alf-educated or spiritually proud men frequently indulge in an indecent familiarity with the Most High, under the
pretence of filial nearness and importunity . . . The proper language for the accepted sinner before the mercy seat is, therefore, that
of profound veneration. Especially are all fondling and amatory expressions, addressed to either person of the Trinity,
abhorrent to the truly pious heart.
R.L. Dabney
Words are but the body, the garment, the outside of prayer; sighs are nearer the heart work. A dumb beggar getteth an alms
at Christ's gates, even by making signs, when his tongue cannot plead for him . . . Tears have a tongue, and grammar,
and language, that our Father knoweth. Babes have no prayer for the breast, but weeping: the mother can read hunger in weeping.
Samuel Rutherford
All public prayer which bears the comprehensive character which belongs to that exercise, is made up of various
departments; such as adoration, confession, thanksgiving, petition, and intercession. A public prayer which should be entirely destitute
of any one of these departments, would be deemed essentially defective . . .
Samuel Miller
Another use of this doctrine may be, of reproof to those that
neglect the duty of prayer. If we enjoy so great a privilege as to have the prayer-hearing God revealed to us, how great will
be our folly and inexcusableness, if we neglect the privilege, or make no use of it, and deprive ourselves of the advantage by
not seeking this God by prayer. They are hereby reproved who neglect the great duty of secret prayer, which is more
expressly required in the word of God than any other kind.
Jonathan Edwards
The postures in prayer, as laid down in Scripture and early usage, are
four — prostration, kneeling, bowing the head,
and standing erect. The examples of all these are many, and leave no room to doubt that they were all practised, and are
all significant and admissible . . . Thus also, David and the elders of Israel, when the aspect of God's providence toward them
peculiarly alarming and awful, fell on their faces to the ground and worshipped . . . The Apostle Paul twice knelt down
and prayed with circles of praying friends, who had come together to testify their respect to him — once at Miletus, on his way
to Macedonia, and once at Tyre, on his journey to Jerusalem ... The same is said of the Elders of Israel in Egypt: "When they
heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel . . . they bowed their heads and worshipped." . . . When Jehoshaphat
proclaimed a fast, and offered up a solemn prayer, in the critical circumstances in which he and his people were placed, we are told
that he stood upright, and that the whole multitude, not only the men, but their wives and children, all
stood and prayed.
Samuel Miller
For he who promises to grant whatsoever two or three assembled in his name shall ask (Matt. 18:20), declares, that he by
no means despises the prayers which are publicly offered up, provided there be no ostentation, or catching at human
applause, and provided there be a true and sincere affection in the secret recesses of the heart. If this is the legitimate use of
churches (and it certainly is), we must, on the other hand, beware of imitating the practice which commenced some centuries ago,
of imagining that churches are the proper dwellings of God, where he is more ready to listen to us, or of attaching to them
some kind of secret sanctity, which makes prayer there more holy. For seeing we are the true temples of God, we must pray
in ourselves if we would invoke God in his holy temple.
John Calvin
Prayer is no more inconsistent with the unchangeable purposes of God, than the use of any other means; for God in
forming his purposes had respect to all appropriate means of producing the intended ends, and among these prayer has an
important place.
Archibald Alexander
You have now, Christian, the armour of God; but take heed thou forgettest not to engage the God of this armour by
humble prayer for your assistance, lest for all this you be worsted in the fight.
William Gurnall
I had rather learn what some men really judge about their own justification from their prayers than from their writings.
John Owen
Observe whether thy fervency in prayer be uniform; a false heart may seem very hot in praying against one sin, but he can
skip over another, and either leave it out of his confession, or handle it very gently, as a partial witness, that would fain save
the prisoner's life he comes against, will not speak all he knows, but minceth his evidence; thus doth the hypocrite deal with
his darling lust.
William Gurnall
