Many Thoughts of Many Minds Part 49

Prayers are heard in heaven very much in proportion to our faith.

Little faith gets very great mercies, but great faith still greater.

--SPURGEON.

When we pray for any virtue, we should cultivate the virtue as well as pray for it; the form of your prayers should be the rule of your life; every pet.i.tion to G.o.d is a precept to man. Look not, therefore, upon your prayers as a short method of duty and salvation only, but as a perpetual monition of duty; by what we require of G.o.d we see what He requires of us.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

How happy it is to believe, with a steadfast a.s.surance, that our pet.i.tions are heard even while we are making them; and how delightful to meet with a proof of it in the effectual and actual grant of them.--COWPER.

We have a.s.surance that we shall be heard in what we pray, because we pray to that G.o.d that heareth prayer, and is the rewarder of all that come unto Him; and in His name, to whom G.o.d denieth nothing; and, therefore, howsoever we are not always answered at the present, or in the same kind that we desire, yet, sooner or later, we are sure to receive even above that we are able to ask or think, if we continue to sue unto Him according to His will.--ARCHBISHOP USHER.

The best answer to all objections urged against prayer is the fact that man cannot help praying; for we may be sure that that which is so spontaneous and ineradicable in human nature has its fitting objects and methods in the arrangements of a boundless Providence.--CHAPIN.

So much of our lives is celestial and divine as we spend in the exercise of prayer.--HOOKER.

Leave not off praying to G.o.d: for either praying will make thee leave off sinning; or continuing in sin will make thee desist from praying.

--FULLER.

Let our prayers, like the ancient sacrifices, ascend morning and evening; let our days begin and end with G.o.d.--CHANNING.

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed, The motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast.

--MONTGOMERY.

If He prayed who was without sin, how much more it becometh a sinner to pray!--ST. CYPRIAN.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.--EMERSON.

He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small.

--COLERIDGE.

More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of.

--TENNYSON.

It is as natural and reasonable for a dependent creature to apply to its Creator for what it needs, as for a child thus to solicit the aid of a parent who is believed to have the disposition and ability to bestow what it needs.--ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER.

Prayer is the first breath of Divine life; it is the pulse of the believing soul;--by prayer "we draw water with joy from the wells of salvation;" by prayer faith puts forth its energy, in apprehending the promised blessings, and receiving from the Redeemer's fullness; in leaning on His almighty arm, and making His name our strong tower; and in overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil.--T. SCOTT.

No man can hinder our private addresses to G.o.d; every man can build a chapel in his breast, himself the priest, his heart the sacrifice, and the earth he treads on the altar.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.--MATTHEW 6:6.

Prayer moves the hand that moves the universe.

Holy beginning of a holy cause, When heroes, girt for freedom's combat, pause Before high Heaven, and, humble in their might, Call down its blessing on that coming fight.

--MOORE.

It is so natural for a man to pray that no theory can prevent him from doing it.--JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.

The Lord's Prayer contains the sum total of religion and morals.

--WELLINGTON.

It lightens the stroke to draw near to Him who handles the rod.

--WAs.h.i.+NGTON IRVING.

I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity than the Lord's Prayer.--MADAME DE STAEL.

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.--BUNYAN.

Between the humble and contrite heart and the majesty of Heaven there are no barriers. The only pa.s.sword is prayer.--HOSEA BALLOU.

Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the evenness of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of our cares and the calm of our tempest: prayer is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts; it is the daughter of charity and the sister of meekness.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

Our prayer and G.o.d's mercy are like two buckets in a well; while the one ascends, the other descends.--BISHOP HOPKINS.

Prayer is the voice of faith.--HORNE.

We should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect everything from G.o.d; we should act with as much energy as those who expect everything from themselves.--COLTON.

PREACHING.--That is not the best sermon which makes the hearers go away talking to one another, and praising the speaker, but which makes them go away thoughtful and serious, and hastening to be alone.--BURNET.

Be short in all religious exercises. Better leave the people longing than loathing.--NATHANIEL EMMONS.

A good discourse is that from which one can take nothing without taking the life.--FeNELON.

We must judge religious movements, not by the men who make them, but by the men they make.--JOSEPH COOK.

The world looks at ministers out of the pulpit to know what they mean when in it.--CECIL.

I preached as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men.

--BAXTER.

Let all your preaching be in the most simple and plainest manner; look not to the prince, but to the plain, simple, gross, unlearned people, of which cloth the prince also himself is made. If I, in my preaching, should have regard to Philip Melancthon and other learned doctors, then should I do but little good. I preach in the simplest manner to the unskillful, and that giveth content to all. Hebrew, Greek and Latin I spare until we learned ones come together.--LUTHER.

It requires as much reflection and wisdom to know what is not to be put into a sermon as what is.--CECIL.

To endeavor to move by the same discourse hearers who differ in age, s.e.x, position and education is to attempt to open all locks with the same key.--J. PEt.i.t-SENN.

Men of G.o.d have always, from time to time, walked among men, and made their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest hearer.--EMERSON.

I would not have preachers torment their hearers, and detain them with long and tedious preaching.--LUTHER.

I love a serious preacher, who speaks for my sake and not for his own; who seeks my salvation, and not his own vainglory. He best deserves to be heard who uses speech only to clothe his thoughts, and his thoughts only to promote truth and virtue.--Ma.s.sILLON.

PRECEPT.--Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.--SENECA.

He that lays down precepts for the government of our lives and moderating our pa.s.sions obliges human nature, not only in the present, but in all succeeding generations.--SENECA.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones at hand do more toward a happy life than whole volumes that we know not where to find.--SENECA.