Thomas Brooks: A Prayer for the Nation from The Secret Key to Heaven

About the Author

Thomas Brooks (1608-80). One of a number of Puritan nonconformist preachers who emerged from Emanuel College, Cambridge, where his fellow students, it appears, would have included John Milton and the famous trio of New England divines, Thomas Shepard, and John Cotton, and Thomas Hooker, the spiritual founders of Massachusetts. Brooks’ life’s history is relatively obscure. He was known as a humble man who shunned the public spotlight, but loved ministering to the saints. He authored over a dozen books including Heaven on Earth, about the blessedness of the Christian experience, and The Secret Key to Heaven, an encouragement to private prayer. He placed none of his educational degrees on his title pages, preferring instead merely “Preacher of the Gospel,” “Preacher of the Word,” or on one occasion, “Thomas Brooks, a weak and unworthy Teacher of the Gospel at Thomas Apostles, London.” His preaching was apparently noteworthy enough to have earned him the opportunity to preach before Parliament in 1648, and most of his books were written in his later years. His friend John Reeve described him as a man of “a very sweet nature and temper,” “very great gravity,” “very large charity,” “wonderful patience,” and “a very strong faith in the promises of both worlds.”

A Prayer for the Nation

from The Secret Key to Heaven

by Thomas Brooks

"Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." (Proverbs 14:34)

The following words were written in the 1600's, but are remarkably appropriate for the modern America in which we live. May they remind all of us to pray that God would be merciful to us and revive the spiritual life of our nation!

The times wherein we live call aloud for secret prayer. Hell seems to be broken loose, and people turned into devils incarnate. Land-destroying and soul-damning wickedness walks up and down the streets with the brazen look of a prostitute, without the least check or control. “You have had a harlot’s forehead; You refuse to be ashamed” (Jeremiah 3:3); “Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush" (Jeremiah 6:15). The same words are repeated in Jeremiah 8:12. It seems that instead of being ashamed of sin, Jeremiah’s fellow countrymen had sinned away shame! Their habitual sin had quite banished all sense of sin and all shame for sin, so that they would not even allow conscience to draw her veil of blushing before their great abominations. They were like Caligula, the wicked Roman emperor, who used to say of himself that he loved nothing better in himself than that he could not be ashamed.

I will leave the wise reader to judge how applicable these scriptures are to the present time. But what does the prophet do now that they were as bold in sin and as shameless as harlots? Jeremiah 13:17 continues: " But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride; My eyes will weep bitterly And run down with tears." In the original Hebrew, the verbs are doubled (“weeping weep,” “shedding tears shed tears”) suggesting the bitter and grievous lamentation that he would make for them. Now they were grown up to such a height of sin and wickedness that they were above all shame and blushing; now they were grown so proud, so hardened, so obstinate, so rebellious, so bent on mischief, that no mercies could melt them or allure them, nor could any threats or judgments terrify them or stop them. Therefore the prophet goes into a corner, retires into the most secret places, and there he weeps bitterly as if he were resolved to drown himself in his own tears. When the springs of sorrow rise high, a Christian turns his back upon company, and takes himself into places of greatest privacy, that so he may more freely and more fully vent his sorrow and grief before the Lord.

Ah, America! America! What pride, luxury, lustfulness, license, lewdness, drunkenness, cruelty, injustice, oppression, fornication, adultery, falsehood, hypocrisy, bribery, atheism, horrid blasphemy, and hellish impiety are now to be found rampant in the midst of you! Ah, America! America! How are the Lord's Sabbaths profaned, His pure ordinances despised, His Scriptures rejected, His Spirit resisted and derided, His righteous ones reviled, and wickedness embraced! How many thousand times in a day by these cursed practices is Christ re-crucified! Ah, America! America! If our forefathers were alive, how sadly would they blush to see such a horrid, degenerate generation as is to be found in the midst of you! How is our forefathers' hospitality converted into riot and luxury, their moderation into pride and looseness, their simplicity into shrewdness, their sincerity into hypocrisy, their charity into cruelty, their chastity into extravagance and impurity, their sobriety into drunkenness, their plain-dealing into dishonesty, their works of compassion into works of oppression, and their love of godly people into utter animosity against the people of God!

And what is the beckoning call of all these crying abominations, but for every true Christian to go to his prayer closet, and weep there with weeping Jeremiah, bitterly, to intercede for all these great abominations by which God is dishonored openly! Oh, weep in secret for their sins who openly glory in their sins, which should be their greatest shame! Oh, blush in secret for them that are past all blushing for their sins; for who knows but that the whole land may fare the better for the sakes of a few who are mourners in secret?

But however it goes with the nation, those who mourn in secret for the abominations of the times may be confident that when sweeping judgments shall come upon the land, the Lord will hide them in the secret chambers of His providence; He will set a secret mark of deliverance upon the foreheads of those who mourn in secret for the crying sins of the present day, as he did upon those in Ezekiel 9:1-4:

Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, "Let those who have charge over the city draw near ... and one man among them was clothed with linen with a writer’s inkhorn by his side ... And the LORD said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it."



	About the Author Thomas Brooks (1608-80). One of a number of Puritan nonconformist preachers who emerged from Emanuel College, Cambridge, where his fellow students, it appears, would have included John Milton and the famous trio of New England divines, Thomas Shepard, and John Cotton, and Thomas Hooker, the spiritual founders of Massachusetts. Brooks’ life’s history is relatively obscure. He was known as a humble man who shunned the public spotlight, but loved ministering to the saints. He authored over a dozen books including Heaven on Earth, about the blessedness of the Christian experience, and The Secret Key to Heaven, an encouragement to private prayer. He placed none of his educational degrees on his title pages, preferring instead merely “Preacher of the Gospel,” “Preacher of the Word,” or on one occasion, “Thomas Brooks, a weak and unworthy Teacher of the Gospel at Thomas Apostles, London.” His preaching was apparently noteworthy enough to have earned him the opportunity to preach before Parliament in 1648, and most of his books were written in his later years. His friend John Reeve described him as a man of “a very sweet nature and temper,” “very great gravity,” “very large charity,” “wonderful patience,” and “a very strong faith in the promises of both worlds.” A Prayer for the Nation from The Secret Key to Heaven by Thomas Brooks "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." (Proverbs 14:34) The following words were written in the 1600's, but are remarkably appropriate for the modern America in which we live. May they remind all of us to pray that God would be merciful to us and revive the spiritual life of our nation! The times wherein we live call aloud for secret prayer. Hell seems to be broken loose, and people turned into devils incarnate. Land-destroying and soul-damning wickedness walks up and down the streets with the brazen look of a prostitute, without the least check or control. “You have had a harlot’s forehead; You refuse to be ashamed” (Jeremiah 3:3); “Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush" (Jeremiah 6:15). The same words are repeated in Jeremiah 8:12. It seems that instead of being ashamed of sin, Jeremiah’s fellow countrymen had sinned away shame! Their habitual sin had quite banished all sense of sin and all shame for sin, so that they would not even allow conscience to draw her veil of blushing before their great abominations. They were like Caligula, the wicked Roman emperor, who used to say of himself that he loved nothing better in himself than that he could not be ashamed. I will leave the wise reader to judge how applicable these scriptures are to the present time. But what does the prophet do now that they were as bold in sin and as shameless as harlots? Jeremiah 13:17 continues: " But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride; My eyes will weep bitterly And run down with tears." In the original Hebrew, the verbs are doubled (“weeping weep,” “shedding tears shed tears”) suggesting the bitter and grievous lamentation that he would make for them. Now they were grown up to such a height of sin and wickedness that they were above all shame and blushing; now they were grown so proud, so hardened, so obstinate, so rebellious, so bent on mischief, that no mercies could melt them or allure them, nor could any threats or judgments terrify them or stop them. Therefore the prophet goes into a corner, retires into the most secret places, and there he weeps bitterly as if he were resolved to drown himself in his own tears. When the springs of sorrow rise high, a Christian turns his back upon company, and takes himself into places of greatest privacy, that so he may more freely and more fully vent his sorrow and grief before the Lord. Ah, America! America! What pride, luxury, lustfulness, license, lewdness, drunkenness, cruelty, injustice, oppression, fornication, adultery, falsehood, hypocrisy, bribery, atheism, horrid blasphemy, and hellish impiety are now to be found rampant in the midst of you! Ah, America! America! How are the Lord's Sabbaths profaned, His pure ordinances despised, His Scriptures rejected, His Spirit resisted and derided, His righteous ones reviled, and wickedness embraced! How many thousand times in a day by these cursed practices is Christ re-crucified! Ah, America! America! If our forefathers were alive, how sadly would they blush to see such a horrid, degenerate generation as is to be found in the midst of you! How is our forefathers' hospitality converted into riot and luxury, their moderation into pride and looseness, their simplicity into shrewdness, their sincerity into hypocrisy, their charity into cruelty, their chastity into extravagance and impurity, their sobriety into drunkenness, their plain-dealing into dishonesty, their works of compassion into works of oppression, and their love of godly people into utter animosity against the people of God! And what is the beckoning call of all these crying abominations, but for every true Christian to go to his prayer closet, and weep there with weeping Jeremiah, bitterly, to intercede for all these great abominations by which God is dishonored openly! Oh, weep in secret for their sins who openly glory in their sins, which should be their greatest shame! Oh, blush in secret for them that are past all blushing for their sins; for who knows but that the whole land may fare the better for the sakes of a few who are mourners in secret? But however it goes with the nation, those who mourn in secret for the abominations of the times may be confident that when sweeping judgments shall come upon the land, the Lord will hide them in the secret chambers of His providence; He will set a secret mark of deliverance upon the foreheads of those who mourn in secret for the crying sins of the present day, as he did upon those in Ezekiel 9:1-4: Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, "Let those who have charge over the city draw near ... and one man among them was clothed with linen with a writer’s inkhorn by his side ... And the LORD said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it."