Private Prayer: A Christian Duty by Oliver Haywood
"It is true that communion with the saints is desirable, but this communion is not always attainable" – Oliver Heywood
This will be the strangest Easter many of us have ever experienced. And yet it is a perfect time to consider one particular spiritual discipline.
Private Prayer.
Something now very few of us has credible excuses for not practicing. However, I wonder, how much of our time in prayer has changed despite our circumstances?
Unlike many other generations before us, Oliver Heywood knew what it felt like to not meet at as a church fellowship.
We are experiencing quarantine. Oliver experienced prison.
Church doors remain closed. Fellowship is mostly conducted over screens. But while this experience for many of us is brand new, this is not the first time the church has had to avoid public meetings.
Accidently prophetic, Oliver writes, "If you can only pray in the company of others, what will you do when that company is gone? A time may come when you may find yourself left alone, even as Christ was" (p. 64).
This is week 14 of 52 in the Tim Challies 2020 reading plan, which assigned a book written by a puritan. I chose to read Private Prayer: A Christian Duty by Oliver Heywood, published with updated language and biographical information courteous of Dr. Gerald Mick and Digital Puritan Press.
I had the pleasure of serving with Dr. Mick at Cornerstone Bible Church in Westfield, Indiana. I still have wonderful memories of 15 or so high school students in my living room at six in the morning, choosing to wake up early to eat less than quality pancakes and study the puritans with Dr. Mick.
Thanks to Dr. Mick and Digital Puritan Press, I was able to be confronted, convicted, and encouraged by Pastor Oliver Heywood's treatise on Private Prayer.
Oliver took prayer seriously. While I think many Christians see it as optional, Oliver argued it as indispensable. A Christian duty not to be ignored.
"Every child of God may and must perform the duty of secret prayer" (p. 9).
Growing up in a Christian home, Oliver was discipled by his parents. He was often asked to explain the points of a sermon and discuss their meaning and reasoning from scripture.
He resolved to attend Trinity College, Cambridge. He was unanimously approved for ordination on August 4th, 1652. He enjoyed several years of public ministry before the Act of Uniformity was passed in May of 1662, requiring all churches to conform to the Book of Common Prayer.
The next forty years of Oliver's ministry was filled with warrants for his arrest, death of his wife and several children, banishment, and the unmovable joy of preaching God's word and fellowshipping in prayer.
Instead of reviewing this book, I will simply reproduce Oliver's argument for the necessity of private prayer, with the hope that it will encourage you, as it has me, to spend time in undistracted prayer.
Private Prayer is a Christian Duty
I will be honest. After 7 years of bible school, I have never thought of prayer as a duty.
Maybe it is the Millennial in me, raised on Christian praise music, but I must not like it either. For when I first read that, I recoiled.
Prayer cannot be a duty, but a privilege and joy. Right?
Oliver was convinced otherwise.
"There are few or none that have the appearance of being Christians who would dare to deny this is a duty – though I fear many that are known as Christians live in a common neglect of it" (p. 17).
Oliver gives four specific reasons for purposing Private Prayer as duty:
1. The convenience of privacy for prayer
2. The relationship between God and a believer
3. God's omniscience
4. God's munificence
This argument is not being made to the exclusion of corporate prayer. Quite the contrary.
"Do not misunderstand me as having said that I prefer private prayer over the company of others in public prayer… Yet when the heart is in a proper frame, there is usually more intimacy expressed between God and the Christian in private" (p. 21).
Moving from Abraham to David and finally to our Lord himself, Oliver explains that the pattern of men of faith is private prayer. We shouldn't think this as an exception, but prescription.
In no way does Oliver mean duty to be rigid or dull. Prayer is dutiful because of the overwhelming effect it has on the believer and the power it has to be used by God.
His main text is the Lord's prayer in Matthew 6:5-15, and focuses on the word "when". Jesus assumes people of faith will pray.
And when we pray, Oliver argues for the importance of privacy.
Private Prayer is the Direct Worship of God
"No man cares for being alone except the serious person, and no man but the sincere Christian cares to go to God when he is alone" (p. 48).
The argument is simple.
Private Prayer is evidence of true belief. Few practices express such faith and worship of God as private prayer.
Praying in private separates all temptations to be godly or receive praise from other Christians. When you pray in private you are declaring genuine faith in God's promise that he will hear you and act when you pray. Private prayer is ultimately pure worship of the existence, power, and supremacy of the one true God. It is a clear statement, that the most important thing to you at that moment is prayer.
In our current life situation, we find ourselves with significant time at home and to ourselves.
If you have children, you might not have as much privacy or time as people think. If you are like me, then you have embraced the chaos and let the house go to shambles. But you still can make time.
"The properly taught Christian (one that has learned the truth as it is in Jesus), when he is thrust into a retired place, he knows how to improve the solitude to his soul's advantage; he voluntarily withdraws himself from the world so that he may set himself to the work of God in good earnest." (p. 50).
Private Prayer while thrust in Place
We are at a moment in time where we are "thrust in place".
Oliver Haywood wrote this treatise on prayer while he was thrust into prison for refusing to comply with the Act of Conformity.
We now have the opportunity to read it, and "improve the solitude to the soul's advantage", as we are thrust into our homes from COVID-19.
And during this time we desperately need prayer. Not only for those sick with this threatening virus and those on the front lines battling it, but for those who have no hope because they do not have Jesus.
Consider how absolutely terrifying it is to think your life may sudden be called from you, and you have no hope or thought of the future.
This Easter weekend I want to encourage you to spend time in private prayer as you reconsider the magnitude of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the world’s great need to hear it. Doing so will undoubtedly bring comfort and conviction to your soul!
As you do so, here are some guidelines from Oliver:
Pick a quiet place where you will be undisturbed.
Pick a section of scripture to focus on and pray through.
Set a specific amount of time and stick to it.
Do not open your lips quickly, or perhaps at all, but collect your thoughts.
Before any request consider your sin and his perfection.
Confess boldly in the confidence of the Cross.
Praise Him for the gift of grace.
Request faithfully knowing he can provide.
Submit fully to his will and plan.
Close with the assurance of grace and passion for ministry.
May you be richly blessed this weekend through the comfort and confidence that comes with spending time with the creator and sustainer of the universe who is still very much in control!
And if you are unconvinced of the necessity of private prayer. I will end with a question from Oliver Heywood's final chapter.
"Will you stand before God to debate this?" (p. 103).
I will not.
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John Owen came from Welsh descent, was educated at Queens College, and became a renowned Puritan theologian, Oxford professor, and passionate pastor who lived from 1616 to 1683. In 1647, he wrote the exhaustive treatise The Death of Death defending Limited or Definite Atonement against the Arminian view of Universal Atonement or Unlimited Atonement.