This week on Reforming Faith Ministries, we’re diving into Samuel Lee’s insights on the incredible power of secret prayer and its impact on our lives. Discover how personal time with God can strengthen your faith and fill your life with joy.
“From the first day that you set you heart to understand … your words have been heard.”
Daniel 10:12
“It is a dangerous state to carry on public duties only and neglect secret duties. It is a suspicious token of hypocrisy, for the soul of religion lies so much in the heart and the closer! God's eye is open to you in the closet, and if your eye is open to his, you may see his glorious beauty. The excellency of grace lies in making conscience of secret sins and of secret duties. Would you live delightfully? Would you translate heaven down to earth? Then keep up communion in secret prayer — to know Him, to discern His face, to behold the lustre of His eyes that shines in secret. Remember the glorious person that meets you in your closet. All the world cannot yield the beauty you may see when you are in a happy frame in secret prayer. Shut your eyes when you come out, for all other objects are but vile and sordid, and not worth the glances of a noble soul. O the sweetness and the hidden manna that a soul tastes when in living communion with God! Its ecstasies allure and draw the heart from earthly vanities. Prayer stands on Mount Zion and foretells great things to the church's joy and its enemies' terror. The prayers of Christians confounded the nations. When the spirit of prayer is once poured out, it brings deliverance to Mount Zion. Let us never be discouraged — prayer awakens Christ in the ship of the church, and her storms will cease in a great calm. Nothing revives and cheers the spirit so much as answers of love and mercy from heaven. Our closets cast an influence upon our shops, our ships, our fields, and all we enjoy, so that they smell of divine blessing! O you that fear the Lord, be diligent to observe secret prayer, for the life and joy of a Christian is improved by it. God is graciously pleased with secret prayer, and with great account esteems his praying people!”1
~ Samuel Lee, Puritan Sermons 1659-1689, 11:191-194
Richard Rushing has compiled a two 365 daily devotional readings to take you through the year with the Puritans. Voices from the Past (volume 1), and Voices From the Past 2 are two treasures of wisdom from such authors as Stephen Charnock, Thomas Manton, David Clarkson, Thomas Brooks, John Bunyan, and Jonathan Edwards, and others.
The editor has painstakingly selected these readings from their sources, some of which are still widely available in print, others of which are more scarce. Readers will find these choice extracts to be excellent ‘thoughts for the day’, and will frequently find themselves wanting to explore more of the writings of these authors of the past.2
You can purchase “Voice from The Past, Volume 1” here.
You can purchase “Voice from The Past, Volume 2” here.
Richard Rushing, ed. “Voices from the Past: Puritan Devotional Readings. Vol. 2.” (Edinburgh, UK: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2016), 183.
This article is not sponsored or endorsed by The Banner of Truth Trust.
Voices From The Past