Reason #3 for why we should pray

Why should we pray in private? Thomas Brooks' 3rd reason is, Secret Prayer Distinguishes Sincerity from Hypocrisy.

"Consider, next, that the ordinary exercising of yourselves in secret prayer, is that which will distinguish you from hypocrites, who do all they do to be seen of men...Matt. 6:2."

"Closet duty [i.e., private prayer] speaks out most sincerity....The more sincere the soul is, the more in closet duty the soul will be (Job 31:33). Where do you read in all the Scripture, that Pharaoh, or Saul, or Judas, or Demas, or Simon Magus, or the scribes and Pharisees, did ever use to pour out their souls before the Lord in secret? Secret prayer is not the hypocrite's ordinary walk, his ordinary work or trade."

"There is great cause to fear that his heart was never right with God, whose whole devotion is spent among men, or among many; or else our Saviour, in drawing the hypocrite's picture, would never have made this to be the very cast of his countenance, as he does in Matthew 6:5. It is one thing to be hypocrites, and it is another thing to be as the hypocrites. Christ would not have his people to look like hypocrites, nor to be like hypocrites. It is only sincerity that will enable a man to make a trade of private prayer. In praying with many, there are many things that may bribe and provoke a carnal heart, as pride, vainglory, love of applause, or to get a name. An hypocrite, in all his duties, trades more for a good name than for a good life, for a good report than for a good conscience."