Chapter 20. Of Prayer, Which Is the Chief Exercise of Faith, and Whereby We Daily Receive the Benefits of God

Of these things that have been hitherto spoken, we plainly perceive how needy and void man is of all good things, and how he wants all helps of salvation. Therefore if he seek for reliefs whereby he may succor his neediness, he must go out of himself and get them elsewhere. This is afterward declared to us, that the Lord does of his own free will and liberally give himself to us in his Christ, in whom he offers us in stead of our misery all felicity, in stead of our need wealthiness, in whom he opens to us the heavenly treasures: that our whole faith should behold his beloved son, that upon him our whole expectation should hang, in him our whole hope should stick fast and rest. This truly is the secret and hidden philosophy, which cannot be wrung out with logical arguments: but they learn it whose eyes God has opened that they may see light in his light. But since we are taught by faith to acknowledge that whatever we have need of, whatever wants in us, the same is in God and in our Lord Jesus Christ, namely in whom the Lord willed the whole fullness of his largesse to rest, that from there we should all draw as out of a most plentiful fountain: now it remains that we seek in him, and with prayers crave of him that which we have learned to be in him. Otherwise to know God to be the Lord and giver of all good things, which allures us to pray to him: and not to go to him and pray to him: should so nothing profit us, that it should be alone as if a man should neglect a treasure shown him buried and dug in the ground. Therefore the Apostle, to show that true faith cannot be idle from calling upon God, has set this order: that as of the Gospel springs faith, so by it our hearts are framed to call upon the name of God. And this is the same thing which he had a little before said, that the Spirit of adoption, which seals in our hearts the witness of the Gospel, raises up our spirits that they dare show forth their desires to God, stir up unspeakable groanings, and cry with confidence Abba, Father. It is fitting therefore that this last point, because it was before but only spoken of by the way and as it were lightly touched, should now be more largely treated of.

This therefore we get by the benefit of prayer, that we attain to those riches which are laid up for us with the heavenly father. For there is a certain communicating of men with God, whereby they entering into sanctuary of heaven do in his own presence call to him touching his promises: that the same thing which they believed him affirming only in word not to be vain, they may when need so requires find in experience. Therefore we see that there is nothing set forth to us to be looked for at the hand of the Lord, which we are not also commanded to crave with prayers: so true it is that by prayer are dug up the treasures, which our faith has looked upon being shown to it by the gospel of the Lord. Now how necessary and how many ways profitable this exercise of prayer is, it can by no words be sufficiently declared. Undoubtedly it is not without cause that the heavenly father testifies, that the only fortress of salvation is in the calling upon his name, namely whereby we call to us the presence both of his providence, by which he watches to take care of our matters: and of his power, by which he sustains us being weak and in a manner fainting: and of his goodness, by which he receives us into favor being miserably laden with sins: finally whereby we call him all whole, to give himself present to us. Hereby grows singular rest and quietness to our consciences. For when we have disclosed to the Lord the necessity which distressed us, we largely rest though it were but in this only that none of our evils is hidden from him, whom we are persuaded both to be most well willing toward us, and most able to provide well for us.

But (will some man say) did he not know without any to put in mind of it, both in what part we are distressed, and what is expedient for us: so that it may seem after a certain manner superfluous, that he should be troubled with our prayers, as though he winked or slept, until he were awakened with our voice? But they who reason so, do not mark to what end the Lord has instructed those who are his to pray: for he ordained it not so much for his own cause as rather for ours. He wills indeed, as is right, that his due be rendered to him, when they acknowledge to come from him whatever men require, or do perceive to make for their profit, and do testify the same with wishes. But the profit also of this sacrifice with which he is worshipped comes to us. Therefore how much more boldly the holy fathers gloriously talked both to themselves and others of the benefits of God, so much the more sharply were they pricked forward to pray. The only example of Elijah will be enough for us, who being sure of the counsel of God, after he had not rashly promised rain to Ahab, yet busily prays between his knees, and sends his servant seven times to spy it out: not because he discredited the oracle of God, but because he knew that it was his duty, lest his faith should grow drowsy and sluggish, to lay up his desires with God. Therefore although while we lie senseless and so dull that we do not perceive our own miseries, he wakes and watches for us, and sometimes also helps us unasked, yet it greatly behoves us that he be continually called upon by us, that our heart may be inflamed with earnest and fervent desire to seek, love, and worship him, while we accustom ourselves in every necessity to [reconstructed: seek] to him as to our sheet anchor. Again, that no desire and no wish at all may enter into our mind, of which we should be ashamed to make him witness, while we learn to present our wishes, yes, and to pour out our whole heart before his eyes. Then, that we may be framed to receive all his benefits with true thankfulness of mind, yes, and with outward thanksgiving, of which we are put in mind by our prayer that they come to us from his hand. Moreover, that when we have obtained what we desired, being persuaded that he has answered our prayers, we may thereby be the more fervently carried to think upon his kindness, and therewith embrace with greater pleasure those things which we acknowledge to have been obtained by prayer. Last of all, that very use and experience may according to the measure of our weakness assure our minds of his providence, when we understand that he not only promises that he will never fail us, and that he does of his own accord open to us the entry to call to him in the very point of necessity, but also has his hand always stretched out to help those who are his, and that he does not feed them with words, but defends them with present help. For these causes, the most kind Father, although he never sleeps or is sluggish, yet oftentimes makes a show as though he slept and were sluggish, that so he may exercise us, who are otherwise slothful and sluggish to come to him, to ask of him, to require him, to our own great benefit. Therefore they do too foolishly, who to call away the minds of men from prayer, babble that the providence of God, which makes for the safekeeping of all things, is in vain wearied with our calling upon him: whereas the Lord contrariwise not in vain testifies that he is [reconstructed: near] to all those who call upon his name in truth. And of no other sort is that which others do trifling say, that it is superfluous to ask those things which the Lord is of his own will ready to give: whereas even the very same things which flow to us from his own free generosity, he will have us acknowledge to be granted to our prayers. Which thing that notable sentence of the Psalm does testify, with which many like sayings do accord: the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears to their prayers. Which saying so sets out the providence of God bent of his own accord to provide for the safety of the godly, that yet he omits not the exercise of faith, whereby slothfulness is wiped from the minds of men. The eyes of God therefore watch, that he may help the necessity of the blind: but he will again on our behalf hear our groanings, that he may the better prove his love toward us. And so both are true, that the watchman of Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers, and yet that he sits still as having forgotten us when he sees us dull and dumb.

Now, to frame prayer rightly and well, let this be the first rule: that we be no otherwise framed in mind and heart than becomes those who enter into talk with God. Which we shall indeed attain as touching the mind, if the same being free from fleshly cares and thoughts by which it may be called away or withdrawn from the right and pure beholding of God, does not only bend itself wholly to prayer, but also as much as is possible be lifted up and carried above itself. Neither do I here require a mind so at liberty that it be not pricked and stung with any care, for contrariwise the ferventness of prayer must by much carefulness be kindled in us (as we see that the holy servants of God do sometimes declare great torments, and much more carefulness, when they [illegible] utter to the Lord a bewailing voice out of the deep depth, [illegible] out of the midst of the jaws of death). But I say that all strange and foreign cares must be driven away, with which the mind itself wandering here and there is carried about, and being drawn out of heaven is pressed down to the earth. I mean by this that it must be lifted up above itself, that it may not bring into the sight of God any of those things which our blind and foolish reason is accustomed to imagine, nor may hold itself bound within the compass of its own vanity, but rise up to a purity worthy for God.

Both these things are specially worthy to be noted, that whoever prepares himself to pray, should thereto apply all his senses and endeavors, and not (as men are wont) be diversely drawn with wandering thoughts: because there is nothing more contrary to the reverence of God, than such lightness which is a witness of too wanton licentiousness and loose from all fear. In which thing we must so much more earnestly labor, as we find it more hard, for no man can be so bent to pray, but that he shall feel many by-thoughts to creep upon him, either to break off, or by some bowing and swerving to hinder the course of his prayer. But here let us call to mind, how great an unworthiness it is, when God receives us to familiar talk with him, to abuse his so great gentleness, with mingling holy and profane things together, when the reverence of him holds not our minds fast bound to him: but as if we talked with some mean man, we do in the midst of our prayer, forsaking him, leap here and there. Let us therefore know that none do rightly and well prepare themselves to prayer, but they whom the majesty of God pierces, that they come to it unencumbered of earthly cares and affections. And that is meant by the ceremony of lifting up of hands, that men should remember that they be far distant from God, unless they lift up their senses on high. As also it is said in the Psalm: "To you have I lifted up my soul." And the Scripture often uses this manner of speech, to lift up prayer: that they which desire to be heard of God, should not sit still in their dregs. Let this be the sum: that how much more liberally God deals with us, gently alluring us to unload our cares into his bosom, so much less excusable are we unless his so excellent and incomparable benefit do with us outweigh all other things and draw us to itself, that we may earnestly apply our endeavors and senses to pray: which cannot be done unless our mind be strongly wrestling with the hindrances, rising up above them. Another point we have set forth, that we ask no more than God gives leave. For though he bids us to pour out our hearts, yet he does indifferently give loose reins to foolish and froward affections: and when he promises that he will do according to the will of the godly, he proceeds not to so tender bearing with them that he submits himself to their will. But in both these points men do commonly much offend. For not only the most part of men presume without shame, without reverence, to speak to God for their follies, and shamelessly to present to his throne whatever pleased them in their dreams: but also so great foolishness or senseless dullness possesses them, that they dare thrust into the hearing of God, even all their most filthy desires, of which they would greatly be ashamed to make men privy. Some profane men have laughed to scorn, indeed and detested this boldness, yet the vice itself has always reigned. And hereby it came to pass that ambitious men have chosen Jupiter to be their patron: covetous men, Mercury: the desirous of learning, Apollo and Minerva: warriors Mars: and lecherous folk, Venus. Like as at this day (as I have even now touched) men do in prayers grant more license to their unlawful desires, than when they sportingly talk with their equals. But God suffers not his gentleness to be so mocked: but claiming to himself his right, makes our prayers subject to his authority, and restrains them with a bridle. Therefore we must keep fast this saying of John, This is our confidence, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. But forasmuch as our abilities are far from being sufficient to perform so great perfection, we must seek a remedy to help us. As we ought to bend the sight of our mind to God so the affection of the heart ought also to follow to the same end. But both do stay far beneath it, indeed rather do faint and fail or be carried a contrary way. Therefore God, to succor this weakness, in our prayers gives the Spirit to be our schoolmaster, to instruct us what is right, and to govern our affections. For because we know not what we ought to pray as we ought, the Spirit comes to our aid, and makes intercession for us with unspeakable groanings, not that it in deed either prays or groans, but stirs up in us confidence, desires, and sighings, which the strength of nature were not able to conceive. And not without cause Paul calls them unspeakable groanings which so the faithful send forth by the guiding of the Spirit, because they which are truly exercised in prayers, are not ignorant that they be so held in perplexity with blind cares, that they scarcely find what is profitable for them to speak: indeed while they go about to utter stammering words, they stick fast encumbered. Thereupon it follows, that the gift of praying rightly is a singular gift. These things are not spoken to this purpose, that we favoring our own slothfulness should give over the charge of praying to the Spirit of God, and lie dull in that carelessness, to which we are too much inclined: (as there are heard the wicked sayings of some, that we must lie negligently gaping to wait until he prevent our minds occupied elsewhere) but rather that we loathing our own slothfulness and sluggishness, should crave such help of the Spirit. Neither does Paul, when he bids us to pray in Spirit, therefore cease to exhort us to wakefulness: meaning that the instinct of the Spirit so uses his force to frame our prayers, that it nothing hinders or slackens our own endeavor: because God will in this behalf prove how effectually faith moves our hearts.

Let also another law be, that in praying we always feel our own want, and that earnestly thinking how we stand in need of those things that we ask, we join with our prayer an earnest, indeed fervent affection to obtain. For many do slightly for manners' sake recite prayers after a prescribed form, as though they rendered a certain talk to God: and although they confess that this is a necessary remedy for their evils, because it is to their destruction to be without the help of God which they crave: yet it appears that they do this duty for custom, inasmuch as in the meantime their minds are cold, and do not weigh what they ask. The general and confused feeling indeed of their necessity leads them here: but it does not stir them as it were in a present case to ask relief of their need. Now what do we think to be more hateful or more detestable to God than this feigning, when a man asks forgiveness of sins, in the meantime either thinking that he is not a sinner, or not thinking upon this that he is a sinner: even where with God himself is plainly mocked? But of such perverseness (as I have said) mankind is full, that for manners' sake they many times ask many things of God, which they certainly judge that without his liberality to come to them from some other place, or that they have them already remaining with them. The fault of some other seems to be lighter and yet not tolerable, that they who have only conceived this principle that we must sacrifice to God with prayers, do mumble up prayers without any musing of mind upon them. But the godly must principally take heed, that they never come into the sight of God to ask anything, but because they do both boil with earnest affection of heart, and do therewith desire to obtain it of him. Indeed, and also though in those things which we ask only to the glory of God, we seem not at the first sight to provide for our own necessity, yet the same ought to be asked with no less ferventness and vehemence of desire. As, when we pray that his name be hallowed, we must (as I may so speak) fervently hunger and thirst for that hallowing.

If any man object, that we are not always driven with like necessity to pray, I grant the same indeed: and this difference is profitably taught us of James: Is any man heavy among you? Let him pray. Whoever is merry, let him sing. Therefore even common feeling teaches us, that because we are too slothful, therefore as the matter requires we are the more sharply pricked forward of God to pray earnestly. And this David calls the fit time, because (as he teaches in many other places) how much more hardly troubles, difficulties, fears, and other kinds of temptations do press us, so much freer access is open for us, as though God did call us to him. But yet no less true is that saying of Paul, that we must pray at all times: because however things prosperously flow according to our heart's desire, and matter of mirth does compass us on every side, yet there is no minute of time wherein our need does not exhort us to pray. If a man have abundance of wine and wheat: yet since he can not enjoy one morsel of bread but by the continual grace of God, whole cellars or barns full shall be no hindrance why he should not crave daily bread. Now if we call to mind how many dangers do every moment hang over us, the very fear itself will teach us that we have no time free from prayer. But this we may better perceive in spiritual things. For, when shall so many sins, of which we know ourselves guilty, suffer us to sit still without care and not in humble wise crave pardon both of the fault and the pain? When do temptations grant us truce, so that we need not to hasten to help? Moreover the desire of the kingdom and glory of God ought so to draw us to itself, not by fits but continually, that it should always be fit time for us. Therefore not without cause we are so often commanded to pray continually. I do not yet speak of perseverance in prayer, of which mention shall be made hereafter: but when the Scripture warns us that we ought to pray continually, it accuses our slothfulness, because we do not perceive how necessary this care and diligence is for us. By this rule all hypocrisy and craftiness of lying to God, is debarred, indeed driven far away from prayer. God promises that he will be near to all them that call upon him in truth, and he pronounces that they shall find him who seek him with their whole heart. But they aspire not there who please themselves in their own filthiness. Therefore a right prayer requires repentance. And upon this it is commonly said in the Scriptures, that God hears not wicked doers, and that their prayers are accursed, like as their sacrifices also be: because it is rightful that they find the ears of God shut, who do lock up their own hearts: and that they should not find God easy to vow, who do with their own hardness provoke his stiffness. In Isaiah he threatens after this manner: When you shall multiply your prayers, I will not hear you: for your hands are full of blood. Again in Jeremiah: I have cried, and they have refused to hear: they shall likewise cry, and I will not hear: because he takes it for a most high dishonor, that wicked men should boast of his covenant, who do in all their life defile his holy name. Therefore in Isaiah he complains, that when the Jews come near to him with their lips, their heart is far from him. He speaks not of only prayers, but affirms that he abhors feigning in all the parts of worshipping him. To which purpose makes that saying of James: You ask, and receive not: because you ask ill, that you may spend it upon your pleasures. It is true indeed (as we shall again show a little hereafter) that the prayers of the godly which they pour out, do not rest upon their own worthiness: yet is not the admonition of John superfluous: If we ask anything, we shall receive it of him, because we keep his commandments: inasmuch as an evil conscience shuts the gate against us. Whereupon it follows that none do rightly pray, nor are heard, but the pure worshippers of God. Therefore whoever prepares himself to pray, let him be loath in himself for his own evils, and (which can not be done without repentance) let him put on the person and mind of a beggar.

Here let the third rule be joined, that whoever presents himself before God to pray should forsake all thinking of his own glory, put off all opinion of worthiness, and finally give over all trust of himself, giving in the advancing of himself the glory wholly to God: lest if we take anything, be it never so little, to ourselves, we do with our own swelling fall away from his face. Of this submission which throws down all height, we have often examples in the servants of God: among whom the holier that every one is, so much the more he is thrown down when he comes into the sight of the Lord. So Daniel, whom the Lord himself commended with so great a title of praise, said: We pour not out our prayers before you in our righteousness, but in your great mercies. Hear us Lord, Lord be merciful to us: Hear us, and do these things that we ask, for your own sake: because your name is called upon over the people, and over your holy place. Neither does he by a crooked figure (as men sometimes speak) mingle himself with the multitude as one of the people, but rather severally confesses his own guiltiness and humbly flees to the sanctuary of forgiveness, as he expressly says: When I confessed my sins and the sins of my people. And this humbleness David also sets out with his own example, when he says: Enter not into judgment with your servant, because in your sight everyone that lives shall not be justified. In such manner Isaiah prays: Look, you are angry because we have sinned: the world is founded in your ways, therefore we shall be [reconstructed: saved]: And we have all been filled with uncleanness, and all our righteousness as a defiled cloth: and we have all withered away as a leaf, and our iniquities do scatter us abroad as the wind: and there is none that calls upon your name, that raises up himself to take hold of you: because you have hidden your face from us, and have made us to pine away in the hand of our wickedness. Now therefore O Lord, you are our father, we are clay, you are our fashioner, and we are the work of your hand. Be not angry O Lord, neither remember wickedness forever. Behold, look upon us, we are all your people. Look how they stand upon no confidence at all, but upon this only, that thinking upon the fact that they are God's, they do not despair that he will have care of them. Likewise Jeremiah: If our iniquities answer against us, do you act for your name's sake. For it is both most truly and most holily written, of whoever it may be, which being written by an unknown author is attributed to the Prophet Baruch: A soul heavy and desolate for the greatness of evil, crooked, and weak, a hungry soul, and fainting eyes give glory to you O Lord. Not according to the righteousness of our fathers do we pour out prayers in your sight, and ask mercy before your face O Lord our God: but because you are merciful, have mercy upon us, because we have sinned before you.

Finally the beginning and also the preparing of praying rightly, is the craving of pardon, with a humble and plain confession of fault. For neither is it to be hoped, that even the holiest man may obtain anything of God, until he be freely reconciled to him: neither is it possible that God may be favorable to any but those whom he pardons. Therefore it is no marvel if the faithful do with this key open to themselves the door to pray. Which we learn out of many places of the Psalms. For David when he asks another thing, says: Remember not the sins of my youth, remember me according to your mercy for your goodness' sake O Lord. Again, Look upon my affliction, and my labor, and forgive all my sins. Where we also see that it is not enough, if we every several day call ourselves to account for our new sins, if we do not also remember those sins which might seem to have been long ago forgotten. For the same Prophet in another place, having confessed one heinous offense, by this occasion returns even to his mother's womb wherein he had gathered the infection: not to make the fault seem less by the corruption of nature, but the heaping together the sins of his whole life, however much more rigorous he is in condemning himself, so much more easily he may find God to entreat. But although the holy ones do not always in express words ask forgiveness of sins, yet if we diligently weigh their prayers which the Scripture rehearses, we shall easily find that which I say, that they gathered a mind to pray of the only mercy of God, and so always took their beginning at appeasing him: because if every man examine his own conscience, so far is he from being bold to open his cares familiarly with God, that he trembles at every coming toward him, except that he stands upon trust of mercy and pardon. There is also another special confession, where they ask release of pains, that they also pray to have their sins forgiven: because it were an absurdity to want the effect to be taken away while the cause remains. For we must take care that God be favorable to us, before that he testify his favor with outward signs: because both he himself will keep this order, and that it should little profit us to have him beneficial, unless our conscience feeling him appeased should thoroughly make him lovely to us. Which we are also taught by the answer of Christ. For when he had decreed to heal the man sick of the Palsy, he said, Your sins are forgiven you: lifting up our minds thereby to that which is chiefly to be wished, that God first receive us into favor, and then show forth the fruit of reconciliation in helping us. But beside that special confession of present guiltiness, whereby the faithful make supplication to obtain pardon of every special fault and pain, that general preface, which procures favor to prayers, is never to be omitted, because unless they be grounded upon the free mercy of God, they shall never obtain anything of God. To this may be referred that saying of John: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us, and cleanse us from all iniquity. For which cause it behooved prayers in the time of the law to be hallowed with expiation of blood, that they might be acceptable, and that so the people should be put in mind that they are unworthy of so great a prerogative of honor, until being cleansed from their defilings they should of the only mercy of God conceive confidence to pray.

But whereas the holy ones seem sometimes, for the entreating of God, to allege the help of their own righteousness (as when David says: Keep my soul, because I am good. Again Hezekiah: Remember, Lord, I beseech you, that I have walked before you in truth, and have done good in your eyes) by such forms of speaking they mean nothing else than by their very regeneration to testify themselves to be the servants and children of God, to whom he himself pronounces that he will be merciful. He teaches by that prophet (as we have already seen) that his eyes are upon the righteous, and his ears to their prayers. Again by the apostle, that we shall obtain whatever we ask, if we keep his commandments. In which sayings he does not value prayer by the worthiness of works: but his will is so to establish their confidence, whose own conscience well assures them of an unfeigned uprightness and innocency, such as all the faithful ought to be. For the same is taken out of the very truth of God, which the blind man that had his sight restored says in John, that God hears not sinners: if we understand sinners after the common use of the scripture, for such as without all desire of righteousness do altogether sleep and rest upon their sins: forasmuch as no heart can ever break forth into unfeigned calling upon God which does not also aspire to godliness. Therefore with such promises accord the prayers of the holy ones, wherein they make mention of their own pureness or innocency that they may feel that to be given them which is to be looked for of all the servants of God. Again it is then commonly found that they use this kind of prayer, when they do in the presence of the Lord compare themselves with their enemies, from whose unjust dealing they wished themselves to be delivered by his hand. In this comparison it is no marvel if they brought forth their righteousness and simplicity of heart to move him the rather by the rightfulness of their cause to help them. This therefore we take not away from the godly heart of a good man, but that he may use the pureness of his conscience before the Lord, to strengthen himself in the promises with which the Lord comforts and upholds his true worshippers: but our meaning is, that the trust of obtaining stand upon the only mercy of God, laying away all thinking of their own deserving.

The fourth rule is, that being so thrown down and subdued with true humility, we should nevertheless with certain hope of obtaining be encouraged to pray. These be things indeed contrary in show, to join with the feeling of the just vengeance of God sure confidence of favor: which things do yet very well agree together, if the only goodness of God raises us up being oppressed with our own evils. For, as we have before taught that repentance and faith are knit as companions together with an inseparable bond: of which yet the one frightens us, the other cheers us: so in prayers they must mutually meet together. And this agreement David expresses in few words: I (says he) will in the multitude of your goodness enter into your house: I will worship in the temple of your holiness with fear. Under the goodness of God he comprehends faith, in the mean time not excluding fear: because not only his majesty drives us to reverence, but also our own unworthiness holds us in fear, forgetting all pride and assuredness. But I mean not such a confidence which should stroke the mind loosed from all feeling of carefulness with a sweet and full quietness. For, to rest so peaceably is the doing of those who having all things flowing as they would wish it, are touched with no care, are kindled with no desire, do swell with no fear. And it is a very good spur to the holy ones to call upon God, when being distressed with their own necessity, they are vexed with most great unquietness, and are almost dismayed in themselves, till faith come in fit time to their succors, because in such distresses the goodness of God so shines to them, that they do indeed groan being wearied with weight of present evils, they are also in pain and grieved with fear of greater, yet being so upheld by it, they both relieve and comfort the hardness of bearing them, and do hope for escape and deliverance. Therefore the prayer of a godly man must arise out of both affections, and must also contain and show both: namely to groan for present evils, and to be carefully afraid of new, and yet withal to flee to God, not doubting that he is ready to reach his helping hand. For God is marvelously provoked to wrath by our distrustfulness, if we ask of him the benefits which we hope not to obtain. Therefore there is nothing more agreeable with the nature of prayers, than that this law be prescribed and appointed to them, that they break not forth rashly, but follow faith going before them. To this principle Christ calls us all with this saying: I say to you, whatever things you require, believe that you shall receive them, and they shall happen to you. The same also he confirms in another place. Whatever you ask in prayer believing, you shall receive. Wherewith agrees James saying, If any need wisdom, let him ask that of him which gives to all men freely, and upbraids not: but let him ask in faith not doubting. Wherein setting doubting as contrary to faith, he does most fitly express the nature of it. And no less is that to be noted which he adds, that they obtain nothing who call upon God in wavering and doubt, and do not determine in their hearts whether they shall be heard or no. Whom he also compares to waves which are diversely tossed and driven about by the wind. Whereupon in another place he calls a right prayer, the prayer of faith. Again when God so often affirms that he will give to every one according to his faith, he signifies that we obtain nothing without faith. Finally it is faith that obtains whatever is granted by prayer. This is meant by that notable saying of Paul, which the foolish men do take no heed to. How shall any man call upon him, in whom he has not believed? But who shall believe, unless he have heard? But faith comes of hearing, and hearing of the word of God. For, conveying by degrees the beginning of prayer from faith, he plainly affirms that God cannot be sincerely called upon by any other, than those to whom by the preaching of the Gospel his mercifulness and gentleness has been made known, and familiarly declared.

This necessity our adversaries do not think upon. Therefore when we bid the faithful to hold with assured confidence of mind that God is favorable and bears good will to them, they think that we speak a most great absurdity. But if they had any practice of true prayer, they would truly understand that God cannot be rightly called upon without the steadfast feeling of God's good will. Since no man can well perceive the force of faith, but he who by experience feels it in his heart: what may a man profit by disputing with such men who openly show that they never had anything but a vain imagination? For of what force, and how necessary is that assuredness which we require, is chiefly learned by invocation. Whoever does not see this betrays that he has a very dull conscience. Let us therefore, leaving this kind of blind men, stick fast in the saying of Paul, that God cannot be called upon by any other, but those that know his mercy by the Gospel, and are surely persuaded that it is ready for them. For what manner of saying should this be? O Lord, I am truly in doubt whether you will hear me: but because I am distressed with carefulness, I flee to you, that you may help me if I be worthy. This was not the customary manner of all the holy ones, whose prayers we read in the Scriptures. Neither has the Holy Spirit thus taught us by the Apostle who bids us to go to the heavenly throne with confidence, that we may obtain grace (Hebrews 4:16): and when in another place he teaches that we have boldness and access in confidence by the faith of Christ (Ephesians 3:12). We must therefore hold fast with both hands this assuredness to obtain what we ask (since both the Lord with his own voice so commands us, and all the holy ones teach it by their example) if we will pray with fruit. For, the only prayer is pleasing to God, which springs out of such a presumption of faith (as I may so call it) and is grounded upon a fearless certainty of faith. He might have been content with the bare name of faith, but he not only added confidence, but also furnished the same with liberty or boldness, by this mark to put difference between us and unbelievers, who do indeed also pray to God as we do, but at random. For which reason the whole Church prays in the psalm: Let your mercy be upon us, as we put our trust in you (Psalm 33). The same condition is also spoken of in another place by the prophet: In what day I shall cry, this I know that God is with me. Again, In the morning I will direct myself to you, and I will watch. For from these words we gather, that prayers are in vain cast into the air, unless hope be added, from which as out of a watchtower we may quietly wait for the Lord. With which agrees the order of Paul's exhortation. For before he moves the faithful to pray in spirit at all times with wakefulness and diligence, he first of all bids them to take the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Ephesians 6:16). Now let the readers here call to remembrance what I have before said, that faith is not overthrown where it is joined with acknowledging of our misery, neediness, and filthiness. For with how heavy a weight of evil doings the faithful feel themselves to be overladen or grieved, and though they be not only void of all things which may procure favor with God, but also that they be burdened with many offenses which may worthily make him dreadful to them: yet they cease not to present themselves, neither does this feeling make them so afraid but that they still resort to him, forasmuch as there is no other way to come to him. For, prayer was not ordained, whereby we should arrogantly advance ourselves before God, or esteem at great value anything of our own, but whereby confessing our guiltiness, we should bewail our miseries to him, as children do familiarly open their complaints to their parents. But rather the unmeasurable heap of our evils ought to be full of spurs or pricks to prick us forward to pray. As also the prophet teaches us by his example, saying: Heal my soul, because I have sinned against you (Psalm 64:5). I grant indeed that in such sayings there should be deadly prickings unless God did help: but the most good Father of his incomparable tender kindness has brought remedy in fit season, whereby appeasing all trouble, assuaging all cares, wiping away fears, he might gently allure us to him, yes and taking away all doubts (much more all obstacles) he might make us an easy way.

And first when he commands us to pray, he does by the very same commandment accuse us of wicked obstinacy, unless we obey him. Nothing could be more precisely commanded, than that which is in the psalm: Call upon me in the day of trouble. But forasmuch as among all the duties of godliness, the scripture commends none more often, I need not to tarry longer upon this point. Ask (says our master) and you shall receive: knock, it shall be opened to you. Howbeit here is also with the commandment joined a promise as it is necessary. For though all men confess that the commandment ought to be obeyed, yet the most part would flee from God when he calls, unless he promised that he would be easy to be entreated, yes and would offer himself. These two things being established, it is certain that whoever makes delays that they come not straight to God, are not only rebellious and disobedient, but also are proved guilty of infidelity, because they distrust the promises. Which is so much more to be noted, because hypocrites under the color of humility and modesty do as well proudly despise the commandment of God, as discredit his gentle calling, yes and defraud him of the chief part of his worship. For after he has refused sacrifices, in which at the time all holiness seemed to stand, he declares that this is the chief thing and most precious to him, above all other, to be called upon in the day of need. Therefore where he requires his own, and encourages us to cheerfulness of obeying, there are none so fine colors of doubting that may excuse us. Therefore how many testimonies are commonly found in the scriptures whereby we are commanded to call upon God, so many standards are set up before our eyes to put confidence into us. It were rashness to rush into the sight of God, unless he did precede us by calling us. Therefore he opens us the way with his own voice saying: I will say to them, You are my people: and they shall say to me, you are our God. We see how he goes before them that worship him, and wills them to follow him, and therefore it is not to be feared that this should not be a very sweet melody which he tunes. Specially let this notable title of God come in our mind, whereupon if we stay, we shall easily pass over all obstacles. You God who hear prayer, even to you shall all flesh come. For what is more lovely or more alluring, than that God be garnished with this title which may assure us that nothing is more proper to his nature, than to grant the desire of humble suitors? Hereby the prophet gathers that the gate stands open not only to a few, but to all men: because he speaks even to all in this saying: Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. According to this rule David lays for himself that a promise was given him, that he may obtain what he asks: You Lord have revealed into the ear of your servant: therefore your servant has found his heart to pray. Whereupon we gather that he was fearful, save in so much as the promise had encouraged him. So in another place he arms himself with this general doctrine: He will do the will of them that fear him. Indeed this we may note in the psalms, that as it were breaking his course of praying he passes over sometimes to the power of God, sometimes to his goodness, sometimes to the truth of his promises. It might seem that David by unseasonable thrusting in of these sentences, made mangled prayers: but the faithful know by use and experience, that fervency faints unless they put new nourishments to it, and therefore in praying the meditation both of the nature of God, and of his word is not superfluous. And so by the example of David, let it not grieve us to thrust in such things as may refresh fainting hearts with new lively strength.

And it is wonderful that with so great sweetness of promises we are either but coldly or almost not at all moved, that a great part of men wandering about by compasses had rather, leaving these fountains of living waters, to dig for themselves dry pits, than to embrace the liberality of God freely offered them. An invincible tower is the name of the Lord, (says Solomon) to it the righteous man shall flee, and he shall be saved. And Joel, after that he had prophesied of that horrible destruction which was at hand, added this notable sentence. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be safe: which sentence we know to pertain properly to the course of the Gospel. Scarcely every hundredth man is moved to go forward to meet God. He himself cries by Isaiah: You shall call upon me, and I will hear you, indeed before you cry I will answer you. And this same honor also in another place he vouchsafes to give in common to the whole Church, as it belongs to all the members of Christ. He has cried to me, I will hear him, I am in trouble with him, that I may deliver him. Neither yet (as I have already said) is it my purpose to reckon up all the places, but to choose out the chief, by which we may take a taste how kindly God allures us to him, and with how strict bonds our unthankfulness is bound, when among so sharp prickings our sluggishness still makes delay. Therefore let these sayings always sound in our ears: The Lord is near to all them that call upon him, that call upon him in truth: also these sayings which we have cited out of Isaiah and Joel, by which God affirms that he is heedful to hear prayers, indeed and is delighted as with a sacrifice of sweet savor, when we cast our cares upon him. This singular fruit we receive of the promises of God, when we make our prayers not doubtingly and fearfully: but trusting upon his word, whose majesty would otherwise make us afraid, we dare call upon him by the name of Father, forasmuch as he vouchsafes to put this most sweet name into our mouths. It remains that we, having such allurements, should know that we have thereby matter enough to obtain our prayers: forasmuch as our prayers stand upon no merit of our own, but all their worthiness and hope of obtaining are grounded upon the promises of God, and hang upon them: so that it needs no other underpinning, nor looks upward here or there. Therefore we must determine in our minds, that although we excel not in like holiness as is praised in the holy fathers, prophets and Apostles, yet because the commandment of prayer is common to us, and faith is also common, if we rest upon the word of God, in this right we are fellows with them. For, God (as we have before shown) promising that he will be gentle and merciful to all, gives cause of hope to all, even the most miserable, that they shall obtain what they ask. And therefore the general forms are to be noted, from which no man (as they say) from the first to the last is excluded: only let there be present a purity of heart, disliking of ourselves, humility, and faith: let not our hypocrisy unholy abuse the name of God with deceitful calling upon it: the most good Father will not put back those whom he not only exhorts to come to him, but also moves them by all the means that he can. Hereupon comes that manner of praying of David which I have even now rehearsed. Look, you have promised, Lord, to your servant: for this cause your servant at this day gathers courage, and has found what prayer he might make before you. Now therefore O Lord God, you are God, and your words shall be true. You have spoken to your servant of these benefits: begin therefore, and do them. As also in another place, Perform to your servant according to your word. And all the Israelites together, so often as they arm themselves with remembrance of the covenant, do sufficiently declare that we should not pray fearfully, whereas the Lord so appoints. And herein they followed the examples of the fathers, specially of Jacob, which after that he had confessed that he was unworthy of so many mercies which he had received at the hand of God, yet he says that he is encouraged to require greater things because God had promised that he would do them. But whatever pretexts that unbelievers pretend, when they flee not to God so often as necessity presses them, when they seek not him nor crave his help, they do as much defraud him of his due honor as if they made to themselves new gods and idols: for by this means they deny that he is to them the author of all good things. On the other side there is nothing stronger to deliver the godly from all doubt, than to be armed with this thought, that no obstacle ought to stay them while they obey the commandment of God, which pronounces that nothing is more pleasing to him than obedience. Here again that which I said before more clearly appears, that a fearless spirit to pray agrees well with fear, reverence, and carefulness: and that it is no absurdity to say that God raises up the overthrown. After this manner those forms of speech agree well together which in seeming are contrary. Jeremiah and Daniel say that they throw down prayers before God. In another place Jeremiah says. Let our prayer fall down in the sight of God, that he may have mercy on the remnant of his people. On the other side, the faithful are oftentimes said to lift up prayer. So speaks Hezekiah, requiring the prophet to make intercession for him. And David desires that his prayer may ascend as incense. For although they, being persuaded of the fatherly love of God, cheerfully commit themselves into his faithful keeping, and doubt not to crave the help which he freely promises: yet does not an idle carelessness lift them up, as though they had cast away shame, but they ascend so upward by degrees of promises, that they still remain humble suppliants in the abasement of themselves.

Here are questions objected more than one. For the scripture reports that the Lord granted certain desires which yet broke forth of a mind not quiet nor well framed. Verily for a just cause: Jotham had devoted the inhabitants of Shechem to the destruction which afterward came upon them: but yet God kindled with ferventness of anger and vengeance following his execration, and seems to allow ill-tempered violent passions. Such heat also carried Samson when he said, Strengthen me, O God, that I may take vengeance of the uncircumcised. For though there were some piece of good zeal mingled with it: yet a hot, and therefore faulty greediness of vengeance did bear rule therein. God granted it. Whereupon it seems that it may be gathered, that although the prayers be not framed according to the prescribed rule of the word, yet they obtain their effect. I answer first that a general law is not taken away by singular examples: again, that sometimes special motions have been put into a few men, whereby it came to pass that there was another consideration of them than of the common people. For the answer of Christ is to be noted, when the disciples did indiscreetly desire to counterfeit the example of Elijah, that they knew not with what spirit they were endued. But we must go yet further, and say that the prayers do not always please God which he grants: but that, so much as serves for example — that is, by clear praise made plain — which the scripture teaches, namely that he succors the miserable, hears the groanings of those which being unjustly troubled do crave his help: that therefore he executes his judgments, when the complaints of the poor rise up to him, although they be unworthy to obtain anything, be it never so little. For how often has he, taking vengeance of the cruelties, robberies, violence, filthy lusts and other wicked doings of the ungodly, subduing their boldness and rage, and also overthrowing their tyrannous power, testified that he helps the unworthily oppressed, which yet did beat the air with praying to an uncertain Godhead? And one psalm plainly teaches that the prayers want not effect, which yet do not pierce into heaven by faith. For he gathers together those prayers which necessity wrings no less out of the unbelievers than out of the godly by the very feeling of nature: to which yet he proves by the effect that God is favorable. Is it because he does with such gentleness testify that they be pleasing to him? No, but to enlarge or to set out his mercy by this circumstance, for that even to unbelievers their prayers are not denied: and then the more to prick forward his true worshipers to pray, when they see that profane wailings sometimes want not their effect. Yet there is no cause why the faithful should swerve from the law laid upon them by God, or should envy the unbelievers, as though they had gotten some great gain, when they have obtained their desire. After this manner we have said, that the Lord was moved with the repentance of Ahab, that he might show by this example how easy he is to entreat toward his elect, when true turning is brought to appease him. Therefore in the psalm he blames the Jews, that they having by experience proved him so easy to grant their prayers, yet within a little after returned to the stubbornness of their nature. Which also plainly appears by the history of the Judges: namely that so often as they wept, although their tears were deceitful, yet they were delivered out of the hands of their enemies. As therefore the Lord indifferently brings forth his sun upon the good and the evil: so does he also not despise their weepings, whose cause is righteous and their miseries worthy of help. In the meantime he no more hears these to salvation, than herein ministers food to the despisers of his goodness. The question seems to be somewhat harder of Abraham and Samuel: of whom the one being warranted by no word of God, prayed for the Sodomites: the other against a manifest forbidding prayed for Saul. Likewise is it of Jeremiah, which prayed that the city might not be destroyed. For though their requests were denied, yet it seems hard to take faith from them. But this solution shall (as I trust) satisfy sober readers: that they being instructed with the general principles, whereby God commands them to be merciful even also to the unworthy, were not altogether without faith, although in a special case their opinion deceived them. Augustine writes wisely in a certain place. How (says he) do the holy ones pray by faith, to ask of God contrary to that which he has decreed? Even because they pray according to his will: not that hidden and unchangeable will, but the will which he inspires into them, that he may hear them after another manner: as he wisely makes difference. This is well said: because after his incomprehensible counsel he so tempers the outcomes of things, that the prayers of the holy ones be not void which are wrapped both with faith and error together. Neither yet ought this more to avail to be an example to follow, than it excuses the holy ones themselves, whom I deny not to have passed measure. Therefore where appears no certain promise, we must ask of God with a condition adjoined. To which purpose serves the saying of David: Watch to the judgment which you have commanded — because he tells that he was warranted by a special oracle to ask a temporal benefit.

It is also profitable to note that those things which I have spoken of the four rules of right prayer are not so exactly required with extreme rigor, that God refuses the prayers in which he shall not find either perfect faith or perfect repentance together with a ferventness of zeal and well-ordered requests. We have said that although prayer is a familiar talk of the godly with God, yet we must keep a reverence and modesty, that we give not loose reins to all requests whatever they be, and that we desire no more than God gives leave; and then, lest the majesty of God should grow in contempt with us, that we must lift our minds upward to a pure and undefiled worshiping of him. This no man has ever performed with such purity as it ought to be. For (to speak nothing of the common sort) how many complaints of David do savor of intemperance: not that he meant on purpose to quarrel with God, or to find fault against his judgments; but because he, fainting for weakness, found no other better comfort than to cast his sorrows into his bosom. Indeed God bears with our childish speech and pardons our ignorance, so often as anything unadvisedly escapes us: as truly without this tender bearing, there should be no liberty of praying. But although David's mind was to submit himself wholly to the will of God, and he prayed with no less patience than desire to obtain, yet there arise — indeed, boil out sometimes — troublous affections, which are much disagreeing from the first rule that we have set. Especially we may perceive by the conclusion of the 39th Psalm, with how great vehemence of sorrow that holy man was carried away, that he could not keep measure. "Cease" (says he) "from me, till I go away and be not." A man would say that he, like a desperate man, desires nothing else but that the hand of God ceasing, he might rot in his evils. He says it not because he with an avowed mind runs into such outrage, or (as the reprobate are wont) would have God to depart from him; but only he complains that the wrath of God is too heavy for him to bear. In these temptations also there fall out oftentimes requests not well framed according to the rule of the word of God, and in which the holy ones do not sufficiently weigh what is lawful and expedient. Whatever prayers are spotted with these faults, they deserve to be refused; yet if the holy ones do bewail, correct themselves, and by and by come to themselves again, God pardons them. So they offend also in the second rule, because they are oftentimes driven to wrestle with their own coldness, and their need and misery does not sharply enough prick them to pray earnestly. And oftentimes it happens that their minds do slip aside, and in a manner wander away into vanity. Therefore in this behalf also there is need of pardon, lest our faint, or imperfect, or broken and wandering prayers have a denial. This God has naturally planted in the minds of men, that prayers are not perfect but with minds lifted upward. From here came the ceremony of lifting up of hands, as we have before said, which has been used in all ages and nations, as yet it is in use. But how many a one is there, which when he lifts up his hands, does not in his own conscience find himself dull, because his heart rests upon the ground? As touching the asking of forgiveness of sins, although none of the faithful do overpass it, yet they which are truly exercised in prayers do feel that they bring scarcely the tenth part of that sacrifice, of which David speaks. "An acceptable sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit: a broken and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise." So there is always double pardon to be asked, both because they know themselves guilty in conscience of many faults, with the feeling of which they are not yet so touched that they dislike themselves so much as they ought; and also that, so much as it is given them to profit in repentance and in the fear of God, they being thrown down with just sorrow for their offenses, should pray to escape the punishment of the judge. Chiefly the feebleness or imperfection of faith corrupts the prayers of the faithful, unless the tender mercy of God did help them. But it is no marvel that God pardons this fault, who does oftentimes exercise those that are his with sharp instructions, as if he would on purpose quench their faith. This is a most hard temptation, when the faithful are compelled to cry: "How long will you be angry upon the prayer of your servant?" — as though the very prayers made God more angry. So when Jeremiah says, "The Lord has shut out my prayer," it is no doubt that he was shaken with a violent pang of trouble. Innumerable such examples are commonly found in the Scriptures, by which it appears that the faith of the holy ones was oftentimes mingled and tossed with doubtings, that in believing and hoping they betrayed yet some unfaithfulness; but because they do not come so far as it is to be wished, they ought to endeavor so much the more that their faults being amended, they may daily come nearer to the perfect rule of praying, and in the meantime to feel in how great a depth of evils they are drowned, who even in the very remedies do get to themselves new diseases — since there is no prayer which the Lord does not worthily loathe, unless he winks at the spots with which they are all besprinkled. I recount not these things to this end that the faithful should carelessly pardon themselves anything, but that in sharply chastising themselves they should labor to overcome these obstacles, and although Satan labors to stop up all the ways, that he may keep them from praying, yet nevertheless they should break through, being certainly persuaded that although they are not unencumbered of all hindrances, yet their endeavors do please God, and their prayers are allowed of him, so that they labor and bend themselves toward that which they do not by and by attain.

But inasmuch as there is no man worthy to present himself to God, and to come into his sight: the heavenly Father himself, to deliver us both from shame and fear which should have thrown down all our courage, has given to us his son Jesus Christ our Lord, to be an advocate and Mediator with him for us, by whose leading we may boldly come to him, trusting that we have such an intercessor, nothing shall be denied us which we ask in his name, as nothing can be denied him of the Father. And to this must all be referred whatever we have heretofore taught concerning faith: because as the promise sets out to us Christ for our Mediator, so unless our hope of obtaining stays upon him, it takes from itself the benefit of praying. For as soon as the terrible majesty of God comes into our mind, it is impossible but that we should tremble for fear, and the acknowledging of our own unworthiness should drive us far away, until Christ comes between us and him, who may change the throne of dreadful glory into the throne of grace: as also the Apostle teaches that we may be bold to appear with all confidence which shall obtain mercy and find grace in help coming in fit season. And as there is a law set that we should call upon God, even as there is a promise given, that they shall be heard which call upon him: so are we particularly commanded to call upon him in the name of Christ, and we have a promise set forth, that we shall obtain that which we shall ask in his name. "Hitherto," (says he) "you have not asked anything in my name: ask and you shall receive." "In that day you shall ask in my name, and whatever you ask, I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." Hereby it is plain without controversy, that they which call upon God in any other name than that of Christ, do stubbornly break his commandments, and regard his will as nothing, and that they have no promise to obtain anything. For (as Paul says) all the promises of God are in Christ, yes and Amen, that is to say, they are confirmed and fulfilled.

And the circumstance of the time is diligently to be marked, where Christ commands his disciples to flee to intercession to him after he is gone up into heaven. "In that hour," (says he) "you shall ask in my name." It is certain that even from the beginning none were heard that prayed, but by means of the Mediator. For this reason the Lord had ordained in the law, that the priest alone entering into the sanctuary, should bear upon his shoulders the names of the tribes of Israel, and as many precious stones before his breast: but the people should stand far off in the porch, and from there should join their prayers with the priest. Indeed the sacrifice availed for this, that the prayers should be made sure and of force. Therefore that shadowy ceremony of the law taught that we are all shut out from the face of God, and that therefore we need a Mediator, who may appear in our name, and may bear us upon his shoulders, and hold us fast bound to his breast, that we may be heard in his person: then that by sprinkling of blood our prayers are cleansed, which (as we have already said) are never void of filthiness. And we see that the holy ones, when they desired to obtain anything, grounded their hope upon sacrifices, because they knew them to be the confirmations of all requests. "Let him remember your offering," (says David) "and make your burnt offering fat." From this it is gathered that God has from the beginning been appeased by the intercession of Christ, to receive the prayers of the godly. Why then does Christ appoint a new order, when his disciples shall begin to pray in his name, but because this grace, as it is at this day more glorious, so deserves more commendation with us? And in this same sense he had said a little before: "Hitherto you have not asked anything in my name: now ask." Not that they understood nothing at all of the office of the Mediator (whereas all the Jews were instructed in the principles) but because they had not yet clearly known that Christ by his ascending into heaven should be a surer patron of the Church than he was before. Therefore comforting their grief at the absence with some special fruit, he claims to himself the office of an advocate, and teaches that they have hitherto wanted the chief benefit, which it shall be granted them to enjoy, when being aided by his mediation, they shall more freely call upon God: as the Apostle says that his new way is dedicated in his blood. And so much less excusable is our perverseness, unless we do with both arms (as the saying is) embrace so inestimable a benefit, which is properly appointed for us.

Now whereas he is the only way, and the only entry by which it is granted us to come in to God: whoever does swerve from this way and forsake this entry, for them there remains no way nor entry to God: there is nothing left in his throne but wrath, judgment, and terror. Finally, since the Father has marked him for our head and guide, they which do in any wise swerve or go away from him, do labor as much as in them lies to erase and disfigure the mark which God has imprinted. So Christ is set to be the only Mediator, by whose intercession the Father may be made favorable to us and easy to be entreated. However, in the meantime the holy ones have their intercessions left to them, whereby they do mutually commend the safety one of another to God, of which the Apostle makes mention: but those be such as hang upon that one only intercession: so far is it from them that they diminish anything of it. For as they spring out of the affection of love, with which we embrace one another, as the members of one body: so they are also referred to the unity of the head. Since therefore they also are made in the name of Christ, what do they else but testify that no man can be helped by any prayers at all, but with the intercession of Christ? And as Christ with his intercession does not withstand, but that in the Church we may with prayers be advocates one for another: so let this remain certain, that all the intercessors of the whole Church ought to be directed to that only one. Indeed, and for this cause we ought especially to be wary of unthankfulness, because God pardoning our unworthiness, does not only give leave to everyone of us to pray for himself, but also admits us to be entreaters one for another. For, where God appoints advocates for his Church who deserve worthily to be rejected if they pray privately everyone for himself: what a pride were it to abuse this liberty to darken the honor of Christ?

Now it is a mere trifling, which the Sophists babble, that Christ is the Mediator of redemption, but the faithful are Mediators of intercession. As though Christ, having performed a mediation for a time, has given to his servants that eternal Mediatorship which shall never die. Very courteously indeed they handle him, that cut away so little a portion of honor from him. But the Scripture says far otherwise, with the simplicity of which a godly man ought to be contented, leaving these deceivers. For where John says, that if any do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Christ Jesus: does he mean that he was once in old time a patron for us, and not rather assigns to him an everlasting intercession? What do we say to this that Paul also affirms, that he sits at the right hand of God the Father and makes intercession for us? And when in another place he calls him the only Mediator of God and men: does he not mean of prayers, of which he had a little before made mention? For when he had before said that intercession must be made for all men: for proof of that saying, he immediately adds, that of all men there is one God and one Mediator. And none otherwise does Augustine expound it, when he says thus: Christian men do mutually commend themselves in their prayers. But he for whom none makes intercession, but he for all, he is the only and true Mediator. Paul the Apostle, though he were a principal member under the head (yet because he was a member of the body of Christ, and knew that the greatest and truest priest of the church entered, not by a figure, into the inward places of the veil, to the holy of holies, but by express and steadfast truth into the innermost places of heaven, to a holiness not shadowy but eternal) commends himself also to the prayers of the faithful. Neither does he make himself a Mediator between the people and God, but prays that all the members of the body of Christ should mutually pray for him: because the members are careful one for another: and if one member suffers, the other suffers with it. And that so the mutual prayers one for another of all the members yet traveling on earth, may ascend to the head which is gone before into heaven, in whom is appeasement for our sins. For if Paul were a Mediator, the other Apostles should also be Mediators: and if there were many Mediators, then neither should Paul's own reason stand fast, in which he had said, For there is one God, one Mediator of one God and men, the man Christ, in whom we also are one if we keep the unity of faith in the bond of peace. Again in another place: But if you seek for a Priest he is above the heavens, where he makes intercession for you, who on earth died for you. Yet we do not dream that he falls down at the Father's knees and humbly entreats for us: but we understand with the Apostle, that he so appears before the face of God, that the virtue of his death avails to be a perpetual intercession for us: yet so that having entered into the sanctuary of heaven, to the end of the ages of the world he alone carries to God the prayers of the people abiding far off in the porch.

As touching the saints, which being dead in the flesh do live in Christ, if we give any prayer at all to them, let us not dream that they themselves have any other way of asking, than Christ which only is the way, or that their prayers be acceptable to God in any other name. Therefore since the Scripture calls us back from all to Christ only — since the heavenly Father's will is to gather together all in him — it was a point of too much dulness, I will not say madness, so to desire to make for ourselves an entry by them, that we should be led away from him without whom even they themselves have no entry open. But, that this has been usually done in certain ages past, and that it is at this day done wherever Papistry reigns, who can deny? Their merits are from time to time thrust in, to obtain the good will of God; and for the most part, Christ being passed over, God is prayed to by their names. Is not this, I beseech you, to convey away to them the office of that only intercession, which we have affirmed to belong to Christ alone? Again, what angel or devil ever revealed to any man any one syllable of this their intercession which these men feign? For in the Scripture is nothing of it. What is the reason therefore of inventing it? Truly, when the wit of man so seeks for itself succors, wherewith we are not certified by the word of God, it plainly betrays his own distrustfulness. If we appeal to all their consciences that are delighted with the intercession of saints, we shall find that the same comes from no other ground, but because they are grieved with carefulness, as though Christ were in this behalf either too weak or too rigorous. By which doubtfulness first they dishonor Christ, and rob him of the title of only Mediator, which as it is given him of the Father for a singular prerogative, so ought not also to be conveyed away to any other. And in this very doing they darken the glory of his birth, they make void his cross, finally whatever he has done or suffered they despoil and defraud of the due praise thereof: for all tend to this end that he may be in deed and be accounted the only Mediator. And therewith they cast away the goodness of God, which gave himself to be their Father. For he is not their father, unless they acknowledge Christ to be their brother. Which they utterly deny, unless they think that he bears a brotherly affection toward them, than which there can nothing be more kind or tender. Therefore the Scripture offers only him to us, sends us to him, and stays us in him. He (says Ambrose) is our mouth, by which we speak to the Father: our eye, by which we see the Father: our right hand, by which we offer us to the Father, otherwise than by whose intercession neither we nor all the saints have anything with God. If they answer that the common prayers which they make in churches, are ended with this conclusion adjoined, Through Christ our Lord: this is a trifling shift: because the intercession of Christ is no less profaned when it is mingled with the prayers and merits of dead men, than if it were utterly omitted and only dead men were in our mouth. Again, in all their Litanies, Hymns, and Proses where no honor is left ungiven to dead saints, there is no mention of Christ.

But their foolish dulness proceeded so far, that here we have the nature of superstition expressed, which when it has once shaken off the bridle, is wont to make no end of running astray. For after that men once began to look to the intercession of saints, by little and little there was given to every one his special doing, that according to the diversity of business, sometime one and sometime another should be called upon to be intercessor; then they to themselves every one his peculiar saint, into whose faith they committed themselves as it were to the keeping and safeguarding of God. And not only (wherewith the prophet in the old time reproached Israel) gods were set up according to the number of cities, but even to the number of persons. But since the saints refer their desires to the only will of God, and behold it and rest upon it: he thinks foolishly, and fleshly, yes and slanderously of them, which assigns to them any other prayer, than whereby they pray for the coming of the kingdom of God: from which that is most far distant which they feign to them, that every one is with private affection more partially bent to his own worshipers. At length many abstained not from horrible sacrilege, in calling now upon them not as helpers but as principal rulers of their salvation. Lo, to where foolish men do fall when they wander out of their true standing, that is, the word of God. I speak not of the grosser monstrousnesses of ungodliness, wherein although they be abominable to God, angels, and men, they are not yet ashamed nor weary of them. They falling down before the image or picture of Barbara, Catherine, and such other, do mumble Pater noster, Our Father. This madness the pastors do so not care to heal or restrain, that being allured with the sweet savor of gain they allow it with rejoicing at it. But although they turn from themselves the blame of so heinous an offense, yet by what color will they defend this — that Loy or Medard are prayed to to look down upon and help their servants from heaven? That the holy Virgin is prayed to, to command her Son to do that which they ask? In the old time it was forbidden in the Council at Carthage, that at the altar no direct prayer should be made to saints. And it is likely that when the holy men could not altogether suppress the force of the naughty custom, yet they added at least this restraint that the public prayers should not be corrupted with this form: Saint Peter pray for us. But how much further has their devilish importunity ranged, which stick not to give away to dead men that which properly belonged only to God and Christ?

But whereas they labor to bring to pass that such intercession may seem to be grounded upon the authority of Scripture, in that they labor in vain. We read oftentimes (say they) of the prayers of Angels: and not that only: but it is said that the prayers of the faithful are by their hands carried into the sight of God. But if they wish to compare holy men departed out of this present life to Angels, they should prove that they are ministering spirits, to whom is committed the ministry to look to our safety, to whom the charge is given to keep us in all our ways, to go about us, to admonish and counsel us, to watch for us: all which things are given to Angels, but not to them. How wrongfully they wrap up dead holy men with Angels appears largely by so many diverse offices, whereby the Scripture puts difference between some and others. No man dare execute the office of an advocate before an earthly judge, unless he be admitted — from where then have worms so great liberty, to thrust upon God those for patrons to whom it is not read that the office is enjoined? God's will was to appoint the Angels to look to our safety, therefore they both frequent holy assemblies, and the Church is a stage to them, wherein they [reconstructed: wonder] at the diverse and manifold wisdom of God. Whoever conveys away to others that which is peculiar to them, verily they confound and pervert the order set by God, which ought to have been inviolable. With like boldness they proceed in alleging other testimonies. God said to Jeremiah: If Moses and Samuel should stand before me, my soul is not toward this people. Now (says he) could he have spoken thus of dead men, unless he knew that they made intercession for the living? But I on the contrary side gather thus, that since it thereby appears that neither Moses nor Samuel made intercession for the people of Israel, there was then no intercession at all of dead men. For which of the Saints is to be thought to be careful for the safety of the people, when Moses ceases, who in this behalf far surpassed all others when he lived? But if they follow such flight subtleties, to say that the dead make intercession for the living, because the Lord said if they should make intercession: I will much more plausibly reason in this manner: In the extreme necessity of the people Moses made not intercession, of whom it is said, if he shall make intercession. Therefore it is likely that none other makes intercession, since they are all so far from the gentleness, goodness, and fatherly carefulness of Moses. This forsooth they get with quibbling, that they be wounded with the same weapons, wherewith they thought themselves gaily fenced. But it is very foolish that a simple sentence should so be wrested, because the Lord pronounces only that he will not spare the offenses of the people, although they had seen Moses to be their patron, or Samuel, to whose prayers he had showed himself so tender. Which sense is most clearly gathered out of a like place of Ezekiel. If (says the Lord) these three men were in the city, Noah, Daniel, and Job, they shall not deliver their sons and daughters in their righteousness: but they shall deliver only their own souls. Where it is no doubt that he meant if two of them should happen to revive again, for the third was then alive, namely Daniel, who (as it is known) did in the first flowering of his youth show an incomparable example of godliness: let us then leave them whom the Scripture plainly shows to have ended their course. Therefore Paul, when he speaks of David, teaches not that he does with prayers help his posterity, but only that he served his own time.

They answer again: shall we then take from them all prayer of charity, which in the whole course of their life breathed nothing but charity and mercy? Truly as I will not curiously search what they do, or what they muse upon: so it is not likely, that they are carried about here and there with diverse and particular requests: but rather that they do with a settled and unmoved will, long for the kingdom of God, which stands no less in the destruction of the wicked than in the salvation of the godly. If this be true, it is no doubt that their charity is contained in the communion of the body of Christ, and extends no further, than the nature of that communion bears. But now though I grant that they pray in this manner for us, yet they do not therefore depart from their own quietness, to be diversely drawn into earthly cares: and much less must we therefore by and by call upon them. Neither does it thereby follow that they must so do, because men which live in earth may commend one another in their prayers. For this doing serves for nourishing of charity among them, when they do as it were part and mutually take upon them their necessities among themselves. And this they do by the commandment of the Lord, and are not without a promise, which two things have always the chief place in prayer. All such considerations are far from the dead, whom when the Lord has conveyed from our company, he has left to us no interchange of doings with them, nor to them with us, so far as we may gather by conjectures. But if any man allege that it is impossible but that they must keep the same charity toward us, as they be joined in one Faith with us: yet who has revealed that they have such long ears to reach to our voices and such piercing eyes to watch our necessities? They prattle in their shadows I know not what of the brightness of the countenance of God extending his beams upon them, in which as in a mirror they may from on high behold the matters of men beneath. But to affirm that, specially with such boldness as they dare, what is it else but to go about by the drunken dreams of our own brain, without his word to pierce and break into the hidden judgments of God, and to tread the Scripture under foot which so often pronounces that the wisdom of the flesh is enemy to the wisdom of God, which wholly condemns the vanity of our natural wit, which wills all our reason to be thrown down, and the only will of God to be looked to by us.

The other testimonies of Scripture which they bring to defend this their lie, they most wickedly wrest. But Jacob (say they) prays that his name and the name of his fathers Abraham and Isaac be called upon over his posterity. First let us see what form of calling upon this is among the Israelites. For they call not upon their Fathers, to help them: but they beseech God to remember his servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Therefore their example makes nothing for them that speak to the saints themselves. But because these blockheads (such is their dullness) neither understand what it is to call upon the name of Jacob, nor why it is to be called upon: it is no marvel if in the very form also they so childishly stumble. This manner of speech is not seldom found in the Scriptures. For Isaiah says that the name of the men is called upon over the women, when they have them as their husbands under whose charge and defense they live. Therefore the calling upon of the name of Abraham upon the Israelites, stands in this when they convey their pedigree from him, and do with solemn memory honor him for their author and parent. Neither does Jacob do this because he is careful for the enlarging of the renown of his name: but forasmuch as he knew that the whole blessedness of his posterity consisted in the inheritance of the covenant which God had made with him: he wishes that which he sees should be the chief of all good things to them, that they be accounted in his kindred: For, that is nothing else but to convey to them the succession of the covenant. They again when they bring such remembrance into their prayers, do not flee to the intercessions of dead men: but do put the Lord in mind of his covenant, whereby the most kind father has promised that he will be favorable and beneficial to them for Abraham's, Isaac's, and Jacob's sakes. How little the holy ones did otherwise lean upon the merits of their father, the common saying of the Church in the Prophet testifies, "You are our Father, and Abraham knew us not, and Israel was ignorant of us. You Lord are our Father and our redeemer." And when they thus speak, they add therewith, "Return O Lord for your servants' sakes": yet thinking upon no intercession, but bending their mind to the benefit of the covenant. But now since we have the Lord Jesus, in whose hand the eternal covenant of mercy is not only made but also confirmed to us: whose name should we rather use in our prayers? And because these good masters will have the Patriarchs so [reconstructed: shown to be] by these words made intercessors, I would fain know of them why in so great a company Abraham the Father of the Church has no place at all among them. Out of what sink they fetch their advocates, it is not unknown. Let them answer me, how fit it is that Abraham, whom God preferred above all other, and whom he advanced to the highest degree of honor, should be neglected and suppressed. Verily when it was evident that such use was unknown to the old Church, they thought good for hiding of the newness to speak nothing of the old Fathers: as though the diversity of names excused the new and forged manner. But whereas some object that God is prayed to, to have mercy on the people for David's sake, it does so nothing at all make for defense of their error, that it is a most strong proof for the confutation thereof. For if we consider what person David did bear: he is severed from all the assembly of the saints, that God should establish the covenant which he has made in his hand. So both the covenant is rather considered than the man, and under a figure the only intercession of Christ is affirmed. For it is certain that that which belonged only to David, in so much as he was the image of Christ, accords not with any other.

But this, to be sure, moves some, that it is often read that the prayers of saints have been heard. Why so? Even because they prayed. They trusted in you (says the Prophet) and they were saved: they cried, and they were not confounded. Therefore let us also pray as they did, that we may be heard as they were. But these men, otherwise than they ought, do wrongfully reason, that none shall be heard but they that have once been heard. How much better does James say? Elias (says he) was a man like to us: and he prayed with prayer that it should not rain, and it rained not upon the earth in three years and six months. Again he prayed, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth gave her fruit. What? Does he gather any singular prerogative of Elias, to which we ought to [reconstructed: flee]? No. But he teaches what is the continual strength of godly and pure prayer, to exhort us likewise to pray. For we do niggardly construe the readiness and gentleness of God in hearing them, unless we be by such experiences confirmed into a more sure trust in his promises, in which he promises that his ear shall be inclined not to one, or two, nor yet to a few, but to all that call upon his name. And so much less excusable is this foolishness, because they seem as it were of set purpose to despise so many admonitions of Scripture. David was often delivered by the power of God. Was it that he should draw that power to himself, that we should be delivered by his help? He himself affirms far otherwise: The righteous look for me, till you render to me. Again, The righteous shall see and they shall rejoice, and trust in the Lord. Behold, this poor man has cried to God, and he has answered him. There are in the Psalms many such prayers, in which to crave that which he requires, he moves God by this manner, that the righteous be not made ashamed, but may by his example be raised up to hope well. Let us now be contented with this one example. Therefore every holy one shall pray to you in fit time. Which place I have so much the more willingly rehearsed, because the lewd babblers which do let out to hire the service of their waged tongue have not been ashamed to allege it to prove the intercession of the dead. As though David meant anything else, than to show the fruit that shall come of the mercifulness and gentleness of God, when he shall be heard. And in this kind we must learn, that the experience of the grace of God, as well toward ourselves as others, is no slender help to confirm the credit of his promises. I leave unrehearsed many places, where David sets before himself the benefits of God for matter of confidence, because the readers of the Psalms shall commonly find them without seeking. This selfsame thing had Jacob before taught by his own example: I am unworthy of all your mercies, and of the truth which you have performed to your servant. I with my staff have passed over this Jordan, and now I come forth with two bands. He alleges indeed the promise, but not alone: but he also joins the effect, that he may the more courageously in time to come trust that God will be the same toward him. For he is not like to mortal men, which are weary of their liberality, or whose ability is wasted: but he is to be weighed by his own nature, as David wisely does where he says, You have redeemed me, O God that speaks truth. After he has given to God the praises of his salvation, he adds that he is a true speaker: because unless he were continually like himself, there could not be gathered of his benefits a sufficiently strong reason of trust and calling upon him. But when we know that so often as he helps us he shows an example and proof of his goodness, we need not to fear that our hope shall be put to shame or disappoint us.

Let this be the sum. Whereas the Scripture sets out this to us for the chief point in the worshipping of God, (as refusing all sacrifices, he requires of us this duty of godliness) prayer is not without manifest sacrilege directed to others. Therefore also it is said in the Psalm. If we stretch forth our hands to a strange God, shall not God require these things? Again, whereas God will not be called upon, but of faith, and expressly commands prayers to be framed according to the rule of his word: finally whereas faith founded upon the word, is the mother of right prayer: so soon as we swerve from the word, our prayer must necessarily be corrupted. But it is already shown, that if the whole Scripture be sought, this honor is therein challenged to God only. As touching the office of intercession, we have also shown that it is peculiar to Christ, and that there is no prayer acceptable to God, but which that mediator hallows. And though the faithful do one for another offer prayers to God for their brethren, we have shown that this abates nothing from the only intercession of Christ: because they altogether standing upon it do commend both themselves and others to God. Moreover we have taught that this is unfittingly drawn to dead men, to whom we never read that it has been commanded that they should pray for us. The Scripture does oftentimes exhort us to mutual doings of this duty one for another: but of dead men there is not so much as one syllable: indeed and James joining these two things together, that we should confess ourselves among ourselves, and mutually pray one for another, does secretly exclude dead men. Therefore to condemn this error, this one reason suffices, that the beginning of praying rightly, springs out of faith, and that faith comes of the hearing of the word of God, where is no mention of the feigned intercession, because superstition has rashly gotten to itself patrons which were not given them of God. For whereas the Scripture is full of many forms of prayer, there is no example found of this patronship, without which in the papacy they believe that there is no prayer. Moreover it is certain that this superstition has grown of distrustfulness: either because they were not content with Christ to be their intercessor, or have altogether robbed him of this praise. And this latter point is easily proved by their shamelessness: because they have no other stronger argument to prove that we have need of the intercession of saints, than when they object that we are unworthy of familiar access to God. Which we in deed grant to be most true: but thereupon we gather, that they leave nothing to Christ, who esteem his intercession nothing worth, unless there be adjoined George, Hyppolite, or such other visors

But although prayer properly signifies only wishes and petitions: yet there is so great affinity between petition and thanksgiving, that they may be fittly comprehended both under one name. For, the special sorts which Paul rehearses, fall under the first part of this division. With asking and craving we pour forth our desires before God, requiring as well those things that seem to spread abroad his glory and set forth his name, as the benefits that are profitable to our use. With giving of thanks, we do with due praise magnify his good doings toward us, acknowledging to be received of his liberality whatever good things do come to us. Therefore David comprehended these two parts together, saying: Call upon me in the day of necessity: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. The Scripture not in vain commands us to use both. For we have said in another place that our neediness is so great, and the experience itself cries out that we are on every side pinched and pressed with so many and so great distresses, that all have cause enough why they should both sigh to God, and in humble wise call upon him. For though they be free from adversities, yet the guiltiness of their wicked doings, and their innumerable assaults of temptations ought to prick forward the most holy to ask remedy. But in the sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving there can be no interruption without heinous sin, forasmuch as God ceases not to heap upon diverse men diverse benefits to drive us though we be slack and slow, to thankfulness. Finally so great and so plenteous largesse of his benefits does in a manner overwhelm us: there are so many and so great miracles of his seen on every side which way so ever you turn, that we never want ground and matter of praise and thanksgiving. And, that these things may be somewhat plainlier declared: since all our hopes and wealth stand in God (which we have before sufficiently proved) that neither we nor all our things can be in prosperity but by his blessing: we must continually commit ourselves and all our things to him. Then, whatever we purpose, speak, or do, let us purpose, speak, and do under his hand and will, finally under the hope of his help. For, all are pronounced accursed of God, which devise or determine any purposes upon trust of themselves or of any other, which without his will, and without calling upon him do enterprise or attempt to begin anything. And whereas we have diverse times already said, that he is duly honored when he is acknowledged the author of all good things: thereupon follows that all those things are so to be received at his hand, that we yield continual thanks for them: and that there is no other right way for us to use his benefits, which flow and proceed from his liberality to no other end, but that we should be continually busied in confessing his praise and giving of thanks. For Paul, when he testifies that they are sanctified by the word and prayer, does therewith signify that they are not holy and clean to us without the word and prayer, understanding by the word, faith by figure. Therefore David says very well, when having received the liberality of the Lord, he declares that there is given him into his mouth a new song: by which verily he signifies that it is a malicious silence, if we pass over any of his benefits without praise: since he so often gives us matter to say good of him, as he does good to us. As also Isaiah setting out the singular grace of God, exhorts the faithful to a new and unwonted song. In which sense David says in another place, Lord open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth your praise. Likewise Hezekiah and Jonah testify that this shall be to them the end of their deliverance, to celebrate the goodness of God with songs in the temple. This same law David prescribes to all the godly. What shall I repay to the Lord (says he) for all the things that he has bestowed upon me? I will take the cup of salvations, and will call upon the name of the Lord. And the same law the Church follows in another Psalm, Save us our God, that we may confess to your name and glory in your praise. Again, He has looked to the prayer of the solitary, and he has not despised their prayers. This shall be written to the generation that shall follow, and the people created shall praise the Lord, that they may declare his name in him and his praise in Jerusalem. Indeed so often as the faithful beseech God to do for his name's sake: as they profess themselves unworthy to obtain anything in their own name, so they bind themselves to give thanks, and they promise that this shall be to them the right use of the bountifulness of God that they shall be publishers of it. So Hosea speaking of the redemption to come of the Church, says: Take away iniquity O God, and lift up good: and we will pay the calves of lips. And the benefits of God do not only claim to themselves the praise of the tongue, but also do naturally procure love. I have loved (says David) because the Lord has heard the voice of my prayer. Again in another place, rehearsing the helps which he had felt, he says: I will love you O God my strength. Neither shall the praises ever please God, which shall not flow out of this sweetness of love. Indeed and also we must hold fast this saying of Paul, that all prayers are wrongful and faulty to which is not adjoined giving of thanks. For thus he says, in all prayer and beseeching with thanksgiving, let your petitions be known with God. For, since testiness, tediousness, impatience, bitterness of grief, and fear do move many in praying to murmur, he commands that our affections be so tempered, that the faithful — before they have obtained that which they desire — should nevertheless cheerfully bless God. If this bond ought to have place in things in a manner contrary, with so much more holy band does God bind us to sing his praises, so often as he makes us to enjoy our requests. But as we have taught that our prayers are hallowed by the intercession of Christ, which otherwise should be unclean: so the Apostle, where he commands us to offer a sacrifice of praise by Christ, puts in mind that we have not a mouth clean enough to praise the name of God, unless the priesthood of Christ become the means. Whereupon we gather that men have been monstrously bewitched in the papacy, where the greater part marvels that Christ is called an advocate. This is the cause why Paul commands both to pray and to give thanks without ceasing: namely for that he wills that with so great continuing as may be, at every time, in every place, in all matters and businesses, the prayers of all men should be lifted up to God, which may both look for all things at his hand, and yield to him the praise of all things, as he offers us continual matter to praise and pray.

But this continual diligence of praying, although it specially concerns the proper and private prayers of every man, yet somewhat also pertains to the public prayers of the Church. But those can neither be continual, nor ought otherwise to be done than according to the political order that shall by common consent be agreed upon among all. I grant the same indeed. For therefore certain hours are set and appointed, as indifferent with God, so necessary for the uses of men, that the convenience of all men may be provided for, and all things (according to the saying of Paul) may be properly and orderly done in the Church. But this makes nothing to the contrary but that every Church ought both from time to time to stir up itself to often use of prayers, and when it is admonished by any greater necessity, to be fervent with more earnest endeavor. As for perseverance which has a great affinity with continual diligence, there shall be a fit place to speak of it about the end. Now these make nothing for the much babbling which Christ willed that we should be forbidden. For he forbids not to continue long, nor often, nor with much affection in prayers, but that we should not trust that we may wring anything out of God, by dulling his ears with much babbling talk, as if he were to be persuaded after the manner of men. For we know that hypocrites, because they do not consider that they have to do with God, do no less make a pompous show in their prayers than in a triumph. For the Pharisee which thanked God that he was not like other men, without doubt rejoiced at himself in the eyes of men, as if he would by prayer seek to get a fame of holiness. From this came that much babbling which at this day upon a like cause is used in the papacy, while some do vainly spend the time in repeating the same prayers, and others set out themselves among the people with a long heap of words. Since this babbling childishly mocks God, it is no marvel that it is forbidden out of the Church, to the end that nothing should there be used but earnest and proceeding from the bottom of the heart. Of a near kind and like to this corruption is there another, which Christ condemns with this: namely that hypocrites for boasting's sake do seek to have many witnesses, and do rather occupy the market place to pray in, than that their prayers should lack the praise of the world. But whereas we have already shown that this is the mark that prayer shoots at, that our minds may be carried upward to God, both to confession of praise and to craving of help: thereby we may understand that the chief duties thereof do stand in the mind and the heart, or rather the prayer itself is properly an affection of the inward heart, which is poured forth and laid open before God the searcher of hearts. Therefore (as it is already said) the heavenly schoolmaster, when he meant to set out the best rule of praying, commanded us to go into our chamber, and there the door being shut to pray to our Father which is in secret, that our Father which is in secret may hear us. For when he had drawn them away from the example of hypocrites, which with ambitious boasting show of prayers sought the favor of men, he therewith added what is better, namely to enter into our chamber, and there to pray the door being shut. In which words (as I expound them) he willed us to seek solitary being, which may help us to descend and to enter thoroughly with our whole thought into our heart, promising to the affections of our heart that God shall be near us whose temples our bodies ought to be. For he meant not to deny but that it is expedient also to pray in other places: but he shows that prayer is a certain secret thing, which both is chiefly placed in the soul, and requires the quiet thereof far from all troubles of cares. Not without cause therefore the Lord himself also, when he was disposed to apply himself more earnestly to prayer, conveyed himself into some solitary place far from the troublesome company of men: but to teach us by his example that these helps are not to be despised, by which our mind being too slippery of itself is more bent to earnest applying of prayer. But in the meantime even as he in the midst of the multitude of men abstained not from praying, if occasion at any time so served: so should we in all places where need shall be, lift up pure hands. Finally thus it is to be held, that whoever refuses to pray in the holy assembly of the godly, he knows not what it is to pray apart, or in solitariness, or at home. Again, that he that neglects to pray alone or privately, however diligently he frequents public assemblies, does there make but vain prayers: because he gives more to the opinion of men than to the secret judgment of God. In the meantime, that the common prayers of the Church should not grow into contempt, God in old time adorned them with glorious titles, specially where he called the temple the house of prayer. For by this saying he both taught that the chief part of the worshipping of him is the duty of prayer: and that to the end that the faithful should with one consent exercise themselves in it, the temple was set up as a standard for them. There was also added a notable promise: There abides for you, O God, praise in Zion: and to you the vow shall be paid. By which words the Prophet tells us, that the prayers of the Church are never void: because the Lord always ministers to his people matter to sing upon with joy. But although the shadows of the law have ceased: yet because the Lord's will was by this ceremony to nourish among us also the unity of faith, it is no doubt that the same promise belongs to us, which both Christ has established with his own mouth, and Paul teaches that it is of force forever.

Now as the Lord by his word commands the faithful to use common prayers, so there must be common temples appointed for the using of them: where whoever refuses to communicate their prayer with the people of God, there is no cause why they should abuse this pretense, that they enter into their chamber that they may obey the commandment of the Lord. For he that promises that he will do whatever two or three shall ask being gathered together in his name, testifies that he does not despise prayers openly made: so that boasting and seeking of glory of men be absent, so that unfeigned and true affection be present which dwells in the secret of the heart. If this be the right use of temples (as truly it is) we must again beware that neither (as they have begun in certain ages past to be accounted) we take them for the proper dwelling places of God from where he may more nearly bend his ear to [illegible] secret holiness, which may [illegible] prayer more holy before God. For since we ourselves be the [illegible] temples of God, we must pray in ourselves if we will call upon God in his own holy temple. As for that grossness, let us who have a commandment to call upon the Lord in Spirit and truth without difference of place, leave it to the Jews or the Gentiles. There was indeed a temple in old time by the commandment of God for offering of prayers and sacrifices: but that was at such time as the truth lay hidden figured under such shadows, which being now lively expressed to us does not suffer us to stick in any material temple. Neither was the temple given to the Jews themselves with this condition, that they should enclose the presence of God within the walls thereof, but whereby they might be exercised to behold the image of the true temple. Therefore they, who in any wise thought that God dwells in temples made with hands, were sharply rebuked by Isaiah and Stephen.

Here moreover it is more than evident, that neither voice nor song, if they be used in prayer, have any force, or do any whit profit before God, unless they proceed from the deep affection of the heart. But rather they provoke his wrath against us, if they come only from the lips and out of the throat: forasmuch as that is to abuse his holy name, and to make a mockery of his majesty: as we gather out of the words of Isaiah, which although they extend further, yet pertain also to reprove this fault. This people (says he) comes near to with their mouth and honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me: and they have feared me with the commandment and doctrine of men. Therefore behold I will make in this people a miracle great and to be wondered at: for wisdom shall perish from their wise men, and the prudence of the elders shall vanish away. Neither yet do we here condemn voice or singing, but rather do highly commend them, so that they accompany the affection of the mind. For so they exercise the mind and hold it attentive in thinking upon God: which as it is slippery and rolling, easily slackens and is diversely drawn, unless it be stayed with various helps. Moreover whereas the glory of God ought after a certain manner to shine in all the parts of our body, it specially behoves that the tongue be applied and avowed to this service both in singing and in speaking, which is properly created to show forth and display the praise of God. But the chief use of the tongue is in public prayers, which are made in the assembly of the godly: which tend to this end, that we may all with one common voice, and as it were with one mouth together glorify God, whom we worship with one Spirit and one Faith: and that openly, that all men mutually, every one of his brother, may receive the confession of faith, to the example whereof they may be both allured and stirred.

As for the use of singing in Churches (that I may touch this also by the way) it is certain that it is not only most ancient: but that it was also in use among the Apostles, we may gather by these words of Paul. I will sing in Spirit, I will sing also in mind. Again to the Colossians, Teaching and admonishing you, mutually in hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. For in the first place he teaches that we should sing with voice and heart: in the other he commends spiritual songs, with which the godly do mutually edify themselves. Yet that it was not universal, Augustine testifies, who reports that in the time of Ambrose the Church of Milan first began to sing, when while Justina the mother of Valentinian cruelly raged against the true Faith, the people more used watchings than they were wont: and that afterward the other western Churches followed. For he had a little before said that this manner came from the Eastern Churches. He tells also in his second book of Retractions that it was in his time received in Africa. One Hilary (says he) a ruler did in every place wherever he could, with malicious blaming rail at the manner which then began to be at Carthage, that the hymns at the altar should be pronounced out of the book of Psalms, either before the oblation, or when that which had been offered was distributed to the people. Him I answered at the commandment of my brethren. And truly if song be tempered to that gravity which becomes the presence of God and Angels, it both procures dignity and grace to the holy actions, and much avails to stir up the minds to true affection, and ferventness of praying. But we must diligently beware that our ears be not more heedfully bent to the note, than our minds to the spiritual sense of the words. With which peril Augustine in a certain place says that he was so moved, that he sometimes wished that the manner which Athanasius kept should be established, which commanded that the reader should sound his words with so small a bowing of his voice, that it should be more like one that reads than one that sings. But when he remembered how much profit he himself had received by singing, he inclined to the other side. Therefore using this moderation, there is no doubt that it is a most holy and profitable ordinance. As on the other side whatever songs are framed only to sweetness and delight of the ears, they both become not the majesty of the Church, and cannot but highly displease God.

By which it also plainly appears that common prayers are to be spoken not in Greek among Latin men, nor in Latin among Frenchmen or Englishmen (as it has heretofore been everywhere commonly done) but in the people's mother tongue, which commonly may be understood by the whole assembly: since it ought to be done to the edifying of the whole Church, which receives no fruit at all from a sound not understood. But they who have no regard for either charity or humanity should at least have been somewhat moved by the authority of Paul, whose words are nothing doubtful. If you bless (says he) in Spirit, how shall he that fills the place of an unlearned man answer Amen to your blessing, since he knows not what you say? For you indeed give thanks, but the other is not edified. Who therefore can sufficiently wonder at the unbridled licentiousness of the Papists, who, the Apostle so openly crying out against it, fear not to roar out in a strange tongue most babbling prayers, in which they themselves sometimes understand not one syllable, nor would have other folks understand it? But Paul teaches that we ought to do otherwise. How then? I will pray (says he) with spirit, I will pray also with mind: I will sing with spirit, I will sing also with mind: signifying by the name of Spirit, the singular gift of tongues, which many being endued with, abused it, when they severed it from the mind, that is, from understanding. But this we must altogether think, that it is by no means possible, neither in public nor in private prayer, but that the tongue without the heart must highly displease God. Moreover we must think that the mind ought to be kindled with fervency of thought, that it may far surmount all that the tongue may express with utterance. Finally that the tongue is not necessary at all for private prayer, but so far as the inward feeling either is not able to suffice to enkindle itself, or the vehemence of enkindling violently carries the work of the tongue with it. For though very good prayers sometimes be without voice, yet it oftentimes befalls, that when the affection of the mind is fervent, both the tongue breaks forth into voice, and the other members into gesturing without excessive show. From this came the muttering of Hannah, and such a like thing all the holy ones always feel in themselves, when they burst out into broken and imperfect voices. As for the gestures of the body which are accustomed to be used in prayer (as kneeling and uncovering of the head) they are exercises by which we endeavor to rise up to a greater reverencing of God.

Now we must learn not only a more certain rule, but also the very form of praying: namely the same, which the heavenly Father has taught us by his beloved Son: wherein we may acknowledge his immeasurable goodness and kindness. For besides this he warns and exhorts us to seek him in all our necessity, (as children are accustomed to flee to their father's defense, so often as they are troubled with any distress) because he saw that we did not sufficiently perceive how slender our poverty was, what was fitting to be asked, and what was for our profit: he provided also for this our ignorance, and what our capacity lacked, he supplied and furnished of his own. For he has prescribed to us a form wherein he has as in a table set out whatever we may desire of him, whatever avails for our profit, and whatever is necessary to ask. Of which his gentleness we receive a great fruit of comfort that we understand that we ask no inconvenient thing, no unseemly or unfit thing, finally nothing that is not acceptable to him, since we ask in a manner after his own mouth. When Plato saw the folly of men in making requests to God, which being granted, it many times befell much to their own hurt: he pronounced that this is the best manner of praying taken out of the old poet, King Jupiter give to us the best things both when we ask them, and when we do not ask them, but command evil things to be away from us even when we ask them. And truly the heathen man is wise in this, that he judges how perilous it is to ask of the Lord that which our own desire moves us: and therewith he reveals our unhappy case, that we cannot once open our mouths before God without danger, unless the Spirit does instruct us to a right rule of praying. And in so much greater estimation this privilege is worthy to be had of us, since the only begotten Son of God ministers words into our mouth which may deliver our mind from all doubting.

This whether you call it form or rule of praying is made of six petitions. For, the cause why I agree not to them that divide it into seven parts, is this that by putting in this adversative word (But) it seems that the Evangelists mean to join these two pieces together, as if he had said: Suffer us not to be oppressed with temptation but rather help our weakness, and deliver us, that we faint not. The old writers also think on our side, so that now that which is in Matthew added in the seventh place, is by way of declaration to be joined to the sixth petition. But although the whole prayer is such that in every part of it regard is specially to be had of the glory of God, yet the three first petitions are peculiarly appointed to God's glory, which alone we ought in them to look to without any respect (as they say) of our own benefit. The other three have care of us, and are properly assigned to ask those things that are for our benefit. As when we pray that the name of God be hallowed: because God will prove whether he be loved and honored of us freely or for hope of reward, we must then think nothing of our own benefit: but his glory must be set before us, which alone we must behold with fixed eyes: and no otherwise ought we to be minded in the other prayers of this sort. And even this turns to our great benefit, that when it is sanctified as we pray, it is also likewise made our sanctification. But our eyes (as it is said) must wink and after a certain manner be blind at such benefit, so as they may not once look at it: that if all hope of our private benefit were cut off, yet we should not cease to wish and pray for this sanctification and other things which pertain to the glory of God. As it is seen in the examples of Moses and Paul, to whom it was not grievous to turn away their minds and eyes from themselves, and with vehement and inflamed zeal to wish their own destruction that though it were with their own loss they might advance the glory and kingdom of God. On the other side when we pray that our daily bread be given us: although we wish that which is for our own benefit, yet here also we ought chiefly to seek the glory of God, so that we would not ask it unless it might turn to his glory. Now let us come to the declaring of the prayer itself.

Our Father who is in heaven.

First in the very entry we meet with this which we said before that all prayer ought no otherwise to be offered of us to God than in the name of Christ, as it can by no other name be made acceptable to him. For since we call him Father, truly we allege for us the name of Christ. For by what boldness might any man call God, Father? Who should burst forth into so great rashness, to take to himself the honor of the Son of God, unless we were adopted the children of grace in Christ? Which being the true Son, is given of him to us to be our brother: that that which he has proper by nature, may by the benefit of adoption be made ours, if we do with sure faith embrace so great bountifulness. As John says, that power is given to them which believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God, that they also may be made the children of God. Therefore he both calls himself our Father, and will be so called of us, by this sweetness of name delivering us from all distrust, since there can nowhere be found any greater affection of love than in a Father. Therefore he could by no surer example testify his immeasurable dear love toward us than by this that we are named the sons of God. But his love is so much greater and more excellent toward us than all love of our parents, as he passes all men in goodness and mercy: that if all the fathers that are in the earth, having shaken off all feeling of fatherly naturalness, would forsake their children, yet he will never fail us, because he can not deny himself. For we have his promise, If you being evil can give good gifts to your children, how much more can your Father which is in heaven? Again in the Prophet, Can a mother forget her children? Though she forget them, yet I will not forget you. If we be his children: then as a child can not give himself into the tuition of a stranger and foreign man, unless he complain either of the cruelty or poverty of his father: so we can not seek succor from elsewhere than from him alone, unless we reproach him with poverty and want of ability, or with cruelty or too extreme rigorousness.

Neither let us allege that we are worthily made fearful with conscience of sins, which may make a Father, be he never so merciful and kind, daily to be displeased. For if among men the son can with no better advocate plead his cause to his father, and by no better means get and recover his favor being lost, than if he himself humbly and lowly, acknowledging his fault, does beseech his father's mercy (for then the fatherly bowels can not hide themselves but must be moved at such prayers) what shall that Father of mercies do, and the God of all comfort? Shall not he rather hear the tears and groanings of his children entreating for themselves (specially since he does call and exhort us to do so) than any other intercessions whatever they be: to the succor of which they do so fearfully flee, not without some show of despair, because they distrust the kindness and mercifulness of their father? This overflowing plenty of fatherly kindness he depicts and sets out to us in the parable, where the Father lovingly embraces the son that had estranged himself from him, that had riotously wasted his substance, that had every way grievously offended against him: and he tarries not till he does with words crave pardon, but he himself prevents him, knows him afar off returning, of his own will goes to meet him, comforts him, and receives him into favor. For, setting out in a man this example of so great gentleness, he intended to teach us how much more plentiful kindness we ought to look for at his hand, who is not only a Father, but also the best and most merciful of all Fathers, however we be unkind, rebellious, and naughty children: so that yet we cast ourselves upon his mercy. And that he might make it to be more assuredly believed, that he is such a Father to us, if we be Christians: he willed not only to be called Father, but also by express name Our Father: as if we might thus talk with him, O Father which has so great natural kindness toward your children, so great easiness to pardon, we your children call to you and pray to you, being assured and fully persuaded, that you bear no other affection to us than fatherly, however we be unworthy of such a Father. But because the small capacities of our heart conceive not so great immeasurableness of favor, not only Christ is to us a pledge and earnest of our adoption, but also he gives us the Spirit for witness of the same adoption, through whom we may with a free and loud voice cry, Abba, Father. So often therefore as any delay shall [reconstructed: withhold] us, let us remember to ask of him, that correcting our fearfulness, he will set before us that Spirit of courageousness to be our guide to pray boldly.

Whereas we are not so taught that every one should severally call him his own father, but rather that we should all in common together call him Our Father: thereby we are put in mind, how great affection of brotherly love ought to be among us, which are altogether by one same right of mercy and liberality, the children of such a Father. For we all have one common Father, from whom comes whatever good thing may befall us: there ought to be nothing separate among us, which we are not ready with great cheerfulness of mind to communicate one to another, so much as need requires. Now if we be so desirous, as we ought to be, to reach our hand and help one another, there is nothing in which we may more profit our brethren, than to commend them to the care and providence of the most good Father, who being well pleased and favoring, nothing at all can be wanted. And verily even this same we owe to our Father. For as he that truly and heartily loves any Father of household, does also embrace his whole household, with love and good will: likewise what love and affection we bear to this heavenly Father, we must show toward his people, his household and his inheritance, which he has so honored, that he has called it the fullness of his only begotten Son. Let a Christian man therefore frame his prayers by this rule, that they be common, and may comprehend all them that be brethren in Christ with him: and not only those whom he presently sees and knows to be such, but all men that live upon earth: of whom, what God has determined, it is out of our knowledge: saving that it is no less godly than natural to wish the best to them, and hope the best of them. However we ought with a certain singular affection to bear a special inclination to them of the household of faith, whom the Apostle has in every thing peculiarly commended to us. In sum, all our prayers ought to be so made, that they have respect to that community which our Lord has established in his kingdom and his house.

Yet this withstands not, but that we may specially pray both for ourselves and for certain others: so that yet our mind depart not from having an eye to this community, nor once swerve from it, but apply all things to it. For though they be singularly spoken in form, yet because they are directed to that mark, they cease not to be common. All this may be easily understood by a like example. The commandment of God is general, to relieve the need of all poor: and yet they obey this commandment which to this end do help their poverty whom they know or see to be in need, although they pass over many whom they see to be pressed with no less necessity: either because they can not know all, or be not able to help all. After this manner they also do not against the will of God, which having regard to and thinking upon this common fellowship of the Church, do make such particular prayers, by which they do with a common mind in particular words, commend to God themselves or others, whose necessity God willed to be more nearly known to them. However all things are not alike in prayer and in bestowing of goods. For, the liberality of giving can not be used but toward them whose need we have perceived; but with prayers we may help even them that are most strange and most unknown to us, by how great a space of ground soever they be distant from us. This is done by that general form of prayer, in which all the children of God are contained, among whom they also are. To this we may apply that which Paul exhorts the faithful of his time, that they lift up every where pure hands without strife: because when he warns them that strife shuts the gate against prayers, he wills them with one mind to lay their petitions in common together.

It is added that he is in heaven. Whereupon it is not straightaway to be gathered that he is bound fast, enclosed and compassed with the circle of heaven, as within certain bars. For Solomon also confesses that the heavens of heavens cannot contain him. And he himself says by the Prophet that heaven is his seat, and the earth his footstool. Whereby he truly signifies that he is not limited to any certain region, but is spread abroad throughout all things. But because our mind (such is the grossness of it) could not otherwise conceive his unspeakable glory, it is signified to us by the heaven, than which there can nothing come under our sight more ample or fuller of majesty. Since therefore wherever our senses comprehend anything, there they use to fasten it: God is set out of all place, that when we will seek him we should be raised up above all sense both of body and soul. Again by this manner of speaking he is lifted up above all chance of corruption and change: finally it is signified that he comprehends and contemns the whole world and governs it with his power. Therefore this is all one as if he had been called of infinite greatness or height, of incomprehensible substance, of unmeasurable power, of everlasting immortality. But while we have this, we must lift up our mind higher when God is spoken of, that we dream not any earthly or fleshly thing of him, that we measure him not by our small proportions, nor draw his will to the rule of our affections. And therewith is to be raised up our confidence in him, by whose providence and power we understand heaven and earth to be governed. Let this be the sum, that under the name of Father is set before us that God which has in his own image appeared to us, that he may be called upon with assured faith: and that the familiar name of Father is not only applied to establish confidence, but also avails to hold fast our minds that they be not drawn to doubtful or feigned Gods, but should from the only begotten Son climb up to the only Father of Angels and of the Church: then, that because his seat is placed in heaven, we are by the governance of the world put in mind that not without cause we come to him which with present care comes of his own will to meet us. Whoever comes to God (says the Apostle) they must first believe that there is a God: then, that he is a rewarder to all them that seek him. Both these things Christ affirms to be proper to his Father, that our faith may be stayed in him: then, that we may be certainly persuaded that he is not careless of our safety: because he vouchsafes even to us to extend his providence. With which introductions Paul prepares us to pray rightly. For before that he bids our petitions to be opened before God he says thus, Be anxious for nothing, the Lord is at hand. Whereby it appears that they doubtfully and with perplexity toss their prayers in their mind, which have not this well settled in them, that the eye of God is upon the righteous.

The first petition is, that the name of God be hallowed, the need whereof is joined with our great shame. For what is more shameful, than that the glory of God should be partly by our unthankfulness, partly by our maliciousness, darkened: and (so much as in it lies) by our boldness and furious stubbornness, utterly blotted out? Though all the wicked would burst themselves with their willfulness full of sacrilege, yet the holiness of the name of God gloriously shines. And not without cause the Prophet cries out, As your name O God, so is your praise to all the ends of the earth. For wherever the name of God is known, it cannot be but that his strengths, power, goodness, wisdom, righteousness, mercy, and truth must show forth themselves, which may draw us into admiration of him, and stir us up to publish his praise. Since therefore the holiness of God is so shamefully taken from him on earth, if we be not able to rescue it, we are at the least commanded to take care of it in our prayers. The sum is, that we wish the honor to be given to God which he is worthy to have, that men never speak or think of him without most high reverence: to which is contrary the unholy abusing, which has always been too common in the world, as at this day also it ranges abroad. And hereupon comes the necessity of this petition, which if there lived in us any godliness, though it were but little, ought to have been superfluous. But if the name of God has its holiness safe, when being severed from all others, it breathes out nothing but glory, here we are commanded not only to pray that God will deliver that holy name from all contempt and dishonor, but also that he will subdue all mankind to the reverence of it. Now whereas God discloses himself to us partly by doctrine, partly by works, he is no otherwise sanctified by us, than if we give to him in both respects that which is his, and so embrace whatever shall come from him: and that his severity have no less praise among us than his mercifulness, forasmuch as he has in the manifold diversity of his works imprinted marks of his glory which may worthily draw out of all tongues a confession of his praise. So shall it come to pass that the Scripture shall have full authority with us, and that no success shall hinder the blessing which God deserves in the whole course of the governing of the world. Again the petition also tends to this purpose, that all ungodliness which defiles this holy name, may be destroyed and taken away: that whatever things do darken and diminish this sanctifying, as well slanders as mockings, may be driven away: and when God subdues all sacrileges, his glory may thereby more and more shine abroad.

The second petition is, that the kingdom of God may come: which although it contains nothing new, is yet not without cause separated from the first: because if we consider our own drowsiness in a thing greatest of all other, it is profitable that the thing which ought of itself to have been most well known, be with many words often beaten into us. Therefore after that we have been commanded to pray to God to bring into subjection, and at length utterly to destroy whatever spots his holy name: now is added a like and in a manner the same request, that his kingdom come. But although we have already set forth the definition of this kingdom, yet I now briefly rehearse, that God reigns when men as well with forsaking of themselves as with despising of the world and of the earthly life, do so yield themselves to his righteousness, that they aspire to the heavenly life. Therefore there are two parts of this kingdom: the one, that God corrects with the power of his Spirit all corrupt desires of the flesh, which do by multitudes make war against him: the other, that he frame all our senses to the obedience of his government. Therefore none do keep right order in this prayer, but they which begin at themselves, that is to say, that they be cleansed from all corruptions which trouble the quiet state of the kingdom of God, and infect the pureness thereof. Now because the word of God is like a kingly scepter, we are here commanded to pray that he will subdue the minds and hearts of all men to willing obedience of it. Which is done, when with the secret instinct of his Spirit he utters the effectual force of his word, that it may be advanced in such degree as it is worthy. Afterward we must come down to the wicked which do obstinately and with desperate rage resist his authority. God therefore sets up his kingdom by humbling the whole world: but that in diverse manners: because he tames the wantonness of some, and of others he breaks the untamed pride. This is daily to be wished that it be done, that it may please God to gather to himself Churches out of all the coasts of the world, to enlarge and increase them in number, to enrich them with his gifts, to establish right order in them: on the other side to overthrow all the enemies of pure doctrine and religion, to scatter abroad their counsels, to cast down their enterprises. By which it appears that the endeavor of daily proceeding is not in vain commanded us: because the matters of men are never in so good a case, that filthiness being shaken away and cleansed, full pureness flourishes and is in lively force. But the fullness of it is deferred to the last coming of Christ, when Paul teaches that God shall be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28). And so this prayer ought to withdraw us from all the corruptions of the world, which do separate us from God that his kingdom should not flourish in us, and also to kindle our endeavor to mortify the flesh, finally to instruct us to the bearing of the cross: insofar as God will in this way have his kingdom spread abroad. Neither ought we to take it discontentedly that the outward man be destroyed, so that the inward man be renewed. For this is the nature of the kingdom of God, when we submit ourselves to the righteousness thereof, to make us partakers of his glory. This is done when brightly setting forth his light and truth with always new increases, by which the darkness and lies of Satan and his kingdom, may vanish away, be destroyed, and perish, he defends those that are his, with the help of his Spirit directs them to uprightness and strengthens them to continuance: but overthrows the wicked conspiracies of his enemies, shakes abroad their treasons and deceits, prevents their malice, and beats down their stubbornness, till at length he kills Antichrist with the Spirit of his mouth and destroys all ungodliness with the brightness of his coming.

The third petition is, That the will of God be done in earth as it is in heaven. Which although it hangs upon his kingdom, and cannot be severed from it, is not in vain added severally, for our grossness, which does not easily or by and by conceive what it is that God reigns in the world. It shall therefore be no absurdity if this be taken by way of plainer exposition: that God shall then be king in the world when all things shall submit themselves to his will. Now here is not meant of his secret will, whereby he governs all things and directs them to their end. For though Satan and men are troublesomely carried against him yet he can by his incomprehensible counsel not only turn aside their violent motions, but also drive them into order that he may do by them that which he has purposed. But here is spoken of another will of God, namely that to which answers willing obedience: and therefore the heaven is by name compared with the earth: because the Angels, as it is said in the Psalms, do willingly obey God, and are diligently bent to do his commandments. We are therefore commanded to wish that as in heaven nothing is done but by the beck of God, and the Angels are quietly framed to all uprightness: so the earth, all stubbornness and perverseness being quenched, may be subject to such government. And when we require this, we renounce the desires of our own flesh: because whoever does not resign and yield his affections to God, he does as much as in him lies set himself against him, since nothing comes out of us but faulty. And we are again by this prayer framed to the forsaking of ourselves, that God may govern us after his will: and not that only, but that he may also create in us new minds and new hearts, our old being brought to nothing: that we may feel in ourselves none other motion of desire than a mere consent with his will: summarily that we may will nothing of ourselves, but that his Spirit may govern our hearts, by whom inwardly teaching us we may learn to love those things that please him, and to hate those things that displease him. Whereupon this also follows, that whatever affections fight against his will, he may make them vain and void. Lo, here are the first three chief points of this prayer, in asking which we ought to have the only glory of God before our eyes, leaving the respect of ourselves, and having no regard to any of our own profit, which although it comes to us largely from this, yet we ought not here to seek it. But although all these things, though we neither think of them, nor wish them, nor ask them, must nevertheless come to pass in their due time, yet we must wish them and require them. And to do this is no small profit for our effort, that we may so testify and profess ourselves to be the servants and children of God, as much as in us lies endeavoring and being truly and thoroughly given to set forth his honor, which is due to him being both a Lord and a Father. Whoever therefore does not with affection and zeal of advancing the glory of God, pray that the name of God be hallowed, that his kingdom come, that his will be done: they are not to be accounted among the children and servants of God: and as all these things shall be done against their wills, so they shall turn to their confusion and destruction.

Now follows the second part of the prayer, in which we come down to our own needs: not that bidding farewell to the glory of God (which as Paul witnesses, is to be regarded even in meat and drink) we should seek only what is profitable for ourselves: but we have already given warning that there is this difference, that God peculiarly claiming three petitions to himself does draw us to himself wholly, that he may in this wise prove our godliness. Then he grants us also to have an eye to our own needs, but with this condition that we ask nothing for ourselves but to this end that whatever benefits he bestows upon us, they may set forth his glory: forasmuch as nothing is more rightful than that we live and die to him. But in this petition we ask of God generally all things which the use of the body needs under the elements of this world, not only with which we may be fed and clothed, but also whatever he foresees to be profitable for us, that we may eat our bread in peace. By which prayer briefly we yield ourselves into his care, and commit us to his providence, that he may feed, cherish, and preserve us. For the most good Father does not disdain to receive also our body into his faithful safeguard and keeping, to exercise our faith in these small things, when we look for all things at his hands even to a crumb of bread and a drop of water. For whereas it has come to pass — I know not how — by our iniquity, that we be moved and troubled with greater care of the flesh than of the soul: many who dare trust to God for their soul, are yet careful for their flesh, are yet in doubt what they shall eat, and with what they shall be clothed: and if they have not plenty of wine, wheat, and oil beforehand, they tremble for fear. So much more do we esteem the shadow of this life which lasts but a moment, than that everlasting immortality. But whoever trusting to God has once cast away the carefulness for the provision of the flesh, does also immediately look for salvation and everlasting life at his hand, which are greater things. It is therefore no small exercise of faith, to hope for those things of God, which otherwise do so much hold us in care: and we have not slightly profited, when we have put off this unbelief which soaks into the bones of almost all men. As for that which some do here teach of transubstantial bread, it seems but slightly to agree with the meaning of Christ: indeed but if we did not even in this frail life give to God the office of a nourishing Father, our prayer should be imperfect. The reason which they bring is too much profane: that it is not fitting that the children of God, who ought to be spiritual, should not only cast their mind to earthly cares, but also wrap God in them with them. As though his blessing and fatherly favor does not also appear in the sustenance of our life, or as though it were written in vain that godliness has promises not only of the life to come, but also of this present life. But although the forgiveness of sins is of much greater value than the sustenance of the body, yet Christ has set the inferior thing in the first place, to the intent to lift us up by degrees to the other two petitions which do properly belong to the heavenly life, wherein he had regard to our grossness. We are commanded to ask our bread, that we should be content with the quantity which our heavenly Father vouchsafes to give to us, and should not seek for gain by unlawful crafty means. In the meantime we must learn that it is made ours by title of gift, because neither our diligence, nor our labor, nor our hands (as it is said in Moses) do by themselves get us anything, unless the blessing of God be present: indeed the plenty of bread should nothing at all profit us, unless it were by God turned into nourishment. And therefore this liberality of God is no less necessary for the rich than for the poor: because having their cellars and their barns full, they should yet faint for dryness and emptiness, unless they did by his grace enjoy their bread. The word 'This day,' or 'Every day' as it is in the other Evangelist, and also the adjective 'Daily,' do bridle the too much greediness of frail things, with which we are accustomed to burn beyond measure, and to which are joined other evils: since if we have plentiful abundance, we do lavishly pour it out upon pleasure, delights, boasting, and other kinds of riotous excess. Therefore we are commanded to ask only so much as is enough for our necessity, and as it were from day to day, with this confidence that when our heavenly Father has fed us this day, he will also not fail us tomorrow. Therefore however great plenty of things soever may flow to us, indeed when our barns be stuffed and our cellars full: yet we ought always to ask our daily bread: because we must certainly believe that all substance is nothing, but insomuch as the Lord does by pouring out of his blessing with continual increase make it fruitful: and that the very same substance that is in our hand, is not our own, but insomuch as he does every hour give us a portion and grant us the use of it. This, whereas the pride of men does most hardly suffer itself to be persuaded: the Lord testifies that he has shown a singular example thereof for all ages, when he fed his people with manna in the wilderness, to teach us that man lives not by bread only, but rather by the word that comes out of his mouth. Whereby is declared, that it is his power alone by which our life and strength are sustained, although he does minister it to us under bodily instruments. As he is accustomed also to teach us by the contrary example, when he as often as he will, breaks the strength and (as he calls it) the staff of bread, that men eating may pine with hunger, and drinking may be dried up with thirst. But whoever not being contented with daily bread, but with unbridled greediness are gaping for endless store, or whoever being full with their abundance, and careless by reason of the heap of their riches, do nevertheless sue to God with this prayer, they do nothing else but mock him. For, the first sort of such men ask that which they would not obtain, indeed that which they most of all abhor, that is, to have only daily bread, and so much as in them lies they dissemblingly hide from God the affection of their covetousness: whereas true prayer ought to pour out before him the very whole mind itself, and whatever inwardly lies hidden. But the other sort do ask that which they look not for at his hand, namely that which they think that they have with themselves. In this that it is called ours, the bountifulness of God (as we have said) so much more appears, which makes that ours that is by no right due to us. Yet that exposition is not to be rejected which I have also touched, that by our bread is meant that which is earned with rightful and harmless labor, and not gotten with deceits and extortions: because that is always another's which we get to ourselves with any wrongdoing. Whereas we pray that it be given us, thereby is signified that it is the only and free gift of God, from wherever it comes to us, indeed when it shall most of all seem to be begotten by our own policy and labor, and earned with our own hands: forasmuch as it comes to pass by his only blessing, that our labors prosper well.

Now follows, Forgive us our debts: in which petition and the next following, Christ has briefly contained whatever makes for the heavenly life: as in these two parts above stands the spiritual covenant which God has made for the salvation of his Church, I will write my laws in their hearts, and I will be merciful to their iniquity. Here Christ begins the forgiveness of sins: after this, he will by and by adjoin the second grace, that God defend us with the power of his Spirit, and sustain us with his help, that we may stand unconquered against all temptations. And sins he calls debts, because we are debt bound to pay the penalty of them, and were by no means able to satisfy it, unless we were acquitted by this forgiveness. Which pardon is of his free mercy, when he himself liberally wipes out these debts, taking no payment of us, but with his own mercy satisfying himself in Christ, who has once given himself for recompense. Therefore whoever trusts that God shall be satisfied by their own or other men's merits, and that with such satisfactions the forgiveness of sins is recompensed and redeemed, they have no part in communicating of this free forgiveness: and when they call upon God in this manner, they do nothing but subscribe to their own accusation, yes and seal their own condemnation with their own witness. For they confess themselves debtors, unless they be acquitted by the benefit of forgiveness, which yet they do not receive, but rather refuse, when they thrust to God their own merits and satisfactions. For, so they do not beseech his mercy, but do appeal to his judgment. As for them that dream of a perfection in themselves, which takes away the need to crave pardon, let them have such disciples whom the itching of their ears drives to errors: so that it be certain that so many disciples as they get, are taken away from Christ: forasmuch as he instructing all to confess their guiltiness, receives none but sinners: not for that he cherishes sins with flatteries, but because he knew that the faithful are never thoroughly unclothed of the vices of their flesh, but that they always remain subject to the judgment of God. It is indeed to be wished, yes and to be earnestly endeavored, that we having performed all the parts of our duty may truly rejoice before God that we are clean from all spot: but forasmuch as it pleases God by little and little to make again his image in us, that there always remains some infection in our flesh, the remedy ought not to have been despised. If Christ by the authority given to him of his Father, commands us throughout the whole course of our life, to flee to craving of pardon of our guiltiness — who shall be able to suffer these new masters, who go about with this imagined ghost of perfect innocence to dazzle the eyes of the simple, to make them to trust that they may be made free from all fault? Which, as John witnesses, is nothing else but to make God a liar. And withal one work these wicked men by canceling one article do tear in sunder and by that means do weaken from the very foundation the whole covenant of God, wherein we have shown that our salvation is contained: so as they be not only robbers of God, because they sever those things so conjoined, but also wicked and cruel because they overwhelm poor souls with despair: and traitors to themselves and others, that be like them, because they bring themselves into a slothfulness directly contrary to the mercy of God. But whereas some object, that in wishing the coming of the kingdom of God, we do also ask the putting away of sin: that is too childish, because in the first table of this prayer is set forth to us most high perfection, but in this part is set forth our weakness. So these two things do fitly agree together, that in a spring toward the mark we despise not the remedies which our necessity requires. Finally we pray that we may be forgiven as we ourselves do forgive our debtors, that is, as we do forgive and pardon all of whoever we have been in anything offended, either unjustly handled in deed, or reproachfully used in word. Not that it lies in us to pardon the guiltiness of the fault and offense, which pertains to God alone: but this is our forgiving, of our own willingness to lay away out of our mind wrath, hatred, and desire of vengeance, and with voluntary forgetfulness to tread underfoot the remembrance of injuries. Therefore we may not ask forgiveness of sins at the hand of God, if we do not also forgive their offenses toward us which either do or have done us wrong. But if we keep any hatreds in our hearts, and purpose any revenges and imagine by what occasion we may hurt, yes and if we do not endeavor to come into favor again with our enemies, and to deserve well of them with all kind of friendly doings, and to win them to us: we do by this prayer beseech God that he do not forgive us. For we require that he grant to us the same forgiveness which we grant to others. But this is to pray that he grant it not to us, unless we grant it to them. Whoever therefore be such, what do they obtain by their prayer but a more grievous judgment? Last of all it is to be noted, that this condition that he forgive us as we forgive our debtors, is not therefore added for that we deserve his forgiveness by the forgiveness which we grant to others, as if that cause of forgiveness to us were there expressed: but by this word partly the Lord's will was to comfort the weakness of our faith, for he added this as a sign whereby we may be assured that he has as surely granted to us forgiveness of our sins, as we surely know in our conscience that we have granted the same to others, if our mind be void and cleansed of all hatred, envy and vengeance and partly by this as it were by a mark, he wipes them out of the number of his children that they may not be bold to call upon him as their Father, which being headlong hasty to revenge, and hardly entreated to pardon, do use stiffly continuing enmities, and do cherish in themselves the same displeasure toward others which they pray to be turned from themselves. Which is also in Luke expressly spoken in the words of Christ.

The sixth petition (as we have said) answers to the promise of engraving the law of God in our hearts. But because we do not without continual warfare and hard and great strivings obey God, we do here pray to be furnished with such weapons and defended with such succor, that we may be able to get the victory: whereby we are warned that we stand in need not only of the grace of the Spirit, which may soften, [reconstructed: bow], and direct our hearts to the obedience of God, but also of his help, whereby he may make us invincible against both all the treacherous entrappings and violent conflicts of Satan. But now of temptations there are many and diverse sorts. For, both the perverse thoughts of mind provoking us to trespassing against the law, which either our own lust does minister to us, or the devil stirs up, are temptations: and also those things which of their own nature are not evil, yet by the craft of the devil are made temptations, when they are so set before our eyes, that by the occasion of them we be drawn away or do swerve from God. And these temptations are either on the right hand or on the left. On the right hand, as riches, power, honors, which commonly do with their glittering and show of good so dazzle the sight of men, and catch them with the baited hook of their flatterings, that being entrapped with such deceits, or drunk with such sweetness, they may forget their God. On the left hand, as poverty, reproaches, despisings, troubles, and such other: that they being grieved with the bitterness and hardness thereof may be utterly discouraged, cast away Faith and hope, and finally be altogether estranged from God. To these temptations of both sorts, which fight with us either being kindled in us by our own lust, or being set against us by the craft of Satan, we pray to our heavenly Father that he suffer us not to yield. But rather that he uphold us and raise us up with his hand, that being strong by his strength, we may stand fast against all the assaults of the malicious enemy, whatever thoughts he put into our mind: then, that whatever is set before us on either side, we may turn it to good, that we neither be puffed up with prosperity, nor thrown down with adversity. Neither yet do we here require that we may feel no temptations at all, with which we have great need to be stirred up, pricked, and pinched, lest by too much rest we grow dull. For not in vain did David wish to be tempted: and not without cause the Lord daily tempts his elect, chastising them by shame, poverty, trouble, and other kinds of cross. But God tempts after one manner and Satan after another: Satan, to destroy, damn, confound and throw down headlong: but God, that by proving them that be his he may have a trial of their unfeignedness, and by exercising them may confirm their strength, to mortify, purge by fire, and sear their flesh, which unless it were in this wise restrained, would become wanton and would wildly outrage above measure. Moreover Satan assails men unarmed and unready, that he may oppress them unaware: God even with tempting works the effect, that they which be his may patiently bear whatever he sends upon them. By the name of the Evil, whether we understand the Devil or sin, it makes little matter. Satan indeed himself is the enemy that lies in wait for our life: but with sin he is armed to destroy us. This therefore is our request, that we may not be overcome or overwhelmed with any temptations, but may by the power of the Lord stand strong against all contrary powers wherewith we are assailed: which is, not to yield us vanquished to temptations, that being received into his keeping and charge, and being safe by his protection we may endure unconquered over sin, death, the gates of hell, and the whole kingdom of the devil: which is to be delivered from evil. Where it is also to be diligently marked, that it is above our strength to match with the devil so great a warrior, and to bear his force and violence. Otherwise we should but vainly or as it were in mockery ask that which we had already in ourselves. Surely, they which prepare themselves to such a battle with trust of themselves, do not sufficiently understand with how fierce and well armed an enemy they have to do. Now we pray to be delivered from his power, as out of the mouth of a mad and raging lion, whereas we should be torn in pieces with his teeth and paws, and swallowed with his throat, unless the Lord do deliver us out of the midst of death: yet therewith knowing this that if the Lord shall stand by us, and fight for us when we are overthrown, we shall in his strength show strength. Let others trust as they wish to their own abilities and strengths of free will, which they think that they have of themselves: but let it suffice [reconstructed: us that] we stand and are strong by the only strength of God. But this prayer contains more than at the first sight it bears in show. For if the Spirit of God be our strength to fight out our combat with Satan, we shall not be able to get the victory until we being filled with that Spirit shall have put off all the weakness of our flesh. When therefore we pray to be delivered from Satan and the Devil, we pray to be from time to time enriched with new increases of the grace of God, till being fully filled with them we may triumph over all evil. It seems hard and rough to some, that we crave of God that he lead us not into temptation, forasmuch as it is contrary to his nature to tempt, as James testifies. But this question is already partly resolved, where we said that our own lust is properly the cause of all the temptations wherewith we are overcome, and therefore worthily bears the blame thereof. Neither does James mean anything else, but that the faults are without cause and wrongfully laid upon God, which we are driven to impute to ourselves, because we know ourselves in our conscience guilty of them. But this withstands not but that God may when it pleases him make us bound to Satan, cast us away into a reprobate sense, and to filthy lusts, and so lead us into temptation by his judgment which is righteous indeed but yet oftentimes secret: forasmuch as the cause of it is often hidden from men, which is yet certainly known with him. Whereupon is gathered that this is no unfit manner of speaking, if we be persuaded that he does not without cause so often threaten, that when the reprobate shall be stricken with blindness and hardening of heart, these shall be sure tokens of his vengeance.

These three petitions, with which we do particularly commend ourselves and our things to God, do evidently show this which we have before said, that the prayers of Christians ought to be common and to tend to the common edifying of the Church, and to the increase of the communion of the faithful. For there does not every man pray to have anything privately given, but all in common together do pray for our bread, for forgiveness of sins, that we may not be led into temptation, that we may be delivered from evil. There is furthermore adjoined a cause why we have both so great boldness to ask, and so great trust to obtain: which although it be not in the Latin copies, yet it agrees more fitly in this place than that it should seem worthy to be omitted, namely that his is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. This is the perfect and quiet rest of our soul. For if our prayers were to be commended to God by their own worthiness, who should be so bold, as once to open his mouth before him? Now however we be most miserable, however most unworthy of all men, however void of all commendation, yet we shall never want cause to pray, and never be destitute of confidence: forasmuch as our Father cannot have his kingdom, power, and glory taken away from him. At the end is added Amen, whereby is expressed our ferventness of desire to obtain those things that we have asked of God, and our hope is confirmed that all such things are already obtained and shall surely be given to us because they are promised of God, who cannot deceive. And this agrees with that manner of prayer which we have here before rehearsed. Do it, Lord, for your name's sake, not for our sakes or our righteousness: whereby the holy ones do not only express the end of their prayers, but also confess that they are unworthy to obtain unless God fetch the cause from himself, and that their trust to succeed comes from the only nature of God.

Thus have we whatever we ought — indeed or in any wise may ask of God — set forth in this form and as it were a rule of praying taught by the best schoolmaster Christ, whom the Lord has set over us to be our teacher, and whom alone he has willed to be listened to. For he both always has been his eternal wisdom, and being made man is given to men the Angel of great counsel. And this prayer is in all points so fully perfect, that whatever foreign or strange thing is added which cannot be referred to it, it is ungodly and unworthy to be allowed of God. For in this sum he has set forth what is fitting for him, what is pleasing to him, what is necessary for us, finally what he will grant. Therefore whoever dares go further, and to ask anything of God beside these, first they will add of their own to the wisdom of God (which cannot be done without mad blasphemy), then they hold not themselves under the will of God, but despising it do with greediness wander further: finally they shall never obtain anything, since they pray without faith. And there is no doubt that all such prayers are made without faith, because here is wanting the word of God, upon which unless faith be grounded, it can in no wise stand. But they which forsaking the master's rule, do follow their own desires, are not only without the word of God, but also so much as they are able with their whole endeavor, are against it. Therefore Tertullian no less fitly than truly has called this a lawful prayer, secretly signifying that all others are lawless and unlawful.

We would not have these things so taken as though we were so bound with this form of prayer, that we may not change a word or a syllable. For there are everywhere read many prayers in the Scriptures, far differing from this in words, yet written by the same Spirit, and which are at this day profitable to be used by us. Many are continually put into the mouths of the faithful by the same Spirit, which in likeness of words do not so much agree. This only is our meaning in so teaching, that no man should seek, look for, or ask any other thing at all than that which is summarily comprehended in this prayer, and which though it most differ in words yet differs not in sense. Like as it is certain that all the prayers which are found in the Scriptures, and which do come out of godly hearts, are applied to this, so truly none can anywhere be found, which may match, much less pass, the perfectness of this prayer. Here is nothing left out, that might be thought upon to the praises of God, nothing that ought to come into the mind of man for his own profit: and the same so fully that all hope is worthily taken away from all men to attempt to make any better. In sum, let us remember that this is the doctrine of the wisdom of God, which has taught what he willed, and willed what was needful.

But although we have above said, that we ought always to breathe upward with minds lifted up to God, and pray without ceasing: yet forasmuch as such is our weakness, as needs to be upheld with many helps: such is our dullness, as needs to be pricked forward with many spurs: it is good that every one of us appoint to himself privately certain hours which may not pass away without prayer, and which may have the whole affections of our mind thoroughly busied to that purpose: as, when we rise in the morning, before that we go to our day's work when we sit down to meat, when we have been fed by the blessing of God, when we take us to rest. Only let this not be a superstitious observing of hours, by which, as paying a task to God, we may think ourselves discharged for the other hours: but a training of our weakness, whereby it may so be exercised and from time to time stirred up. Specially we ought carefully to look that so often as either we ourselves are in distress, or we see other to be in distress with any hardness of adversity, we run straight way to him, not with feet but with hearts: then, that we suffer not any prosperity of our own or other men's, to pass but that we testify that we acknowledge it to be his with praise and thanksgiving. Finally, this is diligently to be observed in all prayer, that we go not about to bind God to certain circumstances, nor to appoint to him, what he shall do, at what time, in what place, and in what manner: as by this prayer we are taught to make to him no law, nor to appoint to him any condition, but to leave to his will that those things which he will do he may do in what manner, at what time, and in what place it pleases him. Therefore ere we make any prayer for ourselves, we first pray that his will be done: where we do already submit our will to his: with which when it is restrained as with a bridle put upon it, it may not presume to bring God into rule, but make him the judge and governor of all her desires.

If we do with minds framed to this obedience, suffer ourselves to be ruled with the laws of God's Providence, we shall easily learn to continue in prayer, and with longing desires patiently to wait for the Lord: being assured that although he appear not, yet he is always present with us, and will when he sees his time declare how not deaf ears he gave to the prayers which in the eyes of men seemed to be despised. And this shall be a most present comfort, that we faint not and fall down by despair, if at any time God does not answer at our first requests. Like as they are wont to do, which while they are carried with their sudden heat, do so call upon God, that if he come not to them at their first onsets and bring them present help, they by and by imagine him to be angry and hatefully bent against them, and casting away all hope of obtaining do cease to call upon him. But rather deferring our hope with a well-tempered evenness of mind, let us go forward in that perseverance which is so much commended to us in Scriptures. For in the Psalms we may oftentimes see how David and other faithful men, when they seem in a manner wearied with praying, did beat the air, because they threw away their words to God that heard them not, and yet they cease not from praying: because the word of God has not his full authority maintained, unless the credit thereof be set above all successes of things. Moreover let us not tempt God and provoke him against us being wearied with our importunity, which many use to do, which do nothing but deal with God upon a certain condition, and bind him to the laws of their covenanting as though he were servant to their desires: which if he does not presently obey, they disdain, they chafe, they carp against him, they murmur, they toil. Therefore to such oftentimes in his fury he being angry grants that, which to other in his mercy he being favorable denies. An example hereof are the children of Israel, for whom it had been better not to have been heard of the Lord, than with flesh to eat up his wrath.

But if yet at length after long looking for it our sense does not perceive what we have prevailed with praying, and feels no fruit thereof: yet our faith shall assure us of that, which can not be perceived by sense, namely that we have obtained that which was expedient for us, forasmuch as the Lord does so often and so certainly take upon him that he will have care of our griefs, after that they have been once laid in his bosom. And so he will make us to possess abundance in poverty, comfort in affliction. For however all other things do fail us, yet God will never fail us, which suffers the waiting and patience of them that be his to be disappointed. He alone shall suffice us in stead of all things: forasmuch as he contains in himself all good things, which he shall one day disclose to us at the day of judgment when he shall plainly show forth his kingdom. Besides this although God grants to us, yet he does not always answer according to the express form of our request, but holding us after outward seeming in suspense, yet by a means unknown he shows that our prayers were not vain. This is meant by the words of John, If we know that he hears us when we ask any thing of him, we know that we have the petitions which we ask of him. This is meant by the words of John: If we know, that he hears us, when we ask any thing of him. This seems a weak superfluousness of words: but it is a singularly profitable declaration, namely that God even when he does not follow our desires, is yet gentle and favorable to our prayers, that the hope which rests upon his word may never disappoint us. But with this patience the faithful do so far need to be sustained, that they should not long stand unless they did stay upon it. For the Lord does by not light trials prove them that be his, and not tenderly does exercise them: but oftentimes drives them into the greatest extremities, and when they are driven there he suffers them long to stick fast in the mire, before he give them any taste of his sweetness: and, as Hannah says, he slays, and quickens: he leads down to the hell, and brings back again. What could they here do but be discouraged, and fall headlong into despair: unless when they are in distress and desolate and already half dead, this thought did raise them up, that God does look upon them, and that there shall be at hand an end of their evils? But however they stand fast upon the assuredness of that hope, they cease not in the meantime to pray: because if there be not in prayer a steadfastness of continuance, we nothing prevail with praying.

From everything discussed so far, we clearly perceive how needy and empty of all good human beings are and how they lack every resource of salvation. Therefore if a person seeks remedies for his need, he must go outside of himself and find them elsewhere. What follows is that the Lord freely and generously gives Himself to us in His Christ — in whom, in place of our misery, He offers us all blessedness; in place of our poverty, all riches; in whom He opens to us the heavenly treasures. Our whole faith is to look upon His beloved Son, our whole expectation to hang on Him, our whole hope to be fixed and resting in Him. This is truly the secret and hidden wisdom that cannot be extracted by logical argument — but those whose eyes God has opened learn it, because they see light in His light. But since we are taught by faith to recognize that whatever we need, whatever we lack, is found in God and in our Lord Jesus Christ — in whom the Lord willed the entire fullness of His abundance to rest, so that from Him we might all draw as from a most plentiful fountain — it remains that we seek in Him and with prayers ask of Him what we have learned to be in Him. Otherwise, to know God as Lord and giver of all good things — which invites us to pray to Him — and yet not to go to Him and pray, would profit us no more than if a person were shown a treasure buried in the ground and then walked away without digging it up. Therefore the apostle, to show that true faith cannot be idle from calling upon God, has established this order: that just as faith springs from the Gospel, so through faith our hearts are formed to call upon the name of God. This is the same thing he had said just before — that the Spirit of adoption, who seals the testimony of the Gospel in our hearts, lifts our spirits so that they dare to bring their desires before God, stir up unutterable groans, and cry out with confidence, 'Abba, Father.' This final point, which was mentioned only briefly and in passing before, now deserves fuller treatment.

The benefit we gain from prayer is this: we obtain the riches that are stored up for us with the heavenly Father. For there is a certain communion between people and God, in which they enter the sanctuary of heaven and in His very presence appeal to Him concerning His promises — so that what they believed Him to declare in word may not prove empty, but may when need requires be found true in experience. Therefore we see that nothing is set before us to be expected from the Lord that we are not also commanded to seek through prayer — so true it is that prayer digs up the treasures that faith has seen revealed to it by the Lord's Gospel. How necessary and in how many ways profitable this exercise of prayer is cannot be fully expressed in words. Without question it is not without reason that the heavenly Father testifies that the only stronghold of salvation is in calling upon His name — by which we draw to ourselves the presence of His providence, through which He watches over our affairs; the presence of His power, through which He sustains us when we are weak and nearly faint; and the presence of His goodness, through which He receives us into favor when we are miserably burdened with sins. In short, through prayer we call Him to give Himself fully present to us. From this grows a remarkable rest and quietness of conscience. For when we have laid before the Lord the need that was pressing us down, we rest greatly — if for no other reason than that none of our troubles is hidden from Him, who we are persuaded is both most well-disposed toward us and most able to provide well for us.

But someone may say: does God not already know, without anyone telling Him, both where we are distressed and what is good for us? Would it not seem somewhat superfluous for Him to be troubled with our prayers — as if He were asleep or looking the other way until we awakened Him with our voice? But those who reason this way miss the point of why the Lord instructed His people to pray. He ordained it not so much for His own sake as for ours. He does will, as is right, that what is due to Him be rendered — that His people acknowledge everything they need or find useful to come from Him, and express this in their requests to Him. But the profit of this act of worship also comes back to us. The more boldly the holy fathers spoke of God's benefits, both to themselves and to others, the more sharply they were moved to pray. The example of Elijah alone is sufficient. Being assured of God's purpose, he had promised rain to Ahab without hesitation — and yet he prayed earnestly, face to the ground, and sent his servant seven times to look for clouds. He did this not because he doubted God's word, but because he knew it was his duty — lest his faith grow drowsy and sluggish — to commit his desires to God. Therefore, although when we lie senseless and dull — unable even to perceive our own miseries — He watches and is alert for us, and sometimes helps us even without being asked, it is still greatly fitting that He be continually called upon by us. In this way our hearts are kindled with earnest and fervent desire to seek, love, and worship Him, as we learn to run to Him as our anchor in every necessity. Again, that no desire or wish may enter our minds of which we would be ashamed to make Him a witness — as we learn to lay our desires before Him and pour out our whole heart before His eyes. Then, that we may be shaped to receive all His benefits with true gratitude of heart and outward thanksgiving — our prayer reminding us that they come to us from His hand. Moreover, that when we have received what we desired, being persuaded that He answered our prayer, we may thereby be carried all the more fervently to think on His kindness — and embrace with greater joy those things we know were obtained by prayer. Finally, that this very practice and experience may assure our minds of His providence, in proportion to our weakness — when we understand that He not only promises never to fail us and graciously opens to us in every moment of need the door of prayer, but also always has His hand stretched out to help His own and does not feed them with empty words but defends them with real help. For these reasons, the most kind Father — though He never sleeps or grows sluggish — often appears to sleep and be idle, in order to exercise us, who are otherwise slow and sluggish to come to Him, to ask of Him, to seek Him — to our own great benefit. Therefore those who babble that God's providence — which governs all things for their preservation — is vainly burdened by our prayers do so very foolishly. The Lord, on the contrary, testifies in no uncertain terms that He is near to all who call upon His name in truth. Of the same sort is what others say — that it is superfluous to ask for things the Lord is already ready to give. For even those very things that flow to us from His own free generosity, He wills that we acknowledge as granted in answer to our prayers. This is what the notable verse from the Psalms testifies — and many similar verses agree: 'The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears toward their prayers.' This saying sets out God's providence, bent of its own accord to provide for the safety of the godly — and yet it does not skip over the exercise of faith, by which sluggishness is driven from our minds. God's eyes therefore watch to help the blind in their need — and yet He also wills to hear our groaning on our behalf, to show all the more fully His love toward us. Both are therefore true: that the guardian of Israel neither sleeps nor slumbers — and yet that He sits still, as if He had forgotten us, whenever He sees us dull and silent.

To pray rightly, let the first rule be this: that we be formed in mind and heart to the disposition that fits those who are entering into conversation with God. We will reach this as far as the mind is concerned when, freed from fleshly cares and thoughts that might pull it away from the sincere and pure beholding of God, the mind bends itself fully to prayer — and as much as possible is lifted up and carried above itself. I do not require a mind so undisturbed that it feels no concern at all. On the contrary, the earnestness of prayer must be kindled in us by deep concern — as we see in the holy servants of God, who at times expressed great anguish and even greater urgency when they poured out a lamenting voice before the Lord from the deepest depths, from the very midst of the jaws of death. What I am saying is that all foreign and unrelated cares must be driven away — cares by which the mind, wandering in every direction, is pulled out of heaven and pressed down to the earth. More specifically, the mind must be lifted above itself, so that it brings nothing before God's sight that our blind and foolish reason is accustomed to imagine — and does not confine itself within the boundaries of its own vanity, but rises to a purity worthy of God.

Both of these things deserve special notice: that whoever prepares for prayer should apply all his senses and effort to it and not be distracted by wandering thoughts as people commonly are — for nothing is more contrary to the reverence owed to God than such carelessness, which betrays an untamed and fearless spirit. In this we must labor all the more earnestly the more difficult we find it. No one can be so intent on prayer that he does not feel many stray thoughts creeping in — either to break off the prayer or to bend and deflect its course. Here let us call to mind how deeply unworthy it is: when God receives us into familiar conversation with Him, to abuse His great gentleness by mixing holy and profane things together, so that reverence for Him does not hold our minds fixed on Him. Instead, as though speaking with some ordinary person, we abandon Him mid-prayer and leap here and there in our thoughts. Let us therefore know that none rightly and well prepare themselves for prayer except those whom the majesty of God pierces — so that they come to prayer unencumbered by earthly cares and desires. This is what the ceremony of lifting up the hands signifies: that people should remember they are far distant from God unless they raise their senses upward. As it is said in the Psalms: 'To You I have lifted up my soul.' And Scripture often uses the expression 'to lift up prayer' — meaning that those who desire to be heard by God must not remain sitting in their own dregs. Let this be the sum: the more generously God deals with us, gently inviting us to unload our cares into His bosom, the more inexcusable we are if His excellent and incomparable kindness does not outweigh everything else for us and draw us to Himself — so that we apply ourselves earnestly and fully to prayer. This cannot happen unless our mind wrestles vigorously against the hindrances and rises above them. The second rule we have set forth is that we ask only what God permits. For though He bids us pour out our hearts, He does not therefore give free rein to all our foolish and wayward desires — and when He promises to do according to the will of the godly, He does not go so far in accommodating them as to submit Himself to their whims. In both these respects, people commonly sin greatly. Not only do most people shamelessly and irreverently speak to God about their follies, brazen enough to present to His throne whatever they have dreamed up — but such great foolishness or senseless dullness possesses them that they dare thrust into God's hearing even their most filthy desires, which they would be deeply ashamed to share with other people. Some ungodly men have mocked and even condemned this audacity — yet the vice itself has always persisted. Hence it came about that ambitious men chose Jupiter as their patron; greedy men, Mercury; those hungry for knowledge, Apollo and Minerva; soldiers, Mars; and the lustful, Venus. Just as today — as I have already touched on — people in prayer give more license to their unlawful desires than they would even in casual conversation with their equals. But God does not allow His gentleness to be mocked in this way. Asserting His own right, He subjects our prayers to His authority and holds them in check. We must therefore hold fast this word of John: 'This is the confidence that we have toward Him: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.' But since our abilities fall far short of such perfection, we must seek help. Just as we ought to direct the sight of our mind toward God, so the affection of the heart ought also to follow to the same end. But both fall far short — indeed, they faint and fail, or are carried in the opposite direction. Therefore God, to help this weakness, gives us the Spirit as our instructor in prayer — to teach us what is right and to govern our desires. For because we do not know what to pray for as we ought, the Spirit comes to our aid and intercedes for us with unutterable groanings — not that He literally prays or groans, but that He stirs up in us confidence, desires, and sighs that the strength of nature could never produce on its own. Paul rightly calls them 'unutterable groanings' — those which the faithful send forth by the Spirit's guidance — for those truly exercised in prayer know from experience that they are so caught in the confusion of their blind concerns that they can barely find what to say. Indeed, in trying to utter even stumbling words, they find themselves stuck and tangled. From this it follows that the ability to pray rightly is a singular gift. This is not said to encourage us to favor our own laziness — handing over the work of prayer entirely to the Spirit of God while we lie passive in that carelessness to which we are already too much inclined. There are wicked sayings in circulation that we should wait idle for the Spirit to move our minds, which are occupied with other things. On the contrary, we should loathe our own sloth and sluggishness and earnestly seek the Spirit's help. And when Paul bids us to pray in the Spirit, he does not cease to urge us to watchfulness — meaning that the Spirit's impulse so works to shape our prayers that it in no way hinders or weakens our own effort. For in this matter God will prove how powerfully faith moves our hearts.

Let there also be this law: that in prayer we always feel our own need, and that, earnestly thinking about how much we need the things we ask for, we join to our prayer an earnest — indeed fervent — desire to obtain them. For many go through prayers carelessly as a matter of form, reciting a set pattern of words, as if rendering a prescribed speech to God. And though they acknowledge prayer to be a necessary remedy for their ills — since to be without the help of God they seek would be their ruin — it is evident they treat it as a mere custom, since their hearts are cold and they do not weigh what they are asking for. A general and vague sense of their need does bring them to prayer, but it does not move them as those urgently seeking relief for a present necessity. Now what do we think is more hateful or detestable to God than this play-acting — when a person asks forgiveness of sins while either not considering himself a sinner, or not giving any thought to the fact that he is one? In this case God Himself is plainly mocked. But as I have said, humanity is so full of such perversity that people often ask God for things they are quite sure will come to them from somewhere else even without His generosity — or which they already have. The fault of some others seems lighter, yet is still intolerable: those who have only taken on the principle that they must offer God prayers, and then mumble through them without any engagement of the mind. But the godly must above all take care never to come before God to ask anything unless they are both burning with earnest desire of heart and genuinely longing to receive it from Him. Indeed, even in those things we ask purely for God's glory — in which at first glance we seem to have no personal stake — these ought to be asked with no less fervor and vehemence of desire. For when we pray that His name be hallowed, we must — if I may say so — hungrily and thirstily long for that hallowing.

If someone objects that we are not always driven by equal urgency to pray, I grant this. And James usefully teaches us this distinction: 'Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises.' So even ordinary experience teaches us that because we are too sluggish, God — as the situation calls for — prods us more sharply to pray earnestly. David calls this 'the right time' — because, as he teaches in many other places, the harder troubles, difficulties, fears, and other kinds of trials press upon us, the more freely our access to God is opened, as if He were calling us to Himself. But equally true is Paul's word that we must pray at all times. For however well things go according to our heart's desire and occasions for rejoicing surround us on every side, there is not a minute in which our need does not call us to prayer. If a person has abundance of wine and grain, yet since he cannot enjoy a single bite of bread without the continued grace of God, full cellars and barns are no reason to stop asking for daily bread. Now if we consider how many dangers hang over us at every moment, that very awareness will teach us that no time is free from prayer. But we can see this even more clearly in spiritual matters. For when will our many known sins allow us to sit at ease without humbly seeking pardon for both the guilt and its consequences? When do temptations grant us such a truce that we have no need to run for help? Moreover, the desire for the kingdom and glory of God ought to draw us so continuously — not just occasionally — that it should always be the right time. Therefore it is not without reason that we are so often commanded to pray continually. I am not yet speaking of perseverance in prayer, which will be mentioned later. What I mean is that when Scripture warns us to pray without ceasing, it exposes our laziness — because we do not see how necessary this care and diligence is for us. By this rule all hypocrisy and scheming deception in prayer is excluded — indeed, driven far away. God promises that He will be near to all who call upon Him in truth, and He declares that those who seek Him with their whole heart will find Him. But those who take pleasure in their own filthiness do not reach that point. Therefore right prayer requires repentance. This is why Scripture commonly says that God does not hear wicked people and that their prayers are accursed, as are their sacrifices — for it is fitting that those who lock up their own hearts should find God's ears closed to them, and that those who harden themselves against God should not find Him easily approached. In Isaiah He threatens this way: 'When you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood.' And in Jeremiah: 'They cried out, but there was none to save; even to the Lord, but He did not answer them' — because He treats it as a great dishonor when wicked people boast of His covenant while throughout their lives defiling His holy name. So in Isaiah He complains that when the Jews draw near to Him with their lips, their hearts are far from Him. He speaks not of prayers alone, but declares that He despises all pretense in every part of worship. To this point belongs James's word: 'You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.' It is true, as we will show again shortly, that the prayers of the godly do not rest on their own worthiness — yet John's warning is not superfluous: 'Whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments.' An evil conscience shuts the gate against us. From this it follows that none pray rightly or are heard except the pure worshipers of God. Therefore whoever prepares to pray, let him be grieved over his own sins — and, which cannot be done without repentance, let him take on the posture and mind of a beggar.

Here let the third rule be added: whoever comes before God in prayer must forsake all thought of his own glory, put away all sense of worthiness, and completely abandon all trust in himself — giving all glory wholly to God as he approaches. For if we take even the smallest credit to ourselves, we will fall away from His presence through our own pride. Of this humility that casts down all self-exaltation, we have frequent examples among the servants of God. And the holier each one is, the more he is brought low when he comes into the Lord's presence. So Daniel, whom the Lord Himself praised with the highest commendation, said: 'We are not presenting our supplications before You on account of any merits of our own, but on account of Your great compassion. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, listen and act! For Your own sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people are called by Your name.' And he does not merely include himself with the people by a rhetorical figure, as people sometimes do — rather, he confesses his personal guilt and humbly flees to the sanctuary of forgiveness, as he explicitly says: 'While I was confessing my sin and the sin of my people.' David also expresses this humility by his own example when he says: 'Do not enter into judgment with Your servant, for in Your sight no man living is righteous.' Isaiah prays in this manner: 'Behold, You were angry, for we sinned. We continued in them a long time; and shall we be saved? For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. And all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on Your name, who arouses himself to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us and have delivered us into the power of our iniquities. But now, O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our potter; and all of us are the work of Your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord, nor remember iniquity forever. Look, all of us who are Your people.' See how they rest on no confidence at all, but only on the fact that, thinking of themselves as God's people, they do not despair that He will care for them. Likewise Jeremiah: 'Though our iniquities testify against us, act, O Lord, for Your name's sake.' And it is most truly and most godly written — by whoever it was, since this anonymous text is attributed to the prophet Baruch — 'The soul that is weary and desolate, and the spirit that is troubled and sad, and the eyes that fail, and the hungry soul, gives glory to You, O Lord God. Not the righteousnesses of our fathers do we pour before You, O our God, to take mercy; but because You have sent out Your wrath upon us: for we have sinned before You.'

The beginning and foundation of praying rightly is the seeking of pardon, accompanied by humble and sincere confession of fault. For not even the holiest person can expect to receive anything from God until he is freely reconciled to Him — nor is it possible for God to be favorable to any except those whom He pardons. It is no surprise therefore that the faithful use this key to open the door of prayer for themselves. We learn this from many places in the Psalms. David, when asking for something else, says: 'Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; remember me according to Your lovingkindness, for Your goodness' sake, O Lord.' And again: 'Look upon my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins.' Here we also see that it is not enough to call ourselves to account each day for our recent sins, unless we also remember those that may seem long forgotten. The same prophet in another place, having confessed one serious offense, uses that as an occasion to go back even to the womb in which he contracted his corruption — not to make his guilt seem less by appealing to corrupt nature, but by gathering up the sins of his whole life. The more rigorously he condemns himself, the more readily he finds God open to approach. But even where the holy ones do not explicitly request forgiveness of sins, if we carefully examine the prayers Scripture records, we will easily find that they gathered the courage to pray from God's mercy alone — and always began by appeasing Him. For when any person honestly examines his own conscience, so far is he from boldly opening his concerns to God that he trembles at every approach to Him — except where he rests on trust in mercy and pardon. There is also a specific kind of confession where, when people ask for relief from suffering, they also pray to have their sins forgiven — since it would be absurd to want the effect removed while the cause remains. For we must make sure God is favorable to us before He shows that favor through outward signs. He Himself will keep this order — and it would profit us little for Him to be kind to us outwardly unless our conscience, sensing that He is appeased, truly found Him approachable. Christ also teaches us this by His response. When He had decided to heal the man paralyzed, He said: 'Your sins are forgiven you' — lifting our minds thereby to what is most to be desired: that God first receive us into His favor, and then show the fruit of reconciliation by helping us. But beyond the specific confession of present guilt by which the faithful seek pardon for particular offenses and their consequences, the general foundation that secures favor for prayers must never be omitted. Unless prayers rest on the free mercy of God, they will obtain nothing from Him. To this belongs John's word: 'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' For this reason, in the time of the law, prayers had to be consecrated with the blood of atonement to be acceptable — so that the people would be reminded of their unworthiness of so great a privilege, until, cleansed from their defilements, they might draw confidence to pray from God's mercy alone.

But when the holy ones sometimes seem to appeal to their own righteousness in order to move God — as when David says: 'Preserve my soul, for I am godly'; or Hezekiah: 'Remember now, O Lord, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Your sight' — by such expressions they mean nothing other than to testify through their very regeneration that they are the servants and children of God, to whom He Himself declares He will be merciful. He teaches through the prophet, as we have already seen, that His eyes are upon the righteous and His ears toward their prayers. And through the apostle: that we will receive whatever we ask if we keep His commandments. In these sayings He does not weigh prayer by the worthiness of works — His purpose is rather to establish the confidence of those whose conscience assures them of a genuine uprightness and sincerity, which all the faithful ought to have. This is taken from the very truth of God, as the man born blind whose sight was restored says in John: God does not hear sinners — if we understand 'sinners' in the common scriptural sense, meaning those who without any desire for righteousness rest completely content in their sins. For no heart can ever break out in genuine calling upon God that is not also striving after godliness. Therefore the prayers of the holy ones in which they mention their own purity or innocence are in agreement with such promises — they are claiming what may rightly be looked for by all God's servants. Moreover, this kind of prayer is commonly used when they compare themselves before the Lord with their enemies, from whose unjust treatment they seek deliverance by His hand. In such a comparison it is no surprise that they present their own righteousness and integrity to move Him all the more by the justice of their cause. We do not therefore take from the godly heart the right to bring the purity of his conscience before the Lord, in order to strengthen himself in the promises by which the Lord comforts and upholds His true worshipers — but our point is that the confidence of obtaining must rest on God's mercy alone, setting aside all thought of personal deserving.

The fourth rule is that, though cast down and humbled by true self-abasement, we should still approach prayer with a sure hope of receiving. These may seem contrary — joining to the awareness of God's just condemnation a confident expectation of His favor — and yet they agree perfectly if it is God's goodness alone that lifts us up when we are crushed by our own failures. Just as we taught earlier that repentance and faith are inseparably linked — the one bringing fear, the other bringing comfort — so in prayer the two must come together. David expresses this agreement in few words: 'But as for me, by Your abundant lovingkindness I will enter Your house; at Your holy temple I will bow in reverence for You.' Under 'the abundance of God's goodness' he includes faith, while not excluding fear — for not only does His majesty inspire reverence but our own unworthiness holds us back from all pride and presumption. But I do not mean a confidence that soothes the mind into a calm, untroubled ease free from all anxiety. That kind of peaceful rest belongs to those who have everything they want, are untouched by any care, stirred by no desire, swollen with no fear. What spurs the holy ones effectively to call upon God is being pressed hard by their own need, shaken by great unrest, nearly overwhelmed in themselves — until faith comes in time to help. For in such distress, God's goodness shines upon them so that even while they groan under the weight of present troubles, and suffer pain and anxiety from the fear of greater ones to come, they are so upheld by it that they find relief and comfort in bearing what must be borne — and hope for escape and deliverance. Therefore the prayer of a godly person must arise from both of these feelings and express them both: to groan over present troubles and to be anxiously afraid of new ones, and yet at the same time to flee to God, in no doubt that He is ready to stretch out His helping hand. For God is powerfully provoked to anger by our distrust if we ask for benefits we do not expect to receive. Therefore nothing is more in keeping with the nature of prayer than that it be ruled by this law: not to break out rashly but to follow faith as its guide. To this principle Christ calls us with His words: 'Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.' He confirms the same in another place: 'And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.' With this agrees James's word: 'But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting.' By setting doubting in opposition to faith, he most fittingly expresses faith's nature. Equally worth noting is his addition that those who call upon God in wavering doubt — unable to determine in their hearts whether they will be heard — obtain nothing. He compares such people to waves tossed and driven about by the wind. For this reason he calls a right prayer in another place 'the prayer of faith.' Again, when God so often declares that He will give to each according to his faith, He signifies that nothing is obtained without faith. In the end, it is faith that obtains whatever is granted through prayer. This is the meaning of Paul's notable statement, which careless people overlook: 'How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.' For in tracing the origin of prayer step by step back to faith, he plainly affirms that God cannot be sincerely called upon by any except those to whom His mercy and kindness have been made known and made familiar through the preaching of the Gospel.

Our adversaries do not think about this necessity. So when we tell the faithful to hold with assured confidence that God is favorable to them and bears them goodwill, they consider us to be saying something deeply absurd. But if they had any real practice of true prayer, they would understand that God cannot be rightly called upon without a firm sense of His goodwill. Since no one can truly grasp the power of faith except through personal experience of it in the heart, what can be gained by arguing with those who openly show they have never had anything more than an empty idea of it? For how powerful and how necessary the assurance we require actually is, is learned above all through the practice of prayer. Anyone who does not see this reveals that his conscience is very dull. Let us then, leaving aside these blind people, hold firmly to Paul's statement that God cannot be called upon by any other than those who know His mercy through the Gospel and are firmly persuaded that it is ready for them. For what kind of prayer would this be: 'O Lord, I am truly uncertain whether You will hear me — but because I am troubled and anxious, I flee to You that You may help me if I am worthy'? This was not the manner of the holy ones whose prayers we read in Scripture. Nor has the Holy Spirit taught us this way — through the apostle who bids us to draw near to the heavenly throne with confidence, so that we may obtain grace (Hebrews 4:16); and through another passage teaching that in Christ we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him (Ephesians 3:12). We must therefore hold with both hands to this assurance of receiving what we ask — since the Lord Himself commands it with His own voice and all the holy ones demonstrate it by their example — if we are to pray with any profit. For only the prayer that springs from this presumption of faith — if I may call it that — and is grounded on a fearless certainty pleases God. The apostle could have been content with the bare word 'faith,' but he added not only 'confidence' but also 'boldness and free access' — by this mark distinguishing us from unbelievers, who also pray to God in their way, but aimlessly. For this reason the whole church prays in the psalm: 'Let Your lovingkindness, O Lord, be upon us, according as we have hoped in You' (Psalm 33:22). The prophet expresses the same condition in another place: 'In the day when I cry out, this I know — that God is for me.' And again: 'In the morning I will direct my prayer to You and eagerly watch.' From these words we gather that prayers cast into the air are in vain unless hope is added, from which as from a watchtower we may quietly wait for the Lord. This agrees with the order of Paul's exhortation. Before he urges the faithful to pray in the Spirit at all times with watchfulness and diligence, he first bids them take up the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Ephesians 6:16-18). Now let readers recall what I said before: that faith is not overthrown when it is joined with an acknowledgment of our misery, need, and corruption. For however heavily the faithful feel burdened and pressed by their own sins — even if they are not only utterly lacking anything that might win God's favor but also loaded with many offenses that could rightly make them dread Him — they still do not cease to present themselves. This sense of their condition does not frighten them away from Him, since there is no other way to come to Him. For prayer was not ordained as a way to advance ourselves proudly before God or to think highly of anything of our own. Rather, it was ordained that we might, confessing our guilt, pour out our miseries to Him as children openly share their troubles with their parents. Indeed, the immeasurable weight of our sins ought to serve as a constant spur driving us to prayer. The prophet teaches us this by his own example: 'Be gracious to me, O Lord, for to You I cry all day long. Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You' (Psalm 41:4). I acknowledge that in such situations there would be deadly anguish without God's help — but the most kind Father, in His incomparable tenderness, has provided a timely remedy. By it He calms every trouble, soothes every anxiety, wipes away every fear, gently draws us to Himself, and removes every doubt and obstacle — making the way to Him easy.

First, when He commands us to pray, He is by that very commandment accusing us of wicked stubbornness if we refuse to obey. Nothing could be stated more clearly than the psalm: Call upon Me in the day of trouble. But since Scripture commends no duty of godliness more often than prayer, I do not need to spend more time on this point. Ask, says our Master, and you shall receive. Knock, and it shall be opened to you. Yet here a promise is also joined with the command, as is necessary. For though everyone agrees that the command should be obeyed, most people would run from God when He calls unless He promised to listen willingly -- indeed, unless He offered Himself to them. With these two things established, it is certain that whoever delays and does not come straight to God is not only rebellious and disobedient but also guilty of unbelief, because they distrust His promises. This deserves special attention because hypocrites, under the appearance of humility and modesty, just as proudly despise the command of God as they distrust His gracious invitation. They even rob Him of the chief part of His worship. For after He rejected sacrifices, in which all holiness seemed to consist at the time, He declared that this is what He values above everything else: to be called upon in the day of need. Therefore, when He requires what is rightfully His and encourages us to obey cheerfully, no excuse for doubt can justify holding back. Every testimony in Scripture that commands us to call upon God is like a banner raised before our eyes to give us confidence. It would be rash to rush into God's presence unless He went ahead of us by calling us. So He opens the way with His own voice, saying: I will say to them, You are My people, and they shall say to Me, You are our God. We see how He goes before His worshipers and wants them to follow Him. Therefore we should not fear that this is anything other than the sweetest invitation He could give. Let this remarkable title of God especially come to mind, for if we rest on it, we will easily overcome all obstacles. You, God, who hear prayer -- to You shall all flesh come. For what is more appealing or more inviting than for God to wear this title, which assures us that nothing is more natural to Him than to grant the desires of humble seekers? From this the prophet concludes that the gate stands open not just to a few but to all people, since he addresses everyone with these words: Call upon Me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me. Following this pattern, David claims for himself that a promise was given to him so he could obtain what he asks: You, Lord, have revealed this to the ear of Your servant. Therefore Your servant has found the courage to pray. From this we conclude that he would have been afraid, except that the promise had encouraged him. Elsewhere he arms himself with this general teaching: He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him. We may also notice in the Psalms that David sometimes breaks off his prayer to reflect on God's power, sometimes on His goodness, and sometimes on the faithfulness of His promises. It might seem that by inserting these reflections David produced disjointed prayers. But believers know from practice and experience that their passion fades unless they add fresh fuel to it. Therefore meditating on both the nature of God and His word during prayer is not unnecessary. So following David's example, let us not hesitate to weave in such thoughts as can refresh our faltering hearts with new and living strength.

It is astonishing that we are either barely moved or hardly moved at all by such sweet promises — that a great part of humanity, wandering in circles, would rather leave these fountains of living water and dig for themselves dry pits, than embrace the generosity God freely offers. 'The name of the Lord is a strong tower,' says Solomon; 'the righteous runs into it and is safe.' And Joel, after prophesying of the terrible destruction that was coming, added this notable word: 'And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved' — a word we know applies especially to the course of the Gospel. Barely one in a hundred is moved to go out to meet God. God Himself cries through Isaiah: 'You will call upon Me, and I will hear you; indeed before you call, I will answer.' And in another place He gives this same privilege to the whole church as belonging to all the members of Christ: 'He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble — I will rescue him.' Yet, as I have already said, it is not my aim to list every passage but to select the chief ones, by which we may taste how kindly God draws us to Himself — and by how strong a bond our ingratitude is held, when, with such sharp motivations, our laziness still holds us back. Therefore let these words always sound in our ears: 'The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth' — along with those passages we cited from Isaiah and Joel, in which God declares that He pays close attention to prayers, and indeed is delighted by them as with a sweet-smelling sacrifice, when we cast our cares upon Him. This singular benefit we receive from God's promises: that we make our prayers not in doubt and fear, but trusting in His word — whose majesty would otherwise overwhelm us — we dare to call on Him by the name of Father, since He is pleased to put that most precious name in our mouths. It remains that we, being drawn by such invitations, should know that we have thereby more than enough ground to obtain our prayers — since our prayers rest on no merit of our own, but all their worthiness and hope of receiving are grounded upon and dependent on God's promises. They need no other support and need look nowhere else. We must therefore settle in our minds: though we do not surpass in holiness what is praised in the holy patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, yet because the commandment of prayer is common to us and faith is also common, if we rest upon God's word, we are companions with them in this right. For God — as we have shown — by promising to be gentle and merciful to all, gives everyone, even the most miserable, ground for hope that they will obtain what they ask. Therefore the general declarations must be noticed, from which no one — from the greatest to the least — is excluded. There must simply be present a pure heart, self-reproach, humility, and faith. Let there be no unholy hypocrisy that deceitfully abuses the name of God in prayer. The most kind Father will not turn away those whom He not only invites to come to Him but draws by every possible means. Hence the manner of prayer from David that I quoted above: 'Look, You have promised, O Lord, to Your servant; because of this, Your servant has today found courage in his heart to make this prayer before You. Now therefore, O Lord God, You are God, and Your words are truth; You have promised this good thing to Your servant; now begin and do it.' And in another place: 'Deal with Your servant according to Your lovingkindness.' And all the Israelites together, as often as they arm themselves with the remembrance of the covenant, make clear enough that we should pray without fear, since the Lord appoints it so. In this they followed the example of the fathers — especially Jacob, who, after confessing that he was unworthy of the many mercies he had received from God, yet said he was encouraged to ask for greater things because God had promised to give them. But whatever excuses unbelievers make, when they do not flee to God as often as necessity presses them, when they do not seek Him or crave His help, they rob Him of His due honor just as much as if they were making for themselves new gods and idols — for by this they deny that He is the source of all good things for them. On the other side, there is nothing more powerful to deliver the godly from all doubt than to be armed with this thought: no obstacle ought to hold them back when they are obeying the commandment of God, who declares that nothing pleases Him more than obedience. Here again what I said earlier appears more clearly: that a bold spirit in prayer is perfectly consistent with fear, reverence, and deep concern — and that it is no contradiction to say that God lifts up the one who is cast down. In this way these forms of speech that seem to be in contradiction actually agree well together. Jeremiah and Daniel say they cast their prayers down before God. And again Jeremiah says: 'Let our petition fall before the Lord, that He may have compassion on the remnant of His people.' On the other hand, the faithful are frequently said to lift up prayer. So Hezekiah speaks, asking the prophet to intercede for him. And David desires that his prayer might rise like incense. For although, being persuaded of the fatherly love of God, they cheerfully commit themselves to His faithful care and do not hesitate to seek the help He freely promises — yet it is not an idle, shameless carelessness that lifts them up. Rather, they ascend step by step through the promises, and yet remain humble suppliants in the depths of self-abasement.

More than one objection is raised here. For Scripture reports that the Lord granted certain requests that sprang from a mind that was neither calm nor properly formed. There was good reason: Jotham had called down destruction on the inhabitants of Shechem, and the destruction came. God seemed to kindle with the fervor of that angry curse and to approve its violent and ill-tempered passion. The same kind of heat drove Samson when he said: 'O Lord God, please strengthen me just this time, that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.' For though some measure of righteous zeal was mixed into it, a hot and therefore faulty craving for vengeance was the ruling force. God granted it. From this it seems to follow that even prayers not shaped according to the rule prescribed by God's word can obtain their result. My first answer is that a general law is not abolished by individual examples. Beyond that, there are cases where special impulses were given to certain people, which meant a different standard applied to them than to ordinary people. For Christ's answer to His disciples must be kept in mind: when they rashly sought to imitate Elijah's example, He said they did not know what spirit they were acting from. But we must go further still and say that God does not always approve the prayers He grants. Rather, what such examples serve to illustrate — by making it plainly evident — is the teaching of Scripture: that He helps the miserable, hears the groaning of those who cry to Him when unjustly afflicted, and therefore carries out His judgments when the complaints of the poor rise up to Him, even if those praying are unworthy of any benefit whatsoever. For how often has He — taking vengeance on the cruelties, robberies, violence, filthy lusts, and other wickedness of ungodly people; breaking their boldness and fury; overthrowing their tyrannical power — testified that He helps the wrongly oppressed, even those who were merely beating the air with prayers to some vague idea of a deity? And one psalm plainly teaches that prayers without faith — that do not pierce into heaven — are not without effect. For the psalmist gathers together prayers that necessity wrings from unbelievers no less than from the godly, through the sheer instinct of nature — and he shows by the outcome that God responds to them. Is it because He is thus testifying that they are pleasing to Him? No — but in order to display His mercy more fully by this circumstance: that even unbelievers are not denied in their prayers. And further, to stir His true worshipers all the more urgently to pray, when they see that even pagan lamenting sometimes meets with effect. Yet the faithful have no reason to depart from the rule laid upon them by God, or to envy unbelievers as though they had gained something great by having their desire granted. In the same way we said that the Lord was moved by Ahab's repentance — to show by that example how ready He is to be entreated by His elect when genuine repentance is brought to appease Him. Therefore in the psalm He rebukes the Israelites because, having proved by experience how readily He granted their prayers, they almost immediately returned to the stubbornness of their former ways. This also appears plainly in the book of Judges: as often as the people wept, even though their tears were insincere, they were delivered from their enemies. Just as the Lord causes His sun to rise on both the good and the evil, so He also does not despise the weeping of those whose cause is just and whose misery is worthy of help. Yet He does not hear these people for salvation any more than He ministers food to those who despise His goodness. The question becomes harder with Abraham and Samuel. Abraham, warranted by no word from God, prayed for the Sodomites. Samuel prayed for Saul against a clear prohibition. And Jeremiah prayed that the city not be destroyed. Though their requests were denied, it seems harsh to say they lacked faith. But this answer should satisfy thoughtful readers: being taught by the general principles that God commands them to show mercy even to the unworthy, they were not altogether without faith — even though their judgment failed them in this particular case. Augustine writes wisely in one place: 'How is it that holy people, praying in faith, ask God for something contrary to what He has decreed? It is because they pray according to His will — not that hidden and unchangeable will, but the will He inspires in them, so that He may hear them in a different way.' He makes this distinction well. For by His incomprehensible counsel He so governs the outcome of events that the prayers of the holy ones — even when wrapped together with faith and error — do not go void. Yet this should carry no more weight as an example to follow than it excuses the holy ones themselves — whom I do not deny went beyond proper bounds. Therefore where no clear promise appears, we must ask of God with a condition attached. To this purpose serves David's saying: 'Watch over Your case as for the judgment You have commanded' — showing that he was assured by a special word of God to ask for a temporal benefit.

It is also important to note that the four rules of right prayer I have described are not required with such extreme strictness that God rejects prayers in which He does not find perfect faith, perfect repentance, intense fervor, and perfectly ordered requests all together. We have said that though prayer is a familiar conversation between the godly and God, we must still maintain reverence and modesty — not giving free rein to every possible request, not desiring beyond what God permits, and lifting our minds upward to a pure and undefiled worship of Him, lest His majesty come to be taken lightly. No one has ever performed this with the purity it requires. For — to say nothing of ordinary people — how many of David's complaints savor of excess? Not because he intended to quarrel with God or find fault with His judgments, but because, fainting from weakness, he found no better comfort than to pour his sorrows into God's presence. Indeed, God bears with our childlike speech and pardons our ignorance whenever something escapes us carelessly — for without this tender forbearance, there would be no freedom to pray at all. But although David's intention was to submit himself fully to God's will, and he prayed with no less patience than desire to receive — still, troublous feelings arise within him, and sometimes boil out, that are very much at odds with the first rule we have set. We can see this especially in the conclusion of Psalm 39 — with what violent force of grief that holy man was swept away, so that he could no longer keep within proper bounds. 'Cease from me,' he says, 'that I may recover strength before I depart and am no more.' One would think that, like a desperate man, he desires nothing except that God's hand would lift and let him waste away in his miseries. He does not say it because he deliberately rushes into such extremity or — like the reprobate — would have God depart from him. He is only complaining that God's wrath is too heavy for him to bear. In such temptations, requests also arise that are not well formed according to the rule of God's Word, and in which the holy ones do not sufficiently weigh what is lawful and fitting. Whatever prayers are stained by these faults deserve to be refused — yet if the holy ones regret it, correct themselves, and quickly come back to their senses, God pardons them. They also offend the second rule, since they are often compelled to wrestle with their own coldness, and their need and misery does not press them sharply enough to pray with earnestness. And often their minds slip away and wander into vanity. Therefore in this respect too there is need of pardon, lest our faint, imperfect, broken, and wandering prayers be denied. God has planted in human minds the natural sense that prayer is only complete when the mind is lifted upward. From this comes the ceremony of lifting up the hands, as I mentioned before — a practice observed in all ages and among all peoples, and still in use. But how many, when they lift their hands, find in their own conscience that they remain dull — because their heart stays rooted to the ground? As for the seeking of forgiveness of sins: though none of the faithful omit it, those truly exercised in prayer feel that they barely bring the tenth part of the sacrifice of which David speaks: 'The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.' So there is always a double pardon to seek: first, because they know themselves guilty in conscience of many faults, but are not yet so moved by the sense of them that they loathe themselves as much as they ought; and second, so that those who have grown in repentance and the fear of God — being cast down with just sorrow for their offenses — may pray to escape the punishment of the Judge. Above all, the weakness or imperfection of faith corrupts the prayers of the faithful — unless God's tender mercy came to their aid. But it is no surprise that God pardons this fault, since He Himself often disciplines His own through sharp trials as if deliberately quenching their faith. This is a most painful temptation, when the faithful are forced to cry: 'How long, O Lord? Will You be angry forever? Will Your jealousy burn like fire?' — as if their very prayers were making God more angry. So when Jeremiah says 'He has blocked my ways with blocks of stone; He has made my paths crooked,' there is no doubt he was shaken by a violent wave of anguish. Such examples are countless in Scripture, showing that the faith of the holy ones was often mixed and tossed with doubts, so that in believing and hoping they still betrayed some unfaithfulness. But because they do not reach the standard they should, they ought to strive all the more to mend their faults daily and draw closer to the perfect rule of prayer — and meanwhile to recognize how deeply they are drowned in evils, given that even in the very remedies they find new diseases. There is no prayer that the Lord does not have just cause to reject, unless He overlooks the spots with which all prayers are stained. I say this not to encourage the faithful to carelessly excuse themselves, but rather that in sharply reproving themselves they should work to overcome these obstacles. Even though Satan labors to block every path and keep them from praying, they should still press through — firmly persuaded that even if not free from all hindrances, their striving pleases God and their prayers are accepted by Him, provided they labor and bend themselves toward what they do not yet fully attain.

But since no one is worthy to present himself before God or come into His presence, the heavenly Father Himself — to deliver us from the shame and fear that would have crushed all our courage — has given to us His Son Jesus Christ our Lord to be our advocate and Mediator with Him. Through His leading we may boldly come to God, trusting that with such an intercessor, nothing we ask in His name will be denied — since nothing can be denied to Him by the Father. To this must all we have taught about faith be referred. For just as the promise sets forth Christ to us as our Mediator, so our hope of receiving must rest on Him — or it loses the very benefit of prayer. For as soon as the terrible majesty of God comes to our minds, we cannot help but tremble, and the awareness of our own unworthiness drives us far away — until Christ steps between us and Him, changing the throne of dreadful glory into the throne of grace. As the apostle also teaches, we may therefore boldly draw near with full confidence to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. And as there is a law commanding us to call upon God, and a promise given that those who call upon Him will be heard, so we are specifically commanded to call upon Him in the name of Christ, and we have the promise that what we ask in His name we will receive. 'Until now,' He says, 'you have asked nothing in My name. Ask and you will receive.' 'In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf — for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me.' It is therefore clear beyond dispute that those who call upon God in any name other than Christ's stubbornly break His commandment, treat His will as nothing, and have no promise on which to base an expectation of receiving anything. For as Paul says, 'all the promises of God in Him are yes, and in Him Amen' — that is, confirmed and fulfilled.

The circumstance of the time is also to be carefully noted when Christ commands His disciples to flee to intercession with Him after He has gone up into heaven. 'In that day,' He says, 'you will ask in My name.' It is certain that from the very beginning no one was heard in prayer except by means of the Mediator. For this reason the Lord had ordained in the law that the priest alone, entering the sanctuary, should bear on his shoulders the names of the twelve tribes of Israel and carry precious stones on his chest — while the people stood far off in the court and from there joined their prayers with the priest. Indeed, the sacrifice served to ensure that the prayers would be confirmed and effective. That shadowy ceremony of the law therefore taught that we are all shut out from the presence of God, and that we therefore need a Mediator who may appear in our name, bear us on His shoulders, hold us fast to His chest, so that we are heard in His person — and that through the sprinkling of blood our prayers are cleansed, which, as we have said, are never without some stain. And we see that the holy ones, when they desired to obtain anything, grounded their hope on sacrifices, knowing them to be the confirmations of all requests. 'May He remember all your offerings,' says David, 'and receive your burnt offering as acceptable.' From this it follows that God has from the beginning been moved to receive the prayers of the godly through the intercession of Christ. Why then does Christ appoint a new order when His disciples are to begin praying in His name? Because this grace, being now more glorious, deserves to be held in higher regard by us. For in this very sense He had said a little before: 'Until now you have asked nothing in My name — now ask.' Not that they understood nothing of the office of the Mediator — all Jews were instructed in those principles — but because they had not yet clearly known that Christ, by ascending into heaven, would be a more certain patron of the church than He had been before. Therefore comforting their grief at His departure with a special benefit, He claims for Himself the office of advocate, and teaches that they had until then lacked the chief privilege — which would now be granted to them, so that, aided by His mediation, they could call upon God with greater freedom. As the apostle says, this new and living way has been dedicated in His blood. Our willfulness is therefore all the less excusable if we do not embrace with both arms — as the saying goes — so inestimable a benefit, which has been specially appointed for us.

Christ is the only way and the only entry by which we are permitted to come to God. Whoever turns away from this way and abandons this entry has no other path or entry to God — nothing remains for them at God's throne but wrath, judgment, and terror. The Father has appointed Christ as our head and guide. Anyone who departs from Him in any way is working to erase and mar the mark that God has placed upon Him. So Christ is appointed as the only Mediator, through whose intercession the Father is made favorable to us and ready to hear us. In the meantime, the saints do have their own intercessions, by which they commend one another's welfare to God — as the apostle mentions. But these intercessions depend entirely on that one single intercession and take nothing away from it. Just as they spring from the love with which we embrace one another as members of one body, so they are also directed toward the unity of the head. Since they are made in the name of Christ, what do they show except that no one can be helped by any prayer at all apart from the intercession of Christ? Just as Christ's intercession does not prevent us from being advocates for one another in prayer within the church, so this must remain certain: all the intercessions of the whole church must be directed to that one sole Mediator. We ought especially to be grateful for this, because God — pardoning our unworthiness — not only permits each of us to pray for ourselves but also allows us to intercede for one another. For if God appoints members of His church as advocates who would rightly deserve to be rejected if they prayed only for themselves, what arrogance it would be to abuse this privilege in a way that darkens the honor of Christ!

It is pure nonsense when the Sophists claim that Christ is the Mediator of redemption while the faithful are mediators of intercession — as though Christ, having performed a temporary mediation, handed over to His servants an eternal mediatorship that will never end. How generously they treat Him, cutting away so small a portion of His honor! But Scripture says something far different, and a godly person should be content with Scripture's plain testimony and leave these deceivers behind. When John says that if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ — does he mean that Christ was once our patron in former times, and not rather that He assigns to Him an everlasting intercession? What do we say to Paul's statement that Christ sits at the right hand of God the Father and makes intercession for us? And when Paul in another place calls Him the only Mediator between God and men, does he not mean of prayers, of which he had just made mention? He had just said that intercession must be made for all people, and immediately adds as proof that there is one God and one Mediator for all people. Augustine expounds this in exactly the same way, saying: 'Christian people commend themselves to one another in prayer. But He for whom no one intercedes — who intercedes for all — He is the only and true Mediator.' Paul the apostle, though he was a leading member under the head, knew that he was still a member of the body of Christ, and knew that the greatest and truest priest of the church had entered — not through a figure into the inner chambers of the veil, to a shadowy holy of holies — but in express and steadfast reality into the innermost places of heaven, to a holiness not shadowy but eternal. For this reason he commends himself to the prayers of the faithful. Paul does not make himself a mediator between the people and God, but asks that all members of the body of Christ would pray for one another — because the members care for each other, and if one member suffers, the others suffer with it. In this way the mutual prayers of all the members still traveling on earth ascend to the Head who has gone before into heaven, in whom there is appeasement for our sins. For if Paul were a mediator, the other apostles would also be mediators — and if there were many mediators, Paul's own argument would fall apart, where he said: 'There is one God, one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, in whom we also are one if we keep the unity of faith in the bond of peace.' And again in another place: 'But if you seek a Priest, He is above the heavens, where He makes intercession for you — who on earth died for you.' We do not imagine that He kneels before the Father and humbly pleads for us. Rather, as the apostle teaches, He so appears before the face of God that the power of His death serves as a perpetual intercession for us. Having entered the sanctuary of heaven, He alone — to the end of the ages — carries to God the prayers of the people who remain far off in the outer court.

Regarding the saints who have died in the flesh but live in Christ — if we offer any prayer to them, we must not imagine that they themselves have any other way of approaching God than Christ, who alone is the way, or that their prayers are acceptable to God in any other name. Therefore, since Scripture calls us back from all things to Christ alone — since the heavenly Father's will is to gather all things together in Him — it is the height of foolishness, not to say madness, to seek an entry through the saints that leads us away from the One through whom even they themselves have no open entry. But who can deny that this has been the common practice in certain past ages, and that it is still practiced wherever Rome rules? The merits of the saints are constantly put forward to obtain God's favor, and for the most part God is prayed to in their names while Christ is passed over. Is this not, I ask you, transferring to the saints the very office of sole intercession that we have shown belongs to Christ alone? Furthermore, what angel or devil has ever revealed to anyone even one word of this intercession of the saints that these people invent? Scripture says nothing about it. What reason is there, then, for inventing it? Truly, when the human mind searches for helpers whose existence God's Word has never confirmed, it reveals its own distrust. If we probe the consciences of those who delight in the intercession of saints, we will find that it comes from no other source than a troubled worry — as though Christ were either too weak or too strict for the purpose. By this doubt they dishonor Christ, robbing Him of the title of sole Mediator — a title the Father gave Him as a singular prerogative that must not be transferred to anyone else. In doing so they also obscure the glory of His birth, make void His cross, and strip whatever He has done and suffered of its rightful praise — for all of it points to this end: that He truly is, and is recognized as, the only Mediator. At the same time they reject the goodness of God, who gave Himself to be their Father. He is not their Father unless they acknowledge Christ to be their Brother — which they effectively deny unless they believe He bears toward them a brotherly affection, which could not be more kind or tender. Therefore Scripture offers only Him to us, sends us to Him, and keeps us in Him. As Ambrose says: 'He is our mouth, by which we speak to the Father; our eye, by which we see the Father; our right hand, by which we offer ourselves to the Father. Apart from His intercession, neither we nor all the saints have anything with God.' If they answer that the common prayers said in churches end with the conclusion, 'through Christ our Lord,' this is a feeble excuse. Christ's intercession is no less profaned when it is mixed with the prayers and merits of dead men than if it were left out entirely and only dead men were named. Moreover, in all their litanies, hymns, and hymn-prayers — where no honor is left ungiven to dead saints — Christ receives no mention at all.

Their foolish blindness went still further, giving us a clear picture of how superstition works — once it has shaken off restraint, it never stops going astray. After people began to look to the intercession of saints, each saint was gradually assigned a specific function — so that for different situations one or another saint would be called upon as intercessor. Then each person chose his own special patron saint into whose care he entrusted himself, as though into God's own protection. And not only were gods set up according to the number of cities — as the prophet once reproached Israel — but according to the number of individual people. Since the saints direct all their desires to God's will alone and rest in it, anyone who assigns them some other prayer than a prayer for the coming of God's kingdom is thinking foolishly, carnally, and slanderously about them. For the idea that each saint is more favorably inclined toward his own devotees is completely contrary to what the saints actually are. Eventually many people went so far as to commit outright sacrilege, calling on the saints not as helpers but as the primary rulers of their salvation. This is where foolish people end up when they wander from their sure footing — which is the Word of God. I am not even speaking here of the more monstrous and gross forms of ungodliness, which — though abominable to God, angels, and people — they are neither ashamed of nor tired of. They fall prostrate before the image or picture of Barbara, Catherine, and others like them, and mumble the Lord's Prayer. The pastors show no care to heal or restrain this madness. Drawn by the scent of profit, they gladly approve of it. But even if they try to shift blame for so serious an offense, how will they defend this — that people pray to Loy or Medard to look down from heaven and help their servants? Or that the holy Virgin is asked to command her Son to do what they are requesting? The Council at Carthage once forbidden any direct prayer to the saints at the altar. It seems likely that when the godly men could not entirely suppress the force of this wicked custom, they at least added the restraint that public prayers should not be corrupted with the form, 'Saint Peter, pray for us.' But how much further has this devilish importunity gone — stopping at nothing to hand over to dead men what properly belongs to God and Christ alone?

Their attempts to ground the intercession of saints on Scripture's authority are worthless. They point out that Scripture often speaks of angels offering prayers, and even says that the prayers of the faithful are carried by angels into God's presence. But if they want to compare departed holy men to angels, they need to prove that those holy men are ministering spirits — ones commissioned to watch over our safety, charged to keep us in all our ways, to surround us, warn and counsel us, and watch over us. All these things are assigned to angels, but not to departed saints. How wrongly they group deceased holy men with angels becomes clear from the many distinct roles by which Scripture differentiates between the two. No one may act as an advocate before an earthly judge unless he is officially admitted. So where do people get such audacity to thrust upon God patrons for whom Scripture nowhere assigns that office? It was God's will to appoint angels to watch over our safety. That is why they attend holy assemblies, and the church is a theater in which they marvel at God's diverse and many-sided wisdom. Whoever transfers to others what is peculiar to angels overturns and confounds the order God has established — an order that should be inviolable. With equal boldness they press forward in citing other testimony. God said to Jeremiah: 'Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before Me, My heart would not go out to this people.' Someone argues: could He have spoken thus of dead men unless He knew that they were interceding for the living? But I draw the opposite conclusion: since it is clear from this passage that neither Moses nor Samuel was actually interceding for the people of Israel, there was at that time no intercession of dead men at all. For if any saint could be counted on to care for the people's welfare, would it not be Moses — who surpassed all others in this role during his lifetime? Yet Moses was not interceding. If the argument is pressed by this subtle move — that the dead must intercede for the living because God spoke hypothetically about what would happen if they interceded — then I will argue even more plausibly: in the people's dire crisis, Moses did not intercede, even though God said 'if he were to intercede.' It follows that no one else intercedes either, since all others fall far short of the compassion, goodness, and fatherly care that characterized Moses. By resorting to such quibbling they only wound themselves with the very weapon they thought was defending them. The plain reading of the sentence is that the Lord simply declares He will not spare the people's offenses — even if Moses or Samuel, whose prayers He had once so readily answered, were their patrons. This same sense is most clearly drawn from a parallel passage in Ezekiel. 'If these three men were in the city — Noah, Daniel, and Job — they would deliver only their own lives by their righteousness, not their sons or daughters,' says the Lord. Without doubt God means here: even if two of those men were to live again — for the third, Daniel, was then alive, and had in the first bloom of his youth shown an incomparable example of godliness — let us leave aside those whom Scripture plainly shows have finished their course. Therefore when Paul speaks of David, he does not teach that David helps his descendants through ongoing prayers, but only that he served his own generation.

They object again: are we then to strip the departed saints of all charitable prayer — they who throughout their whole lives breathed nothing but charity and mercy? I will not make a detailed investigation into what the saints do or think about in heaven. But it is not likely that they are carried back and forth by all kinds of particular requests from individual people. Rather, they rest in a settled and unchanging longing for the coming of God's kingdom — which consists no less in the destruction of the wicked than in the salvation of the godly. If this is true, then their charity is surely contained within the communion of the body of Christ, and extends no further than the nature of that communion allows. Even if I grant that they pray for us in this way, it does not follow that they depart from their own rest to be pulled down into earthly concerns — and even less does it follow that we must call upon them. Nor does it follow that they must intercede for us merely because living people on earth may commend one another in prayer. That practice serves to nourish charity among the living, as they share and bear one another's burdens. They do this by God's command, and they have His promise — and both of these things are essential to prayer. None of this applies to the dead. When the Lord has removed them from our company, He has left us no ongoing exchange of activity with them, nor them with us — as far as we can determine. Even if someone argues that the departed must retain toward us the same charity they shared with us in one faith — still, who has revealed that they have such far-reaching ears to hear our voices, or such sharp eyes to observe our needs? People babble about some mysterious brightness of God's countenance shining on the saints, in which they can view from above the affairs of people below as in a mirror. But to assert this with such bold certainty — without any word from God to support it — is nothing other than breaking into the hidden judgments of God by the drunken fantasies of our own minds. It is to trample Scripture underfoot, which so often declares that the wisdom of the flesh is hostile to the wisdom of God, which condemns entirely the vanity of our natural understanding, which commands us to cast down all our reasoning and look only to God's will.

The other Scripture passages they bring to defend this lie are most wickedly twisted. Jacob, they say, prays that his name and the names of his fathers Abraham and Isaac be called upon over his descendants. But first let us consider what this "calling upon" means among the Israelites. They do not call upon their fathers to help them. Rather, they ask God to remember His servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Therefore their example does nothing for those who speak directly to the saints themselves. But because these dull-minded people do not understand what it means to have the name of Jacob called upon someone, nor why it should be called upon, it is no wonder they stumble so childishly over the very form of the expression. This way of speaking is found frequently in Scripture. For Isaiah says that a man's name is called upon a woman when she has him as her husband, under whose care and protection she lives. Therefore, to have the name of Abraham called upon the Israelites means that they trace their lineage from him and honor him with solemn remembrance as their founder and ancestor. Jacob does this not because he is concerned about spreading the fame of his own name. Rather, since he knew that the entire blessedness of his descendants depended on inheriting the covenant God had made with him, he wishes for them what he sees as the greatest of all blessings: to be counted among his family. For this is nothing other than passing on to them the succession of the covenant. And when they bring this remembrance into their prayers, they do not flee to the intercession of dead men. Instead, they remind the Lord of His covenant, by which the most gracious Father promised to be favorable and generous to them for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. How little the saints depended on the merits of their fathers is shown by the common confession of the church in the prophet: You are our Father, and Abraham did not know us, and Israel was ignorant of us. You, Lord, are our Father and our Redeemer. And when they speak this way, they add: Return, O Lord, for Your servants' sake -- yet they are not thinking of any intercession but are setting their minds on the benefit of the covenant. But now, since we have the Lord Jesus, in whose hand the eternal covenant of mercy is not only established but also confirmed to us, whose name should we use in our prayers more than His? And since these self-appointed teachers insist that the patriarchs are shown by these words to be intercessors, I would like to ask them: why does Abraham, the father of the church, have no place at all among their list of patron saints? From what gutter they fetch their advocates is no secret. Let them tell me how fitting it is that Abraham, whom God preferred above all others and raised to the highest degree of honor, should be neglected and pushed aside. The truth is that since this practice was unknown in the ancient church, they thought it best to say nothing about the Old Testament fathers in order to hide how new their invention was -- as though using different names could excuse an invented and fabricated custom. As for the objection that God is asked to show mercy to the people for David's sake, this does nothing at all to support their error. In fact, it is one of the strongest proofs against it. For if we consider the role David played, he is set apart from all the other saints so that God would establish the covenant He made through David's hand. In this way, the covenant itself is what matters more than the man, and under a figure the sole intercession of Christ is affirmed. For it is certain that what belonged uniquely to David, insofar as he was an image of Christ, does not apply to anyone else.

Some are moved by the fact that the prayers of the saints are often recorded as having been answered. Why were they answered? Because they prayed. 'They trusted in You,' says the prophet, 'and they were saved; they cried and were not put to shame.' So let us also pray as they did, that we may be heard as they were. These people reason wrongly when they argue that only those who have already been heard will be heard. How much better does James put it? 'Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.' Does James draw from this some special prerogative of Elijah, to which we must flee? No. He teaches us what constant power godly and sincere prayer has, in order to urge us to pray in the same way. We form too mean an idea of God's readiness and willingness to hear unless such experiences confirm us in a firmer trust in His promises — in which He promises that His ear is inclined not to one or two or a few, but to all who call upon His name. This foolishness is all the more inexcusable because these people seem to deliberately despise so many of Scripture's warnings. David was often delivered by God's power. Was this so that he could draw that power to himself for others to be delivered through his help? He himself says the opposite: 'The righteous wait for me, until You reward me.' And again: 'The righteous will see and rejoice, and trust in the Lord.' 'Behold, this poor man cried to God, and He answered him.' The Psalms contain many such prayers in which David urges God to act by pointing out that the righteous must not be put to shame — that they might be lifted up by his example to hope confidently. Let one example be enough. 'Therefore let every godly person pray to You in a time when You may be found.' I mention this passage all the more willingly because shameless peddlers of hired arguments have not been embarrassed to cite it in support of the intercession of the dead — as though David meant anything other than showing the fruit that comes from God's mercy and kindness when He answers prayer. We must learn here that God's grace shown to ourselves and to others is no small help in confirming our confidence in His promises. I will leave unmentioned the many passages where David sets before himself God's past benefits as grounds for confidence, since readers of the Psalms will encounter them readily without searching. Jacob himself taught this same thing by his own example: 'I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness and faithfulness You have shown Your servant; for with my staff only I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two companies.' He cites the promise — but not alone. He also brings in what God has already done, so that he may trust more boldly that God will continue to be the same toward him. For God is not like mortal men who grow weary of giving or whose resources run out. He is to be judged by His own nature, as David wisely says: 'You have redeemed me, O God of truth.' After praising God for his salvation, he adds that God is a truth-teller — because unless God were always the same, His past benefits would not provide a sufficiently strong reason for trust and prayer. But when we know that every time God helps us He shows an example and proof of His goodness, we need not fear that our hope will be put to shame or fail us.

Here is the summary. Since Scripture presents prayer as the chief act of worship — God himself, rejecting all sacrifices, requires this duty of godliness — directing prayer to anyone other than God is open sacrilege. The psalm says as much: 'If we stretch out our hands to a foreign god, will God not find this out?' Since God will not be called upon except through faith, and expressly commands prayers to be formed according to the rule of His Word — and since faith founded on the Word is the mother of right prayer — the moment we stray from the Word our prayer is inevitably corrupted. It has already been shown that when all of Scripture is examined, this honor is claimed for God alone. Regarding the office of intercession, we have also shown that it belongs uniquely to Christ, and that no prayer is acceptable to God apart from what this Mediator hallows. Though the faithful do offer prayers to God for one another, we have shown that this takes nothing from Christ's sole intercession — because they all rest upon it and commit both themselves and others to God through it. We have also shown that this practice is wrongly extended to the dead, since nowhere in Scripture are they commanded to pray for us. Scripture frequently urges us to this mutual duty for one another — but regarding the dead, there is not a single word. Indeed, James, in joining two things together — that we confess to one another and pray for one another — silently excludes the dead. To condemn this error, one argument alone is sufficient: right prayer begins in faith, and faith comes from hearing the Word of God, which contains no mention of this invented intercession. Superstition has rashly seized upon patrons whom God never appointed. Scripture is filled with many patterns for prayer, yet there is no example of this patronage system without which, in the Roman church, they believe no prayer is valid. Furthermore, it is certain that this superstition has grown from distrust — either because people were not content to have Christ as their intercessor, or because they have stripped Him of this honor altogether. The latter point is easily proved by their own argument. Their strongest case for needing the intercession of saints is that we are unworthy of direct access to God. We readily grant this is entirely true. But from that we conclude that those who value Christ's intercession as worthless — unless George, Hippolytus, or other such figures are added to it — have left nothing at all for Christ.

Although prayer in the strict sense means only requests and petitions, petition and thanksgiving are so closely related that both can rightly be covered under the one word. The specific forms Paul lists fall under this first division. Through asking and seeking we pour out our desires before God, requesting both things that spread His glory and advance His name, and benefits that are useful to us. Through thanksgiving we magnify His kindness toward us with fitting praise, acknowledging that everything good we receive comes from His generosity. David combined these two parts together: 'Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.' Scripture is not wrong to command us to practice both. As we have said elsewhere, our need is so great — and experience itself cries out that we are pressed and squeezed on every side by so many serious troubles — that everyone has more than enough reason to sigh to God and call upon Him in humble prayer. Even those free from outward trouble should be driven to seek help — the guilt of their failings and the countless attacks of temptation ought to spur even the most holy to ask for relief. But in the sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving there can be no interruption without serious sin, since God never stops heaping on people one benefit after another to draw us to gratitude, even when we are slow and sluggish. Indeed, so great and so rich is the outpouring of His benefits that it almost overwhelms us. So many and such great wonders are visible on every side that we never lack material for praise and thanksgiving. To make this clearer: since all our hope and wealth rests in God — as we have sufficiently shown — and since neither we nor anything we have can prosper without His blessing, we must continually commit ourselves and everything we have to Him. Whatever we plan, say, or do, let us plan, say, and do it under His hand and will, and in hope of His help. All who devise or determine plans by trusting in themselves or others — who undertake anything without His will and without calling on Him — are pronounced cursed by God. We have already said several times that God is rightly honored when He is acknowledged as the source of all good things. From this it follows that all His gifts are to be received from His hand with continual thanks, and that there is no other proper way to use His benefits — which flow from His generosity for no other end than that we should be continually occupied in confessing His praise and giving thanks. When Paul says that things are sanctified by the word and prayer, he is saying they are not clean and holy for us without word and prayer — understanding 'word' here to mean 'faith' by a figure of speech. David therefore speaks well when, after receiving God's generosity, he says that a new song has been put in his mouth — signifying that it is a kind of malicious silence to pass over any of God's benefits without praise, since He gives us reason to speak well of Him as often as He does good to us. Isaiah also, when setting forth God's remarkable grace, calls the faithful to a new and extraordinary song. In this same spirit David says elsewhere: 'O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise.' Likewise Hezekiah and Jonah testify that their deliverance will end in celebrating God's goodness with songs in the temple. David prescribes this same rule for all the godly: 'What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I shall lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.' The same rule the church follows in another psalm: 'Save us, our God, that we may give thanks to Your name and glory in Your praise.' And again: 'He has regarded the prayer of the destitute and has not despised their prayer. This will be written for the generation to come, and a people yet to be created will praise the Lord — to declare His name in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem.' Indeed, whenever the faithful ask God to act for His name's sake — professing they deserve nothing in their own name — they bind themselves to give thanks, promising that the right use of God's generosity will be to proclaim it. So Hosea, speaking of the coming redemption of the church, says: 'Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously, and we will render as offerings the calves of our lips.' God's benefits not only call for praise of the tongue but naturally produce love. 'I love the Lord,' says David, 'because He has heard my voice and my supplications.' And elsewhere, recounting the help he had experienced: 'I will love You, O Lord my strength.' No praise will please God that does not flow from this sweetness of love. We must also hold fast to Paul's statement that all prayers are faulty and wrong to which thanksgiving is not joined — for he says: 'In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.' Since irritability, weariness, impatience, bitter grief, and fear drive many people to grumble in prayer, Paul commands that our emotions be so regulated that the faithful — even before they have received what they desire — still cheerfully bless God. If this standard must be kept even in circumstances that are in some ways difficult and contrary, how much more firmly does God bind us to sing His praises whenever He grants what we have asked. As we have taught that our prayers are hallowed by Christ's intercession — which otherwise would be unclean — so the apostle, when he commands us to offer a sacrifice of praise through Christ, reminds us that we have no mouth clean enough to praise God's name unless Christ's priesthood serves as the means. From this we gather that the people in the Roman church have been strangely deceived, when most of them marvel that Christ is even called an advocate. This is why Paul commands both prayer and thanksgiving without ceasing — he wants the prayers of all people to be lifted to God with as much continuity as possible, at every time, in every place, in all matters and circumstances. These people should look to God for everything and yield to Him the praise of everything, as He constantly provides occasion for both prayer and praise.

This constant diligence in prayer applies chiefly to the private prayers of each person, but it also has some bearing on the public prayers of the church. Public prayers cannot be continuous, nor should they be conducted in any way other than according to the established order agreed upon by common consent. I readily grant this. Certain hours are therefore set and appointed — indifferent before God, but necessary for the practical life of the community — so that everyone may be accommodated and all things may be done, as Paul says, properly and in order in the church. But this does not prevent every congregation from regularly stirring itself to frequent prayer, and when a pressing need arises, from praying with even greater earnestness. Perseverance in prayer, which is closely related to consistent diligence, will find a more fitting place to be discussed near the end. Now, none of this supports the meaningless babbling that Christ warned us against. He does not forbid praying at length, or often, or with deep feeling. He forbids trusting that we can wear God down with endless chatter — as though He could be persuaded the way a man might be. We know that hypocrites, because they fail to recognize they are dealing with God, put on as much of a show in prayer as they would in a public parade. The Pharisee who thanked God that he was not like other men was no doubt congratulating himself in front of onlookers, as if prayer were a way to gain a reputation for holiness. From this came the empty babbling that is still common in the Roman church today — where some waste time repeating the same prayers over and over, and others parade before the crowd with a long heap of words. Since this babbling is a childish mockery of God, it is rightly forbidden in the church, so that nothing practiced there may be anything other than sincere prayer from the bottom of the heart. Closely related to this corruption is another which Christ condemns alongside it: hypocrites, for the sake of boasting, seek many witnesses and prefer the marketplace as a place to pray rather than have their prayers go unnoticed by the world. But since we have already shown that the goal of prayer is to lift our minds to God — both for confessing His praise and for seeking His help — we can see that the most important part of prayer lies in the mind and heart. Indeed, prayer in its truest sense is an inward movement of the heart, poured out and opened before God the searcher of hearts. Therefore, as already noted, the heavenly Teacher — when He meant to give us the best rule of prayer — commanded us to go into our room, shut the door, and pray to our Father who is in secret, so that our Father who sees in secret may hear us. He had already warned His disciples away from the example of hypocrites who made a showy, ambitious display of prayer to win human approval. Then He added the better alternative: go into your room and pray with the door shut. By these words He calls us, as I understand them, to seek out solitude that helps us descend and fully enter our own hearts with our whole mind — promising that God will be near to the heart's genuine affections, since our bodies ought to be His temple. He did not mean to deny that it is also fitting to pray in other places. But He shows that prayer is essentially a private thing, seated chiefly in the soul and requiring its quiet away from the noise of distracting cares. For good reason the Lord Himself, when He wished to apply Himself more earnestly to prayer, would withdraw to some lonely place far from crowds. By His example He teaches us that these outward aids — which help a naturally slippery mind focus on earnest prayer — should not be despised. Yet at the same time, just as He did not refrain from praying in the midst of people when occasion called for it, so we too should in every place and in every need lift up pure hands. Finally, this must be held firm: whoever refuses to pray in the holy gathering of the godly does not truly know what it is to pray alone or in private. Likewise, whoever neglects private prayer — however diligently he attends public worship — offers only empty prayers there, because he cares more for the opinion of others than for the secret judgment of God. In the meantime, so that the church's common prayers should not fall into contempt, God in old times adorned them with glorious titles — especially when He called the temple 'a house of prayer.' By this He both taught that prayer is the chief part of His worship, and established the temple as a visible gathering point where the faithful could practice it together with one accord. A remarkable promise was also added: 'For You, O God, praise waits in Zion, and to You the vow will be performed.' By these words the prophet tells us that the church's prayers are never empty, because the Lord always gives His people reason to sing with joy. Although the shadows of the law have passed away, God's purpose in those ceremonies was to nurture unity of faith among us. Therefore this same promise still belongs to us — confirmed by Christ's own words, and taught by Paul to remain in force forever.

Since the Lord commands the faithful through His Word to use common prayers, meeting places must be established for that purpose. Whoever refuses to join their prayers with God's people has no grounds to excuse themselves by pointing to the Lord's command to pray in one's room. Christ, who promises that He will answer whatever two or three ask when gathered in His name, shows clearly that He does not despise prayers offered openly — so long as they are free from boasting and the desire for human approval, and proceed from sincere and genuine affection rooted in the heart. If this is the right use of meeting places — as indeed it is — we must also guard against another error: treating them as the actual dwelling places of God, as if He hears us more readily from those locations because of some special holiness contained within the walls that makes prayer more acceptable to Him. Since we ourselves are God's temples, we must pray within ourselves if we wish to call upon God in His own holy temple. As for that crude notion, let us leave it to others. We have the commandment to call upon the Lord in spirit and in truth, without distinction of place. In ancient times God did command a temple where prayers and sacrifices were to be offered — but that was when the truth was still veiled under symbolic shadows. Now that the truth has been clearly revealed to us, we are no longer tied to any physical building. Nor was the temple given to Israel on the condition that they should confine God's presence within its walls. It was given as a means of training them to look toward the image of the true temple. Therefore those who thought in any way that God dwells in temples made by human hands were sharply rebuked — by Isaiah and by Stephen.

It is abundantly clear here that neither voice nor singing, when used in prayer, has any force or benefit before God unless it proceeds from deep affection in the heart. In fact, such prayer provokes God's anger if it comes only from the lips and throat — for that is an abuse of His holy name and a mockery of His majesty, as we see in Isaiah's words, which though they extend further still apply to this fault. 'This people draws near with their mouth and honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. Their fear of Me consists of traditions learned by rote. Therefore I will once again deal marvelously with this people, and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the discernment of their discerning men will be hidden.' We do not condemn the voice or singing here — far from it. We commend them highly, as long as they accompany the genuine movement of the mind. Voice and song exercise the mind and keep it focused on God — which, being naturally slippery and restless, quickly loses concentration and wanders in many directions unless supported by various helps. Moreover, since God's glory should shine in some way through all the members of our bodies, the tongue especially — created specifically to declare and display God's praise — ought to be dedicated to this service in both speaking and singing. The chief use of the tongue is in the public prayers of the congregation, where we all glorify God with one voice, as though with one mouth — worshiping Him with one Spirit and one faith. This open confession allows everyone to draw strength and encouragement from one another's declaration of faith.

Regarding the use of singing in churches — to touch on this briefly — it is not only very ancient but was also practiced among the apostles, as we can gather from Paul's words: 'I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also.' And again to the Colossians: 'Teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.' In the first passage Paul teaches that we should sing with both voice and heart. In the second he commends spiritual songs through which believers mutually build one another up. Augustine testifies that congregational singing was not universal from the beginning. He records that the church at Milan first began to sing during the time of Ambrose, when the people were holding more frequent night vigils than usual because of Justina — mother of Valentinian — who was cruelly persecuting the true faith. Other Western churches afterward followed Milan's example. He had noted a little earlier that this practice came originally from the Eastern churches. In his Retractions he also records that in his own time the practice was received in Africa, writing: 'A certain Hilary, a man in authority, seized every opportunity to attack with bitter criticism the then-new practice at Carthage, of singing hymns from the book of Psalms at the altar — either before the offering or when what had been offered was distributed to the people. I replied to him at my brothers' direction.' Truly, if singing is shaped to the gravity that befits the presence of God and angels, it lends dignity and grace to holy worship and greatly helps to lift the mind toward true and fervent prayer. But we must take careful care that our ears do not pay more attention to the melody than our minds pay to the spiritual meaning of the words. Augustine himself confessed that he was so troubled by this danger that he sometimes wished for the practice Athanasius had maintained — commanding the reader to deliver the words with so slight a musical inflection that it resembled reading more than singing. But when Augustine recalled how much benefit he himself had received through singing, he leaned the other way. Used with this proper moderation, there is no doubt that singing is a most holy and profitable practice. On the other hand, songs composed purely for the sweetness and pleasure of the ear do not fit the dignity of the church and cannot fail to greatly displease God.

From this it also plainly follows that common prayers must not be spoken in Greek among Latin-speaking people, nor in Latin among French or English people — as has long been the universal custom — but in the native language of the people, commonly understood by the whole assembly. Since the purpose is to edify the whole church, a sound no one understands provides no benefit at all. Those who have no regard for either love or common sense should at least have been moved by Paul's authority, whose words could not be clearer. 'If you give thanks with your spirit, how will the one who fills the place of the ungifted say the Amen at your giving of thanks, since he does not know what you are saying? For you are giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not edified.' Who can sufficiently marvel at the brazenness of Rome — with the apostle crying out against this so plainly — in roaring out babbling prayers in a foreign language that those praying often cannot understand themselves, and that they deliberately prevent others from understanding? Paul teaches us to do the opposite. How then? 'I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also. I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also.' By 'spirit' he means the special gift of tongues, which many who possessed were abusing by separating it from the mind — that is, from understanding. We must hold firmly to this: it is entirely impossible, in either public or private prayer, for the tongue to be used without the heart without greatly displeasing God. We must also hold that the mind ought to be kindled with such fervor of thought that it far exceeds what the tongue is able to express in words. The tongue is not strictly necessary for private prayer — except insofar as the inward feeling either needs the help of the voice to sustain its own warmth, or the intensity of that warmth carries the tongue along with it forcefully. Though very good prayers are often made in complete silence, it often happens that when the mind's feeling is deeply stirred, the tongue breaks out into words and the rest of the body into outward gesture — without any excessive display. From this came Hannah's murmuring — and this is something all the holy ones have experienced within themselves when they burst out in broken and incomplete words. As for the physical gestures commonly used in prayer — such as kneeling and bowing the head — these are exercises by which we strive to rise to a greater reverence for God.

Now we must learn not only a clearer rule of prayer but the very form of it — namely the one the heavenly Father has given us through His beloved Son. In this we may recognize His boundless goodness and kindness. Beyond warning and encouraging us to seek Him in every need — as children naturally run to their father's protection when any trouble presses them — He saw that we did not fully grasp how deep our poverty was, or what was fitting to ask, or what would truly benefit us. So He provided for our ignorance, and where our understanding fell short, He filled in what was lacking out of His own abundance. He prescribed for us a form of prayer in which He has set out, as if on a table, everything we may rightly desire from Him, everything that works for our good, and everything that is necessary to ask. From His generosity in this we receive great comfort — knowing that we ask nothing inconvenient, nothing unbecoming or unfit, nothing that displeases Him, since we ask in a manner that comes from His own mouth. When Plato observed how foolishly men pray to God — asking for things that often turn out to harm them when granted — he said the best form of prayer was taken from an old poet: 'King Jupiter, give us the best things both when we ask and when we do not ask — but keep evil things away from us even when we ask for them.' The pagan philosopher is right about this much: he recognizes how dangerous it is to ask of God whatever our own desires move us to ask. He also reveals our sorry condition — that we cannot open our mouths before God without risk, unless the Spirit teaches us the right way to pray. All the more valuable, then, is this privilege — that the only begotten Son of God puts words in our mouths that free our minds from all uncertainty.

This form — or rule — of prayer consists of six petitions. The reason I do not agree with those who divide it into seven parts is this: the adversative word 'but' suggests that the evangelists intend to join those last two parts together, as if to say: 'Do not let us be overcome by temptation, but rather help our weakness and deliver us, so that we do not fail.' The ancient writers agree with this view, so that what Matthew adds in the seventh position is to be understood as an explanation of the sixth petition, not a separate one. Although the whole prayer is structured so that God's glory is to be specially regarded in every part, the first three petitions are set apart specifically for God's glory — and in those petitions we are to look to nothing else, without any consideration of our own benefit. The other three concern our welfare and are specifically aimed at asking for things that benefit us. For instance, when we pray that the name of God be hallowed — since God is testing whether we love and honor Him freely or only in hope of reward — we must think nothing of our own benefit. His glory alone must be set before us, fixed before our eyes. The same posture belongs to the other petitions of this type. And even so, this turns greatly to our benefit — for when His name is sanctified as we pray, it becomes our sanctification as well. But our eyes, as it were, must look past and be in some sense blind to such benefit — not even glancing at it. If all hope of personal gain were removed, we should still not stop wishing and praying for this sanctification and for all things that pertain to God's glory. This is seen in the examples of Moses and Paul, who found it no hardship to turn their eyes away from themselves and — with passionate and burning zeal — wish for their own destruction if through it they might advance the glory and kingdom of God. On the other side, when we pray for our daily bread — though we desire something for our own benefit — even here we ought to seek God's glory above all, so that we would not ask it unless it might also serve His glory. Now let us come to explaining the prayer itself.

Our Father who is in heaven.

From the very opening we encounter what we said before: that all prayer must be offered to God in no other way than in the name of Christ, since it can be acceptable to Him through no other name. For in calling God 'Father,' we are in fact pleading the name of Christ. By what boldness could anyone otherwise call God Father? Who would dare claim for himself the honor belonging to the Son of God — unless we had been adopted as children of grace in Christ? He, being the true Son, is given to us as our Brother by the Father — so that what is His by nature might become ours through adoption, if we embrace such great generosity with sure faith. As John says, to those who believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God, power has been given to become children of God. Therefore God both calls Himself our Father and desires to be so called by us. The sweetness of this name frees us from all distrust — for nowhere can a greater love be found than in a father. He could give no surer evidence of His immeasurable love for us than by naming us His children. But His love toward us is even greater and more excellent than all human parental love, as He surpasses all people in goodness and mercy. Even if every father on earth were to cast off all natural fatherly feeling and abandon his children, He will never fail us — because He cannot deny Himself. He has given us this promise: 'If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him?' And through the prophet: 'Can a woman forget her nursing child? Even if she forgets, I will not forget you.' If we are His children, then just as a child cannot place himself under the care of a stranger without implying either cruelty or poverty on the part of his own father, so we cannot seek help from anywhere other than God alone without implying that He is either unable or unwilling to help us.

Let us not use the objection that our awareness of sin rightly makes us afraid — that even the most merciful and kind Father could be justly angered with us daily. For if among human beings a son can find no better advocate to plead his case to his father and no better means to regain lost favor than to humble himself, acknowledge his fault, and beg his father's mercy — because then the father's heart cannot hold itself back but must be moved by such a plea — what will the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort do? Will He not hear the tears and groanings of His children pleading for themselves — especially since He calls and encourages us to do so — more readily than any other intercessions to which they flee so fearfully in near despair, distrusting the kindness and mercy of their Father? This overflowing abundance of fatherly kindness He pictures for us in the parable, where the father lovingly embraces a son who had turned away from him, wasted his inheritance in reckless living, and offended him in every way. He does not wait until the son asks forgiveness in words — he sees him coming from far off, runs to meet him of his own accord, comforts him, and receives him back into favor. By presenting in a human father this example of such great gentleness, God intends to teach us how much more abundant kindness we should expect from Him — who is not only a Father but the best and most merciful of all fathers — even when we are ungrateful, rebellious, and wayward children, as long as we cast ourselves upon His mercy. And to make it even more certain that He is such a Father to us who are Christians, He willed that we call Him not only 'Father' but specifically 'Our Father' — as if we might say to Him: 'O Father, who has such great natural kindness toward Your children and such ready willingness to forgive, we Your children call to You and pray to You, fully persuaded that You bear toward us nothing other than a father's love — however unworthy we are of such a Father.' But because our small hearts cannot take in so vast an abundance of grace, not only is Christ the pledge and guarantee of our adoption, but He has also given us the Spirit as witness of that adoption — through whom we may cry with free and confident voice, 'Abba, Father!' So whenever any hesitation holds us back, let us remember to ask God to correct our fear and set before us that Spirit of boldness to guide us to pray with confidence.

We are taught not to call God each one's private Father separately, but to call Him together 'Our Father.' This reminds us of the great brotherly love that ought to exist among us — people who are all alike children of such a Father by the one same grace and generosity. We have one common Father, from whom comes every good thing that comes to us. There ought to be nothing kept separate among us that we are not ready and willing to share with one another as need requires. If we are as eager as we should be to extend a hand and help one another, there is nothing in which we may benefit our brothers and sisters more than by commending them to the care and providence of this most good Father — in whose favor and blessing nothing at all is lacking. Indeed, this is what we owe our Father. Just as someone who truly loves a father of a household also embraces his entire household with love and goodwill, so the love and affection we bear toward our heavenly Father must show itself toward His people, His household, and His inheritance — which He has so honored that He has called it the fullness of His only begotten Son. A Christian should therefore frame his prayers according to this rule: that they be common, encompassing all who are brothers and sisters in Christ — not only those he presently sees and knows to be such, but all people who live on earth. What God has determined for them is beyond our knowledge, but it is no less godly than human to wish them well and hope the best for them. We ought, however, to bear a special and particular affection toward those of the household of faith, whom the apostle has especially commended to us in everything. In short, all our prayers should be formed with regard to the community that our Lord has established in His kingdom and His household.

This does not prevent us from praying specifically for ourselves or for certain others — so long as our minds do not lose sight of this broader community, nor turn away from it, but relate all things to it. For though prayers may be expressed in individual terms, if they are aimed at that common goal they do not cease to be common prayers. A simple example makes this clear. God's commandment is general — to relieve the needs of all the poor. Yet those who help the ones they actually know and see to be in need are obeying this commandment, even if they pass over many others who are no less desperately needy. They simply cannot know everyone or help everyone. In the same way, those who, with the common fellowship of the church in view, offer particular prayers by which they commend to God — in specific words — themselves or others whose need God has placed more immediately before them, are not going against God's will. However, prayer and the giving of material help are not entirely parallel. Material generosity can only be shown to those whose need we have actually observed. But through prayer we may help even complete strangers who are entirely unknown to us and separated from us by any distance whatsoever. This is accomplished through that general form of prayer in which all God's children are included — and among them, so are those distant strangers. To this we may apply Paul's exhortation to the faithful of his time, that they lift up pure hands everywhere without strife — because by warning them that quarreling shuts the door to prayer, he calls them to lay their petitions before God together with a united mind.

The prayer adds that He is in heaven. This does not mean He is locked in, enclosed, or confined within the circle of heaven as within fixed barriers. Solomon himself acknowledges that the highest heavens cannot contain Him. And He says through the prophet that heaven is His throne and the earth His footstool — meaning truly that He is not limited to any particular region but is spread throughout all things. But because our minds, being so limited, could not otherwise grasp His unspeakable glory, it is represented to us by heaven — than which nothing more vast or majestic can come before our sight. Since our senses tend to attach themselves to whatever they perceive, God is placed above all location — so that in seeking Him we must be lifted above all sensory perception, both bodily and mental. By this way of speaking He is also raised above all possibility of corruption and change. And it signifies that He encompasses and rules the entire world with His power. Therefore 'who is in heaven' is essentially the same as calling Him One of infinite greatness and height, of incomprehensible being, of immeasurable power, of everlasting immortality. Whenever God is spoken of, this should lift our minds higher — so that we dream nothing earthly or fleshly about Him, measure Him by no human standard, and do not bend His will to fit our own desires. At the same time, our confidence in Him should be strengthened — Him by whose providence and power heaven and earth are governed. Let this be the summary: under the name 'Father' there is set before us the God who has made Himself known in His own image — so that He may be called upon with firm faith. The familiar name 'Father' is given not only to build our confidence but also to keep our minds from wandering toward uncertain or invented gods, and instead to ascend through the only begotten Son to the only Father of angels and of the church. Then, because His throne is placed in heaven, the ordering of the world reminds us we do not come to Him without cause — He who with watchful care comes out to meet us of His own will. 'Whoever comes to God,' says the apostle, 'must first believe that He exists, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.' Both of these things Christ affirms belong to His Father, so that our faith may rest in Him and we may be fully persuaded that He is not indifferent to our welfare — since He extends His providence even to us. Paul uses these very truths to prepare us to pray rightly. Before he tells us to bring our petitions before God, he first says: 'Be anxious for nothing; the Lord is near.' This shows that those who have not firmly settled in their minds that the eye of God is upon the righteous will toss their prayers about in doubt and confusion.

The first petition is that the name of God be hallowed — and the need for it comes to us with great shame. For what is more shameful than that God's glory should be dimmed — partly by our ingratitude, partly by our wickedness — and as much as possible blotted out entirely by our boldness and defiant stubbornness? Though all the wicked strain themselves in their sacrilegious willfulness, the holiness of God's name shines gloriously on. The prophet rightly cries out: 'As Your name, O God, so is Your praise to the ends of the earth.' Wherever God's name is known, His strength, power, goodness, wisdom, righteousness, mercy, and truth must make themselves known — drawing us to wonder at Him and stirring us to publish His praise. Since God's holiness is so shamefully stripped from Him on earth, we are at the very least commanded — if we cannot restore it ourselves — to care for it in our prayers. The petition in sum means: we wish for God to receive the honor He deserves — that people would never speak or think of Him without the highest reverence. This stands against the unholy disrespect that has always been widespread in the world and runs rampant today. Hence the necessity of this petition — which, if even a little godliness lived in us, would have been unnecessary. But since the name of God has its holiness kept only when, set apart from all others, it breathes out nothing but glory, we are commanded not only to pray that God will protect that holy name from all contempt and dishonor, but that He will bring all humanity to reverence it. Since God reveals Himself to us partly through teaching and partly through His works, He is sanctified by us only when we give Him His due in both — embracing whatever comes from Him, and honoring His severity no less than His mercy. For in the rich variety of His works He has stamped marks of His glory that ought rightly to draw from every tongue a confession of His praise. The result will be that Scripture holds full authority with us, and that no event in the history of the world keeps us from blessing God as He deserves throughout its entire course. This petition also aims at this: that all ungodliness which defiles this holy name may be destroyed and removed — that whatever dims and diminishes this sanctifying, both slanders and mockeries, may be driven away — and that as God subdues all sacrilege, His glory may shine more and more brightly.

The second petition is that God's kingdom may come. Though it contains nothing entirely new, it is not without reason separated from the first — because given how sluggish we are in the most important matters, something that should be obvious by itself must be pressed into us repeatedly with many words. After commanding us to pray that God would subdue and ultimately destroy whatever mars His holy name, we are now given a similar and closely related request: that His kingdom come. Though we have already explained what this kingdom is, I will briefly restate it: God reigns when people, forsaking themselves and despising the world and earthly life, so yield themselves to His righteousness that they press toward the heavenly life. This kingdom has two parts: first, that God subdues by His Spirit's power all the corrupt desires of the flesh that wage constant war against Him; second, that He shapes all our faculties into obedience to His rule. No one prays this prayer in the right order unless they begin with themselves — that is, asking to be cleansed of all the corruptions that disturb the peace of God's kingdom and contaminate its purity. Since God's Word is like a royal scepter, we are commanded here to pray that He will bend the minds and hearts of all people into willing obedience to it. This is accomplished when, through the inward working of His Spirit, He releases the effective power of His Word so that it advances to the degree it deserves. Then we must think also of the wicked who stubbornly and furiously resist His authority. God establishes His kingdom by humbling the whole world — though He does this in different ways: taming the willfulness of some and breaking the unbending pride of others. It is to be wished daily that God would gather churches out of every region of the world, enlarge and increase them in number, enrich them with His gifts, and establish right order in them — while also overturning all the enemies of pure doctrine and true religion, scattering their plans, and bringing down their schemes. From this it is clear that we are not commanded in vain to press forward daily — for human affairs are never in such good condition that all filth is swept away and complete purity flourishes in full force. But the fullness of it is reserved for the last coming of Christ, when Paul teaches that God shall be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28). So this prayer should draw us away from all the corruptions of the world that separate us from God and prevent His kingdom from flourishing within us. It should kindle our desire to put the flesh to death, and instruct us in carrying the cross — since this is how God wills His kingdom to spread. We should not be troubled when the outward person is worn away, as long as the inner person is being renewed. This is the nature of God's kingdom: when we submit to its righteousness, it makes us partakers of His glory. This happens as God continually shines forth His light and truth in ever-growing measure — by which the darkness and lies of Satan and his kingdom fade, are broken, and perish. He defends His own, guides them to uprightness by the help of His Spirit, and strengthens them to persevere. At the same time He overturns the wicked conspiracies of His enemies, exposes their treachery and deceptions, thwarts their malice, and crushes their stubbornness — until at last He kills the Antichrist with the breath of His mouth and destroys all ungodliness with the brightness of His coming.

The third petition is that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Though this is closely connected to His kingdom and cannot truly be separated from it, it is added separately for our benefit — because we are not quick to grasp what it means for God to reign in the world. It will therefore be no error to take this as a plainer explanation: that God rules in the world when all things submit themselves to His will. This is not speaking of His secret will, by which He governs all things and directs them toward their ends. Even when Satan and people strenuously oppose Him, He is able through His incomprehensible counsel not only to redirect their violent movements but also to bring them into order and use them to accomplish what He has purposed. This petition speaks of another will of God — the one to which willing obedience corresponds. This is why heaven is specifically compared to earth: the angels, as the psalm says, willingly obey God and are diligently set to carry out His commands. We are therefore commanded to pray that just as nothing is done in heaven except at God's direction — and the angels are quietly shaped toward all uprightness — so the earth too, with all stubbornness and perverseness extinguished, may come under such governance. In making this request we are renouncing the desires of our own flesh. For whoever does not surrender his desires to God sets himself against God as far as he is able, since nothing that comes from us is without fault. By this prayer we are once again shaped toward self-denial — so that God may govern us according to His will. And not that only: so that He may also create within us new minds and new hearts, our old ones being put to death. We pray to feel within ourselves no desire except what agrees with His will, to will nothing on our own, and to have His Spirit govern our hearts — teaching us inwardly to love what pleases Him and hate what displeases Him. From this it also follows that whatever impulses fight against His will, He would make empty and void. Here, then, are the first three chief petitions of this prayer. In asking them we must keep God's glory alone before our eyes, setting aside all regard for ourselves and no concern for our own benefit — even though that benefit does come to us abundantly through these things, we must not be seeking it here. Although all these things must come to pass in their proper time even if we neither think about them nor wish for them nor ask for them, we must still wish for them and ask for them. Doing so is no small benefit to us — it shows that we are in fact servants and children of God, striving as much as possible and with genuine devotion to advance the honor due to Him as both Lord and Father. Whoever does not pray with sincere desire and zeal for God's glory — that His name be hallowed, His kingdom come, His will be done — should not be counted among His children and servants. And since all these things will come to pass against their will, they will turn to their shame and destruction.

Now follows the second part of the prayer, in which we come down to our own needs. This does not mean we leave behind God's glory — which Paul says is to be regarded even in eating and drinking — and seek only what benefits ourselves. We have already noted the distinction: God, having reserved three petitions for Himself, draws us entirely to Himself in order to test our godliness. He then permits us to have regard for our own needs as well — but only on this condition: that we ask nothing for ourselves except to the end that whatever benefits He gives us may display His glory. For nothing is more fitting than that we live and die for Him. In this petition we ask God generally for all things the body needs in this earthly life — not only food and clothing, but whatever He foresees will be useful to us, so that we may eat our bread in peace. By this prayer we entrust ourselves to His care and commit ourselves to His providence, that He may feed, cherish, and sustain us. The most good Father does not disdain to take even our bodies under His faithful protection and care — exercising our faith in these small matters as we look to Him for everything, down to a crust of bread and a drop of water. By our own fault, somehow, we are far more troubled with care for our bodies than for our souls. Many who dare to trust God with their soul are still anxious for their bodies — uncertain about what they will eat or what they will wear. If they do not have an ample stock of wine, grain, and oil laid up ahead of time, they tremble with fear. This shows how much more we prize this brief flickering life than everlasting immortality. But whoever has once trusted God and cast away bodily anxiety will also expect salvation and eternal life from His hand — things far greater than food and clothing. It is therefore no small exercise of faith to hope in God for these things that otherwise consume us with worry. We have made real progress when we have shed this unbelief that soaks into the bones of nearly everyone. As for those who interpret this as asking for 'super-substantial bread,' their reading seems poorly suited to Christ's meaning. But if we do not give God the role of nourishing Father even in this frail life, our prayer would be incomplete. The argument against asking for daily bread — that it is unfitting for God's children, who ought to be spiritual, to fix their minds on earthly concerns and drag God into them — is far too carnal. As if His blessing and fatherly favor do not also appear in sustaining our life! As if it were written in vain that godliness holds promise for the present life as well as the life to come. Although the forgiveness of sins is of far greater value than bodily sustenance, Christ placed the lesser matter first in order to raise us gradually to the other two petitions that belong properly to the heavenly life — adapting to our limitations. We are commanded to ask for our bread — meaning we should be content with what our heavenly Father chooses to give us and not seek gain by dishonest or crafty means. At the same time we must learn that it is made ours by God's gift alone — for neither our effort, nor our labor, nor our hands, as Moses says, gain us anything on their own unless God's blessing is present. Indeed, an abundance of bread would be of no use at all unless God turned it into nourishment for us. Therefore God's generosity is no less necessary for the rich than for the poor. Even those with full cellars and storerooms would grow faint and empty unless they enjoyed their bread through His grace. The words 'this day' or 'day by day' — as the other evangelist records — along with the adjective 'daily,' restrain the excessive craving for earthly things in which we habitually burn beyond measure and which brings other evils with it. When we have abundant plenty we lavishly squander it on pleasure, entertainment, boasting, and every kind of wasteful excess. We are therefore commanded to ask only enough for our need — as though from day to day — with this confidence: that the heavenly Father who has fed us today will not fail us tomorrow. However great the abundance flowing to us, even when our storerooms are stuffed and our cellars full, we should still always ask for our daily bread. We must firmly believe that all wealth amounts to nothing except insofar as the Lord, by continually pouring out His blessing, makes it fruitful — and that even what is in our hands is not truly our own except insofar as He grants us a portion of it each hour. Human pride finds this very hard to accept. But the Lord gave a singular example of it for all ages when He fed His people with manna in the wilderness — to teach us that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from His mouth. This declares that it is His power alone by which our life and strength are sustained, even when He supplies it through material means. He teaches the same lesson by the opposite example: whenever He chooses, He breaks the strength — what He calls the 'staff of bread' — so that those eating still waste away with hunger and those drinking are still parched with thirst. But whoever, not content with daily bread, greedily craves endless abundance — or whoever, secure in their wealth, still goes through the motions of this prayer — is only mocking God. The first type asks for something they do not actually want — namely daily bread only — and is secretly hiding from God the true desire of their greed. True prayer must pour out before God the whole mind and everything hidden within. The second type asks for something they do not actually expect from Him — namely what they think they already have through their own means. That it is called 'our' bread makes God's generosity all the more evident, as we said — for He makes ours what is by no right due to us. Yet the explanation that 'our bread' refers to what is earned by honest and lawful labor — not gotten through fraud and exploitation — should not be dismissed, since what we gain through any wrongdoing is never truly our own but belongs to another. When we pray that bread be 'given' to us, this signifies it is the sole and free gift of God, however it comes to us — even when it most appears to come from our own planning, effort, and labor. For it is only through His blessing that our labors succeed.

Next comes: 'Forgive us our debts.' In this petition and the one following, Christ has briefly gathered everything that belongs to the heavenly life — just as these two elements make up the spiritual covenant God has made for the salvation of His church: 'I will put My laws in their hearts, and I will be merciful to their iniquity.' Christ begins here with the forgiveness of sins. He will then immediately add the second grace: that God defend us by the power of His Spirit and sustain us with His help, so that we may stand undefeated against all temptations. He calls sins 'debts' because we are obligated to pay the penalty for them — a penalty we could not satisfy in any way unless we were pardoned. This pardon comes from His free mercy alone. He liberally wipes away these debts, taking no payment from us but satisfying Himself with His own mercy — in Christ, who once gave Himself as the sufficient payment. Therefore whoever trusts that God will be satisfied by their own merits or the merits of others, and that forgiveness is purchased and compensated by such satisfactions, has no share in this free forgiveness. When they call upon God in this manner, they do nothing but confirm their own accusation and seal their own condemnation with their own testimony. For they confess themselves debtors — but they refuse the very pardon that alone can release them, thrusting their own merits and satisfactions at God instead. In doing so they do not plead for His mercy but appeal to His judgment. As for those who dream of a perfection in themselves that removes any need to ask forgiveness — let them attract whatever disciples their ear-tickling teaching draws. But this much is certain: every disciple they gain is taken from Christ, who instructs all people to confess their guilt and receives none but sinners. He does not flatter sin, but He knows the faithful are never so completely stripped of the flesh's vices that they cease to stand under God's judgment. It is indeed to be earnestly desired and striven for, that having fulfilled all our duty we might truly stand before God free from every stain. But since God is pleased to renew His image in us only gradually, and some infection of the flesh always remains, this remedy must not be despised. If Christ, by the authority His Father has given Him, commands us to seek forgiveness for our guilt throughout the entire course of our lives — who can tolerate these new teachers who try to dazzle the simple with a fantasy of perfect innocence, convincing them they can be made free of all fault? As John testifies, this is nothing other than making God a liar. And by this wicked work — canceling this one article — they tear apart and undermine the entire covenant of God, in which we have shown our salvation is contained. They are robbers of God, tearing apart what He has joined together. They are cruel and wicked for drowning poor souls in despair. And they are traitors to themselves and those like them — leading themselves into a laziness directly contrary to the mercy of God. Some object that in praying for God's kingdom to come, we are already asking for the removal of sin. But this is too shallow a reading, because the first part of this prayer sets before us the highest perfection, while this part sets before us our own weakness. So these two things fit well together: that while we press on toward the goal, we do not despise the remedies that our need requires. Finally, we pray that we may be forgiven as we ourselves forgive our debtors — that is, as we forgive and release all who have offended us, whether by unjust action or insulting words. We cannot grant pardon for the guilt of sin itself — that belongs to God alone. But our forgiving means this: willingly putting away anger, hatred, and the desire for revenge from our hearts, and trampling the memory of the wrong underfoot with deliberate forgetfulness. We cannot ask God for forgiveness of our sins if we do not also forgive the offenses of those who wrong or have wronged us. But if we hold any hatreds in our hearts, plan any revenge, look for ways to harm others, or fail to work toward reconciliation with our enemies and to treat them well and win them back — then this very prayer becomes a request that God not forgive us. For we are asking Him to grant us the same forgiveness we grant to others. To ask for less than that is to pray that He withhold it from us. What do such people obtain by their prayer but a more severe judgment? Finally, it must be noted that this condition — 'as we forgive our debtors' — is not added to suggest that we deserve forgiveness by the forgiveness we extend to others, as if that were the cause of our pardon. Rather, the Lord added it for two reasons: partly to strengthen the weakness of our faith, giving us a sign by which we can be assured that He has surely granted us forgiveness of our sins — as surely as we know in our conscience that we have forgiven others, when our minds are free from all hatred, envy, and desire for revenge. And partly He uses this as a mark by which He excludes from the number of His children those who should not dare call upon Him as Father — those who are quick to seek revenge, slow to forgive, who nurse ongoing enmities, and cherish toward others the same ill will they are asking God to turn away from themselves. This is also stated expressly in Luke in Christ's own words.

The sixth petition, as we have said, corresponds to the promise of writing God's law on our hearts. But since we obey God only through constant warfare and great, hard-fought struggles, we pray here to be equipped with weapons and defended with help — so that we may gain the victory. This reminds us that we need not only the grace of the Spirit to soften, bend, and direct our hearts to obedience, but also His active help to make us invincible against both Satan's treacherous traps and his violent attacks. Temptations come in many and different forms. The perverse thoughts that provoke us to break God's law — whether stirred up by our own desires or by the devil — are temptations. So also are things not evil in themselves, which through the devil's cunning are made into temptations when they are placed before our eyes in such a way that we are drawn away or turn aside from God. These temptations come from either the right hand or the left. On the right hand: riches, power, and honors — which commonly so dazzle people with their glitter and apparent goodness, and catch them with the baited hook of their flattery, that being trapped by these deceits or intoxicated by their sweetness, people forget their God. On the left hand: poverty, reproaches, contempt, troubles, and the like — which by their bitterness and harshness can so discourage a person that faith and hope are thrown away and he becomes completely estranged from God. Against both kinds of temptations — whether kindled within us by our own desires or set against us by Satan's schemes — we pray to our heavenly Father not to let us yield. We ask rather that He sustain and raise us up by His hand, so that, strong in His strength, we may stand firm against all the assaults of the evil enemy — whatever thoughts he plants in our minds. And we ask that whatever is placed before us on either side, we may turn it to good, neither becoming proud in prosperity nor crushed by adversity. We are not asking to feel no temptations at all — for we greatly need to be stirred, prodded, and pressed by them, lest we grow dull through too much ease. David prayed not without reason to be tested, and the Lord daily tests His elect — disciplining them with shame, poverty, trouble, and other kinds of trial. But God tempts differently from Satan. Satan tempts to destroy, condemn, confuse, and overthrow. God tempts to test the genuineness of those who are His, to strengthen them through exercise, to mortify and purge and refine their flesh — which, unless restrained this way, would become undisciplined and run wildly out of control. Satan attacks people when they are unarmed and unprepared, looking to overwhelm them unexpectedly. But God, even through testing, works in His people so that they bear patiently whatever He sends upon them. Whether by 'the evil' we understand the devil or sin makes little difference. Satan is the enemy who lies in wait for our lives, but sin is the weapon with which he destroys us. Our request is therefore this: that we not be overcome or crushed by any temptation, but may stand firm in the Lord's power against all the opposing forces that assault us — that is, that we not surrender to temptations, but being received into His care and kept safe by His protection, we may stand unconquered over sin, death, the gates of hell, and the whole kingdom of the devil. This is what it means to be delivered from evil. It must be carefully noted here that matching the devil — so mighty a warrior — and bearing his force and violence is beyond our strength. Otherwise we would be asking for something we already had within ourselves, which would be vain and mockery. Those who enter this battle trusting in themselves do not sufficiently understand what a fierce and well-armed enemy they are facing. We pray to be delivered from his power — as from the mouth of a raging lion, who would tear us with his teeth and claws and swallow us down — unless the Lord delivers us from the midst of death. Yet we know this too: if the Lord stands by us and fights for us when we are brought down, we will show strength in His strength. Let others trust as they wish in their own abilities and in what they imagine to be the power of their own free will. Let it be enough for us to stand and be strong in God's strength alone. But this prayer contains more than it appears to at first. For if God's Spirit is our strength in fighting our battle with Satan, we cannot gain the victory until — being filled with that Spirit — we have put off all the weakness of our flesh. When therefore we pray to be delivered from Satan and the devil, we are praying to be continuously enriched with new measures of God's grace — until, being fully filled with them, we triumph over all evil. Some find it troubling to ask God not to lead us into temptation, since James testifies that it is contrary to God's nature to tempt. But this difficulty is partly resolved where we said that our own desires are properly the cause of all the temptations by which we are overcome, and therefore rightly bear the blame for them. James means nothing other than this: faults are wrongly attributed to God when we ourselves know in our conscience that we are guilty of them. But this does not mean God cannot, when it pleases Him, hand us over to Satan, give us up to a depraved mind and corrupt desires, and so lead us into temptation by His righteous judgment — one that is often hidden from human eyes but always known to Him. From this we gather that there is nothing unfitting in this manner of speaking, if we are persuaded that He does not without cause so often threaten that when the reprobate are struck with blindness and hardness of heart, these will be sure signs of His vengeance.

These three petitions, in which we commend ourselves and our concerns to God, clearly demonstrate what we said earlier: that Christians' prayers ought to be common — directed toward the mutual edification of the church and the building up of fellowship among the faithful. No one prays to receive something privately for himself alone — all together pray for our bread, for forgiveness of our sins, that we may not be led into temptation, and that we may be delivered from evil. There is also added a statement of why we may pray with such boldness and expect to be heard with such confidence. Though it does not appear in the Latin copies, it fits too well in this place to be left out: 'For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.' This is the perfect and settled rest of our soul. For if our prayers had to commend themselves to God by their own worthiness, who would dare even open his mouth before Him? But however miserable we are, however unworthy above all people, however empty of all merit, we will never lack reason to pray and will never be without confidence — because our Father cannot be stripped of His kingdom, power, and glory. At the end is added 'Amen,' by which we express our earnest desire to receive what we have asked of God and confirm our hope that all these things are already granted and will certainly be given to us — because they are promised by God, who cannot deceive. This agrees with the manner of prayer we rehearsed earlier: 'Do it, Lord, for Your name's sake, not for our sake or our righteousness.' By this the holy ones not only express the goal of their prayers but also confess that they are unworthy to receive anything unless God draws the cause from Himself — and that their confidence in being heard rests solely on God's own character.

In this form — this rule of prayer — Christ our teacher, whom the Lord set over us and whom He alone has commanded us to hear, has set before us everything we ought to, or even may, ask of God. For He has always been God's eternal wisdom, and being made man He was given to humanity as the messenger of great counsel. This prayer is in every respect so complete and perfect that whatever foreign thing is added which cannot be referred back to it is ungodly and unworthy of God's acceptance. In it He has set forth what is fitting for Him, what is pleasing to Him, what is necessary for us, and what He will grant. Therefore whoever dares to go beyond it and ask God for anything outside these bounds is, first, adding to God's wisdom out of his own knowledge — which cannot be done without insane blasphemy. Second, he refuses to stay within God's will, but despising it goes wandering greedily beyond it. And third, he will never obtain anything, because he is praying without faith. All such prayers are undoubtedly made without faith — because the Word of God is absent, and without the Word as its foundation, faith cannot stand. Those who abandon the Master's rule and follow their own desires are not only without the Word of God but are striving with all their effort against it. Therefore Tertullian, both fittingly and accurately, called this the lawful prayer — implying that all others are lawless and illegitimate.

We do not mean by this that we are so bound to these exact words that we may not change a syllable. Many prayers in Scripture differ widely from this prayer in wording, yet were written by the same Spirit and are still profitable for us to use today. The same Spirit continually puts into the mouths of the faithful prayers that do not match this prayer word for word. Our only point in this teaching is that no one should seek, expect, or ask anything that is not in substance covered in this prayer — even if the wording differs greatly, as long as the meaning does not. Just as it is certain that all the prayers found in Scripture and springing from godly hearts are directed toward the same ends as this prayer, so truly no prayer anywhere can be found that matches — much less surpasses — its perfection. Nothing has been left out that could be thought of for God's praise; nothing has been overlooked that ought to come into a human mind for his own benefit. The prayer is so complete that all hope of anyone doing better is rightly cut off. In short, let us remember that this is the doctrine of God's wisdom — who taught what He willed and willed what was needed.

Although we have said above that we must always lift our minds to God and pray without ceasing, our weakness needs to be upheld by many supports and our sluggishness needs to be prodded by many spurs. It is therefore good for each of us to set aside certain regular hours that will not pass without prayer, in which the whole focus of our mind will be fully engaged — such as when we rise in the morning, before beginning the day's work, when we sit down to eat, when we have been fed by God's blessing, and when we go to rest. Only this must not become a superstitious observance of hours — as though by fulfilling these we had discharged our duty to God for the rest of the day. It should be training for our weakness, an exercise that keeps us regularly engaged and stirred up. We should take particular care that whenever we ourselves face hardship or see others in difficulty, we run immediately to Him — not with our feet but with our hearts. And we should take care not to let any blessing of our own or others' pass without acknowledging it as His gift through praise and thanksgiving. Finally, this is to be carefully observed in all prayer: we must not attempt to bind God to certain circumstances, or prescribe for Him what He shall do, when, where, or how. This prayer teaches us to impose no law on Him and set no conditions, but to leave it entirely to His will to act as He pleases, in whatever manner, at whatever time, and in whatever place He sees fit. Therefore before making any request for ourselves, we first pray that His will be done — by which we already submit our will to His. Restrained by this as by a bridle, our will cannot presume to dictate to God but must make Him the judge and governor of all our desires.

If, with minds shaped to this obedience, we allow ourselves to be governed by the laws of God's providence, we will easily learn to continue in prayer and patiently wait for the Lord with longing desires — being assured that though He may not appear to act, He is always present with us and will in His time show that He has not given deaf ears to the prayers that appeared in human eyes to be despised. And this will be a most immediate comfort — keeping us from fainting and sinking into despair when God does not answer on our first request. This is what those are prone to do who, carried along by sudden fervor, call upon God — but if He does not come immediately and bring instant help, they immediately imagine He is angry and hostile toward them, and casting away all hope they stop praying altogether. Instead, let us keep our hope alive with a well-balanced steadiness of mind and press on in that perseverance Scripture commends to us so strongly. In the Psalms we can often see how David and the other faithful, when they seemed nearly exhausted from praying, felt as if they were throwing their words into the air to a God who did not hear — and yet they did not stop praying. For the Word of God does not hold its full authority unless its credibility is held above all earthly outcomes. Let us not test God or provoke Him by wearying Him with presumptuous demands. Many people treat God as though everything were conditional — binding Him to the terms of their agreement as though He were a servant to their wishes. If He does not immediately comply, they grow indignant, they fume, they find fault, they murmur, they chafe. Therefore to such people He often gives in anger what in mercy He withholds from others. The children of Israel are an example of this — for whom it would have been better never to have been heard by the Lord than to eat the meat that came wrapped in His wrath.

But if even after long waiting our senses perceive no fruit from our praying and feel no result, yet faith will assure us of what the senses cannot perceive: that we have obtained what was best for us. For the Lord so often and so firmly promises to take care of our griefs once they have been laid in His bosom. And so He will make us find abundance in poverty, and comfort in affliction. However everything else may fail us, God will never fail us — He will not let the waiting and patience of those who are His be put to shame. He alone will be sufficient in place of everything else, since He contains within Himself all good things, which He will one day fully reveal when at the last judgment He openly displays His kingdom. Moreover, even when God does answer us, He does not always respond in the exact form we requested — but holding us in apparent suspense, He shows by means we cannot see that our prayers were not in vain. This is what John means: 'If we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.' This seems like a weak repetition of words, but it is a remarkably useful statement — declaring that God, even when He does not follow our exact desires, is still kind and favorable to our prayers, so that the hope resting on His Word will never disappoint us. The faithful need to be sustained by this patience, for without it they could not long stand firm. For the Lord tests those who are His with no light trials and exercises them with no gentle hand. He often drives them to the most extreme straits, and once there, He lets them remain stuck in the mud for a long time before giving them any taste of His sweetness. As Hannah says, He brings death and gives life; He brings down to the grave and raises up. What could they do in such circumstances but sink into discouragement and fall headlong into despair — unless, when they are in distress, forsaken, and already half dead, this thought lifts them up: that God is watching over them and that an end to their troubles is coming? Yet however firmly they hold to that assured hope, they do not stop praying in the meantime — because without steadfast perseverance in prayer, our prayers accomplish nothing.