save men but they will not be saved So the year of Jubilee was a true Type of our deliverance by Christ whosoever was in bondage might then go out free wherefore I conclude as sure as we are lost by the first Adam so sure we are redeemed by the second Adam So sure as we are created by God the Father so sure we are redeemed by God the Son and Whoever will believe in him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life Vulgar Errors CONCERNING Praying by the SPIRIT Removed THere hath nothing of late years been more mistaken than those Scriptures which speak of praying by the Spirit or the Spirit helping our Infirmities and God's pouring out the Spirit of Prayer and Supplications upon his People Which places have been wrested against a set Form of Prayer as if it were nothing but cold breathings and Lip labour to use their own words and a man in praying such a Prayer could not be assisted by the Spirit of God Their first mistake lieth in this that they do not distinguish between the gift of Prayer and the Spirit of Prayer Many men have a very good gift of Prayer and a very fluent Tongue who yet may be very formal as to their hearts not every one that hath the best gift of Eloquence prays most by the Spirit nor he that hath the meanest gift of Elocution prays least with the Spirit We may instance in Moses and Aaron the one of a stammering tongue the other God gives him this testimony that he could speak well Yet in the famous fight between Israel and Ameleck God makes not choice of Eloquent Aaron but of slowspoken Moses to get the victory by Prayer Though Aaron speak better than Moses yet certainly he could not pray better than he Prayer is a great part of Gods Service and Worship and our blessed Saviour tells us God is a Spirit and must be worshipp'd in Spirit Yet when the Apostles desired him to teach them to pray he did not teach them to pray by the Spirit in their sense who think speaking extempore without premeditation whatever comes into their mind on a sudden is the only praying by the Spirit but he prescribes them a set Form saying When ye pray say Our Father which art in heaven c. So that a set Form certainly may be prayed by the Spirit else it had never been commanded to be used by our Saviour Christ If it be said the Lords Prayer is a pattern to frame our Prayers by rather than a Prayer it self My answer is As some Weights and Measures which are so exact in their kind being kept as Standards to make other Weights and Measures by do not lose the nature of Weights and Measures upon that account but rather are warranted in their kind So the Lords Prayer by being made a pattern for our Prayers doth not lose the nature of a Prayer but rather is thereby commended to us to be the most absolute Form of Prayer in the world In Numb 6.23 God bids Moses speak unto Aaron and his Sons saying on this wise ye shall bless the people the Lord bless thee and keep thee the Lord make his face shine favourably upon thee c. If any able of themselves to conceive a Prayer we may well suppose it should be the Priest whose Lips should preserve knowledge yet they are prescribed a set Form of blessing the People If it had been prescribed for the simple and ignorant sort it might have been objected They that have not gifts of their own are permitted to make use of other mens gifts but seeing it is prescribed the Priest himself nay even for Aaron the Eloquent High-Priest it strongly concludes for a set Form of Prayer and Benediction to be used in publick by the most able and eloquent Divine Moses a great Prophet who prayed so earnestly that God said Let me alone as if he tied Gods hands yet did he use one set Form of Prayer when the Ark set forward and when it rested Numb 10.35 When it set forward he said Arise O God let thine enemies be scattered let them also that hate thee flee before thee and when it rested he said constantly Return O Lord to the many thousands of Israel Let us not seek to seem better than he in new Forms every day whose gifts without question were unspeakably greater than ours The 92. Psalm was usually sung in the Church of the Jews every Sabbath day it was penned for that purpose as appeareth by the Title of it Seeing therefore a set Form of Prayer and Praise have been the practice of the ancient Church of God among the Jews and of Christian Churches to this very day let us give them the right hand of fellowship to have a Unity and Uniformity in Publick Worship Our blessed Saviour of whom it was said truly never man spake as he spake yet he useth three times together the same words in his Agony Father if it be possible let this Cup pass from me He wanted no variety of words yet he confines himself to the same words the Prophet Joel prescribes the Prayer for the Priest and bids them say Spare thy people good Lord c. St. Paul the great Doctor of the Gentiles used the same Salutation in the beginning of most of his Epistles Grace mercy and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and the same Prayer at the end of them The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you all Amen These examples plainly refute the error of those that are against the Liturgy or set Form of Prayer in the Church it is a ridiculous thing to think that as a nice and squeamish stomach is delighted with change of Dishes so God is delighted with variety of words and novelty of matter and method and that unless we have a new stile or a new trope or a new figure or a new flourish every time more than other we have not the Spirit of Prayer nor shall be excepted Every good Christian is not able to conceive a Prayer many have weak Capacities to conceive them want Order and Method to compose them yet even these if they meet with a Prayer framed to their hand can pray fervently and heartily A set Form must needs be a great help to those that are weak and yet willing to pray nay even they that are strong ought not to despise them for Prayers in publick are bounded by authority To pass over those bounds then must needs be offensive to that Authority that prescribed those bounds If any do they foment as it were a Worship distinct and apart from what is authorized by the Church but more reason that the spirit of a Minister should be regulated by the spirit of the Church representative than the spirits of the whole Congregation by the spirit of the Minister If he that was sick of the Palsie that was born of four
could have walked to Christ on his own feet what could he have more desired than to be healed So if we come with our own invention or expression in Prayer we can expect nothing more than to be heard which God the searcher of the heart will as soon do when we draw nigh to him with words of the Churches composing as if they were of our own framing if the Heart be not wanting Yea but methinks I hear some say the Heart must needs be wanting for praying is one thing and reading is another I grant they are two several things but yet they are compatible and may well stand together When we read the Lords Prayer in the sixth Chapter of St. Matthew and our intention is only to inform our selves of the Will of God set down in his Word we acknowledge we do not pray but when we read the Lords Prayer in the Liturgy and we lift up our hearts to God in every of the Petitions then we affirm that we do pray So then when we read and our intention is only to receive knowledge into the soul we do not pray in reading but when in reading we also pour out the requests of our hearts then such reading may truly be called praying Secondly it is objected reading set Prayers out of a Book is a stinting of the Spirit but we ought not to stint or quench the Spirit therefore we ought not to read Prayers out of a Book I answer 1. If he that prays a set Form stints the Spirit then he that prays an extempore Prayer out of the Pulpit stints the spirits of all those that joyn with him for they that hear him and joyn with him are limited by his words and his sense and so it is as bad as a set Form to them for if their minds go along with him they pray the same Prayer that he doth and neither more nor less Now why should the People be tied to the Prayers of the Minister and not the Minister to the Prayers of the Church If it be sinful in one to stint the Spirit it is sinful also in the other and so no publick Prayer where many joyn together could be offered up to God without sin in this respect because the Spirit must be bound up and stinted in all but in him that speaks it But if the meaning of the Objection be that extempore Prayers stint not the Spirit because then a man speaks as the Spirit gives utterance which cannot be in set Forms then this absurdity would follow If to those men which pray extempore the Spirit of God doth dictate those words unto them then those Prayers would be as good Canonical Scripture if written by the Pen of a ready Writer as any of the Psalms of David or Asaph or any of the holy men of old recorded in Scripture which because it would be blasphemy to affirm it roundly follows such Prayers are not spoken as the Spirit gives utterance but are the effects of their own Art and Industry and therefore the turning of that practice into a set Form doth not stint nor quench the Spirit of God in Prayer That those sudden Conceptions are not dictated by the Spirit of God appears plainly by this men of divers opinions pray quite contrary things as for instance a Presbyterian Minister takes a Text sounding as he thinks towards the establishing of Presbytery such as that in 1 Pet. 5.1 The Elders that are among you I exhort who also am an Elder From whence he delivers the Presbyterian Government is the Government Christ establish'd in the Church After his Sermon he prays over again the chief Heads of what he delivered and says Good Lord settle those truths which to day thou hast shewn us concerning Church Government upon our hearts An Independent he comes and he takes a Text which he wrests likewise but it is to Independency and he bids them stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free and be not entangled with the yoke of bondage from which words he delivers for Doctrine that Independency is the only way that Christ hath left for his Church And after Sermon he prays likewise that the People may not receive his Doctrine as the word of a man but as the Will and Word of God Call ye this praying by the Spirit To say so is in deed and truth a blaspheming of the Spirit for the Spirit of God cannot speak contradictions as these men do in their Pulpit Conceptions And yet they would father all upon the incomes of the Spirit which assisted them in carrying on the work of the day Their Sermons being contradictory one to the other and their Prayers sutable to their Sermons their Prayers must needs include contradictions also One prays God to establish Presbytery the other Independency in the Church now how can both these be dictated by one and the same Spirit To pray with the Spirit signifies in Scripture three things 1. To pray by immediate inspiration so as to make no use of our own judgment or reason either in devising the matter or chusing the words but to speak only what the Spirit doth suggest Thus those that penned the Scriptures were inspired and spake not their own private mind or meaning but as they were carried forth out of themselves and moved by the Holy Ghost And so St. Paul is to be understood when he saith I will pray with the Spirit and with the understanding also that is I will use any language which the Spirit shall dictate unto me but I will interpret it that the People may understand it and say Amen unto it for while the Apostles lived there was in the Church an extraordinary gift of Prayer which supplied the place of set Forms but it was as miraculous as the gift of Tongues When this gift and the gift of Miracles ceased they used stated Forms in Publick and the Council of Carthage ordered that no other Prayers should be put up in their Assemblies but what were approved of by wise and prudent men in the Synod lest something through ignorance or inadvertency might be uttered contrary to the Faith and Doctrine of Christ Secondly By praying with the Spirit is meant to pray by the direction of Gods holy Spirit Jude 20. But ye beloved building up your selves in your most holy faith praying in the Holy Ghost The Spirit helps in directing us what is fit for us to ask of God and what God sees fit to bestow upon man And this direction is given us in his holy Word where we are taught what to pray for so as not to ask amiss else we should not know what to pray for as we ought Rom. 8.26 He that prescribes the model of an house and provides materirials and sets men on work may be truly said to build that house although it be builded by other mens hands So the Holy Ghost prescribing us Forms in the Word and inciting us to pray by promise of
reward and the like may be intituled to our Prayers Thirdly He assisting us with inward motions carrying forth our affections with zeal and fervency further than naturally they would tend may in this sense be stiled the Author of our Prayers As wicked men giving place to the Devil Satan carries forth their malice into murder and raises storms of passions in their Souls even as the Wind raises the Waves of the Sea even so on the contrary a man applying his heart to seek the Lord and call upon his Name the Holy Ghost aids him by his grace to make powerful Supplications with sighs and groans which cannot be uttered Now every adopted child of God the Apostle witnesses Gal. 4.6 hath these aids and assistances of the Holy Ghost in their Prayers stirring up their hearts to cry Abba Father thus and thus only they that are the Sons of God pray by the Spirit of God Now seeing the Spirit of Prayer and Supplication consists chiefly in a fervent application of the mind to the thing that is desired and to Almighty God of whom it is desired It necessarily follows that words that are known and fitted to mens understandings are soonest received into their hearts and aptest to carry along with them judicious and fervent affections But it is objected That a set Form of Prayer makes an ignorant Ministry a School-boy may read a Prayer out of a Book To that I answer experience proves it hath not done so for the gravest and learnedest Scholars are for it There are other Offices for the Minister which require his diligence and his study First his diligence to Catechize the Children visit the Sick Secondly His study to divice the Word of truth aright comfort the weak stop the mouths of gainsayers so that he hath matter enough to exercise his parts about although he strive not to attain to that extempore way of uttering any thing before God which wise Solomon never admired And as for what you say concerning the School-boy the same objection might have been brought against Gods Priests in the Old Law that a Burcher might have kill'd a Lamb or a Sheep for Sacrifice as well as they But was that any disparagement to the Priest No more is this to Gods Minister that another can read Prayers as well as he seeing it is his Office and not theirs to do it But it is objected A set Form is superfluous for Nature will teach any man to shew his grief and a Lazer need not read out of a Book pray heal my Arm or my Log no more needs a man that is sensible of the plague of his own heart a set Form of Prayer in a Book To that my answer is twofold First Even poor lazer people to move others to pity and compassion will study pathetical Expressions and use humble deportment and great importunity and yet find all little enough to move compassion Will they do this for their Bodies and shall not we be more earnest for our Souls Secondly There is a vast difference betwixt a Private Prayer and a Publick Prayer a Private Prayer points to the sore of a mans own heart in this or that particular whereof perhaps all circumstances considered not one of many is guilty but a Publick Prayer ought to be so composed that it may concern all the Congregation and all the People may say Amen to it Now for a man to pray out of the sense of his own wants only may be a good Prayer for his private devotion but it cannot be so proper or so profitable for the Publick as a set Form wherein the Composers consider the usual wants of all Mankind If a man were to prefer a Petition to his Prince would he speak extempore Why what thou wouldst not offer to him thou oughtest not to offer to God Mal. 1.8 the reason is full of moral equity God is a greater King than he If you would be ashamed or afraid to bring indigested stuff to the one much more should you be so affected to bring abortive Conceptions before the other We may as well pray a set Prayer by the Spirit as sing a set Psalm by the Spirit Now even their own practice bearing witness these men can sing a set Psalm by the Spirit I mean after a gracious manner so that nothing but inadvertency to their own custom makes them grant the one and deny the other Indeed they do well in singing David's Psalms and they follow the example of Hezekiah therein who commanded to sing praises with the words of David and Asaph I could wish for the future that their Prayers were of the same nature with their Praises for these few Reasons with which I will conclude this discourse First A man may as well know before-hand with what words to pray as to what sense Secondly They that pray not the same words do use mostly to pray for the same things in other words As that God would forgive their sins avert his judgments strengthen their weak graces weaken their strong corruptions and the like Thirdly Because these are most for the edification of the People who by often hearing of the same Prayer can commit it to memory and used to the same Liturgy can joyn and answer in many pathetical Responsals Now all things in Publick ought to be done to Edification Fourthly An extempore Prayer may likewise hinder the devotion of the Minister as well as of the People for his understanding may be so taken up in thinking what to say next that he may be very formal as to his heart and many times will be forced to be so for fear he should be out Fifthly Our experience hath shewed us that their Method hath been confused their Tautologies many their Traulisms absurd their Sense none of the best their Passions vented and the Dreadful Name of God so lightly so frequently and so unnecessarily used in them that many understanding men because of them have been ready to abhor the Sacrifice of the Lord and could seldom or never say Amen to them Whereas in a set Form we are sure before-hand there is nothing put up in Petition but what is fit for Man to ask or God to give and therefore we can heartily without any hesitancy say Amen to it FINIS