WORSHIP, whether private or public, should aim at completeness. It should embrace the several great leading acts of devotion. There should be Adoration, Confession, Petition, Intercession, and Thanksgiving.
1. The question is sometimes raised whether Adoration or Confession should come first. Public prayer in the Church of England begins with Confession. And this, says Bishop Walsham How, seems right and natural. “A child who has offended its father would naturally go and ask forgiveness before seeking new favours. The Reformers, acting upon this view, and going back to the very earliest accounts we have of Christian worship, added the penitential portion (that is, all preceding the Lord’s Prayer) at the beginning of the Daily Morning and Evening Prayer; and for this we owe them a deep debt of gratitude. It seems well that our private prayer should follow the same order, and begin with Confession. This is especially needful at night, when we pass in review the day which is over, with all its sins and infirmities. Surely we should never be content to lie down at night without a humble and penitent confession of the sins of the day past. Let this be the first act of our evening devotion, and all the rest will be far more blessed. We shall feel we are speaking to a Father from whom we have sought and won pardon and acceptance.” [Note: W. How, Plain Words, iv.15.]
But in order that Adoration may not be lost sight of, since the mind is so apt to pass directly from Confession to Petition, it is usually recommended that, at least in private and family prayer, Adoration should come first. The essential element in our approach to God must be confession of sin and prayer for pardon. No reasonable worship can proceed otherwise. But it is natural, and indeed inevitable, that it should be prefaced by a solemn invocation of Almighty God, whose pardoning grace is to be sought through Jesus Christ, and that the prayer for pardon and peace should be accompanied by some comforting and strengthening word of promise, whereby the souls of the worshippers may be assured that the pardon sincerely sought is as truly and really given.
“Adoration,” it has been truly said, “must be the basis of true thanksgiving and praise and prayer; it is the fitting acknowledgment of our real relations with God which should precede them.” But if it is real it will not only precede, it will accompany and pervade, them. So when we pass from invocation to confession, in which the glance of the soul is towards God but also towards self, there will still be present this sense of the greatness of God, this sense of the emptiness and insignificance of self which impels us to prostrate ourselves in spirit before Him. The same will hold true when from confession we pass to the prayer for pardon and peace, to a renewal of our dedication, and to supplications for God’s grace. Like a thread of gold this spiritual chain will unite them all, so that from first to last these varying efforts of the soul will be one—a solemn act of adoration, a humble yet daring venture to pass into the very presence of God, and to claim, as our right in Christ and through Him, communion with the Father. [Note: A. W. Williamson, Ideals of Ministry, 88.]
2. Prayer, in the narrow sense of petition, divides itself into petition for self and petition for others, the latter being generally known as Intercession. Plainly a large part of our worship must consist of these. The first and simplest idea of worship is asking God for what we need. Therefore it is unnecessary to dwell further upon this. It is probable that all who pray at all do make request both for themselves and for others.
Thanksgiving is very frequently mingled with Adoration, yet they are distinct acts, and should be kept distinct, or at least should be distinctly borne in mind, so that, even if intermingled, neither should be omitted. Thanksgiving differs from Adoration in that, while the latter contemplates God’s glory and God’s goodness in themselves, the former regards these as displayed in His mercies to us. Adoration is the homage of the creature to the Creator; thanksgiving of the benefited to the Benefactor.
Let there be, then, in our devotions a distinct act of grateful recollection of mercies received, both ordinary and special.
3. It is well worth observing how these different parts of prayer are comprehended in the precept, “Pray without ceasing,” and thus are to be found in the ordinary experience of a true Christian life.
(1) What is every consciousness of the presence of Jesus Christ to the believing soul but Adoration? The seasons of such consciousness are very contrasted. To one man it is the manifestation of a Saviour with open hands in the mercy and blessing of the life that now is: prosperity is about him, and the cares and temptations of riches beset him. To another it is in the darkness of a dispensation that has been brought by adversity, bereavement, losses, afflictions of every sort, which can be resolved only at the hands of a Saviour concealed by a cloud. But in whatever form He appears, Christian faith perceives the Christ who reveals Himself. All absence of adoration in this world, whether it takes the form of material infidelity, or cold deism, or critical rationalism, is only blindness towards a real Christ. It is not possible that He should be driven, exorcised from the world He has formed, and the people He has redeemed. Men who will close their eyes to Him, and who will not seek Him, have no adoration to present, because there is no recognition of Him in their experience. He in whom it hath pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell—He, the first and the last, the same yesterday, today, and for ever—stands recognized by His people, though scoffed at by opposers, discriminating men in their different relations to Himself, and determining their destiny and responsibility by this solitary test. He that perceives Christ every day is continually engaged in adoration.
(2) The second part of a true prayer is Confession. What is every sense of sin in the soul of a trusting disciple but this penitent acknowledgment before God our Saviour? Never does there come to us a conviction of guilt but it is associated with the promise of pardon and deliverance. True Christian repentance does not lead to despair, but instantly rings the chimes of hope in the soul. We look out from our consciousness of guilt to a God and Saviour who abundantly pardons and restrains. The very condition of Christian faith is this acknowledgment of sin in the presence of Him who has become a complete Redeemer. Though not a word of confession be spoken, though not a syllable be framed, he who lives burdened by his own unworthiness, and yet eager in spirit to name his Redeemer, is continually confessing his sin. It may be in the worldly duties of living, it may be in the seasons of worship, it may be as he listens to the Word; but that spirit which is in close communion with its Redeemer turns even involuntarily, by a new power given to it in regeneration, towards this Saviour, with a confession of its undesert.
(3) The third part of a true prayer is Petition or Supplication; and it follows immediately that every sense of personal infirmity, every pressure of want, is instantly referred by the believer to a Lord who cares for him, and who has commanded him to cast his care upon a care-taking God. The Psalmist expresses it under these different illustrations; “My soul gaspeth as a thirsty land; my soul panteth after God as the wearied and heated stag for the water-courses”. The very expression of the experience of need becomes a petition for supply. No sooner do I acknowledge that I want anything than it is recognized in heaven as a supplication for that which supplies that need. “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst.” To know that to need grace is to pray for grace. To know that you are helpless without the Divine succour extended to you is itself the lifting up of holy hands for the extending of such Divine relief. A sense of want is a yearning and prayer, because accompanied by faith in the abundance of Christ’s promise. St. Paul carries out this thought in the catalogue of contradictions, when in substance he says, I am weak, but yet I am strong; in myself I have nothing, yet I have all things in the Christ who undertakes for me.
(4) But again, every exercise of sympathy and love is Intercession. We are unselfish just in the measure of our human love. We reach out towards those who have been given us in the providence of God, and then beyond the home, as love becomes less selfish, to those who are in want and friendless, and then beyond still to those that are outcast and rejected, until, in the true experience of Christian love, our intercession embraces a world lying in the wicked one. What will not a faithful parent or friend do, endure, or give, in the measure of his experience and love? The sick-room, the risks taken in the counting-rooms of our cities, the acts of charity and benevolence in our streets and throughout the homes of our poor—all these are illustrations and exhibitions of a love active in its demonstrations. It would be a happy thing if in our living it were true that, though our love at home is prudent and well devised in its measures and methods, it did not always stay at home, but could reach out towards those that are in need, not of luxuries, but of the very necessaries of body and of soul. Just as we have this human love towards our own and towards those that are about us, coupled with our trust in Christ, does every sense of sympathy and every desire of affection become intercession. Possessing this interest in the inestimable gift of Christ, we begin to look at every child and every friend we have with a perhaps unuttered but yet a perfect intercession, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before God!” Every interest taken in the sick, the sorrowing, the poor, the afflicted, will instantly change into an act of intercession to the great Physician and the faithful Friend who alone can relieve; so that wherever such a loving soul can send a thought, he can send a blessing. As our heart is enlarged, so do our intercessions become wider and wider in their outreach.
(5) And then, all gratitude in Christian life is expressed in Thanksgiving. In its very nature it recognizes a Giver. It traces every blessing back to His hand. It is on the alert to appreciate all the mercies, little and great, bitter and sweet. True gratitude is conscious of undesert, is continually depressed with the fear of infirmity and failure, but is equally satisfied with love and carefulness. It matters little what may be the shape of its manifestations—how God the Father may send His blessing—in wine or in wormwood—it still cries out, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!” Gurnall says, “Who that understands himself will value a book by the gilt that is on the cover?” Who that can appreciate the mercy of God will judge it by its external form or appearance? Gratitude is glad, is full of thanksgiving at the beginning of a mercy. It does not wait until it is fully revealed.
