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“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites: are
for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and the corners of the
streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you They have
their reward.
“But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do: for
they think that they will be heard for their much speaking.
“Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what
things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.” — Matthew vi. 5, 7, 8
The Lord not only bestows upon us every good which we possess, but He
instructs us how to get it, how to use it, how to increase it, and how
to avoid the obstacles which hinder its reception and enjoyment and
cause us to miss the true ends of life. As man is in evil and falsity by
nature, the first essential truth for him to learn is, what to avoid.
When we are going in the wrong direction, we must discover our error and
change our course before can reach the goal we seek. The Lord,
therefore, begins His instruction concerning alms, prayer, and fasting
by telling us what we must avoid. Eight of the ten commandments are
prohibitory. In the work of regeneration and the formation of a
spiritual and heavenly mind, thou shalt not must always precede thou
shalt.
In considering the subject of prayer let us follow the same order, and
first learn how we must not pray. It will be a great help to us to
understand the false forms and evil motives of prayer. It will free the
subject from misconceptions, and false methods, and forms, and simplify
it in every respect. When we know what to avoid we can easily learn what
to do. There is no part of religious worship, of private or of public
devotion, which is more misunderstood than prayer. Its nature is not
generally known; there are many misconceptions of its use, and of the
manner in which that use is effected. Let us try to discover what these
false notions are; then we shall be able to learn how to pray, for what
to pray, and what good we may hope to gain by prayer.
First, our Lord instructs us with regard to the motives of prayer. We
must not pray from any selfish worldly motive. “When thou prayest, thou
shalt not be as the hypocrites:” they pray “to be seen of men.” What is
a hypocrite? A hypocrite is one who feigns to be what he is not; he
assumes a character which he does not possess. He acts from different
motives from those which he professes. When he pretends to worship God,
he is worshipping himself. When he appears to be seeking the Divine
favor, he is looking for the favor of men. He is seeking to gain credit
for a love and a regard for the Lord which he does not possess.
Hypocrisy has many forms and degrees of baseness, but a religious
hypocrite is the vilest and most contemptible of all. He assumes the
highest and purest virtues for the lowest ends; he clothes himself with
the spotless garments of heaven to cover the deformities and malignities
of hell. He comes to his Divine Master in the character of a devoted and
loving disciple, but betrays Him with a kiss. But our Lord has given us
some of his characteristics and methods which, when analyzed and
unfolded in spiritual light, will exhibit his animus and genuine nature
in true colors, and reveal the wickedness and the uselessness of vain
repetitions and a merely formal devotion.
Hypocrites love to pray. No men are more devout in attitude, deferential
in tone, earnest in manner, and punctilious in the performance of their
devotions. They love to do it. It gives them the odor of sanctity; it
gratifies their vanity; it lulls their consciences to sleep; it makes
them conspicuous in the public eye; it tends to gain the favor of men.
See what a devout and holy man! the multitude will exclaim. But this
love is not the love of God or of man. It is the love of themselves.
They pretend to be worshipping the Lord, but in reality they are adoring
themselves. They give homage to the Lord with their lips, but they are
claiming it for themselves in their thoughts. They ask favors of the
Lord in form, while in their intentions they are seeking them from men.
The apparent purpose of their prayers is to gain a hearing and favorable
notice from the Lord, their real end is to be seen of men. What mockery
must such a prayer be! To stand up conspicuously in an assembly of men
and with the lips offer supplications to our heavenly Father, while we
are thinking only of the praise of men! With what infinite pity must the
Lord regard the mere semblance of man who is guilty of such folly and
wickedness. Whatever may be the success in deceiving men, and gaining a
momentary reputation for a sanctity which they do not possess, must not
the inevitable and final result be a greater damnation?
Hypocrites love to pray “standing in the synagogues.” The natural
meaning and the reason for selecting a public and conspicuous place for
their prayers is evident when we know what favor they hope to gain by
them. But these words have a spiritual and consequently a universal
meaning. Every human being who has any religion, or who pretends to
possess any, has a synagogue in his own mind, in which he offers his
prayers and performs his devotions. These words therefore apply to us as
well as to the Pharisees who lived in Jerusalem when our Lord trod its
streets with weary feet, and taught in the synagogues of the Jews with a
wisdom and power which filled the dead formalists with amazement.
A synagogue was a house devoted to worship and religious instruction. By
a very common law of the human mind the material instrument becomes a
symbol of the use to which it is applied. We see an example of this law
in the common use of the word “church.” Its material meaning is the
building in which the men and women who constitute the church assemble.
The people are the real church; but they are only so far a church as
they have become the embodiment and living forms of the doctrines which
make those who acknowledge and live according to them a church. A
synagogue, then, in its universal and genuine meaning, is the doctrine
which men believe. To stand and pray in them is to pray according to the
doctrines of religion they have learned and accepted. Therefore it is
that we all have our synagogue where we offer our prayers. Standing at
the corners of the streets has the same general meaning, only a more
external and special one. A city as well as a synagogue represents
doctrine, and a street is some special truth which, with others,
composes the doctrine. A corner is formed by the intersection of the
streets, and represents their connection with one another. This
conjunction affords the means of seeing and of being seen in material
streets. In spiritual streets, which are the paths our thoughts and
affections pursue to the attainment of their ends, they show the
relations and confirmations of the various truths which taken together
constitute our doctrine. Therefore corners denote firmness. As they bind
together the sides of a building and give firmness and stability to it,
so they are the points where truth is joined to truth in logical order,
and give solidity and strength to the whole system of faith. They are
also centres towards which various truths converge, and from which those
who accept them can see and be seen. To pray standing in the corners of
the streets, represents a state of mind in which we act according to
principles which we have adopted from various considerations. We take
our mental position where truths or falsities converge and confirm one
another, where their relations can be seen, and by means of which the
love of self and the world can win over the understanding to its
delusions.
Doctrine teaches us whom to address, how to pray, and what to pray for,
because doctrine teaches us concerning the Lord, our own natures, and
our relations to Him. Every one must, therefore, pray in the synagogue
or in the corners of the streets in his own mind. He must do it in a
good sense, even when he enters his closet and shuts the door. But
hypocrites pray only from doctrine or faith alone, and every prayer
offered from truth or doctrine alone is more or less hypocritical. There
are various forms and degrees of such prayer, which it may be well to
consider:
1. Intellectual prayer. Prayer consists essentially in
asking. It is a
sincere, earnest desire for some good, or what seems to the suppliant to
be good. It is a turning of the soul to the Lord, as the plant turns to
the sun. It is an opening of the affections to the reception of the
Divine Love. It can be made without words, without distinct thought
even. A true prayer is before thought, before speech. Thought is only
the form of it; speech is only the expression of it. A petition made
from doctrine alone, from a merely intellectual conception of the Divine
nature and our relations to the Lord, lacks the essential elements of
prayer. It is merely the form of it, the clothing of it put on for the
occasion. The intellect cannot pray; it cannot ask. Asking is not its
office. Its business consists in seeing, in collecting materials to give
body and form and permanent existence to the affections. Such is the
nature of the human mind that the form can exist without any life in it.
All prayer from doctrine or from truth alone is hypocritical. It is not
what it appears to be. There may be appropriate ascriptions of praise to
the Lord, but no praise is given to Him. There may be the most humble
confession of sin in words, but no sins are confessed. There is no
humiliation of heart, no shame for sins committed, no loathing of a
vile, corrupt nature, no sorrow because we have sinned against infinite
love and wisdom. On the contrary, the hypocrite is proud of his verbal
humility. Men will think well of him, because he pretends to think so
meanly of himself. The form of the prayer may be appropriate to the
occasion, beautiful and eloquent, but it is addressed to the audience
and not to the Lord. We sometimes hear it said of ministers and others
that they are gifted in prayer. It is probable that from a human and
merely intellectual point of view the praise is worthily bestowed, and
that the subjects of it think so too. But viewed from the Lord, no
prayer may have been offered to Him. If it was made to be eloquent, if
the suppliant was well pleased with it, it was offered standing in the
synagogue, or in the corners of the streets to be seen of men.
Prayer to the Lord must have the Lord, not self nor man, in view. It
must go to the point. There must be some special favor desired, and that
must be sought with simplicity and directness. Earnestness and sincerity
do not seek for elegant phrases they do not deal in vague generalities.
Elegant phrasing and a skilful play of words are contrary to its nature.
The Lord is not moved by eloquent verbiage, especially when He does not
enter into the thought of the supplicant. If He were not infinitely
merciful and kind, He might be moved to indignation by such hypocrisy.
Perhaps we can more fully appreciate the essential quality of a merely
doctrinal prayer, however beautiful in form it may be, by regarding it
from the relations of parent to child. Suppose a child who had been
disobedient and desired forgiveness, or who sought a favor, should
address his father in the language and style of many of the prayers we
read in books of devotion and hear in public worship. He begins with
ascriptions of praise; tells his father how kind and wise and good he
is; expresses his astonishment that he has borne with him as long as he
has; prays that he will forgive him and his brothers and sisters, and
all the bad little boys and girls in the whole world and make them
obedient and good, and finally bestow all his property upon them and
make them happy. Suppose a prayer to this effect was written out or
committed to memory and repeated every morning and evening, repeated
with roving eyes and wandering thoughts, or with an air of conceit and
an evident regard for its effect upon others, could any quality be found
in such a devotional exercise to commend? Would it indicate any love for
the father, any sorrow for disobedience? Would there be any heart, any
sincerity, in it? Does the child really ask anything? What would you, as
a father or mother, think of such a child, especially if he went on in
the same course of disobedience and praying from week to week and year
to year? Such a practice could not appear otherwise than absurd,
hypocritical, and wicked. Is not that what multitudes of professed
Christians are constantly doing? They ask nothing, they confess nothing,
they desire nothing which the words they use imply. They stand in a
false attitude before the Lord and men. “When ye pray be not as the
hypocrites.”
2. Prayer from doctrine, or faith alone, becomes formal and mechanical
and essentially hypocritical, though there may not be any conscious
desire “to be seen of men.” It is hypocritical because there is no
meaning in it. We continue to pray because we have formed a habit of
praying or because others pray. Neither the affection nor the thoughts
rise to the Lord. No honor is ascribed to Him, no sins are confessed to
Him, no help is asked from Him. There is no spiritual, and but little,
if any, natural life in this formal devotion. If the words could have
been uttered by a machine there would have been just as much prayer in
them. They are repeated by machines.
But even in this mechanical and soulless prayer there is some regard for
the opinion of men. Multitudes go to the house of prayer to see and to
be seen, not to worship the Lord, or to learn anything concerning their
obligations to Him, and how they may fulfill them. They go because their
acquaintances go; they go because it is respectable to do so. They read
and respond, or sit in respectful silence, because it is the fashion,
because it is the right and proper thing to do. It has the appearance of
being devout; it saves them from the suspicion of unbelief or of
indifference to religion. It is also often a passport by which they gain
entrance into coveted social circles, or a means of securing financial
favors, or influences favorable to professional success. In some way
they desire to be seen of men rather than to be seen of the Lord and
gain heavenly blessings from Him.
3. There is a prevalent opinion that there is some efficacy in prayer
itself to procure the Divine favor; that prayer commends us to the Lord,
and induces Him to bestow blessings upon us which He would otherwise
withhold. According to this idea, when we have gone through with the
routine of our devotions, we have done our duty; we have shown our
respect for the Lord; we have given Him the tribute of our praise; we
have confessed our sins, and disposed Him to forgive us. We have
satisfied our consciences, and we can rest with some degree of
gratification and peace. We may not have had a motion of gratitude in
our hearts for favors received; there may not have been a pang of
sorrow, or a sense of shame for an idle, frivolous, and evil life; there
may not have been an aspiration for meekness, humility, purity, and a
genuine spiritual character. But we have repeated the prescribed prayers
in a perfunctory way; we have complied with the prescribed forms; and
the Lord must regard us with some degree of favor.
Herein lies the danger of a ritualistic form of worship, whether public
or private. Whatever we do habitually, we are in danger of doing without
thought or affection. We act mechanically. There is but little room for
doubt that much of our public worship is of this character. It can be
seen in the listless manner of the worshippers, in the roving eye, in
the automatical way in which the prayers and responses are repeated.
Words, the most weighty and solemn the lips ever utter, do not express a
thought or embody an affection. If we addressed the same words in such
an indifferent manner to a human being, we should at once be regarded as
hypocrites. And yet there is a feeling of self-satisfaction in such
formal worship, as though we had performed some worthy service.
On the other hand, it is supposed by many that the efficacy of prayer
depends upon natural fervor and vociferation. Consequently those who are
of this opinion work themselves up into an artificial excitement. They
pray loud and long in forced and unnatural tones. They agonize, or try
to do it; they beseech and implore for favors which, at heart, they do
not want. They wrestle with the Lord, as they suppose, like Jacob. But
there is no agony in their hearts; there is no burning love of the Lord
or the neighbor exalting and intensifying their desires. The Lord is not
so remote or deaf that He cannot hear. He is not reluctant to forgive
our sins and bestow the blessings of His love and wisdom upon us. This
forced fervor and apparent earnestness is hypocritical. It does not flow
from the heart. Let us heed the Lord's words, “When thou prayest, thou
shalt not be as the hypocrites.”
4. Our Lord also warns us against multiplying words in our prayers. “But
when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they
think they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be ye not therefore
like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of
before ye ask Him.” In these words our Lord teaches us that the effect
of praying is not in the volume of it, nor in the repetition of our
requests. The practice of repeating many prayers may not be
hypocritical, but it is the result of a total misconception of the
Lord's character and of His relations to men. There is no necessity of
telling Him what He knows for the purpose of giving Him information. He
understands our condition infinitely better than we do. There is no
necessity for importunity. He is not like a weak or selfish earthly
parent who must be persuaded to grant a favor. He is more willing to
give the richest blessings than we are to receive them. He does not need
to be won over to regard us with favor and to forgive our sins by
incessant pleading. He is in the constant effort to forgive us. No
change is required in Him.
If we had a true idea of the Lord and knew how He regards every human
being, the uselessness and folly of using “vain repetitions” and of
“much speaking” would appear in the most convincing light. We should see
that it would be impossible for any man or woman with such knowledge to
pray as multitudes do at the present day. How can we implore the Lord to
regard us with favor when we know that He loves us with an infinite and
unchanging affection? How can we beseech Him in varied phrase to forgive
our sins, when we know that there is nothing in the universe He so
ardently desires? How can we ask the Father to have mercy upon us, and
then turn to the Son and beg Him to have mercy upon us, and then beseech
the Holy Spirit to have mercy upon us, when we know that there is but
one Divine Being? It is as absurd as it would be for a child to ask her
father’s heart to grant her a favor, and then to beseech his head to
have mercy, and end by imploring his power or life to grant the request.
A child has too much sense to do this. How could we ask the Father to
grant us a favor for the sake of His Son? How could we ask the Son to
intercede for us with the Father, when there is only one Divine Being in
existence; when in Jesus Christ “dwells the fullness of the Godhead
bodily”? When we see Him we see the Father; when we address Him we
address the Father, as we see the man in his material body and address
him in it. When we worship Him we adore the only proper object of
worship. There is no access to the Father but by the Son, as there is no
access to a man’s affections but by his body and intellectual faculties.
But even if there were three Divine Persons in the Trinity, what
reason, propriety, or sense can there be in asking one Divine Person to
do a favor for the sake of another, when each one must be equally
desirous of conferring the blessing? Can there be any vainer repetitions
than appealing to one and then to another, and then another, when by the
verbal confession of all Christians there can be only one God?
It is “a vain repetition” to ply the Lord with motives or reasons for
granting the favors we ask. In the famous Litany which is repeated every
week in all Christian lands, the Good Lord is implored to deliver us,
“by the mystery of His holy Incarnation, by His holy nativity and
circumcision; by His Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation; by His Agony and
Bloody Sweat; by His Cross and Passion; by His Precious Death and
Burial; by His glorious Resurrection and Ascension; and by the coming of
the Holy Ghost.” These, it would seem if they have any meaning, are
presented as motives by the suppliant to excite the Divine compassion
and secure a favorable hearing. The ground for this enumeration of
incidents in the life and death of our Lord, must be that they will have
a cumulative effect upon Him; that He will be more moved, and disposed
to grant deliverance from evils mentioned by being reminded of what He
has suffered and done for us. This is the motive of the whole Litany.
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are implored separately and then
together, and many particulars are enumerated, some of which, at least,
are founded upon total misconception of the nature of the Lord, of our
relations to Him, and of what is essential to our salvation from sin and
eternal happiness.
5. Our Lord warns us against the frequent repetition of the same prayer.
In some rituals His own prayer is repeated several times in a rapid
mechanical manner clearly indicating that the words do not express any
desire of the hearts of those who use them. If there is any motive for
such repetition, it must be the belief that there is more efficacy in
repeating a prayer twice than once, and that whatever good is gained by
it comes as a reward for repeating it, and not in answer to any sincere
desire of the heart. In one branch of the Christian Church it is
customary to keep an account of the number of times certain prayers are
repeated, and the supposition is that the greater the number the greater
the virtue. They think they will be heard for their “much speaking.”
This is the opinion and practice, our Lord says, of the heathen or
Gentiles. The Jewish nation represented the Church. All other nations
they called heathen or Gentiles. The Gentiles, therefore, represent
those who do not belong to the Church. They may be external members of
it, but if the principles and life of heaven are not in them, they are
not really members of it; they are Gentiles in principle and practice;
they are heathen. These vain repetitions, therefore, and the idea that
those who make them will be heard for their much speaking, are
heathenish. Those who practice them are ignorant of the true principles
of Christianity. They are essentially idolaters, and their prayers and
worship are based upon the same principles as those who worship
idols,—the principle that the Being whom they worship is hostile to them
and needs propitiating: that He regards His worshippers as servants, and
is pleased with servility and adulation; that He punishes those who
neglect Him, and bestows His favors upon those who are assiduous in
their devotions; that He loves to see the people prostrate before Him,
and to hear His own praise and glory sounded from their lips; that He is
reluctant to bless, easily irritated by neglect, and enraged by
opposition.
A great number of the prayers offered in our churches today are the
outbirth and expression of this idea of the Lord, of the service He
exacts of men, and the way to secure His favor. According to this idea,
prayer is not the communion of a loving child with a revered and beloved
Parent; it is not an outpouring of gratitude for favors constantly
received; it is not ascriptions of praise from a reverent and adoring
heart; it is not the confession of sin from sincere penitence; it is not
a petition for help to overcome evils which are clearly seen and
abhorred; it is not an aspiration of the soul for a higher, purer,
sweeter, nobler life. If it were, the petitions could not be multiplied
and wordy, and repeated in a cold, mechanical manner. Sincere, deep, and
earnest feeling does not express itself in that manner. A deep and
loathing sense of sin cannot reiterate in measured tones, in varied and
precise form, a petition for mercy. It is more likely to be mute or an
inarticulate cry, or with the eyes bent to the earth for shame, the
appeal of the publican, while smiting upon his breast, an appeal wrung
from a breaking heart, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”
There is no warrant in reason, in the nature of man, or of the Lord for
the roundabout indefinite praying for all sorts and conditions of men to
be saved from evils and calamities which do not threaten us, for
blessings which we do not desire, for graces which we will not receive,
for the accomplishment of objects to effect which we will not lift a
finger. We never ask men for grace or favor in this way. There are no
such examples of prayer in the Sacred Scriptures. When our Lord was upon
the earth, and men came for favors, they had something definite to ask.
Blind Bartimeus knew what he wanted, and to the question, “What wouldst
thou that I should do unto thee?” his prompt and earnest cry was, “Lord,
that my eyes may be opened.” Jairus knew what he wanted. He knew that
his beloved daughter, the light of his house and the joy of his heart,
was dying. When he saw the Lord he fell at His feet and besought Him
greatly, saying, “My little daughter lieth at the point of death, come
and lay thy hands upon her that she may be healed, and she shall live.”
There was nothing hypocritical in their prayers. They did not pray to be
seen of men. They had no formal and stereotyped and indefinite request
to make. They used no “vain repetitions;” they were not heard for their
“much speaking.” It was their sincerity and confidence in the Lord which
brought them into such relations to Him that His Divine power could take
effect upon them.
This subject is one of present, personal application to us. Our Lord
says to each one of us today, “When thou prayest, thou shall not be as
the hypocrites.” “When ye pray, use not vain repetitions.” Those who
pray in these ways against which our Lord warns us, have their reward.
The hypocrite is seen of men, and for a brief space gains a reputation
from those who only see him standing in the synagogue, or at the corners
of the streets, for sanctity and devotion. Those who use vain
repetitions get their reward. But with both classes it is a poor and
transitory one. It comes from men who cannot assuage our sorrows, save
from death, or raise us up into everlasting life. “When ye pray be not
like the hypocrites,” the formalists, the ignorant and misguided
Gentiles, and think not that He who looks only upon the heart, and can
answer only those prayers which come from the heart, can be influenced
by lip service or “vain repetitions.” |