Introduction
I ought to pray before seeing any one. Often when I sleep long, or meet with others early, it is eleven or twelve o’clock before I begin a secret prayer. This is a wretched system. It is unscriptural. Christ arose before day and went into a solitary place. David says: “Early will I seek thee”; “Thou shalt early hear my voice.” Family prayer loses much of its power and sweetness, and I can do no good to those who come to seek from me. The conscience feels guilty, the soul unfed, the lamp not trimmed. Then when in secret prayer the soul is often out of tune, I feel it is far better to begin with God—to see his face first, to get my soul near him before it is near another—Robert Murray McCheyne
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. ~Mark 1:35 ESV
In the passage that follows, I have attempted (though perhaps unsuccessfully) to make accessible to you, who might on some occasion read this essay, an exhortation on the necessity of rising early. It is taken from William Law’s book: A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, Chapter XIV. From the highlights that I had made, I tried to simplify parts I felt and thought I could put more clearly and directly. This is so obviously presumptuous of me, and one might be justified in disliking or condemning it. Yet if I have so erred, I also hope that someone who reads these words for the first time will have something to ponder, and some habits to mend. Better yet, I would encourage that if ever you read this, then surely you need to lay hold of Law’s book and read it entirely. “In it we see ourselves like butterflies pinned to a wall”, said Lewis while recommending the book to the American Lady.
Blessings,
Henry Madaga.
The Text
I take it for granted that every Christian who is in health is up early in the morning, for it is much more reasonable to suppose a person up early because he is a Christian than because he is a student, or a labourer, or a tradesman, or a doctor, or a servant, or has some engagement that he must honour.
We are naturally disgusted by and look down on a man who is in bed when he should be at his workplace, or in his shop. What good is there to think of him who is such a slave to drowsiness as to neglect his business for it. If then this is so, does it not suggest how odious we must appear in the sight of heaven if we are in bed, shut up in sleep and darkness, when we should be praising God, and are such slaves to drowsiness as to neglect our devotions for it?
Prayer is the nearest approach to God, and the highest enjoyment of Him that we are capable of in this life. It is the noblest exercise of the soul, the most exalted use of our best faculties, and the highest imitation of the blessed inhabitants of heaven. Sleep, on the other hand, is the poorest, dullest refreshment of the body, that is so far from being intended as an enjoyment that we are forced to receive it either in a state of insensibility, or in the folly of dreams. It is such a dull, stupid state of existence that even amongst mere animals we despise them most which are most drowsy. He, therefore, that chooses to enlarge the slothful indulgence of sleep rather than be early at his devotions to God ,chooses the dullest refreshment of the body before the highest, noblest employment of the soul; he chooses that state which is a reproach to mere animals rather than that exercise which is the glory of angels.
You might, however, perhaps say that though you rise late, yet you are always careful to do your devotions immediately when you are up. It may be so; but what then? Is it well done of you to rise late because you pray when you are up? Is it pardonable to waste a great part of the day in bed because some time after you say your prayers? It is as much your duty to rise to pray as to pray when you are risen. And if you are late at your prayers, you offer to God the prayers of an idle, slothful worshipper, that rises to prayers as idle servants rise to their labour .
Furthermore, if you imagine that you are careful of your devotions when you are up, even though it is your custom to rise late, you deceive yourself, for then you cannot perform your devotions as you ought. For he that cannot deny himself this drowsy indulgence, but must pass away a good part of the morning in it, is no more prepared for prayer when he is up than he is prepared for fasting, abstinence, or any other self-denial. He may indeed more easily read over a form of prayer than he can perform these duties, but he is no more disposed to enter into the true spirit of prayer than he is disposed to fasting. For sleep thus indulged ,gives a softness and idleness to all our tempers, and makes us unable to relish anything but what suits with an idle state of mind, and gratifies our natural tempers as sleep does. So that a person that is a slave to this idleness is in the same temper when he is up, and though he is not asleep yet he is under the effects of it, and everything that is idle, indulgent, or sensual pleases him, for the same reason that sleep pleases him; and, on the other hand, everything that requires care, or trouble, or self-denial, is hateful to him for the same reason that he hates to rise. Such a person can never truly mortify that body which he thus indulges. If one lives in such a drowsy state of indulgence, then he can never relish the joys of a spiritual life. For surely no one will pretend to say that he knows and feels the true happiness of prayer ,who does not think it worth his while to be early at it.
A person can eat and drink too much and not feel such effects from it as those do, who live in notorious instances of gluttony and intemperance; but yet his course of indulgence, though it isn’t scandalous in the eyes of the world, nor does it torment his own conscience, is a great and constant hindrance to his improvement in virtue; it gives him “eyes that see not,” and “ears that hear not”; it creates a sensuality in the soul, it increases the power of bodily passions, and makes him incapable of entering into the true spirit of religion. Now this is the case of those who waste their time in sleep; true, it does not disorder their lives, or wound their consciences, as notorious acts of intemperance do; but, like any other more moderate course of indulgence, it silently, slowly, and by very small degrees, wears away the spirit of religion, and sinks the soul into a state of dullness and sensuality.
If you think devotion to be only all about just a few minutes of prayer, then, though you live in this daily indulgence, you may go on performing it; but if you consider devotion as a state of the heart, as a lively fervour of the soul, that is deeply affected with a sense of its own misery and infirmities, and desiring the spirit of God more than all things in the world, you will find that the spirit of indulgence, and the spirit of prayer cannot subsist together. Mortification of all kinds is the very life and soul of piety; but he that has not so small a degree of it, as to be able to be early at his prayers, can have no reason to think that he has taken up his cross, and is following Christ. What conquest has he got over himself? what right hand has he cut off? what trials is he prepared for? what sacrifice is he ready to offer unto God, who cannot be so cruel to himself as to rise to pray at such a time as the drudging part of the world are content to rise to their labour?
Some people will go on to tell you that they indulge themselves in sleep, because they have nothing to do; and that if they had some business or engagement to rise to, they would not lose so much of their time in sleep. But such people must be told that they mistake the matter; that they have a great deal of business to do; they have a hardened heart to change; they have the whole spirit of religion to get. For, surely, he that thinks devotion to be less important than some business or engagement, or that he has nothing to do, because nothing but his prayers want him, may be justly said to have the whole spirit of religion to seek. You must not, therefore, consider how small a crime it is to rise late, but you must consider how great a misery it is to lack the spirit of religion, to have a heart not rightly affected with prayer; and to live in such softness and idleness, as makes you incapable of the most fundamental duties of a truly Christian and spiritual life.
On the other hand, if you were to rise early every morning as an instance of self-denial, as a method of renouncing indulgence, as a means of redeeming your time and fitting your spirit for prayer, you would find mighty advantages from it. This method, though it seems such a small circumstance of life, would in all probability be a means of great piety. It would keep it constantly in your head that softness and idleness were to be avoided, that self-denial was a part of Christianity. It would teach you to exercise power over yourself, and make you able by degrees to renounce other pleasures and tempers that war against the soul.
But, above all, one certain benefit from this method you will be sure of having; it will best fit and prepare you for the reception of the Holy Spirit. When you thus begin the day in the spirit of religion, renouncing sleep, because you are to renounce softness and redeem your time; this disposition, as it puts your heart into a good state so it will procure the assistance of the Holy Spirit; what is so planted and watered will certainly have an increase from God. You will then speak from your heart, your soul will be awake, your prayers will refresh you like meat and drink, you will feel what you say, and begin to know what saints and holy men have meant by fervours of devotion.
He that is thus prepared for prayer, who rises with these dispositions, is in a very different state from him who has no rules of this kind, who instead rises by chance, as he happens to be weary of his bed, or is able to sleep no longer. If such a one prays only with his mouth; if his heart feels nothing of that which he says; if his prayers are only things of course; if they are a lifeless form of words, which he only repeats because they are soon said; there is nothing to be wondered at in all this, for such dispositions are the natural effects of such a state of life.