Prayers avail when they are fruitful in good works. 195 else which you ought rather to consider, than that your converse is with God! How can you claim of God to attend to you, when you do not attend to yourself? Shall God remember you in your supplications, when you are forgetful of yourself? This is altogether to make no provision against the Enemy; this is, when praying to God, to offend God's majesty by the neglectfulness of your prayer: this is to wake with the eyes, and sleep with the heart, whereas the Christian, even when his eyes sleep, ought to have his heart waking, as it is written in the character of the Church speaking in the Song of Songs, I sleep, but My heart waketh. Wherefore the Apostle Cant. 5, anxiously and cautiously warns us, saying, Continue in 2 prayer, and watch in the same; teaching, that is, and shewing, that they may procure what they ask of God, whom God sees watching in prayer. Col.1, 2. 19. 21. Those who pray ought to come to God not with unfruitful or naked prayers; vainly we ask, when it is a barren petition that is given to God. For since every tree, not Mat. 7, bringing forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire, surely words also which bring no fruit, must fail of favour with God, seeing they are joined with no productiveness in righteous deeds. Hence divine Scripture instructs us, saying, Prayer is good with fasting and alms. For He who Tob. 12, in the day of judgment will render to us a reward for 8. our good works and alms, is now also a gracious listener to any that approaches Him in prayer with the company of good works. Thus was it that the Centurion Cornelius, when he prayed, found a title to be heard. For he was one that did Acts 10, many almsdeeds toward the people, and ever prayed to God.2.4. To him when he was praying about the ninth hour an Angel came nigh, rendering testimony to his deeds, and saying, Cornelius, thy prayers and thy alms are gone up in remembrance before God. Quickly do prayers go up to God, when the claims of our good works introduce them before Him. merita Thus also the Angel Raphael bare witness to the continual operis. praying and continual almsdeeds of Tobias, saying, It is operanti. honourable to reveal and confess the works of God. For when Tob. 12, thou didst pray and Sara, I did bring the remembrance of your prayers before the holiness of God. And when thou didst bury the dead, I was with thee likewise, and because nostri 12. 196 Good works create a title to be heard of God. VII. Then TREAT. thou didst not delay to rise up and leave thy dinner, to go and cover the dead, I was sent to prove thee; and now God hath sent me, to heal thee and Jona thy daughter-in-law. For I am Raphael, one of the seven holy Angels, which go in and out before the glory of God. By Isaiah likewise the Lord admonishes and teaches us like things, thus testifying: Is. 58, 6. Loosen every knot of unrighteousness; release the oppressions of contracts which have no power. Let the troubled go in peace, and break every unjust engagement. Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the poor that are cast out to thy house. When thou seest the naked, cover him, and despise not them of thine own flesh. Then shall thy light break forth in season, and thy raiment shall spring forth speedily, and righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of God shall cover thee. shalt thou call, and God shall hear thee, and while thou shalt yet speak, He shall say, Here I am. He promises that He is nigh, and hears and protects those, who, loosening the knots of unrighteousness from the heart, and giving alms among the household of God, according to His commandment, do by meren- hearkening to what God claims of them, themselves acquire a title to be heard of Him. The blessed Paul, having been assisted by the Brethren in a needful time of pressure, Phil. 4, declared that good works performed are sacrifices to God. I am full, saith he, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God. For when one hath pity on the poor, he lendeth to God; and he that gives even to the least, gives to God, spiritually sacrifices to God an odour of a sweet smell. tur. 18. 22. In the performance of worship we find that the Three Children with Daniel, strong in faith, and conquering in captivity, observed the third, sixth, and ninth hour', hereby sacramentally denoting the Trinity, which in the latter days should be revealed. For from the first hour to the third, a trinity of number is manifested; from the fourth further to the sixth, is another trinity; and in the seventh closing with the ninth, a perfect trinity is numbered in spaces of three hours. The worshippers of God, spiritually appointing of old these • This observance is mentioned also by S. Clement A. (Strom. vii. p. 722. ed. Sylb.) Tertullian, (de Jejun. 10.) and Origen, (de Orat. 12.) Five stated hours of prayer in the day. 197 spaces of time, observed them as their fixed and lawful seasons for prayer. Events aftercoming gave proof that there was a sacrament in the ancient practice of righteous men offering prayer at these seasons. At the third hour descended the Holy Spirit on the Disciples, fulfilling the gracious promise of the Lord. At the sixth hour moreover Peter going up into the house-top, was taught and warned both by a sign from God, and by word spoken, to admit all men to the grace of salvation, he having before doubted concerning the admission of the Gentiles to Baptism. The Lord also cleansed our sins with His blood upon the Cross, from the sixth hour till the ninth, and then, for our redemption and quickening, He made victory perfect by His passion. But to us, dearest brethren, besides the hours of ancient time observed, both seasons and sacraments of prayer are increased in number. In the morning we must pray, that the resurrection of the Lord may be commemorated with an early worship. This of old the Holy Spirit set forth in the Psalms, saying, My King and Ps. 5, 2. my God, unto Thee will I cry: my voice shalt Thou hear in the morning; in the morning will I stand before Thee, and will look up. And again by the Prophet the Lord saith, Early in the morning shall they seek Me, saying, Come and Hos. 6, let us return unto the Lord our God. At sun-setting likewise and the close of day, needful is it that we should again pray. For as Christ is the true sun and the true day, when at the going down of this world's sun and light we make prayer and petition that the day may again return upon us, we are petitioning for that coming of Christ, which will give to us the grace of the light eternal. The Holy Spirit manifests in the Psalms, that Christ is called the Day; The stone which Ps. 118, the builders refused, is become the head of the corner; this is the Lord's doing, and it is wonderful in our eyes. This is the Day which the Lord hath made; let us walk and rejoice in it. Likewise Malachi the Prophet bears witness that He is called the Sun; To you that fear the name of the Lord, shall Mal.4,2. the Sun of righteousness arise, with healing in His wings. 23. But if in holy Scripture Christ is the true Sun and the true Day, the Christian can know no hour, wherein he may not, in frequency and in continuance, offer up his worship to God; for we, who are in Christ, that is, in the true Sun and 1. 22. VII. TREAT. the true Day, ought all day long to be yielding up prayer and worship; and when night in its appointment succeeds, advancing in its revolving interchange, its nocturnal shades cannot steal from us the opportunity of prayer, because sons of the light have their day even amid darkness. When can he be without light, with whom light is in the heart? When is the sun not his, or the day not his, who has Christ for his Sun and his Day? Let us then, who are evermore in Christ, that is, in the Light, abstain not even in darkness from our worship. Thus the widow Anna without ceasing persevered with continual prayer and watching in pleading for Luke 2, God's favour, as it is written in the Gospel; She departed not, it says, from the Temple, serving with fastings and prayers night and day. Let Gentiles consider this, who have never yet received the light, or Jews who having deserted the light are abiding in darkness. Let us, dearest brethren, who are evermore in the light of the Lord, not forgetting nor losing that, which grace given has made us to be, count day and night alike; let us consider ourselves ever 37. 1, 7. 1 John to be walking in the light, let us yield to no impediment from the darkness we have escaped from. In the nightly hours let there be no omissions of prayer, no idle careless waste, in the moments of worship. Spiritually made anew and reborn, through the tender mercy of God, let us exercise ourselves in the part we are to fulfil. We who in the kingdom are to have day alone, without the intervention of night, let us now so watch by night, as if we were beneath the light of day; we who are to pray and to give thanks to God for ever, let us now admit no discontinuance of prayer and of thanksgiving. [About the year 252 the Roman Empire was visited by a pestilence, which 4. THE uproar of sacrilege and impiety which you are wont to raise against the one and the true God, I have heretofore, Demetrianus, passed over in contempt, thinking it more decent and better, to put the scorn of silence upon a mistaken man's ignorance, than provoke a madman's frenzy by what I should say. Neither was I without authority of the divine instruction herein, since it is written, Speak not in the ears Prov.23, of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of thy words. And 9. again, Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also Prov.26, be like unto him. We are commanded also to keep what is holy within our own knowledge, and not expose it to be trodden upon by swine and dogs, the Lord thus speaking and saying, Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye Mat. 7, your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their 6. feet, and turn again, and rend you. Coming to me as you were wont to do, rather with a purpose of contradicting than from a wish to learn, and more resolved with your loud clamour on an immodest urging of your own views, than patiently listening to mine, I thought it useless to place myself at issue with you; for it were an easier and a readier thing, to baffle the lifted waves of a stormy sea with noise, than to reduce your |