William Romaine
Prayer consists in keeping up daily converse with God upon all occasions. This is the breathing of the new-born soul. It wants to draw in the air of heaven and to live in its own proper element. A way is opened for it unto the throne of glory, and the children of God may approach it with boldness, for it is a throne of grace, and He that sits on it loves to answer their petitions. He is their Father. “I ascend”, says Jesus, “to My Father, “and your Father”; “the Father Himself loveth you”; ask what you will of Him in My name, He will do it. This is the beloved object of prayer, a reconciled Father in Jesus, whose heart is full of tenderness to the complaints and miseries of His family. His promises are the declaration of His pure love; to depend on His fulfilling them does honour to His truth and faithfulness, and always brings down the blessing.
The Holy Spirit abides with the children of God, to teach them thus to pray in faith. He helps their infirmities in prayer, strengthens their graces and bestows on them their comforts. He enables them to come with boldness and to have access with confidence. Whatever their Father has freely promised to give them in Jesus, they will ask in faith, nothing wavering, for they know His promises cannot fail. They find them daily fulfilled, whereby their holy familiarity with their Father increases. He draws nearer to them, and they draw nearer to Him. Thus their mutual intercourse may be interrupted, but it cannot be entirely broken off. God is always disposed to hear, although the believer is not always able to pray rejoicing. It is still his privilege, although he may not find any great delight in it; but if he continues to make constant use of his privilege, his delight will return, and God will fulfil to him the gracious promise, I will “make them joyful in My house of prayer”.
Thus the child of God learns to love prayer, indeed to pray without ceasing. He lives under his Father’s eye, and in dependence on his Father’s care for him night and day. Thus he has fellowship with the things of God in his soul as true and lasting as he has with the things of this world in his body.
1Romaine (1714-1795) was a noted London minister. This article is an edited extract – directed to believers – from his well-known work, The Life, Walk and Triumph of Faith.
What an exalted privilege is this! How highly is prayer hereby ennobled! It is not a duty rendered to an absolute God, but a gracious intercourse with a covenant God. It is not practised that He may love us, but because He loves us; not to make us His children, but because we are His children. It should be performed always in this faith. If there are infirmities in it, such as wandering, coldness, or the like, we are to remember that we are not heard for the beauty of our prayers, nor answered for the fervency of them.
What makes our persons accepted obtains acceptance for our services also. We and all we do are only accepted in the Beloved. “Through [Jesus Christ] we . . . have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Eph 2:18). Our access is through Jesus Christ. Trusting to His finished salvation we enter into the presence of the Father and, guided by the Holy Spirit, we pray in faith. Whatever we ask in the Son’s name, we know that we have the petitions which He desired of Him. This spiritualises prayer, and puts glory upon it because there is heavenly fellowship with God in it, with the Father through the Son, by the one Spirit.
These are some of the privileges of Christian prayer. Thou goest, O my soul, to meet thy God in it, to converse with thy Father, to call on Him for the fulfilling of His promises made in Jesus, to wait on Him for His answers, and to give Him His glory. What blessed times thou hast enjoyed in this communion with thy God! How He has manifested His nearness to thee, and bounty towards thee! Hast thou not found His heart open, His ears open, and His hands open to grant thee the request of thy lips? And when thou hast not found such sweet fellowship with thy God in prayer, yet thy dependence on His faithful Word has been exercised and improved.
Thou hast left thy petitions with thy Friend and Advocate, trusting to that most glorious description of Him: “Another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer, and there was given unto Him much incense, that He should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand” (Rev 8:3,4). Thou great Angel of the covenant, thus present my prayers; they are nothing worth but as perfumed with Thy divine odours. Let them ever ascend before God out of Thy hand, with the smoke of the incense of Thy sacrifice and intercession. Blessed Spirit of prayer, increase my faith, that I may trust more to a prayer-hearing God and Father, who is always ready to grant every good thing promised to His children in Christ Jesus. Amen.
What base ingratitude is it to be receiving and using the blessings of a bountiful providence and yet never acknowledge the hand from which they proceed!
Archibald Alexander