Watts of Prayer

I am reading Isaac Watts’ tome A Guide to Prayer. The first chapter was so easy to read that I searched the dust jacket for the name of whoever put it into modern English. No-one did; Watts' writing style, though dated, is fresh and light:

There is such a thing as correspondence with heaven, and prayer is a great part of it while we dwell on earth.

He addresses two issues which I think rather interesting. Firstly, may we pray to God that He destroy our enemies?

There is also another kind of petition which is used frequently in the Old Testament, and that is imprecation, or a calling for vengeance and destruction upon enemies. But this is very seldom to be used under the gospel, which is a dispensation of love. It should never be employed against our personal enemies, but only against the enemies of Christ and such as are irreconcilable to him. Christ taught us in his life, and gave us an example at his death, to forgive and pray for our personal enemies, for that is a noble singularity and glory of our religion.

It might be tempting to call down fire on Baal’s prophets, or to strike our staff on the ground to summon Egypt’s plagues, but the gospel of grace would have us make no such requests, leaving such things to God Himself.

Secondly, he addresses that great mystery of which the thinking pray-er is often exercised: how can a sovereign God be moved by mortals’ prayer?

Pleading with God, or arguing our case with him in a fervent yet humble manner, is one part of that importunity in prayer which Scripture so much recommends. This is what all the saints of old have practised. This is what Job resolves to engage in: If I could get nearer to God, I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments' (Job 23:3, 4). This is what the prophet Jeremiah practises: 'Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper?' (Jer. 12:1). We are not to suppose that our arguments can have any real influence on God's own will and persuade him contrary to what he was before inclined. But as he condescends to talk with us after the manner of men, so he admits us to talk with him in the same manner and encourages us to plead with him as though he were inwardly and really moved and prevailed upon by our importunities. So Moses is said to have prevailed upon God for the preservation of his people Israel, when he seemed resolved upon their destruction (Exod. 32:7-14).

Watts attempts to solve it by suggesting we are not really influencing God at all, but rather pleading with Him to do that which His own counsels have already determined. While this admirably defends God’s sovereignty, it may cause us to question why we ought to pray at all, as God would have done what we ask anyway. Yet is it not a valuable lesson, that praying according to God’s will is to seek that which would bring Him the glory? Prayer for the glory of self is vain and worthless, likely to be dismissed by heaven’s chancery. Furthermore, Watts admits that while praying, God behaves as though we were persuading Him. As we do not know God’s will, pleading with Him in prayer feels as though we were convincing Him to act in such a way. From the vastness of eternity, we may look back at those hours on our knees and at prayer meetings, and realise we were merely conforming to God’s perfect will all along. It was not God’s mind and will that was altered by prayer, but ours.

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