John Calvin expands upon what he has previously written about the purpose of prayer to teach more explicitly about the goal of prayer:

"The goal of prayer (as has already been said) is that our spirits may be lifted up and directed to God, to desire His glory and confess His praise and ask Him for help in our needs. By that we can recognize that the chief matter of prayer lies in the heart and spirit, or rather that prayer is properly only the inward desire, converting or turning itself and addressing God, who knows the secrets of the heart."

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1541 French Edition, translated by Elsie Anne McKee (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2009), p. 474, emphasis added.

Of course, such lifting up of spirit and heart requires that the prayers be intelligible, and this requires that prayers, which is to say all of the worship service, be in the language of the people. It must be difficult for us to imagine it being otherwise, or to realize what a huge impact this had upon the Protestant and Reformed churches.

"Public prayers ought not to be made in the Greek language among Latins, or in Latin among the French or English (as has previously been the custom everywhere) but in the common language of the land which can be understood by the whole assembly, because public prayers ought to be made for the edification of the whole church." (p. 476)

For more information about this edition of Calvin's Institutes, please click on this link and scroll down to Institutes of the Christian Religion:

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