A29703:617
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.
O Sirs, Closet-prayer will be found to be but a dry, sapless, live-less, heartless, comfortless, thing, if you do not enjoy Communion with God in it. Communion ⟨p. 351⟩with God is the very Life, Soul, and Crown of all your Closet-duties; and therefore press after it as for Life: When you go into your Closets let every thing go, that may hinder your fruition of Christ, and let every thing be embraced, that makes way for your enjoyment of Christ. O let Closet-prayer be a golden bridge, a wherry, a Chariot to convey your Souls over to God, and to bring you into a more intimate Communion with God. Let no Closet-duty satisfy you or content you, wherein you have not conversed with God, as a Child converseth with his Father, or as a wife converseth with her Husband, or as a Friend converseth with his Friend, even face to face. Nothing speaks out more unsoundness, falseness, and baseness of heart, than this, when men make Duty, the end of Duty; Prayer, the end of Prayer; than when men can begin a Duty, and go on in a Duty, and close up a Duty, and bless and ⟨p. 352⟩stroke themselves after a Duty, and yet never enjoy the least Communion with God in the Duty.
O Sirs, Closet-prayer will be found to be but a dry, saplesse, live-lesse, heartlesse, comfortlesse, thing, if you do not enjoy Communion with God in it. Communion ⟨p. 351⟩with God is the very Life, Soul, and Crown of all your Closet-duties; and therefore press after it as for Life: When you go into your Closets let every thing go, that may hinder your fruition of Christ, and let every thing be embraced, that makes way for your enjoyment of Christ. O let Closet-prayer be a golden bridge, a wherry, a Chariot to convey your Souls over to God, and to bring you into a more intimate Communion with God. Let no Closet-duty satisfie you or content you, wherein you have not conversed with God, as a Child converseth with his Father, or as a wife converseth with her Husband, or as a Friend converseth with his Friend, even face to face. Nothing speaks out more unsoundness, falsness, and baseness of heart, than this, when men make Duty, the end of Duty; Prayer, the end of Prayer; than when men can begin a Duty, and go on in a Duty, and close up a Duty, and bless and ⟨p. 352⟩