Prithee the addressee, as in "if it please you," "prithee" accompanies a request which addresses itself to the threat of being answered in the negative, as though the request were against the addressee's wishes. Stated otherwise, the word "please" suggests that the person being addressed is willing to comply with the request, whereas the word "prithee" suggests that he or she is not willing. This switch from stating the speaker's contrary desire to stating the speaker's wish not to impose signaled a cultural shift in the English-speaking world in which politeness became stated negatively rather than positively. Wider repercussions are observable
Means of grace the ordinary means of grace as the Word (preached primarily, but also read) and the sacraments (baptism and the Lord's Supper). In addition to these means of grace recognized by the Continental Reformed (Dutch, etc.), the English Reformed also included prayer as a means of grace along with the Word and Sacraments (Westminster Larger Catechism 154; Westminster Shorter Catechism 88). The means of grace are not intended to include every means by which God may edify Christians, but are the ordinary channels he has ordained for this purpose and are communicated to Christians supernaturally by the Holy Spirit. For Reformed