A29703:248
The privy key of heaven, or, Twenty arguments for closet-prayer in a select discourse…The privie key of heaven, or, Twenty arguments for closet-prayer in a select discourse…
The privy key of heaven, or, Twenty arguments for closet-prayer in a select discourse on that subject with the resolution of several considerable questions : the main objections also against closet-prayer are here answered ... with twenty special lessons ... that we are to learn by that severe rod, the pestilence that now rageth in the midst of us / by Thomas Brooks.The privie key of heaven, or, Twenty arguments for closet-prayer in a select discourse on that subject with the resolution of several considerable questions : the main objections also against closet-prayer are here answered ... with twenty special lessons ... that we are to learn by that severe rod, the pestilence that now rageth in the midst of us / by Thomas Brooks.
London : Printed for and are to be sold by John Hancock, 1665
THE PRIVY KEY OF HEAVEN, Or, a Discourse of CLOSET-PRAYER. › Argument 10
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Tenthly, Take many things together. All Christians have their secret Sins. Psal. 19. 12. Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me ⟨p. 71⟩from secret faults. Secret not only to other men, but himself; even such secret sins as grew from errors which he understood not. 'Tis incident to every man to err, and then to be ignorant of his errors. Many sins I see in my self, saith he, and more there are which I cannot espy, which I cannot find out: nay, I think saith he, that every mans sins do arise beyond his accounts. There is not the best, the wisest, nor the holiest man in the world, that can give a full and entire list of his sins; Who can understand his errors? This interrogation hath the force of an affirmation; Who can? No man, no not the most perfect and innocent man in the world. O friends, who can reckon up the secret sinful imaginations, the secret sinful inclinations, or the secret pride, the secret blasphemies, the secret hypocrisies, the secret Atheistical risings, the secret murmurings, the secret repinings, the secret discontents, the secret insolencies, the secret filthinesses, the secret unbelievings, ⟨p. 72⟩&c. that God might every day charge upon his soul? Should the best and holiest man on earth, have but his secret sins every day written in his fore-head, it would not only put him to a crimson blush, but it would make him pull his hat over his eyes, or cover his face with a double scarf. So 1 Kings 8. 38. What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, &c. Sin is the greatest plague in the world; but never more dangerous, than when it reaches the heart. Now secret sins commonly lie nearest the Heart, the Fountain from whence they take a quick, immediate, and continual supply. Secret sins are as near to original Sin, as the first droppings are to the spring head. And as every secret sin lies nearest the heart, so every secret sin is the plague of the heart. Now as secret diseases are not to be laid open to every one, but only to the prudent Physician: So our secret sins