1. Although prayer has been defined as communion with God, as aspiration after the highest things, Stopford Brooke is right when he insists that prayer in its plainest meaning is a petition addressed to God. Take the element of petition out of prayer, and prayer may be a wholesome exercise of the soul or a spiritual energy of the life, but it ceases to be what we mean by prayer. Prayer with Jesus was straightforward and unhesitating petition, asking God to do something, and believing that He would do it. And when Jesus laid the duty of petition upon His disciples, He went on to assert the reasonableness of a man asking and of God answering, by that argument from man to God which he loved to use and which is thoroughly scientific. If a child in an earthly home were hungry he would turn by an instinct to his parents, and if he asked bread would the father give the child a stone? Impossible, because it would be contrary to nature; and if you could imagine a state of affairs where the offspring, whether birds in a nest or infants in a home, received stones instead of food from their parents, you would have a topsy-turvy world. Jesus therefore argues along the line of reason, that if an earthly parent, although from his limitations often foolish and sometimes evil, yet does the best in his power for his children, will not the Almighty and All-wise Love, of which human love is only the shadow, do better still for His great family? And therefore our Master teaches that men ought everywhere to pray without fear and without doubt.
Again, if we build our argument for the effectiveness of prayer upon the common consent of mankind, we must be prepared to accept the common consent of mankind as to what has been intended by prayer. Now, beyond question, what has been intended has been petition. The cry that has gone up from innumerable souls through all the ages, pagan and Christian, has been a cry for some kind of good, or for deliverance from some kind of evil, addressed to a higher Power which, it was hoped, could be moved to give the good, or to ward off the evil. It is prayer in this sense to which the deep instinct and long habit of the soul have borne witness.
Thus, although petition is not the whole of prayer, it is a legitimate and necessary part of it. This results from the fact that both in the individual and in society the Christian life is still incomplete. We are conscious that we ourselves are not yet what in God’s plan we ought to be, and no genuine speaking to God can ignore the fact. So with praise and thanksgiving go inevitably the petitions for forgiveness of sins and deliverance from temptation. Again, when we seek to follow Christ in labour for His Kingdom, we are aware of a thousand obstacles which thwart, and often seem utterly to defeat, our efforts. So prayer that is natural and sincere must ever include as one of its elements the petition that these obstacles may be removed and God’s Kingdom may come.
A devoted Christian rejoices in his privilege of offering petitions to God and, in spite of objections to petitionary prayer, makes thankful use of this privilege. In trustful surrender of himself to God he knows that all the needs, tasks, and straits, under which he must assert and prove himself as an ethical personality and Christian come from God, and in his humility, he is well aware that, in order thus to prove himself, he needs God’s help every moment. He cherishes this consciousness with regard to his natural life and its maintenance, and more especially with regard to the needs and tasks of his inner man, that guilt which still oppresses him and that moral weakness which still cleaves to him. Many who depreciate petitionary prayer, simply trusting in God, as they say, really do so because they are confident in the enjoyment of a more fortunate eternal life which God has granted them, and in the consciousness of their own moral strength, which is due to the lack of earnest self-examination. It is an inner impulse that leads the Christian to petition, and he follows this impulse in thankful trust in the answer promised him. He does not, however, let his petitions be determined by merely selfish interests and inclinations, but seeks to obtain that which will further his true weal. Indeed, it is God’s highest ethical aims which his praying, like his working and endeavouring, must directly or indirectly serve. He is God’s fellowworker. [Note: J. Kostlin, Christliche Ethik, 254.]
I have been much struck of late in reading several books on this subject, to note how one writer after another judges it needful to warn his readers against the idea that prayer is no more than petition. What they say is, of course, true; prayer is much more than petition. But, unless I misread the signs of the times, this is not the warning which just now we most need to hear. Rather do we need to be told that prayer is more than communion, that petition, simple asking that we may obtain, is a part, and a very large part, of prayer. “Who rises from prayer a better man,” says George Meredith, “his prayer is answered.” This is true, but it is far from being the whole truth. [Note: G. Jackson, The Teaching of Jesus, 164.]
Mahometanism is a creed without sacrifice, without mystery, and (so far as I am informed on this point) without prayer; its deep-rooted fatalism leaves no room for the pleading human voice of supplication; its only language is that of acquiescence in that “inexorable will which it calls God”. Deism also adores and acquiesces, it does not pray. “I accustom my mind,” says Rousseau, “to sublime contemplations. I meditate upon the order of the universe, not for the sake of reducing it to vain systems, but to admire it unceasingly, to adore the wise Creator who makes Himself felt within it. I converse with the Author of the universe; I imbue all my faculties with His Divine essence. My heart melts over His benefits. I bless Him for all His gifts, but I do not pray to Him. What have I to ask Him for?” [Note: Dora Greenwell, Essays, 120.]
2. Not only are the subjective effects of prayer very much heightened when due place is given in prayer to petition, but with petition eliminated there would be less communion with God than there is. Not that one goes to God only when one has a petition to offer (for there is much communion without petition), but if a man had any sort of assurance that such approach of the soul to God as communion involves was being made to a Supreme Being whose ear was deaf and whose heart was indifferent to our cries of distress and our petitions for help, or, hearing, could not help us, because of the inevitable course of things over which He has no control, the probability is that that man would soon begin to incline towards a state of dumb resignation to the inevitable, which in turn would rapidly tend towards the neglect of prayer altogether. We pray too little as it is. If with Frederick W. Robertson we see in prayer only such contemplation of the character of God as ends with the resignation of ourselves to His will, most men, we fear, would not put themselves even to such effort to obtain it. They would be more likely to accept the inevitable and devote the time otherwise required for such contemplation to making the best out of a condition of affairs for which there is no help, at least from above. But, on the contrary, to know that God hears our cry for help as well as our voice in praise and thanksgiving and confession, and that like as a father He not only pitieth His children but, having the power, He gives them what would not be theirs but for the asking, then are we constrained to come to Him, not alone with our petitions but with the expression of grateful hearts; then are we drawn into His presence by that very fact, not only in the hour of special need but continually, even as with the closest friend.
3. It is for experience to decide whether prayer is of practical use, and it is always better to depend upon expert witnesses—to hear Darwin rather than a gardener on the variation of plants; Lord Kelvin rather than a telegraphist on the properties of electricity; and the saints rather than amateur critics of religion on prayer. One turns to Abraham, who interceded for Sodom, to Jacob, who wrestled with the angel until the day broke, to Moses, who in the darkness of Sinai obtained God’s mercy for his nation, to Elijah, who opened and sealed the heavens by prayer, and to the unknown poets who gave us the matchless liturgy of the Psalms. One appeals in later days to St. Paul, whose letters break off at great moments into petition, to St. John, who in the vision of prayer beheld the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to our Lord Himself, who spent whole nights in prayer upon the lonely mountain side. One remembers in modern times the multitude of believing men who have wrought marvels by prayer; how the more Martin Luther had to do, the more he prayed; how Cromwell on his death-bed interceded for God’s cause and God’s people in the finest prayer ever offered by a patriot; how it was written of “the Saints of the Covenant” in Scotland that they lived “praying and preaching,” and that they died “praying and fighting”. Time would fail to tell how the saints of the Church and the champions of God’s cause have prayed; but we should remember what was said by Lord Salisbury of Mr. Gladstone, that he was “a great Christian statesman”; and that brilliant statesman drew his strength from the springs of prayer. What possessed those men that they undertook no work till they had first met with God, that they turned unto Him in every hour of defeat, that they carried to His feet the trophies of their victories? Was all this pure waste of time and sheer delusion of soul, and were they—the men who have known most about religion—simply deceived when they testified of religion’s chief act? Is this credible?
When Queen Victoria was opening the Town Hall of Sheffield she had put into her hand a little golden key, and she was told as she sat in her carriage that she only had to turn the golden key and in a moment the Town Hall gates of Sheffield would fly open. In obedience to the authority of experts who gave her the directions, she turned the golden key, and in a moment, by the action of electric wires, the Town Hall gates of Sheffield flew open. Exactly in the same way Jesus Christ must know one thing, if He knows anything, and that is, what opens heaven’s gates. He must know that; He must know what key it is which opens heaven’s gates; and in His teaching He reiterated over and over again, as if He thought that this was one of the things we should find it hardest to believe, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”. And I say that if we are justified in believing in the Divinity of Christ, then we are justified in going a step further, and saying that His authority is good enough to make us believe that the golden key of prayer, if we use it, will open the gates of heaven. [Note: Bishop Winnington Ingram, Banners of the Christian Faith, 67.]
4. But we can go further. As we look back over the history of the world, we cannot help being struck by the fact that the men of prayer are the men of power. There is a connexion in history between prayer and power. Take, for instance, the great reformer of the past century, who was able to break down the most determined opposition to his reforms, and to free the little children of England from terrible slavery—Lord Shaftesbury. What was the secret of his supernatural power? If we read his life we shall see. That man was praying continually. He was praying in the House of Commons before he made his speeches; he was praying in everything he did. It would not be intelligent reading of biography to disconnect his prayer from his power. Or take General Gordon, who left us the record of a stainless soldier who could stand alone. What gave him the strength to do it? Here, again, we cannot intelligently disconnect his extraordinary power, his extraordinary personal influence, from the white handkerchief outside his tent, so regularly placed there two or three times a day, which meant that General Gordon was at his prayers. Continuous prayer brings personal power.
It is a wonderful historical fact that the men of prayer have always been the men of power in the world. I want to convince you about this. Some of you men—and I am glad to see such a large number of men here to-night—if you are arguing with some friend in the workshop, be sure and ask him why it is that the men of prayer in the world have been the men of power. Take only one instance. Where did they always go to find men for the forlorn hope in Havelock’s days? They went to Have-lock’s prayer meeting; that is where they found men who had the courage to come out for the forlorn hope. [Note: Bishop Winnington Ingram, The Call of the Father, 75.]
