object of God's special care and love. For as prayer is an address or application of a dependent being to his supreme governour, and original benefactor.... It naturally draws forth our souls in filial fear, in hope and trust, in love, delight, and joy in God; and creates in us a just concern to please him, and to approve ourselves in his sight; and consequently to put on that purity and piety, humility and charity which is the spirit and practice of true Christianity." Chubb said we should pray often and "it is when we forget God, when God is not in all our thoughts, that we do amiss; then our minds and lives are corrupted and defiled." He also discussed whom we should pray to. First he said we should not pray to dead human souls, as we have no reason to think they hear our prayers or have any power to help us. Then he discussed whether we should pray to angels. Unlike Morgan – who thought we should pray to both God and angels – Chubb thought we probably should not pray to angels. He said even though they were "ministering spirits", we could not be sure they heard our prayers, and they might not be at liberty to help us without God's direct guidance. He spent a final ten pages wondering whether we should pray to Jesus or just to God the Father, concluding we should pray to God the Father "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ". Chubb was sure that God heard all our petitions, but he did not think God answered them all in the way we wished. God answered only if they were for lawful things and people prayed earnestly "with a modest resignation to God's will".[vi] Chubb thought that God sometimes gave us harmful things we had prayed for, but then God acted "in displeasure". In another tract, he was more pessimistic about God's positive response rate to our prayers. He cited evidence that God did not often answer our prayers: over the previous 200 years, millions of sincere, fervent prayers had petitioned God for the defeat of the Antichrist, but the Roman Catholic hierarchy or other interests ostensibly bent on defeating God's kingdom still existed. See also Higher criticism References Sources External links Thomas Chubb, A Collection of Tracts on Various Subjects (London, 1730). On Google Books. Joseph Waligore,