Charles Hodge
Taken, with editing, from Hodge’s Systematic Theology, vol 3. Last month’s article listed seven conditions for acceptable prayer.
As prayer is converse with God, it includes these spiritual exercises – goings out of the soul to God in thought and feeling – in reverence, gratitude, sorrow for sin, sense of dependence and obligation. In this sense, the man who lives and walks with God always prays. He fulfils to the letter the injunction, “Pray without ceasing”. It is our duty and high privilege to have this constant converse with God. The heart should be like the altar of incense, on which the fire never went out.
It is, however, a law of our nature that we should clothe our thoughts and feelings in words. Therefore prayer is speech. Even when it is not audible, words are present to the mind as the expression of inward states. There is power in articulate words; the thought or feeling is more distinct and vivid even to ourselves when audibly expressed. Prayer, in this sense, is usually distinguished as: (1) secret (2) social and (3) public.
1. Secret Prayer.
It would be a great mistake for a Christian to assume that the life of God in his soul can be adequately preserved by that form of prayer which consists in habitual communion with God. To maintain his spiritual health and vigour, the believer needs regular, stated seasons of prayer, as the body needs its daily meals. The direction the Lord gave is: “When thou prayest, 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” (Mt 6:6). The Bible presents the people of God, and the blessed Lord Himself, as an example for us in prayer. We read that Christ often retired to pray, and not infrequently spent whole nights doing so. If the spotless soul of Jesus needed these seasons of converse with God, none of His followers should dare neglect this important means of grace. Let each day, at least, begin and end with God.
2. Social Prayer.
Social prayer includes family prayer. As man’s nature is social, he must have fellowship with his fellow men in what concerns his inward and outward life. No one lives, or can live, for himself, in religion or in any other relation. As the family is the most intimate bond of fellowship among men, it is vitally important that it should be hallowed by religion. All the relations of parents and children are purified and strengthened when the whole household gathers regularly, morning and evening, to worship God. There is no substitute for this means of promoting family religion that God has appointed.
It assumes that the head of the family is able to read the Scriptures as well as lead in the prayer. All who are subject to the watch or care of the Church should be required to maintain in their households this stated worship of God. The character of the Church and of the state depends on the character of the family. If religion dies out in the family, it cannot be maintained elsewhere. A man’s responsibility to his children, as well as to God, binds him to make his house a Bethel [a house of God]; if it is not a Bethel, it will be a dwelling place of evil spirits.
When the mass of the people were so ignorant as to be unable to maintain religious services profitably in their families, it was natural and proper for the church to open its doors daily and call the people to matins and vespers. It was far better to have this opportunity for daily worship than that this stated service should be neglected. It is not wise, however, to continue a custom when the grounds on which it was introduced no longer exist, or to make a church ordinance the substitute for a divine institution.
3. Public Prayer.
The public services of the sanctuary are designed for worship and instruction. The former includes prayer and singing; the latter, reading the Word of God and preaching. These elements should be preserved in due proportion. In some churches instruction is made entirely subordinate to worship; twice the time being devoted to the latter that is allotted to the former. This seems to be contrary to the Scriptural rule. Knowledge in the Bible is represented as the essential element of religion. There can be no true worship of God without adequate knowledge of God; there can be no repentance, faith or holy living unless the truths, on which these exercises and this living are dependent, are understood and are present to the mind.
But these too should lead us to worship (Ed).
Religion is a reasonable, or rational, service, and ignorance is incompatible with it. Christian ministers are therefore always called teachers in the New Testament. The great commission they received from Christ was “to teach all nations”. The Apostles therefore went everywhere preaching. Paul says that Christ did not send him to baptize, or to perform mere religious services, but to preach the gospel, which he declared to be the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation. No human authority could have transformed Paul from a preacher to an offerer of prayers. It was not until pagan ideas of worship began to pervade the Church, and ministers were transmuted from teachers into priests, that the teaching element was made so entirely subordinate to that of worship, as it has been for ages in the Church of Rome.
Teaching should be the prominent object in the services of the Lord’s Day, as it clearly was during the apostolic age, yet the importance of public prayer can hardly be overestimated. This, it is often said, is the weak point in the Presbyterian Sabbath service. This is probably true. That is, it is probably true that there are more good preachers than good prayers. The main reason for this is that the minister devotes a great part of the labour of the week to the preparation of his sermon, and not a thought to his prayers. It is therefore no wonder that the one should be better than the other.
In order that this part of divine service should be conducted to the edification of the people, it is necessary that:
1. The officiating minister should have a truly devout spirit, that the feelings and desires expressed in his prayers should be in exercise in his own heart.
2. His mind and memory should be well stored with the thoughts and language of Scripture.
Holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Their utterances, whether in adoration, thanksgiving, confession or supplication, were controlled by the Spirit of God. Hence they express the mind of the Spirit; they are the most appropriate vehicles for the expression of those feelings and desires which the Spirit awakens in the minds of God’s people. Therefore no prayers are more edifying, other things being equal, than those which abound in the appropriate use of Scriptural language.
3. The prayer should be well ordered, so as to embrace all the proper parts and topics of prayer in due proportion.
This will prevent it being rambling, diffuse or repetitious.
4. It should also be suited to the occasion, whether that be the ordinary service on the Lord’s day, the administration of the sacraments, or a special service on days of thanksgiving or of fasting and humiliation.
5. The language employed should be simple, solemn and correct.
It is hardly necessary to say so.
6. The prayers should not be long.
Undue length here is generally due more to useless repetitions than to diffuseness.