A Treatise on Prayer

How necessary is the right invocation of God's name, otherwise called perfect prayer, becomes no Christian to misknow; seeing it is the very branch which springs forth of true faith.

He who, when necessity constrains, desires not support and help of God, does provoke his wrath no less than such as make false gods or openly deny God.

Nothing is more odious before God than hypocrisy and dissimulation: that is, when men do ask of God things whereof they have no need, or that they believe to obtain by others than by God alone.

So that of necessity, true repentance must needs be had, and go before perfect prayer, or sincere invocation of God's name.

For nothing more offends God, than when we ask doubting whether he will grant our petitions; for in so doing, we doubt if God be true, if he be mighty and good.

So not to call upon God in your tribulation, is like as if you did not know God, or else utterly denied him.

Therefore it is a manifest sign, that such as are always negligent in prayer do understand nothing of perfect faith; for if the fire be without heat, or the burning lamp without light, then true faith may be without ferv…