John Knox — A Treatise on Prayer

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

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…

Let no man think himself unworthy to call and pray to God, because he has grievously offended his Majesty in times past; but let him bring to God a sorrowful and repenting heart.

Trouble and fear are the very spurs to prayer; for when man, compassed about with vehement calamities, and vexed with continual solicitude (having, by help of man, no hope of deliverance, with sorely oppressed and punish…

But hereof be assured, that all is not lawful nor just that is statute by civil laws; neither yet is everything sin before God, which ungodly persons allege to be treason.