The Hidden Life Of Prayer

Top Highlights

“Chrysotom has said, ‘The just man does not desist from praying until he ceases to be just’; and Augustine, ‘He that loveth little prayeth little, and he that loveth much prayeth much’; and Richard Hooker, ‘Prayer is the first thing wherewith a righteous life beginneth, and the last wherewith it doth end’; and Père la Combe, ‘He who has a pure heart will never cease to pray, and he who will be constant in prayer shall know what it is to have a pure heart’; and Bunyan, ‘If thou art not a praying person, thou art not a Christian’; and Richard Baxter, ‘Prayer is the breath of the new creature’; and George Herbert, ‘Prayer … the soul’s blood.’” (source)

“Our Lord takes it for granted that his people will pray. And indeed in Scripture generally the outward obligation of prayer is implied rather than asserted. Moved by a divinely implanted instinct, our natures cry out for God, for the living God. And however this instinct may be crushed by sin, it awakes to power in the consciousness of redemption.” (source)

“Dr Andrew Bonar used to say that, as the King of Syria commanded his captains to fight neither with small nor great, but only with the King of Israel, so the prince of the power of the air seems to bend all the force of his attack against the spirit of prayer. If he should prove victorious there, he has won the day.” (source)

“At one time at least in his life, the late Mr Hudson Taylor was so fully occupied during the hours of the day with the direction of the China Inland Mission that he found it difficult to gain the requisite freedom for private prayer. Accordingly, he made it his rule to rise each night at two o’clock, watch with God until four, then lie down to sleep until the morning.” (source)