glorycloud's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- prayer is the key to open heaven It is 12:04 PM Thursday afternoon on a cold gray damp windy ugly late Autumn day. I am expecting snow fall either this week or next week. We got a text this morning from the fellow we hired to landscape our property and it looks like they will be working during a snow fall next week. I got up this morning around 5:50 AM. I got up because I was sick of dreaming. My dreams are full of shit. So I got up and found Carol listening to a lecture by the late R. C. Sproul and the false teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. I got myself a glass of apple cider and sat in my chair to wake up to Sproul explaining Papal Infallibility. Carol wanted once again oatmeal for breakfast, so I made for us a big pot of oatmeal. I ate my oatmeal while Carol listened to another lecture by Sproul on the Roman Catholic teaching on the Virgin Mary the Mother of God. This morning Carol left to do errands. While she was gone I wrote in my paper diary and read till Noontime from a book titled, 'Christ's Prayer Before His Passion-Expository Sermons on John 17' Volume One by Anthony Burgess. I plan to drift through the rest of this day. It is too cold to move. Every place I go it is cold as ice. Last night Carol went to bed around 8:30 PM and I stayed and read late into the night from a book titled, 'Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk: Selected Stories' by Nikolai Leskov Translated by Donald Rayfield and others. I suppose I will close to feel cold and wasted. We are in the middle of the month. From now on it is all downhill. "2. An heavenly Praier must have an heavenly heart, that which pants after and delights in heavenly things, but Ps. 4.6. Many say, Who will shew us any good? Every one can pray for earthly and temporall good things, for health, strength, peace, and outward plenty, but few with David, Lift thou up the light of thy countenance. In the Lords Praier we are first to pray for those spiritu∣all things that relate to Gods glory, before we are to ask for our temporall comforts; yea, while we pray for temporall mercies we are to do it in a hea∣venly manner, for this end, that we may be more instrumental to Gods glory, and be brought nearer to him; Difficile est erare, quia difficile est desiderare, said Aquinas. It is a very hard thing to desire heavenly things, and there∣fore as hard to pray for them; how happy then is it when the matter praied for and the frame of the heart are both heavenly; Now like Christ he is gone up to the Mount, and praieth alone, he is above all earthly things, alone with God himself. *3. That Praier is heavenly when the heart and affections are purified and sancti∣fied fit for the enjoyment of God: In praier we have an immediate approach un∣to and fellowship with God; There cannot be greater honour vouchsafed unto a creature then to be admitted to pray to him, but who is sufficient for this duty? The Heathens did often presse this, that God was to be worshiped prae mente, but the Apostle more divinely, 1 Tim. 2.8. Lifting up holy or pure hands, Mat. 6. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God; A sore eye with corrupt humours is not fit to look on a bright object, and truly in all our praiers we should think nothing so comely as to have heavenly hearts for heavenly work; If the godly mans conversation even in buying, selling, and all other lawfull emploiments, is to be heavenly, much more in praier, then there should be Sabbatum mentis the rest of the Soul, there should be no distractions, no debasings of it by earthly affections, we should have a garden readily dressed for the Spouse to walk in; If Christs body was to be in a Se∣pulchre where none ever lay btfore, how much rather will whole Christ a∣bide in a clean heart; The devil would not come into his Lodgings but be∣cause they were swept and ready garnished for him, how much rather will Christ expect that the soul should be in an holy and heavenly manner fitted for to enjoy him." Anthony Burgess 'Christ's Prayer Before His Passion-Expository Sermons on John 17' Volume One 12:21 p.m. - 2020-10-15 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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