gave the following command: “Enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”[388] For when he has dissuaded from imitating the example of hypocrites, who endeavoured by the ambitious ostentation of their prayers to gain the favour of men, he immediately adds a better direction, which is, to enter into our closet, and there to pray with the door shut. In which words, as I understand them, he has taught us to seek retirement, that we may be enabled to descend into our own hearts, with all our powers of reflection, and promised us that God, whose temples our bodies ought to be, will accede to the desires of our souls. For he did not intend to deny the expediency of praying also in other places; but shows that prayer is a kind of secret thing, which lies principally in the heart, and requires a tranquillity of mind undisturbed by all cares. It was not without reason, therefore, that the Lord himself, when he would engage in an unusual vehemence of devotion, retired to some solitary place, far from the tumult of men; but with a view to admonish us by his own example, that we ought not to neglect these helps, by which our hearts, naturally too inconstant, are more intensely fixed on the devotional exercise. But notwithstanding, as he did not refrain from praying even in the midst of a multitude, if at any time the occasion required it, so we, in all places where it may be necessary, should “lift up holy hands.”[389] And so it is to be concluded, that whoever refuses to pray in the solemn assembly of the saints, knows nothing of private prayer, either solitary or domestic. And again, that he who neglects solitary and private prayer, how sedulously soever he may frequent the public assemblies, only forms there such as are mere wind, because he pays more deference to the opinion of men than to the secret judgment of God. In the mean time, that the common prayers of the Church might not sink into contempt, God anciently distinguished them by splendid titles, especially when he called the temple a “house of prayer.”[390] For by this expression he taught both that the duty of prayer is a principal part of his worship, and that the temple had been erected as a standard for believers, in order that they might engage in it with one consent. There was also added a remarkable promise: “Praise waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion; and unto thee shall the vow be performed;”[391] in which words the Psalmist informs us that the prayers of the Church are never in vain, because the Lord supplies his people with perpetual matter of praise and joy. But though the legal shadows have ceased, yet since it has been the Divine will by this ceremony to maintain a unity of faith among us also, the same promise undoubtedly belongs to us, Christ having confirmed it with his own mouth, and Paul having represented it as perpetually valid.