Friday, April 18, 1997 
[Continued from yesterday]Our hearts deceive us, because we leave them to themselves, are absent from them, taken up in outward things, in outward rules and forms of living and praying. But this kind of praying, which takes all its thoughts and words only from the state of our hearts, makes it impossible for us to be strangers to ourselves. The strength of every sin, the power of every evil temper, the most secret workings of our hearts, the weakness of any or all our virtues, is with a noonday clearness forced to be seen, as soon as the heart is made our prayer-book, and we pray nothing, but according to what we read, and find there.
... William Law (1686-1761), The Spirit of Prayer [1749], London: E. Justins for Ogles, Duncan, and Cochran, 1816, p. 162   
 (see the book; more at Evil, Heart, Power, Prayer, Sin, Strength, Virtue, Weakness)
 
 
  
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