The Puritan era was undoubtedly a time of preparation, a significant stage in the unfolding of God's purposes for that remarkable age [the 18th Century Evangelical Revival] . As such it is an encouragement for us today, for who knows but that God may be preparing the Church now for something similar in days to come? It is an incentive to pray. We cannot measure the spiritual significance of the praying of the Puritans for revival. To what extent was the coming of the Spirit in 1735 God's answer to the cries of his children in the preceding decades? Let me close with the dying prayer of Henry Dorney as he cried to God for the prosperity of the Gospel in his age. May God set us to praying like this!
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"Oh that the days of this darkness may be blown away; and let there be a mighty coming in of truth, holiness, sincerity, and spiritual light and manifestation, that there may be a mighty childlike spirit in all thy children...Let thy good Spirit come upon all thine: Oh glorify thyself now and ever...Oh let truth and power be given. Oh God fill the world with thy Spirit; that thy work may be done tidily, tidily. Oh let there be nearness between thee and the souls of thy people...Oh that thy people may judge of their love to thee by the very out goings of their souls to thee...Oh that I might see religion to be something!!"
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From Faith and Ferment Westminster Conference paper 1982, p 32.
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