OF PRAYER.



What Power Prayer hath.

No human creature can believe, said Luther, how powerful prayer is,
and what is it able to effect, but only those that have learned it
by experience.

It is a great matter when in extreme need, as then one can take hold
on prayer. I know, as often as I have earnestly prayed, that I have
been richly heard, and have obtained more than I prayed for; indeed,
God sometimes deferred, but notwithstanding he came.

Ecclesiasticus saith, "The prayer of a good and godly Christian
availeth more to health, than the physician's physic."

O how great and upright and godly Christian's prayer is! how
powerful with God; that a poor human creature should speak with
God's high majesty in heaven, and not be affrighted, but, on the
contrary, knoweth that God smileth upon him for Christ's sake, his
dearly beloved Son. The heart and conscience, in this act of
praying, must not fly and recoil backwards by reason of our sins and
unworthiness, and must not stand in doubt, nor be scared away. We
must not do, said Luther, as the Bavarian did, who with great
devotion called upon St. Leonard, an idol, set up in a church in
Bavaria, behind which idol stood one who answered the Bavarian and
said, "Fie on thee, Bavarian"; and in that sort oftentimes was
repulsed, and could not be heard: at last, the Bavarian went away,