HSl-JHiUnniH! uuniH?5;}?!i??nin!:!M}fniiuniiii!;i{!'5!!!!{iu;!:iiii Preacher AND Prayer In BOUNDS BV 4012 .B6 HiimMHiHHimtHHU'.tl! LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. PRESENTED BY Rev. G-eorge M, Cummings BV 4012 ,B6 1907b Bounds, Edward M. 1835-191: Preacher and prayer % Logical PREACHER AND PRAYER M . .B O U N D S Washington, Ga. Three things make a divine— prayer^ medi' tation^ temptatioji. — Luther. If you do not pray, God -will probably lay you aside from your ministry as tie did me, to teach you to pray. Remember Luther's maxim, *' To have prayed well is to have studied well." Get your text from God, your thoughts, your •words —-Mc Cheyne. The Chbistian Witness Co. CmCAQO Copyright 1907 by E. M. BOUNDS. Copyright now owned by THE CHRISTIAN WITNESS CO. Recreation to a minister musC be as ivketting is "with the mo^ver — that is, to he used only so far as is neces- sary for his ^vork. May a physician in plague-time take any more relaxation or recreation than is necessary for his life, xvhen so many are expecting his help in a case of life and death ? Will you stand by and see sinners gasping under the pangs of death, and say: *^God doth not require me to make myself a drudge to save them ^" Is this the voice of ministerial or Chris' tian compassion or rather of sensual laziness and dim,' bolical cruelty? — Richard Baxter. Misemployment of time is injurious to the mintt. In illness I have looked back ivith self-reproach on days spent in my study: I ivas ■wading through history and poetry and monthly journals, but I ivas in my study! Another man's trifing is notorious to all ob- servers, but TX'hat am I doing? Nothing, perhaps, that has a reference to the spiritual good of my congre- gation. Be much in retirement and prayer. Study f\e honor and glory oj your Master, —Richard Cecil, (3) I. Study universal holiness of life. Your ivhole use- fulness depends on ihis^ for your sermons last but an hour or two/ your life f reaches all the iveek. If Satan can only mnke a covetous minister a lover of praise^ of fteasure^ of good eatings he has ruined your ministry. Give yourself to prayer y and get your texts ^ your thought Sf your words from God. Luther spent his best three hours in prayer. — Robert Murray McCheynb. We are constantly on a stretch, if not on a strain, to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Church and secure enlargement and effi- ciency for the gospel. This trend of the day has a tendency to lose sight of the man or sink the man in the plan or organiza- tion. God's plan is to make much of the man, far more of him than of anything else. Men are God's method. The Church is looking for better methods ; God is look- ing for better men. *There was a man sent 5 Preacher and Prayer, from God whose name was John.** The dispensation that heralded and prepared the way for Christ was bound up in that man John. "Unto us a child is bom, unto us a son is given." The world's salvation comes out of that cradled Son. When Paul ap- peals to the personal character of the men who rooted the gospel in the world, he solves the mystery of their success. The glory and efficiency of the gospel is staked on the men who proclaim it. When God declares that "the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him," he de- clares the necessity of men and his depend- ence on them as a channel through which to exert his power upon the world. This vi- tal, urgent truth is one that this age of ma- chinery is apt to forget. The forgetting of it is as baneful on the work of God as would be the striking of the sun from his sphere. Darkness, confusion, and death would ensue. 6 Preacher and Prayer. What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organ- izations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use — men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through meth- ods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men — men of prayer. An eminent historian has said that the accidents of personal character have more to do with the revolutions of nations than either philosophic historians or democratic politicians will allow. This truth has its application in full to the gospel of Christ, the character and conduct of the followers of Christ — Christianize the world, trans- figure nations and individuals. Of the preachers of the gospel it is eminently true. The character as well as the fortunes of the gospel is committed to the preacher. He makes or mars the message from God to man. The preacher is the golden pipe through which the divine oil flows. The pipe must not only be golden, but open 7 Preacher and Prayer, and flawless, that the oil may have a full, unhindered, unwasted flow. The man makes the preacher. God must make the man. The messenger is, if pos- sible, more than the message. The preach- er is more than the sermon. The preach- er makes the sermon. As the life-giving milk from the mother's bosom is but the mother's life, so all the preacher says is tinctured, impregnated by what the preach- er is. The treasure is in earthen vessels, and the taste of the vessel impregnates and may discolor. The man, the whole man, lies behind the sermon. Preaching is not the performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life. It takes twenty years to make a sermon, because it takes twenty years to make the man. The true sermon is a thing of life. The sermon grows be- cause the man grows. The sermon is force- ful because the man is forceful. The ser- mon is holy because the man is holy. The sermon is full of the divine unction because the man is full of the divine unction. Paul termed it "My gospel ;" not that he 8 Preacher and Prayer, had degraded it by his personal eccentrici- ties or diverted it by selfish appropriation^ but the gospel was put into the heart and lifeblood of the man Paul^ as a personal trust to be executed by his Pauline traits, to be set aflame and empowered by the fiery energy of his fiery soul. Paul's ser- mons — what were they? Where are they? Skeletons, scattered fragments, afloat on the sea of inspiration! But the man Paul, greater than his sermons, lives forever, in full form, feature, and stature, with his molding hand on the Church. The preach- ing is but a voice. The voice in silence dies, the text is forgotten, the sermon fades from memory ; the preacher lives. The sermon cannot rise in its life-giving forces above the man. Dead men give out dead sermons, and dead sermons kill. Ev- erything depends on the spiritual character of the preacher. Under the Jewish dispen- sation the high priest had inscribed in jew- eled letters on a golden frontlet : "Holiness to the Lord." So every preacher in Christ's ministry must be molded into and mastered 9 Preacher and Prayer. by this same holy motto. It is a crying shame for the Christian ministry to fall lower in holiness of character and holiness of aim than the Jewish priesthood. Jona- than Edwards said : "I went on with my eager pursuit after more holiness and con- formity to Christ. The heaven I desired was a heaven of holiness." The gospel of Christ does not move by popular waves. It has no self-propagating power. It moves as the men who have charge of it move. The preacher must impersonate the gospel. Its divine, most distinctive features must be embodied in him. The constraining power of love must be in the preacher as a project- ing, eccentric, an all-commanding, self-ob- Uvious force. The energy of self-denial must be his being, his heart and blood and bones. He must go forth as a man among men, clothed with humility, abiding in meekness, wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove ; the bonds of a servant with the spirit of a king, a king in high, royal, in- dependent bearing, with the simplicity and sweetness of a child. The preacher must lO Preacher and Prayer. throw himself, with all the abandon of a perfect, self-emptying faith and a self-con- suming zeal, into his work for the salvatior of men. Hearty, heroic, compassionate, fearless martyrs must the men be who take hold of and shape a generation for God If they be timid timeservers, place seekers, if they be men pleasers or men fearers, if their faith has a weak hold on God or his Word, if their denial be broken by any phase of self or the world, they cannot take hold of the Church nor the world for God. The preacher's sharpest and strongest preaching should be to himself. His most difficult, delicate, laborious, and thorough work must be with himself. The training of the twelve was the great, difficult, and enduring work of Christ. Preachers are not sermon makers, but men makers and saint makers, and he only is well-trained for this business who has made himself a man and a saint. It is not great talents nor great learning nor great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, ,great in love, great in fidelity, great II Preacher and Prayer. for God — men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives out of it. Tliese can mold a generation for God. After this order, the early Christians were formed. Men they were of solid mold, preachers after the heavenly type — heroic, stalwart, soldierly, saintly. Preach- ing with them meant self-denying, self-cru- cifying, serious, toilsome, martyr business. They applied themselves to it in a way that told on their generation, and formed in its womb a generation yet unborn for God. The preaching man is to be the praying man. Prayer is the preacher's mightiest weapon. An almighty force in itself, it gives life and force to all. The real sermon is made in the closet. The man — God's man — is made in the clos- et. His life and his profoundest convic- tions were born in his secret communion with God. The burdened and tearful agony of his spirit, his weightiest and sweetest messages were got when alone with God. Prayer makes the man; prayer makes the preacher ; prayer makes the pastor. 12 Preacher and Prayer. Ihe pulpit of this day is weak in pray- ing. The pride of learning is against the dependent humility of prayer. Prayer is with the pulpit too often only official — a performance for the routine of service. Prayer is not to the modern pulpit the mighty force it was in Paul's life or Paul's ministry. Every preacher who does not make prayer a mighty factor in his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God's work and is powerless to project God'f cause in this world. 13 11. But above all he excelled in prayer. The inivard- ness and tveight of his spirit , the reverence and solem- nity of his address and behavior ^ and the feivness and fullness of his words have often struck even strangers tvith admiration as they used to reach others Tvitk consolation. The most aivful, living, reverend frame I ever felt or beheld, I must say, was his prayer. And truly it was a testimony. He knew and lived nearer to the Lord than other men, for they that know him most will see most reason to approach him -xitk reverence and fear. — William Penn of George Fox. The sweetest graces by a slight perver- sion may bear the bitterest fruit. The sun gives life, but sunstrokes are death. Preaching is to give life; it may kill. The preacher holds the keys; he may lock as well as unlock. Preaching is God's great institution for the planting and maturing of spiritual life. When properly executed, its benefits are untold; when wrongly exe- culted, no evil can exceed its damaging re- sults. It is an easy matter to destroy the 14 Preacher and Prayer. flock if the shepherd be unwary or the pas- ture be destroyed, easy to capture the cita- del if th^ watchmen be asleep or the food and water be poisoned. Invested with such gracious prerogatives, exposed to so great evils, involving so many grave responsibil- ities, it would be a parody on the shrewd- ness of the devil and a libel on his character and reputation if he did not bring his mas- ter influences to adulterate the preacher and Vne preaching. In face of all this, the ex- clamatory interrogatory of Paul, "Who is sufficient for these things?" is never out of order, Paul says: "Our sufficiency is of God, who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." The true ministry is God- touched, God-enabled, and God-made. The Spirit of God is on the preacher in anoint- ing power, the fruit of the Spirit is in his heart, the Spirit of God has vitalized the man and the word ; his preaching gives life, gives life as the spring gives life; 15 ^ Preacher and Prayer, gives life as the resurrection gives life; gives ardent life as the summer gives ar- dent life; gives fruiful life as the autumn gives fruitful life. The life-giving preach- er is a man of God, whose heart is ever athirst for God, v^hose soul is ever follow- ing hard after God, whose eye is single to God, and in whom by the power of God^s Spirit the flesh and the world have been crucified and his ministry is like the gen- erous flood of a life-giving river. The preaching that kills is nonspiritual preaching. The ability of the preaching is not from God. Lower sources than God have given to it energy and stimulant. The Spirit is not evident in the preacher nor his preaching. Many kinds of forces may be projected and stimulated by preaching that kills, but they are not spiritual forces. They may resemble spiritual forces, but are only the shadow, the counterfeit; life they may seem to have, but the life is magnetized. The preaching that kills is the letter ; shape- ly and orderly it may be, but it is the letter still, the dry, husky letter, the empty, bald i6 Preacher and Prayer. shell. The letter may have the germ of life in it, but it has no breath of spring to evoke it; winter seeds they are, as hard as the winter's soil, as icy as the winter's air, no thawing nor germinating by them. This letter-preaching has the truth. But even divine truth has no life-giving ener- gy alone ; it must be energized by the Spir- it, with all God's forces at its back. Truth unquickened by God's Spirit deadens as much as, or more than, error. It may be the truth without admixture; but without the Spirit its shade and touch are deadly, its truth error, its light darkness. The let- ter-preaching is unctionless, neither mel- lowed nor oiled by the Spirit. There may be tears, but tears cannot run God's ma- chinery ; tears may be but summer's breath on a snow-covered iceberg, nothing but surface slush. Feelings and earnestness there may be, but it is the emotion of the actor and the earnestness of the attorney. The preacher may feel from the kindling of his own sparks, be eloquent over his own exegesis, earnest in delivering the product 2 17 Preacher and Prayer. of his own brain; the professor may usurp the place and imitate the fire of the apos- tle; brains and nerves may serve the place and feign the work of God's Spirit, and by these forces the letter may glow and sparkle like an illumined text, but the glow and sparkle will be as barren of life as the field sown with pearls. The death-dealing element lies back of the words, back of the sermon, back of the occasion, back of the manner, back of the action. The great hindrance is in the preacher himself. He has not in himself the mighty life-creating forces. -There may be no discount on his orthodoxy, honesty, cleanness, or earnest- ness ; but somehow the man, the inner man, in its secret places has never broken down and surrendered to God, his inner life is not a great highway for the transmission of God's message, God's power. Somehow self and not God rules in the holy of holies. Somewhere, all unconscious to himself, some spiritual nonconductor has touched his inner being, and the divine current has been arrested. His inner being has never i8 Preacher and Prayer. felt its thorough spiritual bankruptcy, Us utter powerlessness ; he has never learned to cry out with an ineffable cry of self-despair and self-helplessness till God's power and God's fire comes in and fills, purifies, cm- powers. Self-esteem, self-ability in some pernicious shape has defamed and violated the temple which should be held sacred for God. Life-giving preaching costs the preacher much — death to self, crucifixion to the world, the travail of his own soul. Cru- cified preaching only can give life. Crttci- fied preaching can come only from a cru- cified man. 19 III. jOuring this affiiction I was brought to examine my life in relation to eternity closer than I had done ivhen in the enjoyment of health. In this examination rela- tive to the discharge of my duties toward my fellow- creatures as a man^ a Christian minister ^ and an officer of the Churchy I stood approved by my own conscience; but in relation to my Redeemer and Saviour the result was different. My returns of gratitude and loving obedience bear no proportion to my obligations for re- deeming, preserving, and supporting me through the vicissitudes of life from infancy to old age. The coldness of my love to Him who first loved me and has done so much for me overwhelmed and confused tnej and to complete my unworthy character, I had not only neglected to improve the grace given to the extent of my duty and privilege, but for want of that improve- ment had, while abounding in perplexing care and labor, declined from first zeal and love. I was con- founded, humbled myself, implored mercy, and renewed my covenant to strive and devote myself unreservedly to the Lord. — Bishop McKkndree. The preaching that kills may be, and often is, orthodox — dogmatically, inviolably orthodox. We love orthodoxy. It is good. 20 Preacher and Prayer. It is the best. It is the clean, clear-cut teaching of God's Word, the trophies won by truth in its conflict with error, the levees which faith has raised against the desola- ting floods of honest or reckless misbelief or unbelief; but orthodoxy, clear and hard as crystal, suspicious and militant, may be but the letter well-shaped, well-named, and well-learned, the letter which kills. Noth- ing is so dead as a dead orthodoxy, too dead to speculate, too dead to think, to study, or to pray. The preaching that kills may have in- sight and grasp of principles, may be schol- arly and critical in taste, may have every minutiae of the derivation and grammar of the letter, may be able to trim the letter into its perfect pattern, and illume it as Plato and Cicero may be illumined, may study it as a lawyer studies his text-books to form his brief or to defend his case, and yet be like a frost, a killing frost. Letter- preaching may be eloquent, enameled with poetry and rhetoric, sprinkled with prayer, spiced with sensation, illumined by genius, 21 Preacher and Prayer, and yet these be but the massive or chaste, costly mountings, the rare and beautiful flowers which coffin the corpse. The preaching which kills may be without schol- arship, unmarked by any freshness of thought or feeling, clothed in tasteless gen- eralities or vapid specialties, with style ir- regular, slovenly, savoring neither of closet nor of study, graced neither by thought, ex- pression, or prayer. Under such preaching how wide and utter the desolation ! how profound the spiritual death ! This letter-preaching deals with the sur- face and shadow of things, and not the things themselves. It does not penetrate the inner part. It has no deep insight into, no strong grasp of, the hidden life of God's Word. It is true to the outside, but the out- side is the hull which must be broken and penetrated for the kernel. The letter may be dressed so as to attract and be fashion- able, but the attraction is not toward God nor is the fashion for heaven. The failure is in the preacher. God has not made him. He has never been in the hands of God likt 22 Preacher and Prayer. clay in the hands of the potter. He has been busy about the sermon, its thought and finish, its drawing and impressive forces; but the deep things of God have never been sought, studied, fathomed, ex- perienced by him. He has never stood before ''the throne high and Hfted up," never heard the seraphim song, never seen the vision nor felt the rush of that awful holiness, and cried out in utter abandon and despair under the sense of weakness and guilt, and had his life renewed, his heart touched, purged, inflamed by the live coal from God's altar. His ministry may draw people to him, to the Church, to the form and ceremony; but no true drawings to God, no sweet, holy, divine communion in- duced. The Church has been frescoed but not edified, pleased but not sanctified. Life is suppressed; a chill is on the summer air ; the soil is baked. The city of our God becomes the city of the dead; the Church a graveyard, not an embattled army. Praise and prayer are stifled; worship is dead. The preacher and the preaching have 23 Preacher and Prayer, helped sin, not holiness ; peopled hell, not heaven. Preaching which kills is prayerless preaching. Without prayer the preacher creates death, and not life. The preacher who is feeble in prayer is feeble in life- giving forces. The preacher who has re- tired prayer as a conspicuous and largely prevailing element in his own character has shorn his preaching of its distinctive life-giving power. Professional praying there is and will be, but professional praying helps the preaching to its deadly work. Professional praying chills and kills both preaching and praying. Much of the lax devotion and lazy, irreverent attitudes in congregational praying are attributable to professional praying in the pulpit. Long, discursive, dry, and inane are the prayers in many pulpits. With- out unction or heart, they fall like a kill- ing frost on all the graces of worship. Death-dealing prayers they are. Every vestige of devotion has perished under their breath. The deader they are the longer they grow. A plea for short U Preacher and Prayer, praying, live praying, real heart praying, praying by the Holy Spirit — direct, specific, ardent, simple, unctuous in the pulpit — is in order. A school to teach preachers how to pray, as God counts praying, would be more beneficial to true piety, true worship, and true preaching than all theological schools. Stop! Pause! Consider! Where are we? What are we doing? Preaching to kill? Praying to kill? Praying to God! the great God, the Maker of all worlds, the Judge of all men! What reverence! what simplicity! what sincerity! what truth in the inward parts is demanded! How real we must be ! How hearty ! Prayer to God the noblest exercise, the loftiest effort of man, the most real thing! Shall we not discard forever accursed preaching that kills and prayer that kills, and do the real thing, the mightiest thing — ^prayerful pray- ing, life-creating preaching, bring the mightiest force to bear on heaven and earth and draw on God^s exhaustless and open treasure for the need and beggary of man ? 25 IV, Let us often look at Brainerd in the ivoods of America pouring out his very soul before God for the perishing- heathen Tvithout vjhose salvation nothing could make him happy. Prayer — secret^ fervent^ be- lieving prayer — lies at the root of all personal godli- ness. A competent knoivledge of the language -where a missionary lives, a mild and winning temper, a heart given up to God in closet religion — these, these are the attainments which, more than all knowledge, or all other gifts, will fit us to become the instruments of God in the great work of human redemption. — Carey's Brotherhood, Skrampore. There are two extreme tendencies in the ministry. The one is to shut itself out from intercourse with the people. The monk, the hermit were illustrations of this; they shut themselves out from men to be more with God. They failed, of course. Our being with God is of use only as we ex- pend its priceless benefits on men. This age, neither with preacher nor with people, is much intent on God. Our hankering is 26 Preacher and Prayer. not that way. We shut ourselves to our study, we become students, bookworms, Bi- ble worms, sermon makers, noted for liter- ature, thought, and sermons ; but the people and God, where are they? Out of heart, out of mind. Preachers who are great thinkers, great students must be the great- est of prayers, or else they will be the great- est of backsliders, heartless professionals, rationalistic, less than the least of preach- ers in God's estimate. The other tendency is to thoroughly pop- ularize the ministry. He is no longer God's man, but a man of affairs, of the people. He prays not, because his mission is to the people. H he can move the peo- ple, create an interest, a sensation in favor of religion, an interest in Church work — he is satisfied. His personal relation to God is no factor in his work. Prayer has little or no place in his plans. The disaster and ruin of such a ministry cannot be com- puted by earthly arithrrtetic. What the preacher is in prayer to God, for himself, for his people, so is his power for real good 27 Preacher and Prayer, to men, so is his true fruitfulness, his true fidelity to God, to man, for time, for eter- nity. It is impossible for the preacher to keep his spirit in harmony with the divine nature of his high calling without much prayer. That the preacher by dint of duty and laborious fidelity to the work and routine of the ministry can keep himself in trim and fitness is a serious mistake. Even sermon- making, incessant and taxing as an art, as a duty, as a work, or as a pleasure, will engross and harden, will estrange the heart, by neglect of prayer, from God. The sci- entist loses God in nature. The preacher may lose God in his sermon. Prayer freshens the heart of the preactt- er, keeps it in tune with God and in sym- pathy with the people, Hfts his ministry out of the chilly air of a profession, fructifies routine and moves every wheel with the facility and power of a divine unction. Mr. Spurgeon says: *'Of course the preacher is above all others distinguished as a man of prayer. He prays as an ordi- 28 Preacher and Prayer, nary Christian, else he were a hypcx:rite. He prays more than ordinary Christians, else he were disqualified for the office he has undertaken. If you as ministers are not very prayerful, you are to be pitied. If you become lax in sacred devotion, not only will you need to be pitied but your peo- ple also, and the day cometh in which you shall be ashamed and confounded. All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared with our closets. Our seasons of fasting and prayer at the Tabernacle have been high days indeed; never ha* heaven's gate stood wider; never have our hearts been nearer the central Glory." The praying which makes a prayerful ministry is not a little praying put in as we put flavor to give it a pleasant smack, but the praying must be in the body, and form the blood and bones. Prayer is no petty duty, put into a corner; no piecemeal per- formance made out of the fragments of time which have been snatched from busi- ness and other engagements of life; but it means that the best of our time, the 29 Preacher and Prayer, heart of our time and strength must be given. It does not mean the closet ab- sorbed in the study or swallowed up in the activities of ministerial duties ; but it means the closet first, the study and activities sec- ond, both study and activities freshened and made efficient by the closet. Prayer that affects one's ministry must give tone to one's life. The praying which gives col- or and bent to character is no pleasant, hur- ried pastime. It must enter as strongly into the heart and life as Christ's ''strong crying and tears" did; must draw out the soul into an agony of desire as Paul's did; must be an inwrought fire and force like the "effectual, fervent prayer" of James; must be of that quality which, when put into the golden censer and incensed before God, works mighty spiritual throes and revolu- tions. Prayer is not a little habit pinned on to us while we were tied to our mother's apron strings; neither is it a little decent quarter of a minute's grace said over an hour's dinner, but it is a most serious work of 30 Preacher and Prayer, our most serious years. It engages more of time and appetite than our longest din- ings or richest feasts. The prayer that makes much of our preaching must be made much of. The character of our pray- ing will determine the character of our preaching. Light praying will make light preaching. Prayer makes preaching strong, gives it unction, and makes it stick. In every ministry weighty for good, prayer has always been a serious business. The preacher must be preeminently a man of prayer. His heart must graduate in the school of prayer. In the school of prayer only can the heart learn to preach. Xo learning can make up for the failure to pray. No earnestness, no diligence, no study, no gifts will supply its lack. Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still. He will never talk well and with real suc- cess to men for God who has not learned well how to talk to God for men. More than this, prayerless words in the pulpit and out of it are deadening words. 31 V. JTou knotv the value of prayer: it is precious beyond all price. Never ^ ttever neglect it. — Sir Thomas Buxton. Prayer is the first things the second things the third thing necessary to a minister, Pray^ then^ my dear brother; pray^ pray, pray. — Edward Payson. Prayer, in the preacher's life, in the preacher's study, in the preacher's pulpit, must be a conspicuous and an all-impreg- nating force and an all-coloring ingredient. It must play no secondary part, be no mere coating. To him it is given to be with his Lord "all night in prayer." The preacher, to train himself in self-denying prayer, is charged to look to his Master, who, "ris- ing up a great while before day, went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." The preacher's study ought to be a closet, a Bethel, an altar, a vision, and a ladder, that every thought might ascend heavenward ere it went manward ; that ev- ery part of the sermon might be scented by the air of heaven and made serious, because God was in the study. 32 Preacher and Prayer, As the engine never moves until the fire is kindled, so preaching, with all its ma- chinery, perfection, and polish, is at a dead standstill, as far as spiritual results are concerned, till prayer has kindled and cre- ated the steam. The texture, fineness, and strength of the sermon is as so much rub- bish unless the mighty impulse of prayer is in it, through it, and behind it. The preacher must, by prayer, put God in the sermon. The preacher must, by prayer, move God toward the people before he can move the people to God by his words. The preacher must have had audience and ready access to God before he can have access to the people. An open way to God for the preacher is the surest pledge of an open way to the people. It is necessary to iterate and reiterate that prayer, as a mere habit, as a performance gone through by routine or in a profession- al way, is a dead and rotten thing. Such praying has no connection with the praying for which we plead. We are stressing true 3 33 Preacher and Prayer, praying, which engages and sets on fire ev- ery high element of the preacher's being — prayer which is born of vital oneness with Christ and the fullness of the Holy Ghost, which springs from the deep, overflowing fountains of tender compassion, deathless solicitude for man's eternal good; a con- suming zeal for the glory of God ; a thor- ough conviction of the preacher's difficult and delicate work and of the imperative need of God's mightiest help. Praying grounded on these solemn and profound convictions is the only true praying. Preaching backed by such praying is the only preaching which sows the seeds of eternal life in human hearts and builds men up for heaven. It is true that there may be popular preaching, pleasant preaching, taking preaching, preaching of much intellectual, literary, and brainy force, with its measure and form of good, with little or no praying ; but the preaching which secures God's end in preaching must be born of prayer from text to exordium, delivered with the energy 34 Preacher and Prayer. and spirit of prayer, followed and made to germinate, and kept in vital force in the hearts of the hearers by the preacher's prayers, long after the occasion has past. We may excuse the spiritual poverty of our preaching in many ways, but the true secret will be found in the lack of urgent prayer for God's presence in the power of the Holy Spirit. There are preachers in- numerable who can deliver masterful ser- mons after their order; but the effects are short-lived and do not enter as a factor at all into the regions of the spirit where the fearful war between God and Satan, heav- en and hell, is being waged because they are not made powerfully militant and spir- itually victorious by prayer. The preachers who gain mighty results for God are the men who have prevailed in their pleadings with God ere venturing to plead with men. The preachers who are the mightiest in their closets with God are the mightiest in their pulpits with men. Preachers are human folks, and are ex- posed to and often caught by the strong 35 Preacher and Prayer. driftings of human currents. Praying is spiritual work ; and human nature does not like taxing, spiritual work. Human nature wants to sail to heaven under a favoring breeze, a full, smooth sea. Prayer is hum- bling work. It abases intellect and pride, crucifies vainglory, and signs our spiritual bankruptcy, and all these are hard for flesh and blood to bear. It is easier not to pray than to bear them. So we come to one of the crying evils of these times, maybe of all times — little or no praying. Of these two evils, perhaps little praying is worse than no praying. Little praying is a kind of make-believe, a salvo for the conscience, a farce and a delusion. The little estimate we put on prayer is evident from the little time we give to it. The time given to prayer by the average preacher scarcely counts in the sum of the daily aggregate. Not infrequently the preacher's only praying is by his bedside in his nightdress, ready for bed and soon in it, with, perchance, the addition of a few hasty snatches of prayer ere he is dressed 36 Preacher and Prayer, in the morning. How feeble, vain, and lit- tle is such praying compared with the time and energy devoted to praying by holy men in and out of the Bible ! How poor and mean our petty, childish praying is beside the habits of the true men of God in all ages ! To men who think praying their main business and devote time to it ac- cording to this high estimate of its im- portance does God commit the keys of his kingdom, and by them does he work his spiritual wonders in this world. Great praying is the sign and seal of God's great leaders and the earnest of the conquering forces with which God will crown their la- bors. The preacher is commissioned to pray as well as to preach. His mission is incom- plete if he does not do both well. The preacher may speak with all the eloquence of men and of angels; but unless he can pray with a faith which draws all heaven to his aid, his preaching will be "as sound- ing brass or a tinkling cymbal" for perma- nent God-honoring, soul-saving uses. 37 VI. The pritKipdl cause of my leanness mnd unfrtMful- n9S3 is owing to an unaccountable back-wardaess to pray. I can turit* or read or converse or hear imih a ready heart; but prayer is more spiritual and rnvMxrd thmn mny of these ^ and the more spiritual any duty is the more my carnal heart is apt to start from it. Prayer and Patience and faith are never disappointed. I have long since learned that if ever I ivas to be a minister faith and prayer must tnake me one, WJien I can find my heart in frame and liberty for prayer^ everything else is comparatively easy, ' — Richard Nkwton. It may be put down as a spiritual ax- iom that in every truly successful ministry prayer is an evident and controlling force — evident and controlling in the life of the preacher, evident and controlling in the deep spirituality of his work. A ministry may be a very thoughtful ministry without prayer; the preacher may secure fame and popularity without prayer; the whole ma- chinery of the preacher's life and work may be run without the oil of prayer or with scarcely enough to grease one cog; but no 38 Preacher and Prayer. ministry can be a spiritual one, securing holiness in the preacher and in his people, without prayer being made an evident and controlling force. The preacher that prays indeed puts God into the work. God does not come into the preacher's work as a matter of course or on general principles, but he comes by prayer and special urgency. That God will be found of us in the day that we seek him with the whole heart is as true of the preacher as of the penitent. A prayerful ministry is the only ministry that brings the preacher into sympathy with the people. Prayer as essentially unites to the hu- man as it does to the divine. \ A prayerful ministry is the only ministry qualified for the high offices and responsibilities of the preacher. Colleges, learning, books, the- ology, preaching cannot make a preacher, but praying does. The apostles' commis- sion to preach was a blank till filled up by the Pentecost which praying brought. A prayerful minister has passed beyond the regions of the popular, beyond the man of 39 Preacher and Prayer. mere affairs, of secularities, of pulpit at- tractiveness; passed beyond the ecclesiastic- al organizer or general into a sublimer and mightier region, the region of the spiritual. Holiness is the product of his work; trans- figured hearts and lives emblazon the real- ity of his work, its trueness and substantial nature. God is with him. His ministry is not projected on worldly or surface prin- ciples. He is deeply stored with and deep- ly schooled in the things of God. His long, deep communings with God about his peo- ple and the agony of his wrestling spirit have crowned him as a prince in the things of God. The iciness of the mere profes- sional has long since melted under the in- tensity of his praying. The superficial results of many a minis- try, the deadness of others, are to be found in the lack of praying. No ministry can succeed without much praying, and this praying must be fundamental, ever-abiding, ever-increasing. The text, the sermon, should be the result of prayer. The study should be bathed in prayer, all its duties 40 Preacher and Prayer. impregnated with prayer, its whole spirit the spirit of prayer. "I am sorry that I have prayed so Httle/* was the deathbed re- gret of one of God's chosen ones, a sad and remorseful regret for a preacher. *'I want a life of greater, deeper, truer prayer," said the late Archbishop Tait. So may we all say, and this may we all secure. God's true preachers have been distin- guished by one great feature: they were men of prayer. Differing often in many things, they have always had a common center. They may have started from dif- ferent points, and traveled by different roads, but they converged to one point: they were one in prayer. God to them was the center of attraction, and prayer was the path that led to God. These men prayed not occasionally, not a little at regular or at odd times; but they so prayed that their prayers entered into and shaped their char- acters ; they so prayed as to affect their own lives and the lives of others ; they so prayed as to make the history of the Church and influence the current of the times. They; 4' Preacher and Prayer. spent much time in prayer, not because they marked the shadow on the dial or the hands on the clock, but because it was to them so momentous and engaging a business that they could scarcely give over. Prayer was to them what it was to Paul, a striving with earnest effort of soul ; what it was to Jacob, a wrestling and prevailing; what it was to Christ, ^'strong crying and tears/' They "prayed always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance." *The effectual, fervent prayer" has been the mightiest weapon of God's mightiest sol- diers. The statement in regard to Elijah — that he "was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit" — comprehends all prophets and preachers who have moved their gen- eration for God, and shows the instrument by which they worked their wonders. 42 VII. The great masters and teachers in Christian dec* trine have alvMxys found in grayer their highest sonrce of iUuminaiion. Not te go beyond the limits of the English Churchy it is recorded of Bishop Andrewes that be spent five hours daily on his knees. The greatest practical resolves that have enriched and beautified human life in Christian times have been arrived at in prayer. — Canon Liddok. While many private prayers, in the na- ture of things, must be short; while public prayers, as a rule, ought to be short and condensed; while there is ample room for and value put on ejaculatory prayer — ^yet in our private communions with God time is a feature essential to its value. Much time spent with God is the secret of all suc- cessful praying. Prayer which is felt as a mighty force is the mediate or immediate product of much time spent with God. Our short prayers owe their point and efficiency to the long ones that have preceded them. 43 Preacher and Prayer. The short prevailing prayer cannot be prayed by one who has not prevailed with God in a mightier struggle of long con- tinuance. Jacob's victory of faith could not have been gained without that all-night wrestling. God's acquaintance is not made by pop calls. God does not bestow his gifts on the casual or hasty comers and goers. Much with God alone is the secret of know- ing him and of influence with him. He yields to the persistency of a faith that knows him. He bestows his richest gifts upon those who declare their desire for and appreciation of those gifts by the constancy as well as earnestness of their importunity. Christ, who in this as well as other things is our Example, spent many whole nights in prayer. His custom was to pray much. He had his habitual place to pray. Many long seasons of praying make up his his- tory and character. Paul prayed day and night. It took time from very important interests for Daniel to pray three times a day. David's morning, noon, and night praying were doubtless on many occasions 44 Preacher and Prayer. very protracted. While we have no spe- cific account of the time these Bible saints spent in prayer, yet the indications are that they consumed much time in prayer, and on some occasions long seasons of praying was their custom. We would not have any think that the value of their prayers is to be measured by the clock, but our purpose is to im- press on our minds the necessity of being much alone with God; and that if this fea- ture has not been produced by our faith, then our faith is of a feeble and surface type. The men who have most fully illustrated Christ in their character, and have most powerfully affected the world for him, have been men who spent so much time with God as to make it a notable feature of their lives. Charles Simeon devoted the hours from four till eight in the morning to God. Mr. Wesley spent two hours daily in prayer. He began at four in the morn- ing. Of him, one who knew him well wrote: '*He thought prayer to be more his 45 Preacher and Prayer. business than anything else, and I have seen him come out of his closet with a serenity of face next to shining.'* John Fletcher stained the walls of his room by the breath of his prayers. Sometimes he would pray all night; always, frequently, and with great earnestness. His whole life was a life of prayer. "I would not rise from my seat," he said, '^without lifting my heart to God." His greeting to a friend was always: "Do I meet you praying?" Luther said; "If I fail to spend two hours in prayer eacYi morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer." He had a motto: "He that has prayed well has stud- ied well." Archbishop Leighton was so much alone with God that he seemed to be in a per- petual meditation. "Prayer and praise were his business and his pleasure," says his biographer. Bishop Ken was so much with God that his soul was said to be God- enamored. He was with God before the 46 Preacher and Prayer. clock struck three every morning-. Bishop Asbury said: "I propose to rise at four o'clock as often as I can and spend two hours in prayer and meditation." Samuel Rutherford, the fragrance of whose piety is still rich, rose at three in the morning to meet God in prayer. Joseph Alleine arose at four o'clock for his business of praying till eight. If he heard other tradesmen ply- ing their business before he was up, he would exclaim: "O how this shames me! Doth not my Master deserve more than theirs?" He who has learned this trade well draws at will, on sight, and with ac- ceptance of heaven's unfailing bank. One of the holiest and among the most gifted of Scotch preachers says: "I ought to spend the best hours in communion with God. It is my noblest and most fruitful em- ployment, and is not to be thrust into a cor- ner. The morning hours, from six to eight, are the most uninterrupted and should be thus em.ployed. After tea is my best hour, and that should be solemnly dedicated to Go