Anyone who undertakes an examination of Calvin's theology soon discovers that the subject of prayer looms large in his thinking. This is due to the fact that prayer is not simply another of the divisions of theological study; it is, rather, of the essence of Christian existence. Thus Calvin's consciousness of being a teacher of the church finds frequent expression in his exposition of this doctrine, both systematically in the Institutes¹ and in a more fragmentary manner in the sermons and commentaries.² Calvin's estimation of the importance of prayer is best expressed in his own words:

The principal exercise which the children of God have is to pray; for in this way they give a true proof of their faith.³

Prayer then is the distinguishing mark of the believing person, because he instinctively casts his burdens upon the Lord. ⁴

The purpose of this series of studies is to make Calvin's teaching on prayer in book three, chapter 20 of the Institutes as accessible as possible, particularly to those who find the unabridged Institutes to be formidable reading. ⁵ I have sought to let Calvin speak for himself with a minimum of comment from me, since his own words are rich in both instruction and devotion and can hardly be improved.

The Necessity of Prayer⤒🔗

In Calvin's discussion of prayer in the Institutes, it is indeed significant that he begins with a transitional statement which looks back to those previous sections of his work concerning Christian soteriology and forms a natural bridge to the subject at hand. At the beginning of book three Calvin commences his explanation of the way in which we receive the grace of Christ. In addition to providing theological expositions of such matters as regeneration, justification and election, Calvin is concerned to inculcate upon his readers a proper estimation of themselves as respects the grace of God in the gospel. As T. H. L. Parker comments:

Let us remind ourselves of Calvin's purpose: he was writing a compendium of the Christian faith to teach those hungering and thirsting after Christ the way of salvation. The sum of what he has said so far is that in Christ God has set before us, who in ourselves are empty and poor, the treasures of his grace. We must turn to him, begging him to supply our needs. The argument therefore demands the chapter on prayer. ⁶

Thus his discussion is replete with exhortations for Christians to be clothed with a humility which befits those who have been rescued from the present evil age. Accordingly, it is no surprise that he initiates his teaching on prayer with a reminder of our natural destitution and perennial dependence upon that grace which the Lord willingly and freely offers in Christ. Again in his words:

From those matters so far discussed, we clearly see how destitute and devoid of all good things man is and how he lacks all aids to salvation. Therefore, if he seeks resources to succour him in his need, he must go outside himself and get them elsewhere.⁷

So the stage is set by the statement of a general principle which is basic and essential to the believer's invocation of God. This principle can hardly be overestimated, for the same awareness of one's own lack of spiritual resources which drives a man to the cross to implore God's mercy provides the orientation from which the redeemed sinner now entreats at the same throne, that overflowing spring which provides every benefit necessary to sustain our believing existence.⁸ With a reference to Romans 10:14-17, Calvin summarises the matter in this way:

Just as faith is born from the gospel, so through it our hearts are trained to call upon God's name.⁹

From all that has been said it is clear that there is a necessity for prayer on the part of the saints because there is a need of communion with God, a need which is occasioned by the fundamental facts of human weakness and dependence upon the Creator. For this reason Calvin enters into a consideration of the necessity of prayer in sections two and three of chapter twenty of the Institutes:

It is, therefore, by the benefit of prayer that we reach those riches which are laid up for us with the heavenly Father. For there is a communion of men with God by which, having entered the heavenly sanctuary, they appeal to him in person concerning his promises in order to experience, where necessity so demands, that what they believed was not in vain, although he had promised it in word alone. Therefore we see that to us nothing is promised to be expected from the Lord which we are not also bidden to ask of him in prayers. So true is it that we dig up by prayer the treasures that were pointed out by the Lord's gospel, and which our faith has gazed upon.¹⁰

It is of considerable importance that this statement be appreciated. The necessity of prayer is due to the fact that it is by communion with God that we lay hold of the promises. Apart from prayer, the promises of God remain locked away in his Word; and although for the believing mind the promises are sure, prayer is the divinely appointed means by which the faithful experience the benefits of their salvation, which otherwise would simply lie hidden in the treasure house of heaven. But we should not forget the factor of human need. In receiving the promised blessings we are enabled successfully to bear up under the burdens of our present life in the midst of this world.

Hence comes an extraordinary peace and repose to our conscience. For having disclosed to the Lord the necessity that was pressing upon us, we ever rest fully in the thought that none of our ills is hid from Him who, we are fully convinced, has both the will and the power to take the best care of us.¹¹

The terms in which Calvin replies to those who detract from the necessity of prayer provide a significant insight into its appointment by God. He says frequently that prayer is of divine appointment, but adds that the benefits of this appointment are essentially focused on man. Granted that our invocations serve to display our recognition of the heavenly origin of those blessings which we receive, nevertheless prayer is specifically designed to bring blessing to the petitioner for those blessings. We pray, in other words, not to aid God but to aid ourselves. Hence the omniscience of God in no way serves to make prayer needless on our part.

Yet Calvin is not content to let matters rest with such a general statement. He proceeds to mention six specific reasons for prayer. In the next section he gives us his rules for prayer, but before he does so he wishes to impress upon us that one must pray.

First, that our hearts may be fired with a zealous and burning desire ever to seek, love, and serve him, while we become accustomed in every need to flee to him as a sacred anchor. Secondly, that there may enter our hearts no desire and no wish at all of which we should be ashamed to make him a witness, while we learn to set all our wishes before his eyes, and even to pour out our whole hearts. Thirdly, that we be prepared to receive his benefits with true gratitude of heart and thanksgiving, benefits that our prayers remind us come from his hand. Fourthly, moreover, that having obtained what we were seeking, and being convinced that he has answered our prayers, we should be led to meditate upon his kindness more ardently. Fifthly, that at the same time we embrace with greater delight those things which we acknowledge to have been obtained by prayers. Finally, that use and experience may, according to the measure of our feebleness, confirm his providence, while we understand not only that he promises never to fail us, and of his own will opens the way to call upon him at the very point of necessity, but also that he ever extends his hand to help his own, not wet-nursing them with words but defending them with present help.¹²

Although God seems often to be inattentive to our needs, he does this on purpose so as to make us pray to him. In this way we experience the goodness of God towards us.

The Rules of Right Prayer←⤒🔗

Having argued forcefully for the necessity of prayer on the part of the needy people of God, Calvin now proceeds to lay before his readers his 'rules' for effectual prayer. However, as F. Wendel rightly observes: 'In reality, it is a question of the general attitude required of the faithful rather than of precise and clearly distinguishable rules.'¹³

First Rule: Reverence←↰⤒🔗

This first directive has as its aim a proper disposition of mind, one which consists in a freedom from those worldly cares and desires which detract from the pure contemplation of God and results in a devotion of oneself to prayer which rises above the mundane affairs of this life. This, however, does not mean that the saints are not to bring their troubles before God, but rather that we are to lay aside those extraneous elements which are not the proper subjects of prayer.

I say that we are to rid ourselves of all alien and outside cares, by which the mind, itself a wanderer, is borne about hither and thither, drawn away from heaven, and pressed down to earth. I mean that it ought to be raised above itself that it may not bring into God's sight anything our blind and stupid reason is wont to devise, nor hold itself within the limits of its own vanity.¹⁴

Two conclusions follow from these words. First of all, an effort is required on the part of the one who prays to avoid all frivolity and irrelevant thoughts which tend to steal in and disrupt the prayer which alone is acceptable to God. Calvin states:

Let us recall how unworthy it is, when God admits us to intimate conversation, to abuse his great kindness by mixing sacred and profane; but as if the discourse were between us and an ordinary man, amidst our prayers we neglect him and flit hither and thither.¹⁵

He observes that the way to avoid this type of prayer is to lift our minds to behold and contemplate the majesty of God as the one who is far removed from us. Thus Scripture characterises the prayer of the godly in terms of lifting the hands or the soul.

In short, the more generously God deals with us, gently summoning us to unburden our cares into his bosom, the less excusable we are if his splendid and incomparable benefit does not outweigh all else with us and draw us to him, so that we apply our minds and efforts zealously to prayer. This cannot happen unless the mind, stoutly wrestling with these hindrances rises above them.¹⁶

The second conclusion concerns the indiscriminate prayer to God for anything which may enter our hearts. To be sure, we are bidden to lay our needs before the Lord and to empty our hearts before him. But Calvin does not approve of those rash and improper requests, which are not honouring to God and which cannot benefit the one who prays. He observes that in antiquity even certain profane writers sometimes laugh at those who offer careless prayers to God. Then he makes the following application:

Even so today, as I have just suggested, men in their prayers grant more licence to their unlawful desires than if equals were jestingly to gossip with equals, yet, God does not allow his gentle dealing to be thus mocked, but, claiming his own right, he subjects our wishes to his power and bridles them. For this reason, we must hold fast to John's statement: 'this is the confidence we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.'¹⁷

In spite of the demand Calvin has placed on the praying saints, he does not assume that we can simply conform to this rule of right prayer at will, 'because our abilities are far from able to match such perfection, we must seek a remedy to help us'.¹⁸ The power required to direct our thoughts wholly toward God and think that which is acceptable in his sight is entirely lacking in the sinner. Therefore, in order to minister to this weakness, God gives us the Spirit as our teacher in prayer, to tell us what is right and temper our emotions.¹⁹After citing Romans 8:26, Calvin remarks that the apostle does not mean to say that the Spirit prays for us, but that he:

arouses in us assurance, desires and sighs, to conceive which our natural powers would scarcely suffice. And Paul, with good reason, calls 'unspeakable' these groans which believers give forth under the guidance of the Spirit; for they who are truly trained in prayers are not unmindful that, perplexed by blind anxieties, they are so constrained as scarcely to find out what is expedient for them to utter.²⁰

It is a rare gift to be able to pray rightly. Nevertheless this provides no excuse for sloth, nor does it mean that one is idly to wait for the Spirit to come and fill the mind.

Loathing our inertia and dullness, we should seek such aid of the Spirit ... The Spirit empowers us so to compose prayers as by no means to hinder or hold back our own effort since in this matter God's will is to test how effectively faith moves our hearts.²¹

Second Rule: We Pray from a Sincere Sense of Want and Repentance←↰⤒🔗

Having spoken with clarity about the sinner's inability to pray rightly, it is not surprising that Calvin's second rule concentrates on the need for a sense of unworthiness on the part of the petitioner. Prayer uttered from habit or mere duty without a contrite heart is worthless. When, for the sake of mere performance, prayer is offered to the Lord, he is unquestionably mocked.

A second error in this regard has to do with the 'meditations' which supposedly appease God but which are devoid of necessity and urgency. Calvin says:

Now the godly must particularly beware of presenting themselves before God to request anything unless they yearn for it with sincere affection of heart, and at the same time desire to obtain it from him.²²

Clearly the import of Calvin's second rule is that our utter lack of resources ought to cause us to seek God's mercy in providing our needs. The Spirit stirs in us an awareness of our own emptiness and leads us by means of prayer to be filled. The same principle holds true in those prayers which apparently relate only to the honour of God apart from our personal good. For example, Calvin says that when we pray that God's name be sanctified, we should ourselves strive after sanctification.

In section seven of chapter twenty, Calvin proceeds to answer the objection that 'we are not always urged with equal necessity to pray'. The reply is twofold.

1. Quoting the words of James 5:13, he concedes that there is a certain sense in which this is true: 'Common sense itself dictates that, because we are too lazy, God pricks us the more sharply, as occasion demands, to pray earnestly.' ²³ This is David's 'seasonable time' in which discomforts and trials press us, when God summons us to himself.

2. There is another truth which must be taken into account. In two places Paul bids Christians to 'pray at all times' (Ephesians 6:18; 1 Thessalonians 5:17). This applies even in times of happiness and prosperity, because 'there is no point of time when our need does not urge us to pray'. ²⁴The Christian should recognise that all good things come from the hand of God. In addition, as we consider the many dangers and threats which surround us, 'fear itself will teach us that we at no single time may leave off praying.' ²⁵

If fear of material disaster compels us to remain steadfast in prayer, how much more does this apply to spiritual matters. A consciousness of sin will not permit the believer to be lax in his supplications for pardon. When this is fully realised, then it becomes apparent why we are so frequently told in Scripture to 'pray constantly'. It is our inattentiveness and lack of watchfulness which leads the biblical writers to warn us of our need to pray. In the light of this, he can say that right prayer demands repentance. ²⁶The word of God condemns haphazard prayers and commends constant prayer as the means of imploring forgiveness. The Scriptures declare that God does not hear the prayers of the wicked:

For it is right that they who close their hearts should find God's ears closed, and that they who by their hard-heartedness provoke his severity should not feel him conciliatory.²⁷

Calvin rounds off his exposition of this rule by saying: 'Let each one, therefore, as he prepares to pray be displeased with his own evil deeds, and ... let him take the person and disposition of a beggar.' ²⁸

Third Rule: We Give Up All Confidence in Ourselves and Humbly Plead for Pardon←↰⤒🔗

This third word of counsel takes us a step further. The preceding para­graphs placed emphasis on the spiritual conditions of the praying believer. This rule, accordingly, deals with a resultant state of mind based on the previous directive. In other words, we are to approach God in prayer only after we have put away all self-assurance,

Lest if we claim for ourselves anything, even the least bit, we should become vainly puffed up, and perish at his presence.²⁹

Thus the essence of this third rule is that of submission to the holiness of God and a dependence which has a lowly opinion of oneself. This means that we must make a confession of sin. The Christian 'confesses his guilt as an individual, and as a suppliant takes refuge in God's pardon.'³⁰

In Calvin's view, prayer ought always to be accompanied by the plea for the forgiveness of sin. 'To sum up', he writes, 'the beginnings, and even the preparation, of proper prayer is the plea for pardon with a humble and sincere confession of guilt.' ³¹  Involved in this is a remembrance of daily sins along with others which might seem to have been long forgotten. But it would be a mistake to aim our supplications at release from punishment apart from God's pardon of our offence.

We must guard against imitating foolish sick folk, who, concerned solely with the treatment of symptoms, neglect the very root of the disease, that is to say, sin ... He (i.e., Christ, in Matthew 9:2) thus arouses our minds to that which we ought especially to desire: that God may receive us into grace.³²

He admits that in Scripture the saints sometimes make reference to their own righteousness in calling upon God for help. But these ways of speaking must, first of all, be understood in terms of God's own dealings with an individual: 'By such expressions they meaning nothing else but that by their regeneration itself they are attested as servants and children of God, to whom he promises that he will be gracious.'³³  Secondly, such prayer is seen to be in accordance with 1 John 3:22: 'We shall receive ... whatever we ask if we keep his commandments.' That is to say, God responds to those who live in purity and uprightness, as all believers should. Thus when the Psalmists refer to their own righteousness, they simply state that they have been conscientious in the performance of their duty as God's servants. Calvin concludes:

No heart can ever break into sincere calling upon God that does not at the same time aspire to godliness. To such promises, then, correspond the saints' attestations in which they mention their purity or innocence in order that they may feel what all God's servants should hope for, made manifest to themselves. ³⁴

Fourth Rule: We Pray with Confident Hope←↰⤒🔗

A further rule concludes the progression of thought in this section about Calvin's exposition of prayer. One would be tempted to infer from his emphasis on our helplessness and unworthiness that we may expect nothing at all from God. But this is why he counterbalances his remarks with the words: 'We should, nonetheless, be encouraged to pray by a sure hope that our prayer will be answered.' ³⁵  Thus in a very real sense our assurance is tied to an awareness of God's justice toward wrongdoers. Calvin admits that this is apparently contradictory. Yet he resolves the problem by reminding his readers of the discussion concerning the relation of faith and repentance (3.3.1-5). The two are bound together inseparably: the one terrifies us, but the other gladdens. Hence when these two are applied to prayer, the result is that we are held in fear by the majesty of God; but, on the other hand, faith lays hold of the promise that although in ourselves we merit nothing, we are given all for the sake of Christ. In other words, 'God's goodness alone raises up those oppressed by their own evil deeds.'³⁶

The place of faith occupies Calvin's attention in the discussion of this rule. ³⁷By faith in prayer Calvin means that the petitioner believes that God hears his prayers. Thus he can state, 'They who in doubt and perplexity call upon God, uncertain in their own minds whether they will be heard or not, will gain nothing.' ³⁸Hence faith is the indispensable condition of right prayer, 'For only that prayer is acceptable to God which is born, if I may so express it, out of such presumption of faith, and is grounded in unshaken assurance of hope.'³⁹ This, however, does not overthrow the fact that believers call upon the Lord when they feel quite miserable and downcast. It is important to keep this particularly in view, for 'prayer was not ordained that we should be haughtily puffed up before God, or greatly esteem anything of ours, but that, having confessed our guilt, we should deplore our distresses before him, as children unburden their troubles to their parents'.⁴⁰ Nevertheless, the man of faith realises that even in the midst of trial God is listening to his prayer and He is able to grant what is asked.

It would be a great blessing to Christians in our day if they would study again those great principles of practical divinity which would make them the men of prayer our forefathers were.