The Secret of Communion with God

How to Begin the Day, Spend the Day and End the Day with God

by

Matthew Henry

Database © 2007 WORD search Corp.

Contents

Preface

Part One. Showing How to Begin Every Day With God

The Application

Part Two. Showing How to Spend the Day With God

The Application

Part Three. Showing How to Close the Day With God

The Application

Hymn for the Morning

Anthem for the Evening

Morning Hymn

Evening Hymn

A Song for Morning or Evening

Preface

The first two of these discourses were preached (that is, the substance of them,) at the morning lecture at Bednal Green, the former August 13th, the other August 21st, 1712. The latter of them I was much importuned to publish by many who heard it; which I then had no thoughts at all of doing, because in divers practical treatises we have excellent directions given, of the same nature and tendency, by better hands than mine. But upon second thoughts I considered, that both those sermons of beginning and spending the day with God, put together, might perhaps he of some use to those into whose hands those larger treatises do not fall. And the truth is, the subject of them is of such a nature, that if they may be of any use, they may be of general and lasting use; whereupon I entertained the thought of writing them over, with very large additions throughout, as God should enable me, for the press. Communicating this thought to some of my friends, they very much encouraged me to proceed in it, but advised me to add a third discourse of closing the day with God, which I thereupon took for my subject at an evening lecture, September 3rd, and have likewise much enlarged and altered that. And so this came to be what it is.

I am not without hopes, that something may hereby be contributed among plain people, by the blessing of God upon the endeavour, and the working of his grace with it, to the promoting of serious godliness, which is the thing I aim at; and yet I confess that I should not have published it, had I not designed it for a present to my dearly beloved friends in the country, whom I have lately been rent from.

And to them, with the most tender affection, and most sincere respects, I dedicate it, as a testimony of my abiding concern for their spiritual welfare; hoping and praying that their conversation may be in every thing as becomes the gospel of Christ, that whether I come and see them, or else be absent, I may hear comfortably of their affairs, that they stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel.

I am,

Their cordial and affectionate Well-wisher,

Matt. Henry

Sept. 8, 1712.

Part One

Showing How to Begin Every Day With God

My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.—Psalm 5:3

You would think it a rude question, if I should ask you, and yet I must entreat you seriously to ask yourselves, what brings you hither so early this morning? and what is your business here? Whenever ...