Robert Elmer - Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans

P IERCING H EAVEN

P RAYERS

of the

P URITANS

C OMPILED AND E DITED

BY R OBERT E LMER

Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans

Copyright 2019 Robert Elmer

Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

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Print ISBN 9781683593348

Digital ISBN 9781683593355

Library of Congress Control Number:2019949419

Lexham Editorial: Mark Ward, Tom Parr, Danielle Thevenaz

Cover Design: George Siler

That prayer is most likely to pierce heaven

which first pierces ones own heart.

T HOMAS W ATSON

(16201686)

What does it take to pray like a Puritan? And why would we want to?

For more than two centuries, a bright, passionate faith spread throughout England and across the Atlantic to its coloniesa passion that spurred service and holy living for the day along with a clear view of eternity.

The Puritan movement sought to carry the Reformation forward and purify the Church of England throughout the 1600s and into the 1700s on both sides of the Atlantic. Its followers sought purity of Scripture-based worship, purity of doctrine, and purity of prayer.

Their aim was neither casual nor perfunctory prayer. The prayers of the Puritans shook lives to the core, pled with a sovereign God for mercy, and praised him in the brightest sunshine of grace.

In Puritan thinking, the Christian life was a heroic venture, requiring a full quota of energy, says Wheaton College professor Leland Ryken. For the Puritans, the God-centered life meant making the quest for spiritual and moral holiness the great business of life.

But much has changed over the past several hundred years, and we speak a very different language from these saints. That in itself is enough of a barrier between their understanding of God, and ours. As written, their words and thoughts are often difficult to decipher.

So the intent of this book is to bring back some of the most passionate examples of Puritan prayer, from earnest repentance to joyful praise.

With updated language that is edited and compiled from sermons and original writings, each prayer transports us to a time when worship was central to the health of the community, and certainly not just for an hour on the weekend.

There is serious faith entwined in these prayersfaith that can still illuminate the darkness of our world, and of our times. Just as then, the life of faith stands in stark contrast to that which surrounds us.

With that in mind, we may have much more in common with our Puritan ancestors in the faith than we could have imagined. Just read what they prayed, and pray along. In so doing, we become a living answer to the prayer of one Puritan pastor, Philip Doddridge, who asked that his writings may reach to those who are yet unborn, and teach them your name and your praise, when this author has long dwelled in the dust.

And the Rev. Doddridge wasnt the only one with a long-range perspective. Another Puritan pastor, Joseph Alleine , wrote in 1671 :

And though I might never know it while I live, yet I beg you, Lord God, let it be found at the last day, that some souls are converted by these labors. And let some be able to stand forth and say that by these they were won to you. Amen, amen. Let the one who reads this say amen.

P URITANICAL P URITANS

The Puritans have an undeserved reputation for severity. (The very name Puritan was originally a slur.) And indeed, they lifted God very high, so that man might appear as nothing before him.

Matthew Henry wrote,

You are the blessed and only ruler, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords, who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no one can approach, whom no one has seen or can see.

But the Puritans believed in a biblical God, one who is not just transcendent but immanentone who is both impossibly far and incredibly near.

Robert Hawker wrote,

Oh Lord, send forth today abundant streams to cleanse, revive, comfort, satisfy, and strengthen all your churches. Lord, cause me to drink of the rivers of your pleasure, for you are the fountain of life.

This combination of awe before Gods holy presence and deep, passionate love for the Christ who said, I am with you always, marks the Puritans. Far from being haunted by the fear that someone, somewhere might be happy (H. L. Menckens taunt about them), the Puritans knew where true and lasting pleasure was to be found.

They also discovered the great open secret of prayer: the value of praying Gods words back to him. Over and over throughout their prayers, the Puritans make allusion to the Bible. It suffuses their devotion, keeping it from morphing into mysticism. It also makes them accessible to todays Christiansbecause the Bible is something we surely share. We can learn to pray like the Puritans.

The only way the Puritans killjoy reputation can be maintained is through ignorance of what they actually wrote. It was not just warm-hearted but ardent, not just careful but truly biblical. The prayers of the Puritans are a treasure for today.

A FEW NOTES ABOUT THE TEXT

Quotations throughout have been slightly modernized, both for spelling and for vocabulary. They have also, a few times, been turned from third-person to second-person so as to form prayers of direct address. It is testimony to the Puritans devotional depth that this was such an easy task. They wrote before God to men.

The Puritans also wrote with a notable attention to beautiful word pictures, and any modernizing is provided with the intent to reveal rather than obscure their warm-hearted eloquence. Thee and yewhich in this book have been translated into contemporary Englishare valuable for distinguishing singular and plural second-person pronouns in Elizabethan English, but they tend to make modern readers sense a level of formality that the Puritan writers did not intend. Puritan writing did not sound archaic or grandiloquent to its original readers.

Not every writer in the ensuing pages is, technically, a Puritan. But the Puritan spirit was fruitful and multiplied, spreading beyond the time and place of its birth. The non-Puritan writers included here would surely be honored to share pages with bona fide Puritan luminaries.

If any surviving friends should, when I am in the dust, come across this memorial of my transaction with you, may they make it their own.

P HILIP D ODDRIDGE

J OSEPH A LLEINE (16341668)

R ICHARD A LLEINE (1610/111681)

I SAAC A MBROSE (16041664)

W ILLIAM A MES (15761633)

R ICHARD B AXTER (16151691)

L EWIS B AYLY (15751631)

A NNE B RADSTREET (16121672)

W ILLIAM B RIDGE (16001670)

T HOMAS B ROOKS (16081680)

J OHN B UNYAN (16281688)

A NTHONY B URGESS (16001663)

J EREMIAH B URROUGHS (15991646)

S TEPHEN C HARNOCK (16281680)

D AVID C LARKSON (16221686)

A RTHUR D ENT (died 1607)

P HILIP D ODDRIDGE (17091751)

W ILLIAM G URNALL (16161679)

W ILLIAM G UTHRIE (16201665)

R OBERT H AWKER (17531827)

M ATTHEW H ENRY (16621714)

G EORGE H ERBERT (15931633)

E ZEKIEL H OPKINS (16331689)

J OHN H OWE (16301705)

J OHN O WEN (16161683)

R OBERT P ARKER (15641614)

E DWARD R EYNOLDS (15991676)

J OHN R OBINSON (15751625)

R ICHARD S IBBES (15771635)

N ATHANAEL V INCENT (16391697)

G EORGE W HITEFIELD (17141770)