Practical Religion: Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing ChristiansRyle, J. C. (John Charles)
Religion
Practical Religion: Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing Christians
Ryle, J. C. (John Charles)
Christian life -- Anglican authors
I want the readers of this paper to be really happy Christians. I am
certain I cannot urge on them a more important duty than prayer.
And now it is high time for me to bring this paper to an end. I trust I
have brought before my readers things that will be seriously considered.
I heartily pray God that this consideration may be blessed to their
souls.
(1) Let me speak a parting word _to those who do not pray_. I dare not
suppose that all who read these pages will be praying people. If you are
a prayerless person, suffer me to speak to you this day on God's behalf.
Prayerless friend, I can only warn you; but I do warn you most solemnly.
I warn you that you are in a position of fearful danger. If you die in
your present state you are a lost soul. You will only rise again to be
eternally miserable. I warn you that of all professing Christians you
are most utterly without excuse. There is not a single good reason that
you can show for living without prayer.
It is useless to say you _know not how_ to pray. Prayer is the simplest
act in all religion. It is simply speaking to God. It needs neither
learning, nor wisdom, nor book-knowledge to begin it. It needs nothing
but heart and will. The weakest infant can cry when he is hungry. The
poorest beggar can hold out his hand for an alms, and does not wait to
find fine words. The most ignorant man will find something to say to
God, if he has only a mind.
It is useless to say you have _no convenient place_ to pray in. Any man
can find a place private enough, if he is disposed. Our Lord prayed on a
mountain; Peter on the house-top; Isaac in the field; Nathanael under
the fig-tree; Jonah in the whale's belly. Any place may become a closet,
an oratory, and a Bethel, and be to us the presence of God.
It is useless to say _you have no time_. There is plenty of time, if men
will only employ it. Time may be short, but time is always long enough
for prayer. Daniel had all the affairs of a kingdom on his hands, and
yet he prayed three times a day. David was ruler over a mighty nation,
and yet he says, "Evening and morning and at noon will I pray." (Psalm
lv. 17.) When time is really wanted, time can always be found.
It is useless to say you _cannot pray till you have faith and a new
heart_, and that you must sit still and wait for them. This is to add
sin to sin. It is bad enough to be unconverted and going to hell. It is
even worse to say, "I know it, but I will not cry for mercy." This is a
kind of argument for which there is no warrant in Scripture. "Call ye
upon the Lord," saith Isaiah, "while He is near." (Isaiah lv. 6.) "Take
with you words, and come unto the Lord," says Hosea. (Hosea xiv. 1.)
"Repent and pray," says Peter to Simon Magus. (Acts viii. 22.) If you
want faith and a new heart, go and cry to the Lord for them. The very
attempt to pray has often been the quickening of a dead soul. Alas,
there is no devil so dangerous as a dumb devil.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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