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Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30158	I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also, or, A discourse touching prayer, from I Cor. 14.15 wherein is briefly discovered 1. What prayer is, 2. What it is to pray with the spirit, 3. What it is to pray with the spirit and with the understanding also / by John Bunyan.	Bunyan, John, 1628-1688.	1663 (1663)	Wing B5541; ESTC R33259	38,056	122

as any in our generation as is clearly manifested by his word and his works Nevertheless when this good man this Prophet comes into God's Worship then the Lord must help or he can do nothing Lord open thou my lips and then my mouth shall shew forth thy praise He could not speak one right word except the Spirit it self gave utterance For we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self helpeth our infirmities But Secondly It must be a praying with the Spirit that is the effectual praying because without that as men are senceless so hypocritical cold and unseemly in their prayers and so they with their prayers are both rendred abominable to God Mat. 23. 14. Mark 12. 40. It is not the excellency of the voice nor the seeming affection and earnestness of him that prayeth that is any thing regarded of God without it Luke 18. 11 12. Isa. 58. 2 3. For man as man is so full of all manner of wickedness that as he cannot keep a word or thought so much less a piece of prayer clean and acceptable to God through Christ. And for this cause the Pharisees with their prayers were rejected No question but they were excellently able to express themselves in words and also for length of time too they were very notable but they had not the Spirit of Jesus Christ to help them and therefore they did what they did with their infirmities or weaknesses only and so fell short of a sincere sensible affectionate pouring out of their souls to God through the strength of the Spirit That is the prayer that goeth to Heaven that is sent thither in the strength of the Spirit For Thirdly Nothing but the Spirit can shew a man clearly his misery by nature and so put a man into a posture of prayer Talk is but talk as we use to say and so it is but mouth-worship if there be not a sence of misery and that effectually too O the cursed hypocrisie that is in most hearts and that accompanieth many thousands of praying men that would be so looked upon in this day and all for want of a sence of their misery But now the Spirit that will sweetly shew the soul its misery where it is and what is like to become of it also the intolerableness of that condition For it is the Spirit that doth effectually convince of sin and misery without the Lord Jesus John 16. 7 8 9. and so puts the soul into a sweet serious sensible affectionate way of praying to God according to his Word Fourthly If men did see their sins yet without the help of the Spirit they would not pray For they would run away from God with Cain and Judas and utterly despair of mercy were it not for the Spirit When a man is indeed sensible of his sin and God's curse then it is an hard thing to perswade him to pray For saith his heart There is no hope It is in vain to seek God Jer. 2. 25. Jer. 18. 12. I am so vile so wretched and so cursed a creature that I shall never be regarded Now here comes the Spirit and stayeth the soul helpeth it to hold up its face to God by letting into the heart some small sence of mercy to encourage it to go to God and hence it is called the Comforter John 14. 26. Fifthly It must be in or with the Spirit For without that no man can know how he should come to God the right way Men may easily say they come to God in his Son but it is the hardest thing of a thousand to come to God aright and in his own way without the Spirit It is the Spirit that searcheth all things yea the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2. 12. It is the Spirit that must shew us the way of coming to God and also what there is in God that makes him desireable I beseech thee saith Moses shew me thy way that I may know thee Exod. 33. 13. And Joh. 16. 14. He shall take of mine and shall shew it unto you Sixthly Because without the Spirit though a man did see his misery and also the way to come to God yet he would never be able to claim a share in either God Christ or Mercy with Gods approbation O how great a task is it for a poor soul that comes sensible of sin and the wrath of God to say in Faith but this one word Father I tell you how ever hypocrites think yet the Christian that is so indeed finds all the difficulty in this very thing it cannot say God is its Father Oh! saith he I dare not call him Father and hence it is that the Spirit must be sent into the hearts of Gods people for this very thing to cry Father Gal. 4. 6. it being too great a work for any man to do knowingly and believingly without it When I say knowingly I mean knowing what it is to be a Child of God and to be born again And when I say believingly I mean for the soul to believe and that from good experience that the work of Grace is wrought in him this is the right calling of God Father and not as many do to say in a babling way the Lords Prayer so called by heart as it lyeth in the words of the Book No here is the life of Prayer when in or with the Spirit a man being made sensible of sin and how to come to the Lord for mercy he comes I say in the strength of the Spirit and cryeth Father ☞ That one word spoken in Faith is better than a thousand prayers as men call them written and read in a formal cold luke-warm way Oh how far short are those people of being sensible of this who count it enough to teach themselves and children to say the Lords Prayer the Creed with other sayings when as Gods knows they are senceless of themselves their misery or what it is to be brought to God through Christ Ah poor souls study your misery and cry to God to shew you your confused blindness and ignorance before you be to rife in calling God your Father or learning your children either so to say And know that to say God is your Father in a way of prayer or conference without an experiment of the work of grace on your souls it is to say you are Jews and are not and so to lie You say Our Father God saith you blaspheme You say you are Jews that is true Christians God saith you lie Behold I will make them of the Synagogue of Satan which say they are Jews and are not but do lie And I know the blasphemy of them that say they are Jews and are not but are the Synagogue of Satan Rev. 3. 9. Rev. 2. 9. And so much the greater the sin is by how much the more the sinner boasts it with a pretended sanctity as the Jews did to Christ in John 8. 41 to 45. which made Christ even in

11. 27. 1 Cor. 2. 9 10 11. Should we pray for Communion with God through Christ should we pray for Faith for Justification by Grace and a truly sanctified heart None of these things know we For As no man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man that is in him even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2. 11. But here alas the Apostles speak of inward and spiritual things which the world knows not Isa. 29. 11. Again As they know not the Matter c. of Prayer without the help of the Spirit so neither know they the Manner thereof without the same and therefore he addeth We know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit helpeth our infirmities with sighs and groans which cannot be uttered Mark here they could not so well and so fully come off in the manner of performing this duty as these in our dayes think they can The Apostles when they were at the best yea when the holy Ghost assisted them yet then they were fain to come off with sighs and groans falling short of expressing their mind but with sighs and groans which cannot be uttered But here now the wise men of our dayes are so well skill'd as that they have both the Manner and Matter of their Prayers at their fingers ends setting such a Prayer for such a day and that twenty years before it comes One for Christmass another for Easter and six dayes after that They have also bounded how many syllables must be said in every one of them at their publick Exercises For each Saints day also they have them ready for the generations yet unborn to say They can tell you also when you shall kneel when you should stand when you should abide in your seats when you should go up into the Chancel and what you should do when you come there All which the Apostles came short of as not being able to compose so profound a manner And that for this reason included in this Scripture because the fear of God tyed them to pray as they ought For we know not what we should pray for as we ought Mark this As we ought For the not thinking of this word or at least the not understanding it in the spirit and truth of it hath occasioned these men to devise as Jeroboam did 1 King 12. 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33. another way of Worship both for matter and manner than is revealed in the Word of God But saith Paul We must pray as we ought and this we cannot do by all the art skill cunning and device of Men or Angels For we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit nay further it must be the Spirit it self that helpeth our infirmities not the Spirit and man's lusts What man of his own brain may imagine and devise is one thing and what they are commanded and ought to do is another Many ask and have not because they ask amiss Jam. 4. 3. and so are never the nearer the injoying of those things they petition for It is not to pray at random that will put off God or cause him to answer While Prayer is making God is searching the heart to see from what root and spirit it doth arise And he that searcheth the heart knoweth that is approveth only the meaning of the Spirit because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God 1 John 5. 14. For in that which is according to his Will only he heareth us and in nothing else And it is the Spirit only that can teach us so to ask it onely being able to search out all things even the deep things of God Without which Spirit though we had a thousand Common-Prayer-Books yet we know not what we should pray for as we ought being accompanied with those infirmities that make us absolutely uncapable of such a work Which infirmities although it is a hard thing to name them all yet some of them are these that follow First Without the Spirit man is so infirm that he cannot with all other means whatsoever be enabled to think one right saving thought of God of Christ or of his blessed things and therefore he saith of the wicked God is not in all their thoughts Psal. 10. 4. Unless it be that they imagine him altogether such a one as themselves Psal. 50. 20. For every imagination of the thought of their heart is only evil and that continually Gen. 6. 5. Gen. 8. 21. They then not being able to conceive aright of God to whom they pray of Christ through whom they pray nor of the things for which they pray as is before shewed how shall they be able to address themselves to God without the Spirit help this infirmity Peradventure you will say By the help of the Common-Prayer-Book but that cannot do it unless it can open the eyes and reveal to the soul all these things before touched Which that it cannot it is evident because that is the work of the Spirit only The Spirit it self is the revealer of these things to poor souls and that which doth give us to understand them wherefore Christ tells his Disciples when he promised to send the Spirit the Comforter He shall take of mine and shew unto you as if he had said I know you are naturally dark and ignorant as to the understanding any of my things though ye try this course and the other yet your ignorance will still remain the vail is spread over your heart and there is none can take away the same nor give you spiritual understanding but the Spirit The common-prayer-Common-Prayer-Book will not do it neither can any man expect that it should be instrumental that way it being none of God's Ordinances but a thing since the Scriptures were written patched together one piece at one time and another at another a meer mane invention and institution which God is so far from owning of that he expresly forbids it with any other such like and that by manyfold sayings in his most holy and blessed Word See Mark 7. vers 7 8. and Col. 2. vers 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23. Deut. 12. 30 31 32. Prov. 30. 6. Deut. 4. 2. Rev. 22. 18. For right prayer must aswell in the outward part of it in the outward expression as in the inward intention come from what the soul doth apprehend in the Light of the Spirit otherwise it is condemned as vain and an abomination Mark 7. because the heart and tongue do not go along joyntly in the same Prov. 21. 9. Isa. 29. 13. neither indeed can they unless the Spirit help our infirmities And this David knew full well which did make him cry Lord open thou my lips and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise Psal. 51. 10 11. I suppose there is none can imagine but that David could speak and express himself as well as others nay