“A complete definition of prayer is obtained by combining the two answers of the Larger and Shorter Catechism, thus: ‘Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, by the help of his Spirit, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.’ The clauses italicized above are the only two which are not found in both; for it is a little singular that, whilst otherwise identical, there should be in each the omission of an element necessary to the completeness of the idea, which the other exactly supplies. The Shorter Catechism, for example, limits the objects of true prayer to things agreeable to the divine will; whilst the Larger Catechism brings distinctly into view the agency of the Holy Ghost in the inditing of our petitions. It may be true that what is omitted in each is nevertheless taught by necessary implication. We cannot, for instance, offer up our desires to God, except ‘for things agreeable to his will,’ without being guilty of a presumption which shall vitiate the worship; and we cannot intelligently prayer ‘in the name of Christ,’ without a reliance upon ‘the other Comforter,’ who ‘brings to our remembrance whatsoever he hath said.’ Nevertheless, a definition is formally incomplete which does not specify everything essential to that which is defined. The Westminster divines practically admit this by adding to the definition in one place what they omit in the other; which is, therefore, rendered perfect only when the two statements are united.” — Benjamin Morgan Palmer (1818-1902), Theology of Prayer as Viewed in the Religion of Nature and in the System of Grace (1894), pp. 13-14