No. 281. JEREMY TAYLOR [From A Letter to a Person Newly Converted to the Church of England. Works, ed. R. Heber, Vol. XI, pp. 206 f. (ed. C.P. Eden, Vol. VI, p. 664).]from Chapter XV. Prayer in Anglicanism: The Thought and Practice of the Church of England, Illustrated from the Religious Literature of the Seventeenth Century, Compiled and Edited by Paul Elmer More, and Frank Leslie Cross, S.P.C.K., London, 1935.

[Prayer in General]

PRAY frequently and effectually; I had rather your prayers should be often than long. It was well said of Petrarch, Magno verborum fraeno uti decet, cum superiore colloquentem, “When you speak to your superior, you ought to have a bridle on your tongue;” much more when you speak to God. I speak of what is decent in respect of ourselves and our infinite distances from God. But if love makes you speak, Speak on, so shall your prayers be full of charity and devotion. Nullus est amore superior; ille te coget ad veniam, qui me ad multiloquium. Love makes God to be our friend and our approaches more united and acceptable: and therefore you may say to God, “The same love which made me speak, will also move Thee to hear and pardon.” Love and devotion may enlarge your litanies, but nothing else can, unless authority does interpose.