After Calvin has shared with us his four rules for prayer, he turns to consider what incites us to prayer.

"Besides this goad by which the consciousness of our misery continually pricks us, our very good Father has added two more things which chiefly ought to move and incite us to prayer. One is His commandment to us to pray. The other is His promise that we will obtain everything for which we pray. . . . For it is not the merit or value of praying which makes us obtain them, but all hope is located in these promises and depends on them."

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1541 French Edition, translated by Elsie Anne McKee (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 464-465, emphasis added.

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