Prayer

BB Warfield on the Calvinist and Prayer
redtulip

It is very odd how difficult it seems for some persons to understand just what Calvinism is.  And yet the matter itself presents no difficulty whatever.  It is capable of being put into a single sentence; and that, one level to every religious man’s comprehension.  For Calvinism is just religion in its purity.  We have only, therefore, to conceive of religion in its purity, and that is Calvinism.

In what attitude of mind and heart does religion come most fully to its rights?  Is it not in the attitude of prayer?  When we kneels before God, not with the body merely, but with the mind and heart, we have assumed the attitude which above all others deserves the name of religious.  And this religious attitude by way of eminence is obviously just the attitude of utter dependence and humble trust.  He who comes to God in prayer, comes not in a spirit of self-assertion, but in a spirit of trustful dependence.  No one ever addressed God in prayer thus: “O God, thou knowest that I am the architect of my own fortunes and the determiner of my own destiny.  Thou mayest indeed do something to help me in the securing of my purposes after I have determined upon them.  But my heart is my own, and thou canst not bend it.  When I wish thy aid, I will call on thee for it.  Meanwhile, thou must await my pleasure.”  Men may reason somewhat like this; but that is not the way they pray. […]

The Calvinist is the man who is determined to preserve the attitude he takes in prayer in all his thinking, in all his feeling, in all his doing.  That is to say, he is the man who is determined that religion in its purity shall come to its full rights in his thinking, and feeling, and living.  This is the ground of his special mode of thought, by reason of which he is called a Calvinist; and as well of his special mode of acting in the world, by reason of which he has become the greatest regenerating force in the world.  Other men are Calvinists on their knees; the Calvinist is the man who is determined that his intellect and heart, and will shall remain on their knees continually, and only from this attitude think, and feel, and act.  Calvinism is, therefore, that type of thought in which there comes to its rights the truly religious attitude of utter dependence on God and humble trust in his mercy alone for salvation.