A29703:369
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
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.
Certainly, God never gave any poor servant, a talent of gifts, or a talent of grace, but in order to his driving of a secret trade heavenward.
Fifthly, I answer, Though King Darius had made a degree, that none should ask any Petition of any, God or man, for thirty days upon the Penalty of being cast into the Den of Lyons, yet Daniel, who was both a subject and a servant to King Darius, and one upon whose 1hands the chiefest and greatest affairs of the Kingdom did lye, did keep up his private Devotions. In the first & second verses of that ⟨p. 169⟩6th of Daniel, you will find that Daniel had abundance of great and weighty employments upon his hands; he was set over the whole affairs of the whole Empire of Persia; and he with two other Presidents (of whom himself was chief) were to receive the accounts of the whole Kingdom, from all those hundred and twenty Princes, which in the Persian Monarchy were employed in all public businesses. And yet, notwithstanding such a multiplicity of business as lay upon his hands, and notwithstanding his servile condition, yet he was very careful to redeem time for private prayer; yea, 'tis very observable, that the heart of Daniel in the midst of all his mighty businesses, was so much set upon private prayer, upon his secret retirements for Religious exercises, that he runs the hazard of losing all his honours, profits, pleasures, yea, and life it self, rather than he would be deprived of convenient time & opportunities to wait upon ⟨p. 170⟩God in his chamber. Certainly, Daniel will one day rise in Judgment against all those subjects and servants who think to evade private prayer, by their plea's of much business, and of their being servants, &c. But,
Fifthly, I answer, Though King Darius had made a degree, that none should ask any Petition of any, God or man, for thirty dayes upon the Penalty of being cast into the Den of Lyons, yet Daniel, who was both a subject and a servant to King Darius, and one upon whose