기도의 방법 - 매튜 헨리(1710년)

LORD, enable those that fear thee, and obey the voice of thy servant, but walk in darkness, and have no light, to trust in the name of the Lord, and to stay themselves upon their God; And at evening time let it be light.

O strengthen the weak hands, confirm the feeble knees, say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: Answer them with good words and comfortable words; saying unto them, Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you; Be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid, I am your salvation; And make them to hear this voice of joy and gladness, that broken bones may rejoice.

Let those who now remember God and are troubled, whose spirits are overwhelmed, and whose souls refuse to be comforted, be enabled to trust in thy mercy, so that at length they may rejoice in thy salvation; though thou slay them yet to trust in thee.

Though deep calls unto deep, and all thy waves and thy billows go over them; yet do thou command thy loving-kindness for them in the daytime, and in the night let thy song be with them, and their prayer to the God of their life; Though their souls are cast down, and disquieted within them, give them to hope in God, that they shall yet praise him, and let them find him the health of their countenance and their God.

O renew a right spirit within them, cast them not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy spirit from them, but restore unto them the joy of thy salvation, and uphold them with thy free spirit, that their tongues may sing aloud of thy righteousness, and shew forth thy salvation.

O bring them up out of this horrible pit, and this miry clay, and set their feet upon a rock, establishing their goings, and put a new song into their mouth, even praises to our God: O comfort them again now after the time that thou hast afflicted them.

Though for a small moment thou hast forsaken them, and hid thy face from them, yet gather them, and have mercy on them with everlasting kindness.

O let thy Spirit witness with their spirits, that they are the children of God; and by the blood of Christ let them be purged from an evil conscience.

Lord, rebuke the tempter, even the accuser of the brethren, the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke him, and let poor tempted troubled souls be as brands plucked out of the burning.

Those that are asking the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, that are lamenting after the Lord, and are pricked to the heart for sin, O shew them the good and the right way, and lead them in it.

To those who are asking what they shall do to inherit eternal life, discover Christ as the way, the truth and the life, the only true and living way.

O do not quench the smoking flax, nor break the bruised reed, but bring forth judgment unto victory. Let the great shepherd of the sheep gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead them, and help them against their unbelief.

Let not the red dragon devour the man child as soon as it is born, but let it be caught up to God and to his throne.

Lord, thou hast appointed those that are sick to be prayed for, and prayed with, and hast promised that the prayer of faith shall save the sick; Lord, help us to pray in faith for the sick, and as being ourselves also in the body.

When our Lord Jesus was here upon earth, we find that they brought to him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and he healed all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people: And he hath still the same power over bodily diseases that ever he had; he saith to them, Go, and they go; Come, and they come; Do this, and they do it; and can speak the word, and they shall be healed. And he is still touched with the feeling of our infirmities; In the belief of this, we do by prayer bring our friends that are sick, and lay them before him.

Lord, grant that those who are sick may neither despise the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when they are rebuked of him; but that they may both hear the rod, and him that has appointed it, and may kiss the rod, and accept of the punishment of their iniquity.

Give them to see that affliction cometh not forth out of the dust, nor springs out of the ground, that they may therefore seek unto God, to the Lord more than to the physicians, because unto God the Lord belong the issues of life and death.

Lord, shew them wherefore thou contendest with them, and give them in their affliction to humble themselves greatly before the God of their fathers, and to repent and turn from every evil way, and make their ways and their doings good, that being judged and chastened of the Lord, they may not be condemned with the world. By the sickness of the body, and the sadness of the countenance let the heart be made better.

O Lord, rebuke them not in thine anger, neither chasten them in thy hot displeasure: Have mercy upon them, O Lord, for they are weak: Lord heal them, for their bones are vexed, their souls also are sore vexed: Return, O Lord, and deliver their souls, save them for thy mercy’s sake; and lay no more upon them than thou wilt enable them to bear, and enable them to bear what thou dost lay upon them.

When thou with rebukes dost chasten man for sin, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth; surely every man is vanity. But remove thy stroke, we pray thee, from those that are even consumed by the blow of thine hand: O spare a little, that they may recover strength before they go hence and be no more.

Those that are chastened with pain upon their bed, and the multitude of their bones with strong pain, so that their life abhorreth bread, and their soul dainty meat, shew them thine uprightness, be gracious to them. Deliver them from going down to the pit, for thou hast found a ransom.

Let the eternal God be their refuge, and underneath them be the everlasting arms; Consider their frame, remember that they are but dust.

O deliver those that are thine in the time of trouble, preserve them and keep them alive: O strengthen them upon their bed of languishing, and make all their bed in their sickness: Be merciful to them, and heal their souls, for they have sinned.

O turn to them and have mercy upon them, bring them out of their distresses; look upon their affliction and their pain, but especially forgive all their sin.

Make thy face to shine upon them, save them for thy mercy’s sake: The God that comforteth them that are cast down, comfort them; and let the soul dwell at ease in thee, when the body lies in pain.

Lord, set bounds to this sickness, and say, Hitherto it shall come, and no further: Let it not prevail to extremity, but in measure when it shooteth forth do thou debate, and stay thy rough wind in the day of thine east wind; and by this let iniquity be purged, and let this be all the fruit, even the taking away of sin.

Lord, let patience have its perfect work, even unto long-suffering, that those who have been long in the furnace may continue hoping and quietly waiting for the salvation of the Lord: Let tribulation work patience, and patience experience, and experience a hope that maketh not ashamed; and enable them to call even this affliction light and but for a moment, seeing it to work for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

Lord, when thou hast tried them let them come forth like gold; Let their souls live, and they shall praise thee, let thy judgments help them: O deal bountifully with them that they may live, and keep thy word. In love to their souls deliver them from the pit of corruption, and cast all their sins behind thy back. Recover them, and make them to live. Speak the word, and they shall be healed; say unto them, Live, yea, say unto them, Live, and the time shall be a time of love. Father, if it be possible, let the cup pass away; however not as we will, but as thou wilt: The will of the Lord be done. Perfect that which concerns them; thy mercy, O Lord, endures for ever, forsake not the work of thine own hands; but whether they live or die, let them be the Lord’s.

Now the flesh and the heart are failing, Lord, be thou the strength of the heart, and an everlasting portion: In the valley of the shadow of death, Lord, be thou present, as the good shepherd with a guiding rod, and a supporting staff. O do not fail them nor forsake them now. Be a very present help: Into thy hands we commit the departing spirit, as into the hands of a faithful Creator, by the hands of him who has redeemed it. Let it be carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom. Let it be presented to thee without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Lord Jesus, receive this precious soul, let it come to the spirits of just men made perfect; when it is absent from the body, let it be present with the Lord! This day let it be with thee in paradise. Now let it be for ever comforted, and perfectly freed from sin; and prepare us to draw after, as there are innumerable before, that we may be together for ever with the Lord, there where there shall be no more death, and where all tears shall be wiped away.

O look with pity upon those that are put out of the possession of their own souls, whose judgment is taken away, so that their soul chooseth strangling and death rather than life: O restore them to themselves and their right mind. Deliver them from doing themselves any harm: And whatever afflictions thou layest upon any of us in this world, preserve to us the use of our reason, and the peace of our consciences.

Lord, we see death reigning even over them that have not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression; but Jesus Christ hath abolished death, and admitted even little children into the kingdom of God. O let sick children be pitied by thee, as they are by their earthly parents. They are come forth like flowers, O let them not be cut down again: Turn from them, that they may rest till they shall have accomplished as a hireling their day. Be gracious to us, and let the children live. However, Father, thy will be done. O let their spirits be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Visit the houses of mourning, as our Saviour did, and comfort them, by assuring them that Christ is the resurrection and the life, that their relations which are removed from them, are not dead, but sleep; and that they shall rise again, that they may not sorrow as those that have no hope: And enable them to trust in the living God, the rock of ages, and enjoy the fountain of living waters, when creatures prove broken reeds and broken cisterns.

Be a Father to the fatherless, and a husband to the widows, O God, in thy holy habitation. With thee let the fatherless find mercy, keep them alive, and let the widows trust in thee, that they may be widows indeed, who being desolate, trust in God, and continue instant in prayer night and day. And where father and mother have forsaken, let the Lord take up the children, and not leave them orphans, but come to them.

Lord, thou hast past this sentence upon the woman that was first in the transgression, that in sorrow she shall bring forth children. But let this handmaid of thine be saved in childbearing, and continue in faith, and charity, and holiness, with sobriety. Enable her to cast her burden upon the Lord, and let the Lord sustain her; and what time she is afraid, grant that she may trust in thee, and may encourage herself in the Lord her God. O let not the root be dried up from beneath, nor let the branch be withered or cut off; but let both live before thee. Be thou her strong habitation, her rock, and her fortress, give commandment to save her. And when travail comes upon her, which she cannot escape; be pleased, O Lord, to deliver her: O Lord make haste to help her: Be thou thyself her help and deliverer, make no tarrying, O our God: Let her be safely delivered, and remember the anguish no more, for joy that a child is born into the world, is born unto thee.

We will extol thee, O Lord, upon the account of those whom thou hast lifted up, whose souls thou hast brought up from the grave, and kept them alive, that they should not go down to the pit. Those that were brought low thou hast helped, hast delivered their souls from death, their eyes from tears, and their feet from falling. Now give them grace to walk before thee in the land of the living, to offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, to call upon thy name, and to pay their vows unto the Lord.

The grave cannot thus praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee, they that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth; but the living, the living they shall praise thee, as we do this day. Lord, grant that those who are delivered from death may not be as the nine lepers, who did not return to give thanks, or as Hezekiah, who rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him, but that they may so offer praise, as to glorify thee, and so order their conversation, as to see the salvation of God.

Those whom the Lord hath chastened sore, yet he has not delivered over unto death: O that they may therefore praise him, who is become their salvation.

Lord, give to parents the desire of their souls concerning their children, which is to see them walking in the truth, form Christ in their souls. O give them betimes to know the God of their fathers, and to serve him with a perfect heart and a willing mind. Let children of the youth, that are as arrows in the hand, be directed aright, that those parents may have reason to think themselves happy, that have their quiver full of them, and they may never be arrows in the heart.

Let those foolish children, that are the grief of the father, and the heaviness of her that bare them, that mock at their parents, and despise to obey them, be brought to repentance; and let those that have been unprofitable now at length be made profitable. O turn the hearts of the children to the fathers, even the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that they may be made ready a people prepared for the Lord. O shew them their work, and their transgression, that they have exceeded, and open their ear to discipline.

Those that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron, because they rebelled against the words of God, and contemned the counsel of the most High, give them grace to cry unto thee in their trouble, and in a day of adversity to consider.

In their captivity give them to bethink themselves, to humble themselves, and pray, and seek thy face, to repent, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely, and to return unto thee with all their heart, and with all their soul; and thus bring their souls out of prison, that they may praise thy name: Bring them into the glorious liberty of the children of God, out of the bondage of corruption. Let the Son make them free, and then they shall be free indeed.

Those that are wrongfully imprisoned be thou with them, as thou wast with Joseph in the prison, and shew them mercy. Hear the poor, and despise not thy prisoners, but let their sorrowful sighing come before thee, and according to the greatness of thy power preserve those that are unjustly appointed to die.

O look with pity upon those, the number of whose months is to be cut off in the midst for their sin: O give them repentance unto salvation, as thou didst to the thief upon the cross, that they may own the justice of God in all that is brought upon them, that he has done right, but they have done wickedly. O turn them, and they shall be turned, that being instructed they may smite upon the thigh, and may be ashamed, yea even confounded, because they do bear the reproach of their own iniquity. O pluck them as brands out of the fire; let them be delivered from the wrath to come.

Enable them to give glory to God by making confession, that they may find mercy, and that others may hear and fear, and do no more presumptuously.

Lord Jesus, remember them now thou art in thy kingdom: O let them not be hurt of the second death: Deliver them from going down to that pit! Though the flesh be destroyed, O let the spirit be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. The God of infinite mercy be merciful to these sinners, these sinners against their own souls.

Let those that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, observe the works of the Lord there, and his wonders in the deep; And acknowledge what a great God he is whom the winds and the seas obey; who hath placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it; and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over.

O preserve them through the paths of the seas, and in perils by waters, and perils by robbers. If the stormy wind be raised, which lifteth up the waves, so that they are at their wits end, deliver them out of their distresses, make the storm a calm, and bring them to their desired haven: And O that those who are delivered may praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men.