September 20

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.—Psalms 130:1.

I cried. Prayer is the natural and genuine voice of the children of God; and as the Latin word oratio properly signifies articulate speech, as it distinguishes man from other animals, so, in this other signification, it expresses that by which the godly are distinguished from the rest of mankind: it is the proper idiom of the citizens of heaven. Others may recite some words of prayer, but they do not pray; as parrots and other birds, by the industry of their teacher, may learn to imitate human voices, yet they do not speak; there is something wanting in all their most skillful chattering, which is the very thing that is also wanting in the language of most that are said to pray, and that mind and meaning, affections correspondent to the words, or rather, to which the words may conform as to their original cause, and of which they may be the true index and sign. The spirit of this world knows not how to pray, nor does a spirit of adoption and liberty know how to forbear praying—the spirit of adoption, says the apostle, by which we cry Abba, Father. Nor can they who are now-born by that Spirit, live without frequent prayer. Prayer is to them, as the natural and necessary respiration of that new and Divine life, as Lamentations 3:56, Turn not away from my breathing: the Hebrew word there made use of, leruhethi, properly signifies the vital respiration of animals. Yet, notwithstanding all this, what we said above is true, and evidently appears from the passage before us, that affliction often adds vigor to prayers, how lively and assiduous soever they may have been before. Let it be so, that prayer is the natural language of believing souls, by which they daily address their heavenly Father, yet, when they are pressed with an uncommon pain or danger, it is no less natural that this voice should be louder than ordinary, and should be raised into a cry.

It is indeed the breath of faith and heavenly affections, and when they are vehemently pressed by any burden, and almost expiring under it, they breathe quicker than before, and with greater effort. Thus, they who have been used to the greatest heights of daily devotion, yet, in surrounding calamities, pray more fervently and more frequently than ordinary. And this is to be numbered among the chief benefits attending afflictions, and it would surely be well worth our while to experience all the hardest pressures of them, if we may gain this; that the languor, and sloth, and stupidity, into which our minds and our souls are ready insensibly to sink while all is calm and serene about us, may be happily shaken off by something which the world may call an unhappy event; that some more violent gust of wind may fan the sacred flame that seems almost extinguished, and blow it up into greater ardor. It will be happy for us, that, with the psalmist, we should sometimes sink in deep waters, that so we, who in prosperity do but whisper or mutter out our prayers, may from the depths cry aloud unto God. Oh, how frequently and how ardently did David pray in the deserts and in the caves, and it is he who here cries out of the deep, and perhaps these deep recesses are those from which he was now crying; but when secure amid the ease and delights of the court, and walking at leisure on his house-top, he was tempted by his own wandering eyes, and having intermitted the fervor of prayer, burned with impure fires. Our vows are cruel to ourselves, if they demand nothing but gentle zephyrs, and flowery fields, and calm repose, as the lot of our life; for these pleasant things often prove the most dangerous enemies to our nobler and dearer life.

Oh! how true is that saying, that "faith is safe when in danger, and in danger when secure; and prayer is fervent in straits, but in joyful and prosperous circumstances, if not quite cold and dead, at least lukewarm." Oh, happy straits, if they hinder the mind from flowing forth upon earthly objects, and mingling itself with the mire; if they favor our correspondence with heaven, and quicken our love to celestial objects, without which, what we call life may more properly deserve the name of death!