We have an almighty instrument in our hand in secret
and exact prayer if we would only importunately and perseveringly employ
it. But there is an utterly unaccountable restraint of secret and
particularising prayer in all of us. There is a soaking, stupefying
sloth, that so fills our hearts that we forget and neglect the immense
concession and privilege we have afforded us in secret prayer. Our sloth
and stupidity in prayer is surely the last proof of our fall and of the
misery of our fallen state. Our sloth with a gold mine open at our feet;
a little more sleep on the top of a mast with a gulf under us that hath
no bottom,--no language of this life can adequately describe the
besottedness of that man who lies with irons on his heels between Simple
and Presumption.
PRESUMPTION
The greatest theologian of the Roman Catholic Church has made an
induction and classification of sins that has often been borrowed by our
Protestant and Puritan divines. His classification is made, as will be
seen, on an ascending scale of guilt and aggravation. In the world of
sin, he says, there are, first, sins of ignorance; next, there are sins
of infirmity; and then, at the top, there are sins of presumption.
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