Agurs Prayer

“Learn a simple prayer that will help you find your sweet spot in life.”—Josh McDowell, author of More Than a Carpenter “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.” Proverbs 30:8 This simple, unexpected request from a little-known biblical author named Agur is the only prayer in all of Proverbs, and it offers life-changing potential. Imagine finding new purpose and contentment in your work, personal ministry, and relationships. Open your heart to Agur’s wit and wisdom, and you can learn to • escape imbalance • overcome fear of failure and eliminate envy • joyfully pursue your passions • reap the eternal rewards of trusting God • find your personal sweet spot In our modern, busy lives, embracing balance leads us away from bad decision-making and the emotional cost of trying to do too much or survive with too little. This engaging and practical book faithfully unpacks Agur’s humble prayer. Read it in an evening. Affirm it for a lifetime. Share it with those you love.

This title was first published in 2003. 'The art of suffering' is one of many strands of literature on suffering published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This book explores through the art of suffering the way in which the meaning for suffering, which the seventeenth century inherited from the Middle Ages and which centres on the role of suffering as a manifestation of the hand of God in the process of salvation, is refined and enhanced by successive puritan writers only to crumble under the impact of emerging anti-providential thought. It goes on to explore the challenge which the absence of meaning for suffering presents to the Judaeo-Christian concept of an omnipotent and infinitely good God, and the ways in which themes and doctrines already present in the literature on suffering are reshaped and recombined to defend the omnipotence and infinite goodness of God.

Early modern private prayer is skilled at narrative and drama. In manuals and sermons on how to pray, collections of model prayers, scholarly treatises about biblical petitions, and popular tracts about life crises prompting calls to God, prayer is valued as a powerful agent of change. Model prayers create stories about people in distinct ranks and jobs, with concrete details about real-life situations. These characters may act in play-lets, or appear in the middle of difficulties, or voice a suite of petitions from all sides of a conflict. Thinking of early modern private prayers as dramatic dialogues rather than lyric monologues raises the question of whether play-going and praying were mutually reinforcing practices. Could dramatists deploying prayer on stage rely on having audience members who were already expert at making up roles for themselves in prayer, and who expected their petitions to have the power to intervene in major events? Does prayer's focus on cause and effect structure the historiography of Shakespeare's Henry VI, Richard III, Richard II, Henry V, and Henry VIII?

This book fosters a wide-ranging and nuanced discussion of the concept of ‘enough’. Acknowledging the prominence of notions of sufficiency in debates about sustainability, it argues for a more complex, culturally and historically informed understanding of how these might be manifested across a wide array of contexts. Rather than simply adding further case studies of sufficiency in order to prove the efficacy of what might be called ‘finite planet economics’, the book holds up to the light a crucial ‘keyword’ within the sustainability discourse, tracing its origins and anatomising its current repertoire of usages. Chapters focus on the sufficiency of food, drink and clothing to track the concept of 'enough' from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. By expanding the historical and cultural scope of sufficiency, this book fills a significant gap in the current market for authors, students and the wider informed audience who want to more deeply understand the changing and developing use of this term.

From his migration to America in 1774 to his death in New York City in 1809, Thomas Paine's ideology was at the centre of American political and social debate. This six-volume facsimile edition brings together rare texts from books, periodicals and newspaper contributions to unearth the contemporary American response to Thomas Paine.

Why was it that whenever the Tudor-Stuart regime most loudly trumpeted its moderation, that regime was at its most vicious? This groundbreaking book argues that the ideal of moderation, so central to English history and identity, functioned as a tool of social, religious and political power. Thus The Rule of Moderation rewrites the history of early modern England, showing that many of its key developments – the via media of Anglicanism, political liberty, the development of empire and even religious toleration – were defined and defended as instances of coercive moderation, producing the 'middle way' through the forcible restraint of apparently dangerous excesses in Church, state and society. By showing that the quintessentially English quality of moderation was at heart an ideology of control, Ethan Shagan illuminates the subtle violence of English history and explains how, paradoxically, England came to represent reason, civility and moderation to a world it slowly conquered.