Ans. 5. Fifthly, That he might approve himself to our understand- vngs and consciences to be a most just and faithful High Priest, Heb. ii. 17, John xvii. Christ was wonderful faithful and careful in both parts of his priestly office, viz., satisfaction and intercession ; he was his people's only spokesman. Ah ! how earnest, how frequent was he in pouring out prayers, and tears, and sighs, and gi-oans for his people in secret, when he was in this world, Heb. v. 7. And now he is in heaven, be is still a-making intercession for them, Heb. vii. 25.
Ans. 6. Sixthly, To convince us that his Father hears and observes our pi'ivate prayers, and bottles up all our secret tears, and that he is not a stranger to our closet desires, wrestlings, breathings, hungerings, and thirstings.
[3.] Thirdly, Consider that the ordinary exercising of yourselves in secret prayer, is that which will distinguish you from hypocrites, who do all they do to be seen of men .-* Mat. vi. 1, 2, ' Take heed that you do not your alms before men, to be seen of them ; otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues, and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward.' Self is the only oil that makes the chariot-wheels of the hypocrite move in all religious concernments. Ver. 5, ' And when thou pray est, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are ; for they love to stand praying in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward.' Ver. 16, ' Moreover, when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance : for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward.' Thus you see that these hypocrites look more at men than at God in all their duties. When they give alms,
*,They say of the nightingale, that when she is solitary in the woods, she is careless of her notes, but composes herself more quaintly and elegantly, if she conceives there be any auditors, or if she be near houses. Just so it is with hypocrites in religious duties.
172 THE PRIVY KEY OF HEAVEN. [MaT. VI. 6.
the trumpet must sound ; when they pray, it must be in the syna- gogues and in the corners of the streets ; and when they fasted, they disfigured their faces that they might appear unto men to fast. Hypo- crites live upon the praises and applauses of men. Naturalists report of the Chelydonian stone/ that it will retain its virtue no longer than it is enclosed in gold. So hypocrites will keep up their duties no longer than they are fed, and encouraged, and enclosed with the golden praises and applauses of men. Hypocrites are like blazing stars, which, so long as they are fed with vapours, shine as if they were fixed stars ; but let the vapours dry up, and presently they vanish and disappear.
Closet duty speaks out most sincerity. He prays with a witness that prays without a witness. The more sincere the soul is, the more in clo- set duty the soul will be. Job xxxi. 33. Where do you read in all the Scripture, that Pharaoh, or Saul, or Judas, or Demas, or Simon Magus, or the scribes and pharisees, did ever use to pour out their souls before the Lord in secret ? Secret prayer is not the hypocrite's ordinary walk, his ordinary work or trade. There is great cause to fear that his heart was never right with God, whose whole devotion is spent among men, or among many ; or else our Saviour, in drawing the hypocrite's pic- ture, would never have made this to be the very cast of his countenance, as he doth in Mat. vi. 5. It is very observable, that Christ commands his disciples, that they should not be as the hypocrites. It is one thing to be hypocrites, and it is another thing to be as the hypocrites. Christ would not have his people to look like hypocrites, nor to be like to hy- pocrites. It is only sincerity that will enable a man to make a trade of private prayer. In praying with many, there are many things that may bribe and provoke a carnal heart, as pride, vain-glory, love of applause, or to get a name. An hypocrite, in all his duties, trades more for a good name than for a good life, for a good report than for a good con- science ; like fiddlers, that are more careful in tuning their instruments, than in composing their lives. But in private prayer there is no such trade to be driven. But,
[4.] Fourthly, Consider that in secret ive may more freely, and fully, and safely unbosom our souls to God than we can in the presence of many or a few. Hence the husband is to mourn apart, and the wife apart, Zech. xii. 12-14, not only to shew the soundness of their sorrow, but also to shew their sincerity by their secresy. They must mourn apart, that their sins may not be disclosed nor discovered one to another. Here they are severed to shew that they wept not fo? company's sake, but for their own particular sins, by which they had pierced and cruci- fied the Lord of glory. In secret, a Christian may descend into such particulars, as in public or before others he will not, he may not, he ought not, to mention. Ah ! how many Christians are there who would blush and be ashamed to walk in the streets, and to converse with sinners or saints, should but those infirmities, enormities, and wicked- nesses be written in their foreheads, or known to others, which they freely and fully lay open to God in secret. There are many sins which many men have fallen into before conversion and since conversion, which, should they be known to the world, would make themselves to stink, and religion to stink, and their profession to stink in the nostrils ^ That is, from Chelidoniae Insulse — Plini/, v. 88. — G.
Mat. VI. 6.] the prfv^y key of heaven. 173
of all that know them. Yea, should those weaknesses and wickednesses be published upon the house-tops, which many are guilty of before grace received, or since grace received, how would weak Christians be staggered, young comers on in the ways of God discouraged, and many mouths of blasphemy opened, and many sinners' hearts hardened against the Lord, his ways, reproofs, and the things of their own peace; yea, how would Satan's banner be displayed, and his kingdom strengthened, and himself infinitely pleased and delighted ! It is an infinite mercy and condescension in God to lay a law of restraint upon Satan, who else would be the greatest blab in all the world. It would be mirth and music to him to be still a-laying open the follies and weaknesses of the saints.