Warfield on Prayer

The following is an excerpt from B. B. Warfield’s sermon “Prayer as a Means of Grace” reprinted in a volume of Warfield’s collected sermons, Faith and Life (Banner, 1974).

Prayer as a confession of weakness . . .

In its very nature, prayer is a confession of weakness, a confession of need, of dependence, a cry for help, a reaching out for something stronger, better, more stable and trustworthy than ourselves, oil which to rest and depend and draw. No one can take this attitude once without an effect on his character; no one can take it in a crisis of his life without his whole subsequent life feeling the influence in its sweeter, humbler, more devout and restful course; no one can take it habitually without being made, merely by its natural, reflex influence, a different man, in a very profound sense, from what he otherwise would have been. Prayer, thus, in its very nature, because it is an act of self-abnegation, a throwing of ourselves at the feet of One recognized as higher and greater than we, and as One on whom we depend and in whom we trust, is a most beneficial influence in this hard life of ours. It places the soul in an attitude of less self-assertion and predisposes it to walk simply and humbly in the world.

After discussing the nature of prayer, Warfield speaks of the proper attitude to be taken in prayer . . .

The soul in the attitude of prayer is like the flower turned upwards towards the sky and opening for the reception of the life-giving rain. What is prayer but an adoring appearing before God with a confession of our need and helplessness and a petition for His strength and blessing? What is prayer but a recognition of our dependence and a proclamation that all that we dependent creatures need is found abundantly and to spare in God, who gives to all men liberally and upbraids not? What is prayer but the very adjustment of the heart for the influx of grace? Therefore it is that we look upon the prayerful attitude as above all others the true Christian attitude—just because it is the attitude of devout and hopeful dependence on God. And, therefore, it is that we look upon that type of religious teaching as, above all others, the true Christian type which has as its tendency to keep men in the attitude of prayer, through all their lives.

Prayer is an exercise of God’s free grace in Christ . . .

And that teaching alone which calls upon man to depend wholly on the Lord God Almighty—our loving Father who has given His Son to die for us—for all the exercises of grace, will make Christians whose whole life is a prayer. Not that other Christians do not pray. But only of these Christians can it be said that their life is an embodied prayer. In so far as any Christian's life is a prayerful life, pervaded by and made up out of prayer, it approaches in its silent witness the ideal of this type of teaching. What other attitude is possible to a Christian on his knees before God but an attitude of entire dependence on God for His gifts, and of humble supplication to Him for His favour? But are we to rise from our knees only to take up a different attitude towards God?

Says one of the greatest thinkers of modern times: "On his knees before God, every one that has been saved will recognize the sole efficiency of the Holy Spirit in every good work . . . . In a word, whoever truly prays ascribes nothing to his own will or power except the sin that condemns him before God, and knows of nothing that could endure the judgment of God except it be wrought within him by the Divine love. But whilst all other tendencies in the Church preserve this attitude so long as their prayer lasts, to lose themselves in radically different conceptions as soon as the Amen has been pronounced, the Calvinist adheres to the truth of his prayer, in his confession, in his theology, in his life, and the Amen that has closed his petition re-echoes in the depths of his consciousness and throughout the whole of his existence." That is to say, for us Calvinists the attitude of prayer is the whole attitude of our lives. Certainly this is the true Christian attitude, because it is the attitude of dependence, and trust. But just because this is the attitude of prayer, prayer puts the soul in the attitude for receiving grace and is essentially a means of grace.

The myth of “dry as dust” Calvinism exposed . . .