EVERY CHRISTIAN TO HIS CLOSET

The times wherein we live call aloud for secret prayer. Hell seems to be broken loose, and men turned into incarnate devils: land-destroying and soul-damning wickedness walk up and down the streets with, as it is called in Jer. 3:3, a whore’s forehead: “Thou hast a whore’s forehead, thou re-fusest to be ashamed.” They have sinned away shame, instead of being ashamed of sin. Custom in sin had quite banished all sense of sin and all shame for sin, so that they would not suffer nature to draw her veil of blushing before their great abomination. The same charge is repeated in chap. 8:12.

But what does the prophet do now they were so bold in sin and as shameless as so many harlots? That you may see in Jer. 13:17, “But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears.” They were grown up to that height of sin and wickedness, that they were above all shame and blushing; now they were grown so proud, so hardened, so obstinate, so rebellious, so mad upon mischief, that no mercies could melt them or allure them, nor no threatenings nor judgment could any ways terrify them or stop them. The prophet goes into a corner, he retires himself into the most secret places, and there he weeps bitterly. When the springs of sorrow rise high, a Christian turns his back upon company, and retires himself into places of greatest privacy, that so he may the more freely and the more fully vent his sorrow and grief before the Lord.

Ah, land, land! what pride, luxury, wantonness, drunkenness, injustice, oppressions, fornications, adulteries, hypocrisy, atheism, horrid blasphemies, and hellish impieties, are now to be found rampant in the midst of you! Ah, land, land! how are the pure ordinances despised, Scriptures rejected, the Spirit resisted and derided, wickedness countenanced, and Christ many thousand times in a day by these cursed practices crucified afresh. How is our forefathers’ frugality converted into prodigality and pride, their simplicity into subtilty, their chastity into chambering and wantonness, and their love to the people of God into an utter enmity against the people of God!

And what is the voice of all these crying abominations, but every Christian to his closet, every Christian to his closet, and there weep, with weeping Jeremiah, bitterly for all these great abominations whereby God is dishonored openly. Weep in secret for their sins who openly glory in their sins, which should be their greatest shame. Who knows but that the whole land may fare the better for the sake of a few that mourn in secret? But however it goes with the nation, such as mourn in secret for the abominations of the times, may be confident that when sweeping judgments shall come upon the land, the Lord will hide them in the secret chambers of His province: He shall reward them openly, here in part, and hereafter in all perfection. God, in the great day, will declare to men and angels, how often His people have been in pouring out their souls before Him in such and such secret places, and accordingly He will reward them. Ah, Christians, did you really believe this, and seriously dwell on this, you would: walk more thankfully; work more cheerfully; suffer more patiently; fight against the world, the flesh and Satan more courageously; lay out yourselves for God, His interest and glory, more freely; live with what providence has cut out for your portion more quietly and contentedly; and you would be in secret prayer more frequently, more abundantly.

Thomas Brooks on Matt. 6:6

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