15 June 2012

Jeremy Taylor: Anglican Patrimony

On Prayer, The Worthy Communicant, 1660, p. 160
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Since prayer can obtain every thing, it can open the windows of heaven and shut the gates of hell ; it can put a holy constraint upon God, and detain an Angel till he leave a blessing; it can open the treasures of rain, and soften the iron ribs of rocks, till they melt into tears and a flowing river; prayer can unclasp the girdles of the North, saying to a mountain of ice; be thou removed hence, and cast into the bottom of the Sea; it can arrest the Sun in the midst of his course, and send the swift winged winds upon our errand; and all those strange things and secret decrees and unrevealed transactions which are above the clouds and far beyond the regions of the stars shall combine in ministry and advantages for the praying man : it cannot be but we should feel less evil, and much more good than we do, if our prayers were right.

+Lord, teach us to pray.