Prayers Remembered Centuries Later: Book of Puritan Prayers

Who wants to spend more time in prayer next year?

(My guess is that’s everyone.)

Prayer is one of those few things you can do with excellence the first time you do it—and you can still get better at it. But becoming better at prayer is an exercise in humility, learning from others and recognizing your dependence on God.

That’s why I’m excited about the newest release from Lexham Press: Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans.

The Puritans were masters of spiritual formation. They had a deep, abiding understanding of how people are formed into godliness through discipline. Yet the Puritans’ brand of discipline wasn’t only aimed at their actions—it was aimed at their heart.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the Puritans’ prayers. As I flipped through Piercing Heaven, I saw prayers from John Bunyan, Anne Bradstreet, John Owen, Richard Sibbes, and many more. And while these prayers were first uttered hundreds of years ago, it struck me that they could have just as easily been written yesterday.

Pray with the Puritans

Piercing Heaven is divided into 16 categories of prayers, from starting your day to dealing with doubt to finding rest. Each section has a handful of prayers you can easily read through and contextualize to fit your circumstances.

The book contains depth and richness—while still being accessible. For example, read this brief prayer by Robert Hawker:

Come, Holy Spirit, with all your sweet and precious favor. Come, Lord, to convince and comfort me, to humble and direct me, to chill my affections to the world, and to warm them toward the Lord Jesus.

Come, you holy, gracious, almighty reviver and restorer—and glorifier of my God and Savior!

Cause the graces you have planted in my soul to go forth in a way of love and desire, faith and expectation. Let me hope in the person and glory of the one my soul loves. Then I will cry out with the church, “Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat of his pleasant fruits.” Amen!¹

A plan for prayer

I’ve been looking forward to adding Piercing Heaven to my Logos library—partially because I was interested in the book, but mostly because I wanted to use it in a reading plan. I currently have my Logos reading plans set up so I read three Bible chapters a day (one Old Testament, one New Testament, and one Psalm) plus an old hymnal. For now, I’m pausing on the hymnal for Piercing Heaven.

Here’s how I got started with the Piercing Heaven reading plan (and how you can too):

1. Add Piercing Heaven to your library (once you buy the digital book, click the sync icon in the Logos toolbar).
2. Go to Tools > Courses (it’s in the References section of the nav).
3. In the search bar of the Courses tool, type in Piercing Heaven, then click Start.

You’ll see today’s reading pop up right away. And when you go to the Home Page on your Logos desktop app or app.logos.com, you’ll see reminders to pick up Piercing Heaven.

Ready to pick up your copy of Piercing Heaven? Get the digital version or the beautiful print edition now from Lexham Press.

1. Robert Hawker, “Come, Holy Spirit,” in Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans, ed. Robert Elmer (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 47.