Chapter 5
On the other hand, the force of prayer has been understood by the really spiritual writers of every school and of all time. They knew that prayer is one of the secrets of life; that he who lives, prays, and he who prays, lives; that he who prays works, and he who works prays; and so large a part of the spiritual life is comprised in the one word prayer, that we find them describing the soul's advance by the character of the prayer which springs from it.
For instance, Madame Guyon, in her precious A B C of the spiritual life, introduces her book with the title, "A Short and Easy Method of Prayer"; St. Theresa describes the degrees of the soul's progress as degrees of prayer, styling them Prayer of Quiet, Prayer of Union, and so on; St. John of the Cross names his mystical way as the Ascent of Mount Carmel, the meaning of which is evidently similar to the other. And so, no doubt one might give other instances, confining ourselves, of course, to the experimental Christians only, and letting the divines and theologians alone. May we not say that our dear Lord Himself was careful enough both in example and teaching to lead His scholars along this way, making them aware that a great part of the soul's education was education in prayer? He began by making them feel that they really didn't know what prayer meant, though they had been taught to say prayers almost since they could speak. So He brings them to a point where they say, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples": encourages them further by admonitions to ask, seek, and knock; He tells them that if they ask for bread and fish, they won't get stones and snakes (but doesn't say that if you ask for a snake, your Father will be so good as to give it to you); leads them on until they acquire the sense of the need of a larger faith; instructs them that prayer is the function of an organ of the spiritual life, and must be as constant and persistent as breathing or other natural functions, so that men ought always to pray and not to faint, and that they should keep awake at all times praying, if they are to be found worthy to stand before the Son of man. Finally, one of His last counsels, just before the last great objective teaching of His own Life on the subject, connects the force of their prayer with the state of their life, saying, "If ye abide in Me, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you."
Now the verse which we quoted at the beginning speaks of certain prayers as of great force; we infer that there are weak prayers as well as strong ones--poor little wingless things that cannot rise into the Celestial Audience-Chamber.
Hermas describes such when he says, "The prayer of a sad man has no power to climb to the altar of God." And it is of great importance that we should know the reasons which contribute to the strength or weakness of a prayer. On such points we shall find the Apostle James to be an authority; for he was the great intercessor of the early Church, the man of whom they said that his knees were worn hard like the knees of a camel. And being in addition the most practical of all the teachers, we shall find in his writing (in spite of the fact that Luther called it an "epistle of straw") something far more valuable than a merely speculative theology. For instance, more than any one else, he supplies us with conditions for the success of that great experiment which we call prayer. Prayer of the powerful, operative sort, has its conditions. We cannot disregard them. I have seen a man in the Cavendish laboratory attempt to make a magnetic measurement in the immediate vicinity of some large iron pipes, and neither of us could tell the cause which made the apparatus behave so unreasonably. And prayers are often hindered in a similar way by unobserved disturbing causes. St. James supplies us with several hints:--
(i.) That a double-minded man need not expect to receive anything from the Lord; a waverer, driven with the wind and tossed.
(ii.) That ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
(iii.) That it must be believing prayer, if it is to be effectual; let him ask in faith; the prayer of faith shall save the sick.
(iv.) It is the prayer that springs from a rectified heart and life; the prayer of a righteous man is of great force.
Hermas, too, a Christian father of the second century, whom we quoted before, supplies us with some suggestions. One would almost think, for some reasons, that he had been one of St. James's immediate disciples, for he is fond of using that same word double-minded (more exactly double-souled), speaks of visiting the orphans and widows, etc. Thus we find in the ninth chapter of the book of Commands as follows (the book being of a date immediately subsequent to the apostles): "He said unto me, put away from thee all double-mindedness, and have no more division of heart concerning petitions from God, saying in thyself, How shall I be able to ask and receive anything from the Lord, having sinned so greatly against Him? Reason not on this wise, but turn to the Lord with all thy heart, and ask from Him without hesitation, and thou shalt know His large-heartedness, that He will certainly never leave thee, but will fulfil thy soul's request. God is not, as men are, mindful of wrongs done to Him, but forgetful of them, and He hath compassion upon His workmanship. Do thou, therefore, cleanse thy heart from all the vanities of this age, and from things spoken of before, and ask from the Lord and thou shalt receive all things; and of all thy petitions thou shalt not fail of one, if thou ask of the Lord with an unhesitating heart. But if thou doubtest in thy heart, thou shalt receive none of thy petitions. For they that are doubtful towards God, are the double-minded men, and they shall obtain none at all of their petitions. But they that are perfectly sound in the faith ask for all things in reliance upon the Lord, and receive them, because they ask without hesitation and with no dividedness of heart. For every double-minded man, unless he repent, will scarcely be saved. Cleanse, therefore, thy heart from double-mindedness, and put on faith, for she is mighty, and believe in God, that thou shalt receive all thy requests that thou dost make. And if ever when thou hast made request thou be somewhat longer in receiving thy petition from the Lord, be not of a double-mind, that thou didst not swiftly receive thy soul's request, for certainly it is on account of some temptation or some sin that thou art longer in receiving thy petition. Therefore, do not cease making thy request, and thou shalt receive it, but if thou faintest and art of doubtful mind in thy petition, blame thyself and not Him who gives to thee." It amounts to this, that to have power in prayer is only possible as long as and in proportion as we walk with God.
Looking at it in another light, observe that real prayer is connected in a most intimate manner with the influences of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this is what is meant by the word rendered by us "energised," but "effectual and fervent" in the English Version. Certainly in almost every case where the word occurs, it has reference to the operation of God or the devil. And if this be so, the prayer must be a possessed prayer, and the praying man a possessed person, and so again we are brought face to face with the foundations of mighty prayer lying in a holy life. And what else is taught by the Apostle when he says, "The Spirit maketh intercession _in the Saints_ according to the will of God"?
X
THE SENTINEL OF THE HEART
"The peace of God, which exceeds all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus."--Phil. iv. 7.
One of the best tests of the value of a religion, and of the degree of the truth enshrined therein, is found in the nature and permanence of the peace which it imparts. For it is a fact that all religions, or almost all, and especially those which have taken a wide grasp of the hearts and minds of men, profess to bring peace to the worshipper.
The Roman Church, with its history unparalleled alike for saintliness or sin, with its offers to resolve all doubts and to forgive all iniquities, affords a haven and anchorage for those whose bark has been torn by the stormy winds of private judgment. It is not one or two who have been brought within her pale in search of peace; and, indeed, the bosom of Mother Church would be an attractive resting-place, if it did not strike us on the other hand as being too much like the effort of one baby to carry another of its own size.
What is true of the Roman Church is true of the religion which has prevailed even more widely amongst the human race; if we ask the Buddhist teachers what is offered to the inquiring soul in their sacred books, or what is revealed as possible in the experience of those men amongst them who have made the greatest progress in mind-and-spirit lore, they would talk to you of Nirvana, or, as I think it was understood by them at the first, the extinction of the individual, even as a candle-flame is blown out. And however perverted their belief may have become, they seem in early days to have contemplated a real destruction of self,--the flame of self-love and self-life being so put out that it should never more be a flame, and should not long be a spark. For instance, their writings tell us such things as follow:--
"To him who has finished the path and passed beyond sorrow, who has freed himself on every side, and thrown away all fetters, there is no more fever of grief." "Such an one remains like the broad earth unvexed; like the pillar of the city gate, unmoved; like a pellucid lake, unruffled."
"Tranquil is the mind, tranquil the words and the deeds, of him who is thus set at rest and made free by wisdom." "The heart, scrupulously avoiding all idle dissipation, diligently applying itself to the holy law of Buddha, letting go all lust, and consequent disappointment, fixed and unchangeable, enters on Nirvana."
And so in many other features we may trace the doctrine of inward peace as taught in the Buddhist religion. A similar feature is to be traced in the Mohammedan faith, if we are right that Islam means surrender to the will of God, and the Mussulman a surrendered person; and certainly there have been those in the great religion of the East who held surrender in a higher sense than that of the fatalism which we generally attach to the words.
Now, when we speak of different religions as in the foregoing, it is not that we want to cultivate the science of comparative religious anatomy; all we want to say is this, that just as a very rough observation convinces us that corresponding organs in different creatures imply corresponding uses and similar needs, so we discern various methods of bringing peace to the soul of man in those religions which have to the greatest extent prevailed in the world.
We are right to read these features carefully, for they are the watermarks of the absolute religion (which we believe the religion of Jesus to be), which is to gather in the men of every tribe and kindred and nation, and to unite all the children of God who are scattered abroad.
We are too much accustomed to look on these foreign religionists merely in the light of compassion, as people for whom we must send the missionary, make the regular collection and offer the periodic prayer; and we make maps of the world in which we paint in all the religions which differ from our own in black, or, if not in black, in other colours only for the sake of distinction. But, if we were wise, we should see that, where we paint black, it should be black with streaks of light; and we should learn, too, to see that our own faith would need, if accurately represented, to be a white colour checked and streaked with spots of the intensest black. For not all that is called Christianity is of Christ.
We say, then, that one of the characteristics of the absolute religion is that it offers to the soul a real and permanent peace. Here is a test for us: a real peace; it must not be based on deceptive methods: a permanent peace, which neither things present can disturb, nor life nor death dispel. And the Lord Jesus, who has spoken of the heart of man as never man spake, made this one of the keystones of His teaching, as it was the cornerstone of His living.
"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will rest you."
"These things I have spoken unto you that in Me ye might have peace."
And thus we hear our blessed Lord whispering to the world of to-day, a tired world from the first, but never so tired as now; through these lips comes God's answer to the cry of five hundred millions of Buddhists, of the millions of Islam, of the Romanist, the Mystic, the Quaker--to all, in one breath, the message comes; yes, to me, even to me Thou speakest when the word is of that hidden lasting peace which Thou, Lord Jesus, canst bestow. And if it was a marvel that at Pentecost every man should hear in his own language the wonderful works of God, much more is it a marvel to speak to all hearts than to speak with all tongues.
And what is more than speech, even that which goes to the heart, is the action by which Thou, Lord, hast proved Thy speech. Thy life has given Thee the right to speak of what Thou givest as _Thy_ peace. So quiet wast Thou that, but for the wrong-doers that crossed Thy path, Thou wouldst have seemed to be passionless; yea, some have even spoken of Thee as the "cold Galilean," because of the marvellous rest of Thy soul in Thy Father's arms.
Not only is it a test of the truth of a religion whether it imparts a real and permanent peace, but it is also a test of our attainment in the true religion, when we find it, for us to examine the depth and character of our peace.
We determine the religion of Jesus to be the Absolute Religion, because it imparts the highest peace in the manner most suited to the soul of man, and most consistent with the character of God.
We verify our own position in the Life by the simple test of the experience of Peace which we enjoy.
It is easy to be tranquil under certain circumstances; and there are times when most of us perceive the connection between quiet and holiness. But then circumstances change, and what becomes of the peace? Drake and his men cross the isthmus of Panama, and from a peak they see below them the smiling ocean on the farther side; so fair and still it looked that it received the name of the Pacific Ocean; but then there were two things to be noticed: first, it was a fine day; next, they probably thought the sea the smoother because of the height from which they surveyed it. And it is easy to talk of peace on fine days, and when we are high up above trouble; but our test must be when we are in the midst of the waters, when the waves thereof roar and are troubled. Is it Pacific Ocean then; or do we find, as may be those early adventurers, that it was too hastily named? Certain it is that many Christians are disappointed because they do not always realise the peace and blessedness of which sometimes they have glimpses and enjoyment.
It is our practical every-day test of our standing in grace; a man who is exploring an old well lowers a candle before him, knowing that where that can live, he can live; the Christian's test-flame is the peace of God; when that fails, he ought to know that it is safe to go no farther. This peace is like some magic mirror, by the dimness growing on the surface of which we may discern the breath of an unclean spirit that would work us ill. As the Apostle says, "Let the peace of God rule (_i.e._ be arbiter or umpire) in your hearts." We may almost say that for most of us it is true that what we can do quietly we can do safely. So we see more and more the importance of having the heart and thought kept by the Peace of God.
Some render the passage, "The peace of God shall stand sentry over your heart"; and this expresses it very well. Where this sentry stands, nothing forbidden can pass either within or without, except the watcher be first destroyed. If the thirst for wealth or fame enter into a man's heart, it is over the slain body of the sentry; our peace is gone when these things enter in. And many such like things there are which choke the word and destroy the peace. Then we turn and look at it in another light, passing on from thoughts concerning the Peace of God to higher ones about the God of Peace, who has promised to sanctify us wholly and to preserve spirit, soul, and body blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
XI
THY FATHER IN SECRET
"Alone, and yet not alone."--JOHN xvi. 32.
Of all religious ideas, the grandest is that which lay at the root of the monastic system,--that religion is the wedlock of the soul to God; although the method in which this idea was exemplified was a faulty one, or, at any rate, one which rapidly became corrupt, even if it was not so at first. The wonderful worship of the middle ages at least taught men to serve God in retirement of life and unworldliness of spirit, and gave demonstration of holiness and righteousness in men who did their work in the world even though they lived out of it, and in women who were content to view the busy, jocular, combatant, pleasure-seeking community only from behind the bars of the house of rest that they had chosen. It was a noble object-lesson of the spiritual life; and though the symbols used to express it may have become valueless, the truth that they taught remains yet, that if a man or woman seeks the highest good, there must be for such an isolation of the soul from the ordinary course of life and thought in the world around us; we must afford ourselves facilities for a sacred loneliness with God.
It is interesting to notice that St. Luke, probably more than any other evangelist, gives record of solitariness and vigil and secret communion; and it may be that it was a line of experience with which he was familiar; certainly he was careful to chronicle the lonely hours of the Saint when God and the soul are at one, and it needs no prophet to pray that the Lord will open the young man's eyes that he may see. What a summary of experience is contained in those words which describe the ministerial preparation of John the Baptist,--"He was in the desert until the day of his showing unto Israel, waxing and growing strong in spirit" (Luke i. 80). Then he speaks of the Master, of His being led by the Spirit into the wilderness (Luke iv. 1); of His departing and going into a desert place (Luke iv. 42); of His withdrawal into the wilderness for prayer (Luke v. 16); of His going out into a mountain to pray, and continuing all night in prayer to God (Luke vi. 12).
Would it not be better, instead of making the commonplace assertion that there was nothing of the ascetic about Jesus Christ, for us to recall to mind His teaching at another time, that every disciple shall be perfected as his Master (Luke vi. 40), and to inquire whether we might not do well to love and covet retirement, even of an external character, as a means to the attainment of that perfection?
Retirement with God is the only preparation for success, and the only medicine for failure whether it be Moses wondering at the burning bush in the mount of God, or Elijah eating angel's bread under the juniper-tree. We shall do well to observe also that it has been a feature of all the great religions of the East; the secret of all strong souls lies in those times of loneliness when they were bound hand and foot as captives to the Everlasting Will. We deride such nowadays; call them mystic, contemplationist, fanatic. George Fox, sitting about in lonely places, reading his Bible in hollow trees, is hard to understand. But if it were anything but religion that was in quest, people would not laugh. Tell them of Demosthenes living in a cellar, with head half shaved to prevent his appearing in public, and there will be admiration; was it any wonder that he became an orator? But let a man be as bent on becoming a saint; let him give up one hour's frivolous talk in order to commune with his Father in secret; then we suspect that such an one is becoming righteous overmuch. Mind, no one complains of a man being anxious to be wise overmuch, or rich overmuch, healthy overmuch; he may burn the midnight oil and study, watch the markets and scheme, frequent the gymnasium and develop his muscle, and no one will find fault; but to spend time on what is at least as important as wisdom, wealth, and health, and in a sense involves them all,--this is fanatical, and not to be encouraged or approved. We miss much through our want of separation from the world, and through our deficiency in insulation, or, which is the same word, in isolation. If we go into a science laboratory and examine the great brass machines for holding electrical charges, we find that they are all mounted on glass feet. These are the insulators, and if it were not for them, no electricity would remain on the surface; as it is, electricity is hard enough to keep in charge, even with the best insulators. And we know sometimes what it is to have life and power pass into us from above, but we don't know how to retain it, because we have never learnt true retirement of heart and insulation of life. There is good teaching in the following passage from one of Madame Guyon's letters: "It is very desirable, and in the earlier part of your ministry especially, that you should spend a portion of your time--and that perhaps not a small portion--with God in retirement. Let your own soul be first filled with God's spirit, and then and not otherwise will you be in a situation to communicate the Divine fulness to others. No man can give what he has not; or if a man has grace, but has it in a small degree, he may in dispensing to others impart to them what is necessary for himself."
Now if any one were to ask what is the especial strength of England as regards other empires and commonwealths, the answer would be that it lies in her insular position,--in the "silver streak" that parts her from France; and the true Christian is girt round with separating grace.
We might draw two pictures to remind us how we may become strong for God: one of the solitary vigil of the Great Shepherd keeping watch over His flock by night; the other of the little company who waited with joined hands and hearts in the upper room for the coming of the Comforter; these two pictures representing the solitude of a single soul and of united souls with God.
By such silent communion God will especially prepare us for service and for suffering.
Some one spoke to John Nelson, making unfavourable comparison of John Wesley with a prominent religious teacher of the day; and Nelson replied, "He has not stayed in the upper room like John Wesley." We need our silent preparations for speech; to go forth, like Ezekiel, into the plain to find the glory of the Lord; or like Daniel to the river-side, where we may meet one like unto the Son of man; or like the two who walked into the country whom Jesus met, and with whom He talked till He made their hearts burn.