A30241:607
CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…
CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, or, Christs prayer before his passion explicated, and both practically and polemically improved by Anthony Burgess ...
London: printed by Abraham Miller for Thomas Underhill, 1656
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Sermon 24: Of vain Tautology in Prayer; And what Repetitions in Prayer are such, and what not; She…
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Lastly, We are to attend to the end we have in our Prayer for lawful temporal things, Jam. 4.7. You ask and have not because you ask amiss; You ask to spend on your lusts, and this is very difficult, to ask health, life, and strength for no other end, but thereby to glorify God and promote his Kingdom; Thus briefly because not principally intended, to declare how great a matter it is to pray.
Lastly, We are to attend to the end we have in our Praier for lawful temporal things, Jam. 4.7. You ask and have not because you ask amisse; You ask to spend on your lusts, and this is very difficult, to ask health, life, and strength for no other end, but thereby to glorifie God and promote his Kingdom; Thus briefly because not principally intended, to declare how great a matter it is to pray.
3. Vocal prayer or the use of the tongue in prayer is not for information of God, as if thereby we would discover to him that which he did not know before; Nor if we use repetition in prayer, is it to move God,1 as importunity may a Judge; If it were so then no wonder if we did double and treble the same thing over and over again, but partly because we consisting of a soul and body are thereby to glorify God and honour him with both; Hence not only the heart but the tongue is called upon to glorify God, and that is called the glory of a man, Though some expound it of the soul, and partly because the voice and exercise thereof doth stir up and move the affections, there being a reciprocal efficacy one upon another, and a circular causality: Even as vapours make the clouds which distilling in rain do make vapours again, so out of the heart come affectionate expressions in prayer, and these again do increase heat in the heart.
3. Vocal praier or the use of the tongue in praier is not for information of God, as if thereby we would discover to him that which he did not know before; Nor if we use repetition in praier, is it to move God,