Chapter 22 — Part II — On Hope (Introduction and Prayer)
Section 396. Q. Does not inward prayer alone suffice without outward? A. This question is as if one should ask whether soul alone might not suffice for man without body. It is idle to ask this, seeing that God has been pleased to make man consist of soul and body; likewise idle it is to ask whether inward prayer alone may not suffice without outward. Since we have both soul and body, we ought to glorify God in our bodies, and in our souls, which are God's: this being besides natural, that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth should speak. Our Lord Jesus Christ was spiritual in the highest degree, but even he expressed his spiritual prayer both by words and by devout gestures of body, sometimes, for instance, lifting up his eyes to heaven, sometimes kneeling, or falling on his face to the ground. 1 Cor. vi. 20; Matt. xii. 34; John xvii. 1; Luke xxii. 41; Matt. xxvi. 39.