in the Preachings and Prayers of the Lords Servants that stand on Record far surpassing all the Eloquence that either the Masters or Disciples of that artificial Eloquence so much admired in the World ever arrived or ever can arrive at meerly as such And likewise the same Argument may be retorted in respect of using any words at all in Prayer whether extempore or by Set Forms because to speak properly God is not moved by any words and hath need of them who knoweth all oue most secret Thoughts and Desires without words And if it be said that words are used to Men because they have a leisure to excite their affections then I say and variety of words with new matter as the Heart of Man conceiveth them by the help of the Spirit hath the like service and that more effectually as abundant experience doth prove then Set Forms of Prayer read out of a Book especially when the Reading is accounted Prayer whereof we find no instance in Scripture that ever at any time Reading was accounted Prayer though Prayer of the Heart and Affection may and oft doth follow and accompany serious Reading and Hearing 11. They Object That Solomon forbids men to be rash with their mouth or to let their Heart be hasty to utter any thing before God for God saith he is in Heaven and thou upon Earth therefore let thy words be few Answ. But he doth not conclude therefore let thy Prayer be in a Set Form of Words For here only he reproveth vain Repetitions and the Pharisaical Spirit which thought to be heard for their much speaking as Christ did also reprove the same And certainly Solomon was far from forbidding all extemporary Prayer in these words Eccles. 5. 2. Which may very well be conceived in few words as well as marry for he used it himself at the Dedication of the Temple as at other times although I shall willingly grant that ex tempore Prayer without the Spirit where the mind of man irreverently rambleth and wandreth into airy Imaginations is here and every where else forbidden in Scripture And wheras some also except against ex tempore Prayer as being monstrous like because of the smalness or shortness of time betwixt the conception and birth of that kind of Prayers however this argument may be used against ex tempore Praying without the Spirit that can have no place against Praying by the Spirit unless such Objectors will also cry out against the ex tempore Prayers made by the Prophets and Apostles of old as being monstrous or Monsters on that account but I hope they will be more sober And tho in some respect the time be very short as perhaps a moment or instant betwixt the conception and birth of Prayer as to the words or expressions yet the Substance and Root of Prayer wherein the very Essence and Life of true Prayer doth chiefly consist is long time conceived in the Soul before its outward Birth or Expression in the Mouth and is a constant abiding thing in the Soul. 12. Many who pretend to pray by the Spirit and have used or do as yet use ex tempore Prayer discover many weaknesses in those Prayers as vain Repetitions impertinent Sayings light and airy Phrases and unsound Matter and Expressions to the causing many People to abhor the Sacrifices rather than to be piously and religiously affected with those Prayers And seeing few if any have a Spiritual Gift of Praying ex tempore with words conceived by the help of the Spirit and that yet publick Prayers in Congregations and Assemblies of People are necessary is it not better to use Set Forms of Prayer in sound Words then to adventure on ex tempore Prayer without the Spirit Answ. As for all these weaknesses which Men have discovered or may discover in ex tempore Praying they reflect as is said upon the Men but not upon the Principle And when most of these Weaknesses have appeared it is in Men who pray without any pretence unto immediate Inspiration of the Spirit or belief that they have it and such Men I confess should lay aside their ex tempore Praying and wait upon the Spirit of God to receive help from him to pray first believing that it is to be received as it is waited for And these also who pretend to pray by the Spirit and yet do nothing so but are meerly guided by their floating and airy Fancies and Imaginations should desist from such a practice and come with silence both outward and inward and in the same wait for the true Spirit of Prayer to help their infirmities whether with Sighs and Groans that cannot be expressed or with distinct and audible expressions But surely these who indeed pray by the Spirit keeping close and chastly to the same throughout from first to last bewray none of these Weaknesses and though they may use Repetitions yet if the Spirit move to use them and that there be any vertue or savour of Life in them they are not vain but profitable and like the warbling Notes repeated Sounds of a skilful Musician in a musical Descant which rendred the method more sweet and pleasing and such serious grave and weighty Repetitions we find oft in the Psalms of David And these also who use Set Forms of Prayer have need that they use not vain Repetitions for some who have heard these Set Forms have been as much disgusted and offended with the many Repetitions they find there as others with those elsewhere Now it may at times happen that a man may be partly assisted and helped by the Holy Spirit to conceive words of Prayer and good and servent Affections and yet through Humane Weakness may discover some frailty in his Prayer who yet is not altogether to be rejected or discouraged But great care ought to be had by all who make mention of the Name of the Lord that they bring forth nothing but that which is pure and without mixture even a pure Offering and Sacrifice unto the Lord who is pure And suppose few or none in many places or Congregations have the Spiritual Gift of praying ex tempore by the Spirit helping them to conceive the words of Prayer yet there is no need of praying by a Set Form for if the Principle and Doctrine of Truth were once received and believed that God giveth his assistance by his Spirit to all who desire it and whom he thinks worthy of it or fit to bestow it on for the edification of others to pray ex tempore with words truly edifying quickening and refreshing as People did but wait a little time in sincerity for such a Divine Gift it would be given to a sufficient number of them and until it be given it is better to pray with affection of Heart though without all words and wait in silence for a further gift and measure of the Spirit then to be rash or hasty to pray without the Spirit either ex tempore or in a Set Form. And to help the weaknesses of many who cannot bear well long or much silence such as are serious and best affected as they find a freedom and liberty in the Lord may read unto the People or unto their Families the Holy Scriptures which was an ancient custom in the Primitive Church but that Reading is not to be used as Prayer or Worship but only as a mean to excite Prayer and good Affections and Defires in them as it pleaseth the Lord to concur and give his Blessing unto the same and also for Information and Doctrine What is there said all along in this Treatise of Praying by the Spirit helping to conceive the words of Prayer is also to be understood of Singing and Praising God with a Psalm and the Reasons and Arguments drawn from Scripture for the one serve equally for the other for all Singing and Praising with a Psalm or Psalms in Gospel times was a Spiritual Gift as is clear in the Church of Corinth when some had a Psalm to utter or express in words and others went along with them in Unity of Spirit making Melody in the Heart though not a◠audible noise pronouncing the same words as some had a Doctrin and some a Revelation some an Interpretation 1 Cor. 14. 26. THE END ☞
praise the Name of the Lord for all his great and rich Mercies and Blessings And if the Spirit of the Lord did not enlighten the Understanding and Mind of Man to teach him what to seek and pray for but only did warm and heat Mens affections all this would be but a blind Devotion which all true Protestants cry out against c. That Heavenly and Sacred Fire that God sends down into the Hearts of his People is not a dark obscure Fire but shining and enlightening and hath Light as well as Heat in it The Spirit of Prayer and Supplication is not only a Spirit of Love but a Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding And though there is a kind of Prayer that may be and oft is without Words either expressed or conceived in the Understanding because there is a degree of Understanding in Man that transcendeth all Words I mean such Words as we commonly use which are the signs of things signified by them as Aristotle defineth Words Verba sunt signarerum i. e. Words are the signs of things In which high degree of Understanding the Spirit and Mind of Man reacheth to the Divine and Heavenly things themselves without these words where the things are words themselves or where the words and things are not distinct But the thing is its own word and the word that signifieth it as the thing it self But Aristotle so much admired for his worldly Wisdom and Philosophy as it seemeth knew not this Mystery nor yet do his followers Notwithstanding of which because the Lord who is Infinitely Bountiful and Gracious unto men doth not only inlighten and shine upon this highest part of Man's Understanding but also causeth his Light and Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding to descend to the lowest degree thereof even to his Reason and Imagination for the very Imagination of man is said in Scripture to be wrought upon by the Spirit of God see Isa. 26. 3. That which is Translated in and according to the Hebrew signifieth Imagination See also 1 Chron. 29. 18. Keep this for ever in the Imagination of the Thoughts c. Which inferiour and lower Powers of man's Soul cannot reach to Divine things without the signes of Words Therefore it pleaseth God to work upon the Understandings of Men so as to make them fruitful to bring forth good and pertinent Words of Truth as well as upon their minds and affections to bring forth the fruits of Holy and Spiritual desires Wherefore the Apostle Prayed to the Lord that God would establish the true Believers in him in every good word and work 2 Thes. 2. 17. Whence I conclude that good words are as real a Fruit of the Spirit as good works or desires and these good words must not be borrowed words from the mouths or lines of others made ready to our Hands but must spring from the inward fruitfulness of our own Understandings as the spirit of the Lord doth water them and make them fruitful after a Heavenly sort For it is not the Corn that lyeth upon the ground though ever so abundantly which hath grown in another Land or Country that denominates the Ground where it lyeth to be fruitful but that is only a fruitful Ground which bringeth forth from within it self as it is assisted by the Heavenly Rains and Influences the like Corn or any other Grain that is good and profitable And therefore it is not the abundance even of Scripture Words which a man receives into his memory or bare natural Understanding that simply makes his Mind and Understanding fruitful unto God but the inward sense and mystery of Scripture words must be opened in him by the Spirit of the Lord and then the Understanding of a man by the help of the Scripture words being inwardly and spiritually opened by the Holy Spirit brings forth as it were as so many Seeds a plentiful Harvest where the good Ground of the good and honest Heart yieldeth its fruit some Thirty some Sixty and some an Hundred Fold and alwaies with some increase So that although Scripture words have a most excellent service and use to the Children of God and their minds and understandings are made fruitful with the Spiritual knowledg and opening of them by the Spirit of the Lord As the ground or soil is with seed sown in it yet the understanding is not confined to the strict and precise number of scripture words but yieldeth an increase of other words from the same spirit and of the same tendency and signification As the seed that is sown yeildeth more Grains than what was sown These and such like openings in great plenty to the praise of God have livingly sprung up in me as concerning Prayer time after time and have at the present writing been livingly brought to my remembrance with an addition of many more which here I present to all Friendly and Loving Readers to whose hands this may come for a general service where I have handled and treated of things I hope soberly and fairly in the spirit of Love and Meekness not naming any Persons or Parties by way of reflection to provoke them to anger or dislike only with some Fervency But yet in true Love I have reproved and argued against those who pretend to Pray by the Spirit without a set Form and yet deny the spirits Immediate Teachings and assistance And tho I aim against Reading set Forms of Prayer so as to make that Reading to be Prayer it self yet I am not simply against Reading of Prayers which have in any measure proceeded from the spirit of God in the Ages past SOME QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CONCERNING PRAYER And some Reasons that all Prayer in words whether conceived in the Heart or uttered and expressed by Mouth should be by the help of the Spirit helping us to conceive those words With an Answer to some Objections or seeming Reasons brought for using set Forms of Prayer read out of a Book Also concerning Singing or Praising God with a Psalm Quest. WHat is Prayer A. It is a calling upon the Name of God through Jesus Christ and the asking of him in Faith the things which we should or do desire Q. What are these things which we should desire and ask of God by Prayer A. They are many but may be reduced to these Three Heads 1. The things which are for God's Glory and the Sanctifying his great Name in the Earth 2. The things which we stand in need of or want as to our selves 3. We are also to Pray for others even for all men that they may be saved whose Day of Salvation is not expired yea for our greatest Enemies Also we are to Pray for the Church of God in general that God may build her up more and more preserve and defend her multiply his Graces and pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon her and upon her Members in their respective places and especially for those who have a publick Ministry in the Church that he may
operations of the Holy Spirit in their own Hearts Know then that we do believe know and witness it to be Truth that when God's Holy Spirit inspireth us immediately and moveth us to Preach or Pray or give Thanks as it did Holy Men of God of old and Holy Women also even Daughters as well as Sons and Maid-servants as well as Men-servants and so doth at this day the said Holy Spirit worketh upon our Understandings and Reasons as we are Men and reasonable Creatures and upon all the powers and abilities of our Souls according to their several capacities and the Graces and Spiritual Gifts we have received from God and all that is in us of parts whether natural or acquired or supernatural and maketh them serviceable to us and active in the work and service of God more or less as he pleaseth And thus when we pray or give thanks in Words as we receive these words from the Lord when the Prayer and Thanksgiving is purely and rightly performed so they also spring up in us from the fruitfulness of understanding and those parts and graces which God hath given us and our Hearts and Souls and Spirits are the Mothers that bring them forth and the good matter and purposes whereof they declare together with the good life vertue and force or energy that is in them or doth accompany them Hence true and right Prayer in Scripture is called A pouring out of the Soul and Heart so that somewhat of the very inward strength vertue and power of the Soul and Heart of man yea of his Spirit or what is most noble and excellent in him goeth forth in words whether of Preaching or Praying or giving of Thanks as he is truly and fervently exercised in the same by the moving and enabling of the Holy Ghost according to which David Psal. 103. 1. stirred up not only his Soul to praise the Lord but all that was within him note to bless his Holy Name Which tender and sensible hearers whose Souls and Hearts God hath quickned and made alive are well sensible of and can and do well distinguish betwixt a dead and a living or a barren and fruitful Ministry whether in Preaching or Prayer Habet enim nescio quid latentis energiae viva vox transmissâ— per aures in animos audientium fortius sonat Which is in English thus The living Voice saith he hath I know not what something of a secret energy or power and being transmitted through the Ears of the Hearers into their Hearts and Minds doth sound the more effectually And if this be true of a natural Speech when it comes from a mans heart and is spoke but with a natural Fervency that it reacheth forcibly the natural Faculties of the Hearers which borrowed speeches or those which come not from the heart but from the bare understanding and memory cannot do How much more is it apparent in words and speeches that are Spiritual which come both from the Heart livingly touched and affected with the sense of the things whereof the words declare and also from the Spirit of the Lord Hence it is said that Christ spoke as one having authority and not as the Scribes and the Apostles Preaching was with power and the Holy Ghost and so no doubt was their Praying Q. Is it any part of Gospel Worship or Prayer to read set forms of Prayer out of a Book whether in private or publick or whether all Vocal Prayer used either in private or publick in Families or large Congregations should not be as the Spirit of God helps the Speakers to conceive and gives them an utterance to bring forth Words of Prayer or Thanks giving we cannot believe nor are we convinced in Conscience A. To read set forms of Prayer out of a Book whether in private or publick and call that reading Prayer is any part of Gospel Worship or true and real Prayer but rather one of the many Inventions and Traditions of Men since the Apostacy and falling away from the true Faith did enter among those called Christians who retained the Name but losed the power and Spirit of the true ancient and primitive Christians For surely if it had been any part of Gospel Worship Christ or the Apostles would have mentioned it and the Scripture would have born record of it as they do of all the parts of Gospel Worship and true Christian Religion And if it had been the Will of God that such a way of Worship should have been used in the true Church as a common Liturgy or set Form of Prayers it would have been used in the Apostles days for none were so fit to have given forth such forms of Prayers after Christ his Ascension and giving of the Holy Ghost as the Apostles were who were so abundantly replenished with the Holy Spirit But neither the Apostles nor their immediate Successors either made or used any such set Forms of read Prayers Nothing of this kind was known in the Church either in Iustin Martyr or Tertullian his time who lived above Two Hundred Years after Christ for Tertullian telleth plainly the manner how Christians Prayed in his time Ex pertore sue Monitore per Spiritum Sanctum i. e. From the Heart without a Monitor or any thing outwardly to teach them and by the Holy Spirit But Secondly They who plead for using read set Prayers in the Church do acknowledg they were not in use nor practised in the Apostles days nor in the days of their immediate Successors for they grant that in those early and primitive times they who prayed in the Church as the mouth of the whole Congregation were assisted and guided by the Holy Spirit and that their Words both of Prayer and singing Psalms were by immediate Inspiration So that it is as clear as the Noon-day that when these Divine Gifts of Praying and Singing by the Spirit were lost and the Holy Spirit himself the Author and Fountain of those Gifts was in great measure departed from the invention of reading ser Forms of Prayer took place The first Instance that I find of Peoples being put to use a composed or set Form of Prayer made by another was that Form of Prayer which Constantine the great composed and gave to his Soldiers to say but yet they were not to read it but get it by Heart and we must consider that Constantine himself at this time was but a young Christian and the purity of Spiritual Worship began to decline apace even in his daies and most of his Souldiers were Heathens and no Christians so that what they did was no president to us But neither in Constantine's time nor a considerable space thereafter do I find that any made or composed Prayers before-hand were used in the Church It seemeth the Third Council of Carthage about the year after the Birth of Christ 397. did first ordain Set Forms of Prayer in the Church to prevent or hinder mens uttering any thing either ignorantly or rashly
that might be contrary to the Doctrine then received And to say the truth it is altogether unfitting that men should use extemporary words of Prayer who do not know the leading and assistance of God's Holy Spirit to direct them in the words and matter they utter for it cannot be expected but that frequently they will speak amiss and deviate or wander into impertinent expressions or words contrary to Truth whose Hearts and Tongues are not guided by the Spirit of Truth even as a Ship if she be let loose to Sail without a Pilot or one to rule the Helm cannot but go astray and of two I have alwaies judged it the least inconvenience since God gave me a right understanding what Prayer is rather to use a Set Form of sound words than to allow or permit men without a reproof to presume to speak words of Prayer unto God of their own extemporary conceiving without the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit and who do not so much as pretend unto it as many do not As for those who are against the using of Set Forms of Prayer upon a pretence of Praying by the help of the Spirit and yet plainly deny and vigorously oppose all Immediate Inspiration and Revelation since the Apostles daies I cannot see how they can clear or rid themselves of a contradiction and of being guilty of an horrid Impostor and Cheat for when they argue with such as are for Set Forms of Prayer they seem to be altogether for Praying by the Spirit and make it the main Argument against Set Forms of Prayer that they quench and limit the Spirit but when they argue with these who are indeed for Praying by the Spirit and who do affirm that the Spirit of God is to be kept unto in Prayer and not to be limitted neither as to a Set Form of words formerly made and composed by others nor as to a set time when man or men please to begin or end nor as to the persons who may or do Pray in Assemblies Here these are as great limiters of the Spirit as any for they can and do Pray when they will and how long they will begin and end when they will which doth evince that they have not a regard to the Spirits time and season of moving them to Pray otherwise they would silently wait for it seeing few if any upon Earth are so replenished with the Spirit as to be ready upon all occasions and at all times to Pray vocally or in words by the Spirit as the Mouth of the Assembly of the People unto God and to be sure as no Prophecy came of Old in the will of man so no motion of the Spirit cometh now in the will of men and men cannot use the Spirit or its help either to Preach or Pray as they use a natural habit of Writing or Singing or Playing upon a Musical Instrument which habits they can use at any time according to their natural will and pleasure because they have the command over them and are as it were Masters of those natural habits and Arts. But it were the highest presumption for any man to think that he hath the command of the Spirit to use it when and where and how he pleaseth For the best of men are and ought to be the servants or Ministers of the Spirit as Paul and the other Apostles were and therefore the Spirit did command lead and order them in all their Services and so it did all other true and faithful Ministers who were therefore to attend unto it and wait the seasons of the Spirits movings as those who at the Pool waited for the stirring of the waters by the Angel and therefore true Christians and Ministers are bid Watch unto Prayer And said Christ unto the Apostles Wait for the Promise of the Father which ye have heard of me Acts 1. 4. Again If those men were for the true liberty of Praving by the Spirit they would suffer yea not only suffer but encourage any other in the Congregation to Pray vocally or in words by the Spirit as well as they according to the practise of the ancient and primitive Church when the gift of Praying and Singing by the Inspiration of the Spirit did remain but no such thing is permitted by these Men who will suffer none but themselves and such as they give power unto to use vocal Prayer in their Assemblies as if these Men because forsooth they are Masters of a few Natural Arts or at least called so were Masters of the Spirit and that holy and blessed Spirit of Truth must speak in none but whom they please and give leave unto yea the Holy Spirit of God must be silent in his Children and Servants at their will and command These and many other instances which could be given do evince that these men though they pretend to pray by the Spirit are as great strangers unto it for most part and unto true praying by the Spirit as they who have no such pretence and they who have no such pretence as to pray by the Spirit in respect of conceiving and uttering the words of Prayer are an hundred fold more ingenious and more commendable on that account for their plainness and ingenuity who as they have not that Divine Gift of Praying in words by the Spirit so do not pretend unto it but simply and plainly speak it out that they have it not which is a great deal more honestly done than those do who have it not and yet pretend to it and that pretence deceives simple People as if their Prayers were by the Spirit because they conceive them ex tempore though the raw indigested matter of their Prayers and unsound expressions as they often use as well as the great deadness and want of life that doth accompany their Prayers for the most part sufficiently demonstrate they are not from the Spirit of God. But that which adds to the cheat and imposture to make it the greater is that some yea many or them have got an Art by affected Eloquence or some new invented Phrases followed with a mighty seeming Zeal and Fervency of Spirit to play upon the Peoples Natural Affections and Passions and excite them at their pleasure which the ignorant People for want of a Spiritual Discerning do imagine to be the real work and effect of Gods Holy Spirit when for most part it is nothing else but the animal and natural Passions in the Hearers excited either by Art in the Speakers or at least by the same or like Passions in them who speak both in their Preachings and Prayings for like stirreth up and begetteth its like according to that of the Poet Si vis me flere dolendum est primum ipsitibi i. e. If thou wilt have me weep thou must first weep thy self before me And though I am far from condemning any true tenderness and contrition of Heart or inward meltings of the Soul which are caused by the real
working of the Holy Spirit which may have its visible Effects even the shedding of Tears in him that Preacheth or Prayeth and that more or less abundantly yet the hypocritical show and affection of such a thing without the reality thereof is loathsome and abominable and as great a Transgression against the Law of Heaven as false and counterfeit Money or Coin is against any Earthly Law And yet such hypocritical Tears and Flashes of fained Devotion kindled up by Sparks of their own raising abounding among too many of that Tribe and Generation as if they were the effects of Gods Holy Spirit when alass it is far the contrary But to such as have any measure of Sobriety and Ingenuity among them I propose this Question to be answered in plainness and simplicity by them 1. How can they pretend to pray by the Spirit in words and yet they deny all immediate Inspiration and Revelation which alone guided and assisted those who prayed by the Spirit in words recorded in the Holy Scriptures 2. By what Rule or Touchstone do they know when they are assisted and helped by the Spirtt to pray in words and when not seeing they deny the Holy Spirit as he doth inwardly reveal himself in Mens Hearts to be the rule in any case 3. When they are not moved by the Holy Spirit and that they do not find themselves so moved as to pray in words whether in that case seeing they will needs pray as well when they want the Spirits help as when they have it and that they plead Natural Men who have not the Spirit of God may be true Ministers of Christ and may and ought lawfully to Preach and Pray if they have an outward Call from them they should not rather use the set Forms of Prayer than their own bare invention and wandring imagination for here their great Argument against set Forms of Prayer hath no place to wit the limiting or stinting the Spirit of God because he who prayeth in words without the Spirit whether by a Book or ex tempore without a Book is in one and the same case if none of them pray by the Spirit for he who hath not the Spirit cannot properly be said to limit or stint it But to this I know they will reply that natural and unconverted men though they have not the Grace of the Holy Spirit to sanctifie and saye them yet they have a Gift of Preaching and Praying by the Spirit that may be useful and edifying to the Church they have Gratia gratis data as they call it but not Gratia gratum faciens i. e. Grace freely given them but not Grace rendring them acceptable unto God and for this they give the instance or Example of Balaam To this I answer this distinction used so much of Gratia gratis data and Gratia gratium faciens hath not any warrant from Scripture but is borrowed in express words from popish School-men and Jesuits whom at other times they call Locusts Come out of the bottomless Pit. And as for Balaam it was somewhat an extraordinary case whereby God shewed his mighty Power that he had over his Spirit to cause him to Prophecy good things concerning Israel contrary to his own inclinations and to bless instead of cursing them but an extraordinary Example is not to be made a Rule or President unto us And indeed they have but a sad pattern of him whom rather they follow and imitate for most part in loving and taking the wages of Unrighteousness then in Prophecying or speaking by the Spirit of God as he did at these few extraordinary times And though he prophesied some words by the Spirit yet we do not read that ever God made him the Mouth of the Congregation to pray by the Spirit which is the present case And besides though he Prophesied twice or thrice by the Spirit of God which was extorted from him contrary to his own evil mind and inclination yet he was no true Prophet of God but beareth the infamous mark of a false Prophet to this day and we do not read that ever any one Soul was converted to God by his Prophecying or Ministry God can command the Devils if he please to confess to Christ as some of them did of old which yet is no president for wicked men in whom the Devil rules to Preach and Pray in the Church Now whereas they say Men may have a Gift of Prayer to use it in the Church from the Spirit of God and yet be not sanctified by the Spirit I ask them Is it such a Gift as can secure them from speaking impertinent and unsound words contrary to the truth if yea then they have an infallible Gift which seeing they will not grant unto themselves no more will they unto these others And if it cannot secure them from unsound and impertinent words but leaves them at liberty as much to use unfound words as sound and that the corruption of their Hearts who are but meer Natural Men will soon cast the Ballance and byass them rather to use the unsound words than the sound Is it not more safe in that case at least the less inconveniency of the two rather to be tied and limited to use 2 form of sound words then that their corrupt and unrenewed Hearts However so much they imagine it is to be helped with an unsanctified Gift of an abused Eloquence should be left at liberty to speak unto God and utter before him whatever it pleaseth But if we shall search to the bottom what this Spiritual common Gift of the Spirit is we shall find it to be no other but some meer Natural Gift of Memory Elocution and a ready or quick Fancy and Imagination which many Heathenish Idolatrous Priests have had as much as any of them improved with some acquired Arts of Grammar Logick and Rhetorick and words of Scripture abused and misapplied by them and that which crowns all some more than ordinary degree of confidence that when they are thus furnished and can or do Preach and Pray by those meer natural and artificial helps at best to call them and baptize them into the name of a Spiritual Gift or the Spirits help and assistance But leaving these men and their ex tempore praying without the Spirit which thus far I found my very Soul and Spirit concerned to discover in true love and compassion to their abused and betrayed Hearers and Followers and to them also if they can receive it I shall return to plead a little further for the true and right manner of praying in words by the Spirit as he is pleased to give assistance both in the conceiving and utterance without any set Form either read out of a Book or repeated from the Memory without a Book Because 3. This way of Praying doth alone and only answer to the liberty of the Spirit which is free even the Holy Spirit of Truth and neither will nor can be limitted and who seek to limit
him he departs from them in so far and remaineth still in his own freedom altho such who seek to limit the Spirit by using Set Forms may and do quench the Spirit as unto themselves But they think there is no limitting or quenching or grieving of the Spirit in the case because they believe there is no such gift in the Church remaining since the primitive times as to be helped by the Spirit to Pray in words either in the conceiving or uttering them They grant indeed so far the help and assistance of the Spirit and acknowledg it altogether necessary to Pray acceptably unto God that the Holy Spirit stir up our desires and affections and excite in us his own Graces and the doing of this as they say is a sufficient helping of us by the Spirit as well when a set Form of Prayer is used as otherwise But why do they believe there is no such gift remaining in the true Church seeing they generally confess it was in the Church both in the Apostles daies and some considerable time since They say it ceased with the ceasing of the gift of Tongues and Miracles but what ground have they for this That is a bad Argument that because some of these Gifts which were extraordinary and less necessary did cease or discontinue that therefore this allo did cease with those other And seeing they do not profess to have the Spirit or Gift of Discerning whereby to know whether this Gift be in the Church or no. How do they know but some have it And as they say the Spirit is ceased in respect to help us to pray in words so others do as confidently say to wit the Socinians and Pelagians that it is ceased in all other respects and there is no need of it either to help us to conceive words of Prayer or excite our Affections but that man by his free will helped by the Scriptures without any immediate help of the Spirit can pray sufficiently both with good Words and fervent Affections And yet even these will say they are helped by the Grace of the Spirit to wit mediately and remotely by means of the Spirit Again Why do they limit and stint the help and operation of the Spirit only to the Will and Affections and to exciting the Graces of the Spirit in us Doth not the Spirit operate upon the Understanding as well and as nearly and immediately and closely as upon the Will and Affections Are there not intellectual Graces and Gifts of the Spirit to wit such as properly belong to and are seated in the Understanding as well as such that belong to the Will Do not we read in Scripture as well of the Spirit of Wisdom and Knowledg Counsel Understanding as of the Spirit of Love and Meekness c. And if they will grant that there are such intellectual Graces that belong to the Understanding as well as others that belong to the Will shall not these intellectual Graces be made fruitful by the Spirit and Understanding in whom they reside and are placed as well as these other in the Will. Again Will they not grant that the Spirit helpeth us to conceive Words at least in Meditation Or will they confine us to see Forms of Meditation as well as of vocal Prayer I suppose not seeing no such set Forms are yet extant and they themselves take liberty to their Meditations upon religious matters and preach to the People these said Meditations and yet I suppose they will reckon at times the Spirit helpeth them to conceive these Meditations which cannot be conceived without words And further The words of these set Forms of Prayer whence came they Had the Spirit no influence upon the Understandings of those Men who conceived them to help and assist them in those Conceptions If they say nay they will render the set Forms of Prayer of small value what the People in that respect But if they say the Spirit did help them to form these Conceptions of the words of their set Prayers then such a Gift is not ceased in the true Church for it was in these men who penned and conceived those Prayers it may as well be in men now to conceive other words of Prayer But 4. Praying by a set Form not only tendeth to limit and stint the Spirit and quench it in regard of its operations but also it tendeth to make the Understanding and divers other Faculties and Abilities or Powers of our Souls and the intellectual Graces and Vertues seated and planted in them altogether barren and unfruitful in respect of Prayer which yet ought to exercise the Understanding as much as any other thing as Paul said I will pray with the Spirit I will pray with the Understanding also For if the Understanding be limited to a set Form of Words then there is no room nor place nor liberty left for it to bring forth Prayer in any other Forms the which seemeth verily as absurd to me As who would limit the Earth to bring forth only such a limited and determined number of Forms of Vegetables Flowers and Fruits and not only so but to limit her as to length breadth and depth of each Form which we know is an impossible thing for the Forms of all living and growing things must have liberty to spring out from their respective Seeds Principles and Causes otherwise they will not grow but wither and die And as the Forms of Vegetables must not be limited and stinted to such peculiar Figures and Dimensions much less the Forms of Animals and yet far less the Forms and Figures of Mens Bodies and Faces For among all the many millions of Mankind that have been or are upon the Earth never were any two found but did more or less differ in outward Form and Figure in the Face or Countenance And surely as differing as Mens Bodies and Faces are so much or rather more do the Thoughts or Conceptions of their Understanding differ and to limit them all to one Form of inward conceptions of Words is as vain as to stint and determine all Men to have one and the same Form of Visage or Countenance And he who would go about to limit the Figure of the Childs Body and Face in the Mothers Womb to another shape and form than God and Nature hath designed to have would do amiss and be occasion of causing the Womb to miscarry and render it barren rather than any way to help it I know it is answered by some that the fruitfulness of the Understanding may show it self in other Exercises and Performances whereas man also may use his Gifts freely as in Preaching Writing Conference c. But why not in Prayer as well as in these other for to restrict yea and to hinder and stop the fruitfulness of the Understanding and the intellectual Graces seated therein in one respect is of a tendency to stop its fruitfulness and render it barren in other respects A Woman that is with
empty of all thoughts or meditations in respect of any particular subject or matter of discourse and not having one particular Subject more than another in his view but his mind and Conscience singly exercised towards God suddenly and as in the twinkling of an eye a particular subject is presented unto him or the opening of some particular place of Scripture and here the Lord chuseth his Text for him and ground of his discourse or if it be to Pray the matter of his Prayer and his heart that was empty before of thoughts as to these matters is now filled with living thoughts and meditations concerning them being made fruitful to bring them forth by the showre or Rain of the Divine influence of the Holy Spirit in a moment or twinkling of an eye And at other times the case is otherwise as a little at first given and then a little more as it pleaseth the Lord to order and as the condition either of the Speakers or Hearers doth require it as even in natural conceptions of natural things those men who have a fruitful understanding and a quick and ready invention upon any fit occasion how suddenly and as in a moment will plenty of good and pertinent matter arise in them to discourse of If in a Lawyer to discourse of the Laws if in a Physician to discourse of Physick or in a Phylosopher to discourse of Moral or Natural subjects of Phylosophy the which extemporary and ready discourses when they come from a mans heart and the real fruitfulness of his understanding have alwaies more acceptance and authority with the intelligent and discerning Hearers than long studied or premeditated Speeches which according to the Proverb Smell of the Lamp and have more of Art than of Nature in them and more of Form than Substance And extemporary discourses that flow and spring freely from the fruitfulness of a man's understanding and the noble and generous parts or faculties of a well composed and clear mind are like fresh waters that have newly streamed from the living Spring or Fountain of them that on that very account are more sweet and pleasant than discourses long since premeditated and treasured up in the memory which through their oldness contract a certain tincture and lose of their freshness and sweetness of savour even as water long kept in a Cistern And if these extemporary discourses of Natural things flowing only from a natural fruitfulness of man's understanding have more acceptance and authority with the judicious Hearers than long studied Sermons dressed up with paint of Art how much more are those extemporary Speeches to be valued and how much greater authority have they and true and real acceptance with all discerning Hearers whether in Preaching or Praying which proceed from the rich and fruitful Soil of a good and honest heart abundantly watered and made fruitful with the descendings of the venly Showres and Rains of Gods holy and blessed Spirit And if it be yet again Replyed That the limitting or confining of him that prayeth to a Set Form doth not hinder the fruitfulness of his understanding for his mind and understanding is still at liberty to have as many and as various good and holy Meditations and conceptions of thoughts and words as is possible for him to contain or comprehend only he is outwardly limited to those forms as to his Tongue and Mouth whereas his mind and understanding doth remain free to abound in the greatest variety of good and holy thoughts and meditations For the people who hear they may also abound in these good thoughts and meditations who notwithstanding do not open a mouth in the Assembly either to Preach or Pray To this I Answer As there are many good thoughts and meditations which God giveth unto men for their own particular comfort and profiting such as these which the people have who do not speak so there are also many which God giveth for the comfort and profiting of others and especially of the Church And these ought not to be suppressed but uttered and brought forth in the Lord 's leading and ordering according to his appointed time and season And if the Lord move and require a man to bring forth these good things out of the good Treasure of his heart as certainly at one time or another he will so move and require where these good things are given to the man not for himself alone but also for others Is it not a plain limitting and confining the Spirit and mind of a man not to give him liberty either in Preaching or Prayer to bringforth what the Lord has put in his mind for that very purpose Is not this like the hindring the Child to come out of the Mothers Belly when its appointed time is come and to make her Womb its Grave then which what can be imagined more cruel But 5. There is this great hurt and inconveniency to limit and confine both Speakers and Hearers to Set Forms of Prayer the one to Speak and Read them the others to Hear them that it cannot be supposed that those Set and stinted Prayers will either alwaies or at most times suit and agree with the present states and conditions of the people The Scripture saith That words spoken in season are like pictures of Gold in Apples of Silver And concerning Isaiah it was said That the Lord had given him a Word in Season to the weary Soul. And indeed a word spoken in season whether it be in Preaching or Praying how sweet and comfortable it is Now these Set Forms of Prayer being to be used according to the Calendar such Prayers on such a day and others on other daies as the Calendar or order of the Service requireth Can these Forms be alwaies or for most part seasonable to the peoples states and conditions unless it could be supposed that the inward states and conditions of mens Souls and Spiris should regularly vary according to the Seasons and Daies of the year which were most absurd to think or imagin Or how do these Set Forms of Prayer which tell us daily what to Pray for agree with Paul's words Rom. 28. The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should Pray for as we ought And if it be said That most of those Set Forms are conceived in such general words that they may suit or agree with all the various states and conditions of the peoples Souls To this I Answer To suit or agree with them in a general way is one thing and to suit them in their particular cases and circumstances is another And besides it is not upon the bare words of Prayer so much that relieveth and comforteth the Souls of people as the life that goeth along in words that are uttered from the heart of the Speaker as God giveth him a sense of the various and several states and conditions of the Hearers according to which sense of their various States he is furnished both with sutable
words and a sutable degree and measure of life to accompany them wherewith to minister in Prayer and whereby the faint and weak desires of the Hearers many times are enlarged and strengthened But it can never be supposed that he who only reads a Set Form of Prayer out of a Book according to the order of the Calendar or repeats it from his memory can Pray with either such fit and sutable matter of words or can minister that sutable degree and measure of life that the Hearers require and stand in need of for where the words are not seasonable life will not join with them to make them effectual and profitable to the Hearers I know it will be hard for these who have not the inward experience of the workings of the Divine Life and Spirit in their own Souls to believe or imagine how the Speaker who is assisted to Preach or pray with the Spirit of God can have a distinct and clear feeling of the several states and conditions of the people and in that sense and feeling be enabled by the same Spirit who gave this sense to him to minister to them all that which is seasonable both for matter and life However this is abundantly known and witnessed to those who have an inward experience of life and its workings in themselves to be a truth for as in the natural body one member hath a sence of its fellow members and the more noble that one member be its sence of the other members is the more universal full and comprehensive Even so is it in the Body of Christ which is his Church and how can it be otherwise when as the Scripture saith All the single hearted and upright minded Professors of Christ are of one heart and soul as expressing a greater unity and sympathy or fellow feeling than that of the body as if to be of one Soul were more than to be of one Body for if the parts of the Body have a sence one of another much more the powers and faculties of the Soul have a discerning and sympathy one with another 6. And lastly To add no more here altho many more reasons might be brought against the using of Set Forms of Prayer the whole Superstructure dependeth upon a false and wrong bottom or foundation viz. an Opinion that immediate Inspiration and Revelation is ceased or discontinued in the Church and in and among true Christians as well as false for I dare say If they who are so zealous for using Set Forms of Prayer did but believe that Immediate Inspiration and Revelation did remain in the true Church of God and in and among true Christians this would presently end the dispute and determine the Controversie betwixt them and us for when Immediate Inspiration and Revelation was in the Church as in the Apostles daies and for some considerable time thereafter they readily grant that men then prayed and sung Psalms ex tempore without Book by the Spirit and therefore if they did now believe that such a dispensation is restored and restoring again and was never altogether lost among true Christians although much impaired and diminished by reason of the general Apostacy and prevailing power of darkness that was over the greatest part of those called Christians they would lay aside their Set Forms and wait for this Divine Gift But it were too long and unseasonable a labour in this place to prove that Immediate Revelation and Inspiration doth remain in and among all true Christians I shall therefore refer the Readers to what our Friends have writ on that subject and particularly to two Treatises of mine And withal I beseech all sober and impartial people laying aside all prejudice to weigh and consider upon what slender and weak Arguments that Opinion is built which saith That Immediate Inspiration and Revelation is ceased in and among all true Christians And above all I recommend them to the Light of Christ Jesus and the manifestation of his holy Spirit of Truth in every one of their hearts and Consciences that bears witness to every necessary Truth as they hearken to it and with their minds turned to the said Light and Spirit of Truth to read and search the Scriptures diligently in that very respect as the Noble Bereans did of old and the Lord give them understanding in that and all other necessary things I shall now proceed to Answer the most ordinary Objections that seem to have most weight for using Set Forms of Prayer whether in the Church or in private 1. It is Objected That Set Forms of Prayer and Blessing the People were used in the Iewish Church under the Law as Numb 10. 35. when the Ark set forward Moses commonly said Arise O God let thine Enemies be scattered let them also that hate thee flee before thee and when it rested he said Return O Lord to the many thousands of Israel And Numb 6. 23. Aaron and his Sons were on this wise to bless the people saying The Lord bless thee and keep thee the Lord make his face to shine favourably on thee And Joel the Prophet taught the People to pray saying Spare thy People O Lord give not thy Heritage to reproach that the Heathen should rule over them wherefore should they say among the people Where is their God Ioel 2. 17. And yet under the Law people had the Spirit of God and were to pray by the Spirit and Moses and Aaron who were to use these Forms of Prayer and Blessing were endued wiih a great measure of the Spirit and able enough to have conceived other Forms of Prayer and Blessing Ans. From their using Set Forms of Prayer and Blessing under the Law to argue for the use of them under the Gospel will not hold good for not only Sacrifices and Offerings of Beasts but many other things were both commanded and allowed under the Law which are not under the Gospel And although Moses and Aaron and many others in those daies had great plenty of the Spirit yet for the sake of the people who generally were weak and rude they were to go along with them in those Rudiments No doubt Moses and the Prophets saw to the substance and end of those Shadows and Figures and knew well enough that the blood of Bulls and Goats could not wash or purifie the Conscience and yet because of the general dispensation of the Law which was to continue until the fulness of time wherein Christ should be revealed they were to remain in the practise of these things which were afterwards to be abolished And though under the Law some Forms of Prayer and Blessing the People were to be used yet they were but few and very short and such as did proceed from the Spirit of God the matter and words of such Forms seem to carry in them some extraordinary Majesty or Glory and to have some deep and profound signification and force with them more than ordinary as we know some Scripture words and
sentences have more than others as that Spirit is felt from whom originally they came And though all the Scripture words did proceed from the Holy Spirit yet some have proceeded from a greater measure of it and more depth of the Divine Wisdom and hold forth somewhat of more Majesty and deep inward sense and mysterie and are commonly accompanied with a greater measure of the Spirit when they are used either in Reading or hearing them Read or in Meditation and may be also used at this day in Prayer as the same Spirit doth move any of his Servants thereunto either in part or in whole But we do not find that even under the Law or at any time before the Lord did limit and confine his People or Servants to such a precise number of Set Forms of Prayer and made unlawful unto them to use any others when they prayed in publick or that any one was ever forbid to whom God had given any spiritual gift of uttering words either of Prayer or of a Psalm or Song ex tempore by the help and moving of the Spirit to make use of it But on the contrary we find that many prayed ex tempore by the inspiration of the Spirit what the Lord did give them or put into their mouthes of words both in private and publick as Solomon's prayer at the Dedication of the Temple also Esdras's Prayer Chap. 9. and the Levites Prayer Nehem. 9. and Daniel's Prayer Dan. 9. and for private Prayers David's Prayers in the Psalms and Asaphs also Moses and Samuel and Habbakkuk their Prayers with many others under the Law are clear instances and before the Law Abraham Isaac and Iacob their Prayers Nor do we find that ever a Book of Prayers containing so many Prayers in number to be said or read in order was ever made in the Church by any of the Prophets as Prayer or as any part of Worship in the Law. For though divers excellent forms of Prayers are recorded in Scripture and put into Books yet they were not appointed by the Lord to be read or used in so many words without adding or diminishing as Prayers But they were read in the Congregation as other parts of Scripture pattly for information and partly to excite the Spirit and gift of Prayer in the Hearers Excepting only some very few short forms as above mentioned which did not hinder or stop the liberty of the Spirit of Prayer to express it self ex tempore in any other words And those few Forms they used as Prayers and Blessings we do not find they read them out of a Book when they prayed them but spoke them from their hearts where they were livingly as it were Writ and Recorded And tho the words of these short Forms were formerly conceived and in that respect were old or ancient yet as they uttered or pronounced them in a fresh and living sense of God's Spirit and power which never waxeth old this gave them alwaies a new luster and put a new Savour of life in them and made them as it were alwaies new to them And thus it is at this day with the Servants of the Lord whom he hath endued with a Spirit of Prayer who when they Pray either in private or in publick do frequently find and feel Scripture words of Prayer formerly conceived and uttered by the Servants of the Lord as Moses David c. to arise in them from a fresh and living sense of the Word of Life to speak them forth in Prayer and this without any limitation of the Spirit of Prayer but coming freely in the liberty of the Spirit and also of Heart Soul and Understanding and the liberty of the Spirit of Prayer as also of the Heart and Understanding of him that Prayeth is manifest in this that it is the free choice of the Spirit what words of Scripture to make use of and to bring into the Remembrance of him that Speaketh who doth not also limit or confine the Man's Understanding only to those Scripture Words but giveth him liberty to make use of any others that freely arise or spring up in him in unity with the life as it is opened in him as a Fountain or Well of Living Water 2. It is Objected That Christ taught his Disciples to Pray in a set Form of Words who even then were endued with a measure of the Spirit Matth. 6. 9. Luke 11. 2. Answ. Though they are endued at that time with a measure of the Spirit yet it was but small in respect of what was to follow And we must remember that as yet the dispensation of the Law remained in force and if Moses prescribed unto the People under the Law some short but of a very excellent composure Forms of Prayer and Blessing without limiting them only to these well might Christ teach his Disciples this short form of Prayer which is of a most excellent and wonderful composure in regard of its plainness and simplicity and yet most comprehensive in respect of the largeness and fulness of matter expressed in so few Words a most worthy Pattern of all our Prayers and of all that we can ask or desire for it is a sum of all the Prayers that ever was or can be made by any of the Servants of God and whatever is lawsul to be prayed for is most easily reducible to some of the Petitions of the said Prayer and though it hath great plainness and simplicity of Words yet great depth of matter and may be compared to Solomon's Temple which had not only the outer Court but the Holy place within it and within the Holy place the most Holy or Holy of Holies For beside the Letter and Words of it which answer to the outer Curt it hath a Holy inward Sense or Understanding which none can reach or come into but who are made a Royal Priest-hood unto God as none were to enter into the Holy place but such as were Priests under the Law. And although many Christians have reached to the inward Sense of the whole Prayer in great part yet who can say he has reached to the full depth of it and most inward Pith or Marrow thereof which is as the Holy of Holies It is a Question if any ever reached into the most inward Sense and Understanding of it but Christ Jesus himself who spoke and uttered it in whom dwelt all fulness and riches of Wisdom and Understanding who is our High Priest made higher than the Heavens and all the Angels that dwell in them But 2. Christ did not limit them only to this Form of Prayer nor did he give them a Book of Forms of Prayer or any other Forms that we read of but this only which therefore was rather to be a Pattern and Example unto them according to which they were to Pray than tye or confine them to the precise number of the Words of it as is clear from Matth. 6. 9. After this manner therefore said he Pray ye
Weights and Measures I answer the comparison and example in this case is most unequal those Weights and Measures being but dead things whether they be Standards or those which are made by them But all true Prayer is a living thing and must have a living Form of its own and cannot borrow the Form of another even as a Rose or Tulip or Lilly or any other Flower or Vegetable or Fruit of the Earth as it springs up out of the Ground must have its own proper living Form and Figure and though it may be like to other things of its kind yet it is distinct from them and may yea and doth alwaies more or less vary from them in form and shape or figure and quantity as well as Colour and Taste and Smell at least as to the degree and no art or device of Man can bring forth an Herb or Fruit of the Earth precisely of the same quantity and shape with any other of the same kind And so it is as to true Prayer in great part and although one Prayer may be like another as to the words and may have the same words when the Prayer is short as containing perhaps one or two Sentences yet in this case the one Prayer doth not borrow the words of the other Prayer but both the Prayers have their own proper form that naturally spring from that Divine Life and inward Sense and Understanding in the Soul from whence they come As it was in those Prayers of Christ a little before his Passion when he prayed three times saying the same Words which instance some bring for using a constant set form of Prayer for who will or dare say but that those few Words thrice uttered by him did immediately spring from Life in him and not from a bare remembrance of the Words formerly spoken And besides the time being so short betwixt those three Prayers they may be said to be as well one as three the frame and bent of his heart remaining the same the whole time and the desire of his heart being still one and the same and after one thing to wit That the will of his Father might be done when his Prayer was rather a breathing forth of his earnest desire after one only thing and consisted at this time more in the will and affection than in the Understanding though it was in and with great Understanding also then that called Discursive Prayer where the Understanding and Reason is much exercised the which sort of Breathings after one thing expressed in one or two Sentences and sometimes in one or two Words yea sometimes but one only Word as to say Father according to Gal. 4. 6. is commonly called the Prayer of Aspiration and by others Ejaculatory Prayer and by others the Prayer of the Will which differs much from that other kind of Prayer which is Discursive where the Understanding and Reason is much exercised and the Mind is filled with many Thoughts and Words of Prayer inwardly conceived and the desires of the Soul are excited after divers things In which case it s almost impossible that at several times a man can pray the same words without adding or diminishing if he speak from his Heart and not from a bare Remembrance For even in Natural Discourse upon any Natural Subject a man that speaks from his Heart and the inward Fruitfulness of his Understanding he will vary in expression though the subject of his Discourse be the same And therefore to argue for the using a constant set Form of Prayer from the Prayer of Aspiration which hath but one Sentence or Word in it many times to Discursive Prayer which hath commonly many holds not good and is as improper and unequal as who would say when the Child cryeth unto the Father twice or thrice every day Father give me Bread using the same words that therefore in all the Child's Discourse at any time to his Father in answering his Father any question or asking any other thing of him and using many arguments to prevail with him that he may obtain it he should still use one and the same Form of Speech We find by daily experience that in Converse and Society of men with men they do not bind themselves to the same Forms of Speech as they discourse and talk one to another and if they did it would make their Converse very barren and unfruitful and would look very odd and import in him that alwaies used these same words on the same subjects of Discourse either want of Understanding and Judgment or some pedantick affectation Although in all intercourse of Speech there are some short Forms that are constantly and commonly used And if two Men should preach on the same Text and have the same subject of Discourse if they should both use the same Form of Words in kind and number without addition or diminition it would be generally concluded that the one had stoln his Discourse from the other or at least borrowed it and not conceived it from his own Mind and Understanding For as much as one Man's Child differs from another in Form and Figure of Body as much or rather more doth the birth of his Mind and Understanding in conceiving and uttering the matter of his Discourse differ from another yea as the Children of one and the same Father and Mother though ever so many do considerably differ one from another in Form and Figure especially of the Face So every Man's Speech or Discourse whether in Preaching or Praying will somewhat differ one time from another if he bring it from his Heart and Understanding and not from his bare Memory although the stile and manner of expression may be much the same And commonly those Men whose Understandings are naturally more pertinent and fruitful when they Speak or Write on the same Matter or Subject the Forms of their Speech or Writing do most differ and so it may in Prayer whereas other Men whose Understandings are not so Fruitful in Words but they may be as Fruitful and sometimes more Fruitful in Good and Holy Affections when they Preach or Pray the Forms of their Words and Speech may seem to be well near the same though alwaies there will be some difference as much as one Child who is very like to his Brother doth differ from him or as one Apple may be like another of the same Tree and yet when narrowly considered do still differ And here these last Mens Prayer whose Hearts and Wills are more fruitful in Holy Affections than their Understandings are in great variety of Words and Eloquent Expressions may and oft do Pray with more Life and Authority or Power than the other because the main strength and force of Prayer consisteth in the good and holy Will and Affections But in this and all other things as every one hath his proper gift one so and another otherwise so he is to exercise it and not to limit or confine one another but give
of Gods help and assistance may and do at times refresh the Souls of True Christians and may and do excite or stir up true and living breathings and hearty Desires and Supplications in them with Thanksgivings unto God at Seasons But then it is so when the Reading or Hearing those words of Prayer are put in their true and right place and accounted and valued to be what they are indeed and not another thing which is to say when hearing or reading those words of Prayer are accounted hearing and reading as they are and not Prayer which they are not for hearing and reading are things differing in Nature and Kind from Praying and ought not to be confounded with the same and the greatest service and advantage that reading or hearing words of Prayer read by another unto us have or indeed can have is but Preparatory to excite or stir up unto Prayer and then only can they do so much but as the Spirit of the Lord is pleased to concur and give his assistance with them But if People confound these so differing things and set up the bare reading or hearing what is read in the place or room of true Prayer as if they were true Prayer it self they may provoke the Lord to with-draw that concurrance and assistance of his Spirit from reading and hearing those words however so good yea tho Scripture words and altogether blast and make ineffectual and unprofitable those exercises which otherwise and in themselves considered are lawful and profitable For the Lord who is a God of order he will not have the nature of things confounded but keeped distinct He will not have a thing judged or esteemed to be what it is not or above what it is the tendency of which in this very case is down-right Superstition and Idolatry as to judg that to be Prayer and Divine Worship which is no such thing for whatever is not true Prayer and Divine Worship and yet is called so and really so judged and esteemed is false and a sort of Idolatry For I know no midst betwixt true Divine Worship and Idolatry under that head of Worship seeing all pretended Divine Worship is either true or false and if false it is a sort or kind of Idolatry Now it deserves to be well examined and considered whether the putting reading and hearing read set Forms of Prayer either in publick or private in so high a place as many put them if not most or all who use them hath not provoked the Lord to deny that concurrence and assistance of his Spirit unto those exercises which otherwise he might and would give especially when those read Prayers do altogether exclude those real Prayers which come from the Spirit of God as he enables the Speakers to conceive and bring them forth in words without any set Form. And why is it that many sensible and tender Souls feel no Vertue in many or most of those read Prayers and on the contrary feel great deadness and heavyness and great weights and burdens in hearing them which hath occasioned many to with draw and seek where to find a People where true and living Prayer and Praises are to be found which effectually reach to the Soul and carry their Souls and Hearts along to join with them For neither is it true Prayer to hear the words of him that prayeth most effectually by the Spirit of God but where the Heart and Soul joineth and goeth along by the moving of the same Spirit both in Speaker and Hearers that is true Prayer Again if People should not so far mis-place those things as to judg reading and hearing read Prayers to be Prayers or any part of Divine Worship yet if they lean too much on them and rely more upon them than they should and have more an eye and regard unto them than unto the Spirit of God this also will make their reading and hearing or any other exercise ineffectual unto them and altogether unprofitable But Secoudly I shall neither be so hard nor uncharitable but am very far from it as to judg that all they who hear or read set Forms of Prayer in private and publick and seldom or never use Extemporary Prayer by the help of the Spirit giving them to conceive or express words of Prayer are altogether void of true Devotion and never Pray by the Spirit For my Charity is so large and free in that respect that I believe among all People Jews and Turks as well as Christians and many of those called Heathens if they do believe in one only God and are Faithful to what they know they are at times visited with gentle breathings of the Spirit of God which helps them truly to Pray unto him with desires and affections and true breathings of the Soul after him It is one thing what the Lord doth by high and soveraign acts of his wonderful Mercy and Condescendence to the Children of Men and another what he doth to them upon terms of their doing what he only requires of them and is pleased with in them 5. It is Objected If the Spirit of God doth dictate unto any Men in our days the words of their Prayers in that case those words would be as good Canonical Scripture as any of the Prayers of David or of other Holy men and their Psalms recorded in Scripture which were absurd to affirm Answ. These words of Prayer which come truly from the Spirit of God helping and assisting the Speakers to conceive and express them are no doubt real Divine Testimonies of God's Spirit Light and Life according to their measure but to compare or equal them to Scripture as we do not so to infer it is unequal For if all the Divine Testimonies which originally did livingly and purely proceed and spring from the Spirit of God hadbeen writ and aded to the Scripture the bulk or volumn of it had been too great yea many Volumns would not have contained them and it had been impossible for men to have read them all Therefore God hath Wisely and Graciously ordered it by his Divine Providence that a part of these many Testimonies which have come from his Spirit should be left upon record and preserved to all future Generations which were writ by some of the most Eminent of his Holy Prophets and Apostles and which have been unquestionably received in all Ages among the best sort of Christians who have had a true discerning to favour these Holy Writings and Testimonies and that what hath been so writ should be generally received as unquestionable Testimonies and Oracles of God's Holy Spirit and acknowledged as a publick Standard Rule and Touch-stoue whereby to judg and examine all Doctrines and Principles of Religion held forth by any Now it was altogether necessary that this publick Standard and Touch-stone of all Doctrines and Principles of Religion should not be too large and voluminous but compendious and easie to be read over and diligently searched and examined in a short time
to find how the Doctrines and Principles Preached by others did agree or disagree with them as the Spirit of the Lord should give an Understanding and so according to receive or reject them And God in his Infinite Wisdom hath seen fit that the Writings of the ancient Prophets Apostles and Evangelists should only be this publick and universal outward Standard as having some peculiar excellency in them of plainness and briefness and comprehending much matter in few words and writ from a deeper and larger measure of the Divine Wisdom to which no writings or words since uttered are comparable in equality or in the service they were designed for And more might be said as to this matter to show the excellency of the Scriptures above all other writings or words the Scriptures being generally received and believed and that worthily to be pure and infallible Testimonies of Truth without any mixture of humane weakness error or mistake as they were originally writ and continue at this day as to the main and giving sufficient evidence and witness to necessary Truths which we are not bound to believe equally concerning any other writings as being wholly and throughout Infallible and therefore may take leave to question them and accordingly as we find them to agree or disagree with the said publick Standard of the Scriptures Testimony to receive or reject them in part or in whole And admitting or granting that many Testimonies of Good and Holy Men their Preaching Praying and Writing should wholly agree to the Scriptures Testimony and that they have also proceeded from a measure of the same Spirit purely and without all mixture yet they are not to be made equal with that which by the Appointment of God and general consent of Christians is made the publick Standard of Truth As in respect of an outward Testimony for in all Cities and Corporations the publick Standard of Weights and Measures is of greater and more Authority than any others however so just and agreeable to them And this Objection hath no more force or weight against Preaching and Praying by Divine Inspiration now than it had Two or Three Hundred Years after the Birth of Christ when it is generally confessed the gift of Preaching and Praying by the Immediate Inspiration of the Spirit did remain in the Church and yet their words were not held equal to the Scripture in that day And tho we may not add our Words and Testimonies the purest of them to be any part of Scripture yet we dare not be so Presumptuous as to say there never was nor ever shall be more Scripture than what we have at present for it is probable more of equal Authority with what we have hath been but is lost and possibly some judged Apocryphal by one sort may be of equal Authority and value with God and other good men with other parts of Scripture that are acknowledged Neither are all Christians yet agreed upon the number of the Books of Scripture but it sufficeth that so much is generally agreed upon as is sufficient to be a publick Standard And lastly this Objection can be equally retorted upon the makers of it For they do hold That all the Words in their Set Forms of Prayer are either plain express Scripture Words or deduced and deduceable from them by just and necessary consequence of Truth and what is so deduced are the real Commands and of Oracles God as they or at lest as most of them say as in the example of Infant Baptism which they hold to be a command of God consequently a Divine Oracle and yet they confess it is no where expressed in Scripture but only by consequence deduced from it the which notwithstanding is justly denyed by many to be any firm or sure consequence of Scripture And if none of their set Forms of Prayer have come originally no not in the least measure from the Spirit of God in those who Penned them it seemeth a great derogation to those Prayers and to render them of small value with the People therefore such who use this Objection against us should take heed lest they derogate from their own Prayers and so fall under the censure of their own Brethren But perhaps some will acknowledg that the Spirit helped those who Penned these set Forms of Prayer not only by exciting or moving their affections but also by working upon their Understandings and make them fruitful to conceive the matter or words of these Prayers but not Immediately or by an Immediate Divine Inspiration as the Spirit wrought in David and others who preached and prayed by Immediate Inspiration so as to make no use of their judgment and reason to find out the matter or chuse the words they expressed To this I answer that David or any other of the Prophets and Apostles when they were Immediately Inspired to Preach or Pray or Write made no use of their Judgment and Reason or other Faculties and Abilities of their Souls or that the Spirit of God which wrought in them made no use of them but as meer passive Subjects and Recipients is a thing commonly alledged by those men but no where proved either from express Words of Scripture nor from any just and necessary consequence therefrom Yea the contrary is manifest from Scripture that the Spirit of God wrought upon and used the Understanding and Rational Faculties and Abilities of the Prophets and Apostles not as meer passive Instruments alwaies or most frequently but made them fruitful to work and co-operate with him as Paul who Preached and Prayed by Immediate Inspiration as they do confess said That he had laboured more abundantly than the other Apostles which was not a meer bodily labouring but a travelling or labouring in Spirit more especially wherein his Understanding and rational Faculties were concerned as well as his Will and Affections which is also clearly implied in his following words Yet not I but the Grace of God with me So that it was not he alone nor the Grace alone but the Grace of God co-working with him that caused this earnest and servent labouring in Paul's Soul. Nor is there any more reason to say that the Understandings and Reasons of the Prophets and Apostles when they spoke by Immediate Revelation were wholly passive than to say their Wills and Affections were wholly passive or their Mouths and Tongues when they spoke And the diversity of Stile in the Pen-men of the Scriptures which varieth not only according to the natural gifts and parts wherewith they were more or less endued but also according to their Education and Acquired Parts doth sufficiently show they were not altogether passive The stiles and manner of expression used by Isaiah Paul and Luke clearly show their Education differing from the homely stile of Amos a Country-man who said He was no Prophet nor the Son of a Prophet Paul said he could Pray not only with the Spirit but with the Understanding meaning certainly that his Understanding might
be active and fruitful both to himself and others also It 's true the same Paul speaketh of a case wherein the Spirit Prayeth but the Understanding is unfruitful as it happened at times when a man was so inspired and moved by the Holy Spirit that he spake in an unknown Tongue as appeareth from 1 Cor. 14. 13. Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown Tongue pray that he may interpret And in this case it is like that as the Soul's Understanding was unfruitful so it was unactive and was used only by the Spirit as a passive Instrument like a Pen in the Hand of a ready Writer As when the outward Ear of a man receiveth the Voice of a strange Language which he doth not understand There are other cases also wherein the Understanding and Rational Faculties of man may be laid aside and not used by the Spirit of God when he Immediately Inspireth him as when the highest and most noble Faculty of a Man's Soul or Mind is excited and wholly imployed and exercised by the Spirit which by some is called the Spirit of the Mind by others the Visual or Intentive Faculty of the Soul which seeth God as he is pleased to reveal himself and whereby a man hath a sense or perception of Divine or Spiritual things without any use or exercise of his Understanding Reason or Imagination as in a Spiritual Rapture and extasie But for most part the Understanding and Reason was used and imployed yea and the Memory also by the Prophets and Apostles so as to remember what they had read or heard and seasonably to apply it to the present occasion when they spoke or writ by Immediate Revelation or Inspiration For Immediate Revelation or Inspiration doth not exclude the use of means whether inward or outward it only implyeth a most near and close or intimate conjunction and union of the Spirits Operation with the Soul in the use of means as well as when they are not so used And Solomon who is generally acknowledged to have writ both the Books of the Ecclesiastes and Proverbs by Divine Immediate Inspiration and Revelation yet he saith Eccles. 12. 10. He sought to find out acceptable words c. So that the Spirit of God made use of that Faculty or Ability of his Soul which is called by Logicians Invention as well as his Judgment not that he had any trouble or difficulty to find out those acceptable words but the Spirit making his Understanding Fruitful with plenty of matter and seasonable and suitable Words he freely and without any trouble or disquiet of his mind used such acceptable words 6. It is Objected That even they who pray ex empore by the Spirit in a Congregation of People do stint or limit the Spirit in the Hearers and their Understandings and Attensions to consider what they who speak say no less than if they heard a Set Form of Prayer read unto them Answ. This is altogether denyed for first the Spirit of God in one can never be thought to stint the same Spirit or limit the operation thereof in another or many because the Spirit is the same in both and doth ever accord and agree with it self in all its operations and what it moveth the Speaker to Speak it moveth and inclineth the Hearers to consider and where true Unity is witnessed with one inward voice and cry of their Hearts they speak the same things unto God their Hearts at every Sentence saying Amen to what they feel and perceive to come from the Spirit of God in them who speak Nor doth it hinder the understanding and attention of the Hearers in being exercised towards the Spirit 's workings and openings in themselves For many yea and most times what the Spirit speaks through one doth excite the understandings of the Hearers into more faithfulness so that they have more opened and revealed unto them by the Spirit than what the Speakers words did import as oft also the like falleth out in Discoursing upon a natural subject where the words do signifie more to some Hearer than they do to the Speaker himself exciting clearer and fuller notions or ideas of Truth in him And thus even natural arts have been perfected when the first Inventers had but some small beginnings others by those beginnings have been excited to find out more perfect things as the bringing of the first words of a Sentence to a man's Memory which he hath forgot doth oft excite his Memory to remember the whole Sentence Nor is the Mind of Man so strait or narrow but it can well enough attend to what another Man sayeth in Preaching or Prayer and also to what God inwardly doth suggest or reveal unto him And the liberty of the Hearers understandings and Spirits is manifest in this also that after one has Prayed in words if the same Spirit reveal any thing to be spoken in Preaching or Prayer by any of the Hearers he is free to do it without giving any offence which was the order prescribed by Paul to the Church of Corinth 7. It is Objected That set Forms of Prayer are most for the edifications of the People who by often hearing of the same Prayer can commit it to Memory and so it passeth to the Understanding and remaineth with them whereas extemporary Prayers pass away for most part as a Sound and are little remembred Answ. This also is altogether denyed viz. That set Forms of Prayer are most for the edification of the People for admitting or supposing that the Hearers commonly by oft hearing these set Forms had them all perfect in their Memory yet it will not follow that they have a true understanding of them for men may and do remember many things which they do not understand But again either these set Forms of Prayer are few or many if few they cannot give a large understanding to the People if many they cannot be well remembred by them and if they were as many as would fill many Volumns they cannot give so great occasion to edifie and inform the understanding as these Prayers which proceed ex tempore by the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit in Holy men which must needs be many more and containing much more matter than the greatest Book of ever so many set Forms of Prayer can For on this account it is as I reckon why men are not tyed to set Forms of Preaching but are allowed freely to exercise their gift because that is more edifying to the People than set Forms to Preach by would be unto them And the same reason is as good concerning Praying as Preaching And tho words of ex tempore Prayer without the Spirit pass away as an empty transient sound yet by and with the help of the Spirit both in speakers and hearers they take impression both upon the understanding and memory of People who are made tender and sensible And tho all or most of the words spoke be not remembred yet if they have
that good effect to open the understanding and work holy Affections in the Souls of People it is sufficient to edification For where a thing is well understood a man needs not concern his memory much about it As he who understandeth the reasons and grounds of rules and precepts of Art he can practise the things belonging to that Art better with his understanding without thinking on those rules then he who only hath the rules of Art in his memory but understandeth not the reasons and grounds of those rules Nor can these forms be so edifying as extemporary Prayer by the true Spirit of God because they cannot so universally in all particulars reach to the various states and conditions of Peoples Souls And to say that all the various states of Peoples Souls if there were a thousand of them are comprehended under the words of those general set forms doth not satisfie For as on the one account set forms are too few and strait or narrow to reach all particular states and seasonable times so if generals can serve these set forms commonly used are too many because one only set form of Prayer contained in a few words may in general reach to all Peoples states and surely none doth or can better do that than the Prayer which Christ taught his Disciples And if men deny that they have any assistance of the Spirit to help them to conceive these set forms of Prayer which they use were it not better to collect together forms of Prayer out of the Old and New Testament putting all these words and sentences together which are most to the same purpose or if belonging to several purposes that have some fit connexion together and so the words of their Prayer would be pure Scripture words without any mixture of the words of man's Wisdom which are oft times very unsound 8. They Object That many who Pray extempore contradict one another in thrir Prayers ask contrary things and therefore both such Prayers cannot be from the Spirit of God which as it is one in Nature so in Operations ever agreeing and in unity with it self Ans. The whole weight and stress of this Objection lyeth upon Persons and Men and not upon the Principle to refute or refeâ— it in the least and as for these who most commonly pray contrary one to another they are such who do not pretend or lay claim to pray by Divine Immediate Inspiration But if both sides should lay claim thereunto and yet contradict one another in their Preaching or Praying it only proveth that the men are faulty sometimes on the one side and sometimes on the other and sometimes they may be faulty and wrong on both sides but the Principle remaineth still unblamable nor hath this Objection more weight now than in the daies of the true Prophets of old against whom the false Prophets both Preached and Prayed and pretended to be also Divinely and Immediately Inspired as well as the true And lastly This Objection can be well enough retorted for they who pray by Set Forms may pray contrary one to the other The Greek and Latine Churches had both Set Forms of Prayer and prayed one against another as well as preached when that great Zeal and Schism came to be between them And how many Preach against one another who pretend to Scripture and good Reason and also to good Literature which yet is no just reflection on any of these three things but only on the Men or Persons who abuse them 9. It is objected That Paul in his Epistles used the same Forms of Salutations and Prayers both at the beginning and end of them frequently and therefore he could not be against Set Forms who used them so much himself as Grace Mercy and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Iesus Christ at the beginning of divers of them and at the end Grace be with you c. Answ. These little short Forms being as is already said upon another occasion expressions and significations of the Prayer of Aspiration and Affection and not of that called Discursive Prayer which require divers Sentences do not infer that Set Forms may be used in Discursive Prayer For when the Heart and Affection is earnestly and zealously bent and moved to desire one only thing it may be expressed in one Sentence and as oft as that Affection is renewed the expression of it in the same Sentence as it freely ariseth in the Heart may be renewed also but men find it not so in Discursive Prayer or other Discursive Exercises As when men at this day commonly write Epistles one to another they retain some little common Forms of Salutation at the beginning and end of their Epistles which are commodious and not thought strange not disliked But if a Man yea if a School-boy at School should alwaies write to his Father or Kindred the same words throughout without any alteration they would say he were a fool and void of understanding to be so barren as to have no new matter in his Epistles even when daily occasion is given 10. It is Objected That God is not delighted with variety of words and novelty of matter and method in new stiles and flourishes of Tropes and Figures and is far unlike those squeemish Stomacks or delicious and lustful Appetites who every day seeketh after variety of Dishes or else they cannot be satisfied at being the Heart that he requireth Answ. It is true God is not delighted with variety of Words and Sentences as Man is or after the manner of Men but yet he requireth that every man make use of the Graces and Gifts which he hath given him and they being the works of God and proceeding from him he may be said to delight in them and in their manifold Variety as he doth in all his other Works altho not after the manner of men yet after such a way and manner as becometh his infinite Greatness and Perfection And tho it be the Heart that God mainly requireth and regardeth yet he commandeth us to love and serve him with our whole man which is our reasonable service and we are to love him with all our Understanding as well as Heart as the Scripture saith and the best and most fruitful part of our Understanding and all the Gifts belonging to it our Judgment Reason and Elocution may and ought to be employed in his Service and in this particular Service of Praver as Holy Men of old who used their Understanding and Reason and such Elocution also and variety of Expressions as God had given them and so ought every Man to do as the Spirit of the Lord leads him and works upon him and those Gifts he has given him without affection or stretching and straining beyond his measure And tho we find no affected or artificial Eloquence in Words of Man's Wisdom which is carnal and from below yet a true Eloquence and excellency of Speech is to be found in many places of Scripture both
healing and purifying and sanctifying nature more particularly it hath these two properties 1. To kill consume and destroy Sin both in Fruit and Root Stock and Branch 2. To beget Righteousness and Holiness which comprehends all the Fruits of the Spirit such as Love Meekness Temperance Patience Humility Joy Peace Hope and Confidence c. Q. How is the Grace or Gift of God conveyed unto Men at first and how is it received A. As a small thing even as a Seed the least of all Seeds Q. And how is it multiplied and encreased in Mens Hearts A. By its growth in them for if it doth not grow in them it doth not multiply but remaineth as dead and barren as unto them though living in its own nature Q. How doth it grow in Men. A. By getting root in the Hearts even as a grain of Corn by getting root in the Earth Q. How doth it get root A. It hath a Native Vertue and Influence in it whereby it taketh root in the Heart naturally if Men do not resist it and tho the Ground where it seeketh to take Root be foul and unfit yet it hath a cleansing and fitting Vertue in it to prepare the Ground and make it good and fit but it requireth Mans consent and concurrence which it acts and God in it and with it draweth and moveth effectually the Heart of Man unto Q. But may these drawings and movings be commonly resisted A. Yea they may and so the work of Man's Salvation may be hindered by Man himself and that both in the beginning or when begun in its progress Q. Doth God teach Men all things necessary unto Faith and Godliness by this Principle A. Yea as he is faithfully and chastly waited upon believed and followed Q. But hath he not his order in teaching or doth he teach all at once A. He hath his order and doth not teach all at once but line upon line here a little and there a little according as a Man can bear through the gravity of his Principle in them Q. What are the first things he teacheth in and by this Principle A. To deny Ungodliness and Worldly Lusts to Live Soberly and Righteously to Live Godly And when they have ascended by those degrees he bringeth them into his Holy Mountain City House Kingdom oud Paradise where he giveth them to enjoy of these Pleasures and Delights that because of the Sweetness Beauty and Glory of them are beyond all utterance or thoughts of Man's Heart Q. What are the first beginnings of Gods Work in the Heart after convincement or enlightening the Understanding A. Faith and Repentance Q. What is Faith A. It is a cleaving of the Soul and Heart of Man unto God and Christ according to the inward Revelation of his Divine Power Mercy and Goodness in the shinings of his own Divine Light Life and Spirit within him Q. Is then the object of Faith God and Christ as inwardly revealed A. Yea. Q. What Faith then have they who say Inward and Immediate Revelation is not the common priviledge of Men nay not of the Saints in these daies A. They have not the true Faith which is the faith of Gods Elect that worketh by love and purifieth the Heart and is fruitful of good works but their Faith is but a Dream and Imagination which as it findetn them in their Sins so it leaveth them to live and die in them Q. What is Repentance A. It is a change of the Mind and of all the Powers of the Soul and its affections from Sin and Unrighteousness unto Holiness and Righteousness so that whereas it loved desired and rejoyced in Sin before and had a distaste of all Righteousness and Holiness and an aversion and alienation therefrom now it hath a distaste of Sin universally and an aversion and alienation from it and a true and intimate love of all Righteousness and Holiness desire after it and joy therein and more abundantly after and in God and Christ whose it is Q. How is this Repentance wrought A. By degrees through the power of God his Life his Love his Judgment his Mercy his Goodness revealed in his own Light by his own Spirit as the Heart is turned thereunto and continueth in a steddy and fixed application unto the same This naturally and gently melteth and thaweth the Heart and breaketh it into pieces yea changeth it from a Heart of Stone into a Heart of Flesh and maketh it naturally to savour and relish the things of God which it hated before and to disrelish and distaste the things of Dishonesty and Unrighteousness which it loved before Q. What Rule or Law hath God given unto Men to Serve Obey and Worship him A. Even the same Divine and Spiritual Principle aforesaid the Word of God that is nigh unto us even in our Mouths and in our Hearts that we may know it believe it and obey it This is the Law or Rule of the New Covenant who walk after this Rule Peace is and shall remain upon them neither is there any Condemnation unto them but Justification and Approbation from henceforth and for ever CONCERNING PRAYER I. Some QUESTIONS answered II. Some REASONS given why all PRAYER in Words whether only conceived in the Heart or uttered and expressed by the Mouth should be by the help of the Holy Spirit helping us to conceive those Words III. Some Objections or seeming Reasons brought for using set Forms of PRAYER read out of a Book as if that reading were PRAYER Answered Also a few Words concerning Singing or Praising God with a Psalm By G. K. Printed in the Year 1687. To the Loving and Friendly Reader SInce It pleased the Lord to give me some knowledg by experience what True Prayer is after that I was turned with many others to his Marvelous Light to believe and walk in it wherein the deep things of God are seen and opened Many true and fresh and living openings have arisen in me concerning Prayer the nature use ends and manner of it and how true and right Prayer is and ought to be acceptably performed how the Spirit of God assists and helps his Servants and Children to Pray how he works not only upon their wills and affections to quicken and excite them and make them fruitful with good and holy desires in the art or exercise of Prayer but also how he works upon the Understanding and all the Intellectual Powers to enlighten them and give to Man a true and real sense and understanding of his wants or of the wants of others for whom he prayeth and also of the Love Mercy Bounty and Compassion of the Lord and the readiness and nearness of his helping hand to supply all his and their wants abundantly When the Inward and Spiritual Eye is opened by the Lord to see the Well of Living Water where the thirsty Soul may drink And also to see the Lords Table that is richly spread where it may eat abundantly and be refreshed and bless and
And although Luke 11. 2. hath it When yee Pray say Our Father c. Yet Luke may be expounded by Matthew as one place of Scripture is oft expounded by another So that Luke may very well be understood according to Matthew his words thus When ye Pray say viz after this manner Our Father c. Nor can this one only short Form of Prayer be a sufficient argument to make a large Book of Forms of Prayer and impose them by constraint upon Christians For either this one Form of Prayer taught by Christ was sufficient for the Apostles without any other or it was not if sufficient for them why not also for all other Christians And yet I know not any sort of these called Christians who confine themselves only to it or are willing so to do but think it needful to express their Prayers frequently in other Words for variety and change of Words when the matter is the same doth help to stir up and beget in men the more Fervent Affections But if that one only Form was not sufficient to the Apostles it is clear that Christ did not intend by teaching them that Form to give them or their Successors an intire System or Scheme of Common Prayer but as is already said to be a Pattern or Example unto them and also to afford unto them matter of Meditation as the Holy Spirit should open the deep and comprehensive Sense of it unto them so that by a due and serious and deliberate Meditation upon all the parts and words of it by the help of the Spirit they might be stirred up unto Prayer their hearts being lifted up unto God upon the Meditation on every part of it by saying Amen thereunto or expressing the inward desire and prayer of their hearts in the same or more words as the Holy Spirit should be pleased to enable and assist them And though I cannot and dare not recommend it to be read or said as a Prayer twice or thrice every day in a dead formal customary way as too many do nor can I limit any to the strict and precise number of words in it to pray by without using any more or less words lest thereby I should seem to limit the Holy Spirit who is most free in all his Workings Yet I can and do freely thus far recommend it even unto all Christians as well great as small as a most worthy subject of their frequent Meditation which the Spirit of the Lord will not be wanting to incline them unto and assist them in And how often in the Day Week Month or Year they are to Meditare upon it or how long their Minds and Hearts are to dwell upon the Thoughts and Meditations of it or any other places of Holy Scripture no outward rule can be given but must all be left to the free ordering and leading of the Spirit which I certainly believe as it is regarded and minded will be found very frequent For it is a great part of the Spirits Work and Office to bring the Scripture words and especially the words of Christ to our remembrance and the more useful and necessary any words of Scripture are unto us no doubt the Holy Spirit that Faithful Remembrancer will bring them to our Minds the more frequently and seasonable And I know no words in all the Scripture that are more necessary and profitable unto us to be remembred and often meditated upon than those very words contained in this excellent Form of Prayer taught by Christ. And indeed not only these few Words of Prayer taught the Apostles by Christ but any other words of Prayer whither Recorded in Scripture or that are Writ and Recorded any where else that have proceeded from a true Breathing and Spring of Life in these who first conceived and expressed them in word or writing may be and are of great service So that Forms and words of Prayer which proceed in the least measure from the Spirit of Prayer we are not against but for and our Souls have oft been greatly refreshed and quickned by them and the Spirit of Prayer yea true Prayer and Supplication hath oft been excited in us at the reading or hearing read such Prayers as are frequently to be found not only in the Scriptures but in the Books of true Martyrs and Witnesses of Jesus What precious Words of Prayer have oft dropped from them althongh but a little of those is recorded and it might be wished more of these precious words of Prayer or Thanksgiving and other Testimonies that came from the Spirit of God in them which flowed from them had been preserved if it had been the will of God. How oft when we hear or read or call to mind these precious Words of Prayer or some part of them that any Servant or Hand-maid of the Lord has uttered either at the Hour of their Death or any other time by the Spirit of the Lord which we find upon record in true History How oft I say and how purely doth Life spring in us and bear its Living Witness to the Original and Fountain of those Prayers out of which they have proceeded even the Pure and Holy Spirit of God and Christ And what pure inward living powerful and comfortable Touches of the same Spirit have we felt at such times confirming our Heavenly and Spiritual Unity with those dear and precious Servants of the Lord. Therefore I say we are not against Words or Fruits of Prayer for all Words have a Form that have at any time come or do and may come from the Spirit but are very much for them as fit and proper Subjects of Meditation and Occasions as the Spirit of the Lord is pleased to concurr to excite the Grace of Prayer in us thereby or any other Divine Grace and Gift as doth oft come to pass Also all such Prayers are excellent patterns and examples unto us of Prayer but yet we cannot set them up to be read or heard as our Prayers so as to tye and confine our selves or others to the precise number of the words contained in them Not can we acknowledg that the bare reading or repeating the Words are a Prayer as many do ignorantly imagine for all true Vocal Prayer comes from the Heart as it is moved and wrought upon by the Holy Spirit and the Words of Prayer simply considered are not properly the Prayer otherwise every one that hath and useth the words should pray those Prayers which is far otherwise but the words are but the signs and expressions of the Prayer which was in those who first conceived them and are called Prayer only by a Figure or Metonymie of the Sign for the thing signified And whereas it is objected by some that these Forms of Prayer as they are good and fit patterns of our Prayers so they may be used by us as Prayers even as some Weights and Measures which are kept as Standards to make other Weights by may be used themselves as
liberty to each other in the Holy Spirit of Truth and growing up together in God's Heavenly Garden as lovely Plants and Flowers each one having their proper Shapes Forms and Fruit all of a sweet and pleasant smell and taste and of a lovely Beauty and all useful and profitable one to another and to the Church of God in general without any envy or grudging but rejoycing in the manifold and various Graces and Gifts of God freely bestowed upon all and all growing and springing from the same Holy Root and Ground And now these two main Objections being Answered at length which did require the opening or explaining of divers things which may be of service to some I shall proceed to answer some others wherein I may be more brief 3. They object That some having good Hearts and great Love and strong Affections towards God and Heavenly and Divine things yet have weak Heads and Understandings and are not able well to conceive Words of Prayer in their Understandings And therefore should not these be helped by hearing or reading set Forms of Prayer well and Piously composed Answ. None have such weak Heads or Understandings if they have good Hearts or any measure of True Love and Affections towards God and Divine things but the same Spirit of Love which beget in them those good desires and affections hath been and is also in them a Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding to beget in them or help them to conceive good Thoughts and Words of Prayer sufficient for them as is above proved and made apparent for the Spirit of God works upon the whole Soul and all its powers and abilities and as well upon the Understanding as the Will and whatever the Will cleaveth unto or the Heart loveth is first proposed and represented to the Understanding in Thoughts as lovely and desirable And if a Man have not Elâ—cution either none or small God requireth but of every man as he giveth him and he who cannot Pray with his Mouth as in the case of those who are Dumb if he pray with his Heart shall be accepted But he who can read a Prayer if his Heart and Understanding were as well and as much exercised in Divine and Spiritual things as in Earthly and Temporal and had as great a love to them and delight in them would soon find himself furnished with Words ex tempore whereby to express the desires of his heart to God And indeed in true and real Love there is for most part an admirable Force or Virtue to make a man Eloquent both to praise the thing he loveth most and also to find out Reasons and Arguments wherewith to perswade to the obtaining it He who loveth a Woman and greatly desireth to have her to be his Wife he needeth not go to a Book and steal or borrow an Oration or Form of Discourse to speak unto her in order to perswade her and if he did it would but coldly come from him and if she did know it as a very small measure of good discerning cannot but discover it that it was a borrowed Speech she would not perhaps accept it nor answer it But the natural and simple words that flow from the love of his Heart would most prevail and have the greatest force It is not Eloquence or Excellency of Speech that God requires or regards the profit and service of it is unto men and not unto God. It stirreth up mens Affections to make them the more servent but doth not more prevail with God than more simple and mean words yet God will have every man to use his own Gift and it is but want of Love to Divine and Heavenly things and want of exercise in improving and stiring up the Gifts which God hath given them that makes them think extemporary prayer by the help of the Spirit to be so hard and difficult Why may not Men find Words and Expressions as ready and easie wherewith to seek a thing of God by the help of his Spirit as they find them wherewith to seek a thing from Men which few or none do in borrowed Forms of Speech composed by another unless it be to some King or great Person that some who are feeble minded and want courage make their address by borrowed Words or by something writ on a Paper or by some other they get to speak for them But none of all these things is necessary in this case for God invites the weakest and meanest to call upon him as well as the strongest and the meanest words where the Heart is sincere are accepted of him yea suppose the words were broken and imperfect and not according to the Grammar of the Language they may be used at least in private And as for publick Prayer in the audience of an Assembly or Congregation these whom God calleth to such an Employment or Office he will no doubt sufficiently qualifie and furnish them for he who made the mouth can easily put words in it As when Moses excused his being sent to Pharaoh for his want of Eloquence The Lord said unto him Who hath made man's Mouth or who maketh the Dumb or Deaf or the Seeing or the Blind Have not I the Lord Now therefore go and I will be with thy Mouth and teach thee what thou shall sav Ex. 4. 11. And tho the Lord sent Aaron to assist him who was naturally more Eloquent yet God also put Words in Moses his Mouth as well as in the Mouth of Aaron And when Moses Prayed unto God in the Mount that Israel might prevail over Amalek we do not read that Moses borrowed any words from Aaron or that Aaron put any words into his mouth only Aaron and Hur helped to hold up his Hands And surely Moses in his Prayer here used not any Form of Prayer borrowed from Aaron or any body else altho some from this passage and Moses his being less Eloquent than Aaron have argued for using set Forms of Prayer But we cannot find it in Scripture that Moses stood with a Book of Common Prayer in his Hand and Read or Prayed out of it upon the Mountain but that he had in his Hand a Rod. 4. They Object That many by Reading or Hearing read set Forms of Pious and Godly Prayers both in publick and also in private have found their Souls and Hearts refreshed thereby and what they did read or hear read hath oft stirred up true and living Breathings in them and hearty Desires and Supplications with Thanksgivings unto God. And it is hard and uncharitable to judge that all they who read or hear set Forms of Prayer in private and publick and seldom or never use Extemporary Prayer are altogether void of true Devotion and never Pray by the Spirit because they alwaies or for the most part Pray by the Book Answ. I do readily grant that Reading or hearing Read Words of Prayer whether in publick or private if these Words have been originaly conceived by the Spirit