Union and Communion
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.
James 5:16a
Do not content yourselves with reading, singing and praying together; but set some time apart to confess your faults and communicate your experiences one to another. For want of this most of the old societies in London are sunk into a dead formality ... They meet on a Sabbath evening, read a chapter, and sing a psalm, but seldom, if ever, acquaint each other with the operations of God’s Spirit upon their souls; notwithstanding this was the great end and intention of those who first began these societies. Hence it is that they have only the form of godliness left amongst them, and continue utter strangers to the state of one another’s hearts. How love or the power of religion can subsist in such a lukewarm and superficial way of proceeding is very hard to conceive. Do not let your coming together be thus in vain, but plainly and freely tell one another what God has done for your souls. To this end, meet with a few others once a week to tell each other what is in your hearts; that you may then also pray for and comfort each other, as need shall require. None but those that have experienced it can tell the unspeakable advantages of such a union and communion of souls. By this means, brotherly love will be excited and increased amongst you, and you will learn to watch over one another for good. This will teach you the better how to pray, and to give thanks for each other in your private retirement, and happily prevent and deliver you from many snares of the devil: for Satan loves that we should keep his temptations to ourselves, but cares not so much to mess with those whom he knows will tell his devices to other believers.
*Excerpted from George Whitefield Daily Readings, p. 340 (Christian Heritage, 2010).
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