It's true, hypocrites may pray, and pray alone, and pray long, and receive their reward, [Greek or Hebrew], from such whose observation they desire, but take no true delight in secret devotion,1 they have no spring of affection to God. But O my dove, says Christ, that art in the clefts of the rock, let me hoar thy voice for the melody thereof is sweet. A weeping countenance, and a wounded spirit, are most beautiful prospects to the eye of heaven, when a broken heart powers out repentant tears like streams from the rock smitten by the rod of Moses law in the hand of a Mediator. Oh how amiable in the sight of God,2 out of the depths have I cried to thee, as Chrysostom glosses [[Greek or Hebrew],] draw sighs from the furrows of thy heart, è sulco pectoris. Let thy prayer become a hidden mystery of divine secrets, like good Hezekiah upon the bed with his face to the wall,3 that none might observe him; or like our blessed Lord, that grand example, who retired into solitudes and mountains apart, and saw by night the Illustrious face of his heavenly Father in prayer: the reasons follow.
It's true, hypocrites may pray, and pray alone, and pray long, and receive their reward, 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, from such whose observation they desire, but take no true delight in secret devotion,1 they have no spring of affection to God. But O my dove, says Christ, that art in the clefts of the rock, let me hoar thy voice for the melody thereof is sweet. A weeping countenance, and a wounded spirit, are most beautiful prospects to the eye of heaven, when a broken heart powrs out repentant tears like streams from the rock smitten by the rod of Moses law in the hand of a Mediator. Oh how amiable in the sight of God,2 out of the depths have I cried to thee, as Chrysostom glosses [〈non-Latin alphabet〉,] draw sighs from the furrows of thy heart, è sulco pectoris. Let thy prayer become a hidden mystery of divine secrets, like good Hezekiah upon the bed with his face to the wall,3 that none might observe him; or like our blessed Lord, that grand example, who retired into solitudes and mountains apart, and saw by night the Illustrious face of his heavenly Father in prayer: the reasons follow.
- 1Mat. 23 14. Chrysost. in loc. Cant. 2.14.
- 2Psa. 130.1.
- 3Isa. 38.2, 5.
