and there is, in itself considered, no higher privilege to man than this communing and pleading with the Most High. A fourth difficulty is with the omniscience, foreknowledge, and unchangeableness, of God. The force of the objection is this: “If He has determined from all eternity what He will do, or if He knows everything that we can tell Him, our telling Him cannot change His view, so as to induce Him to change His purpose.” This chilling argument is with many persons very powerful. They might just as well refuse to plant as to pray on this ground. God knows the results in the one case as much as in the other; and your sowing the seed in expectation of a crop is just as inconsistent with His foreknowledge as your praying for rain, or success in business, or the conversion of a soul, in expectation of such result. Let it be borne in mind, that no such view of God’s attributes should ever be held as reduces him to a machine, an automaton, instead of a rational being, thinking, deciding, and acting, in view of facts. A kindred objection to prayer, and almost identical with this, is that “God is acting from fixed laws; prayer for rain can do no good, because rain is the result of specific material causes, which act by regular and purely mechanical forces; not depending upon any present volition of the Creator, but merely upon that original volition which called them into existence.” Now, here it is assumed that no other than material causes or forces can affect matter. This is contradicted by creation, by miracles, and by the moral purposes for which the universe was created. It assumes that God has left no place for His own direct action. It assumes that you know all the causes of events; and that prayer is not one. The holiness and justice of God, too, have discouraged some from praying. This I esteem as really the greatest difficulty on the whole subject; and yet that sceptics never suggest, and the worldly-minded do not feel. The other difficulties exist only in our imaginations; this lies deep in the character of Jehovah, and the principles of His eternal kingdom. This is a difficulty which no reasoning would ever have removed, which no efforts of man could ever have diminished. To meet and remove this, the whole arrangement of the incarnation, death, resurrection, and mediation of Christ was made.
II. PRAYER WILL PREVAIL WITH GOD. Let us turn to--
1. The commands. They are such as these: “Pray without ceasing.” “I will, therefore, that men pray everywhere.” “The end of all things is at hand; be therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.” “Seek the Lord while He may be found.” Commands of this nature abound, and are addressed, with the other general precepts of God’s law, to all mankind.
2. Promises to prayer, lavished in prodigal bounty, like the rich fruits of the earth, springing up through all these glorious fields of revealed truth and grace. “Ask, and it shall be given you. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. He will regard the prayer of the destitute. He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.”
3. The doctrine of prayer. It is connected in Scripture with the Trinity. The Father is represented as on a throne of grace. The Holy Spirit is represented as interceding for us, by creating within our hear
