A41637:74
Christian directions, showing how to walk with God all the day long drawn up…Christian directions, shewing how to walk with God all the day long drawn up…
Christian directions, showing how to walk with God all the day long drawn up for the use and benefit of the inhabitants of Sepulchres parish / by Tho. Gouge ...Christian directions, shewing how to walk with God all the day long drawn up for the use and benefit of the inhabitants of Sepulchres parish / by Tho. Gouge ...
London: printed by R. Ibbitson and M. Wright, 1661
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
1 In that it increaseth our Communion and Fellowship with God,1 bringing us into a familiar acquaintance with him. As the converses of a Christian soul with God in secret prayer are sweet; so oh how sweet are the discoveries that the Lord often makes of ⟨p. 7⟩himself to the soul of a Christian in his secret prayers? When Daniel was praying alone in secret,2 it was said unto him, Thou art greatly beloved.
- 1Qui vult cum Deo semper esse, freque•ter debet •rare. Aug. de Temp. Serm. 112.
- 2Dan. 9. 20, 23.
2 The Excellency of secret prayer appears, in that it procures a comfort and sweetness upon those mercies which it obtaineth: For this is an experimental Truth, That those mercies which are given in as answers and returns to our prayers, are the sweetest and most comfortable. And certainly this is one reason, why many find so little comfort in their yoke-fellows, in their children, in their estate, and the like, they did not seek them of God by secret prayer, and so did not receive them as answers to their prayers, but only from an hand of common providence, without any seeking of theirs.
2 The Excellency of secret prayer appears, in that it procures a comfort and sweetness upon those mercies which it obtaineth: For this is an experimental Truth, That those mercies which are given in as answers and returns to our prayers, are the sweetest and most comfortable. And certainly this is one reason, why many finde so little comfort in their yoak-fellows, in their children, in their estate, and the like, they did not seek them of God by secret prayer, and so did not receive them as answers to their prayers, but only from an hand of common providence, without any seeking of theirs.