Selected quad for the lemma: prayer_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
prayer_n	pray_v	spirit_n	supplication_n	6,826	5	11.2274	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62961	Mans extremity, Gods opportunity, or, A display of Gods sovereign grace in saving a people whose recovery as to men and means is next to desperate as it was delivered in a sermon preached before the Honourable Lieutenant governour ... of the province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England on May 29, 1695 which was the day for election of counsellors for that province / by the reverend Mr. Samuel Torrey.	Torrey, Samuel, 1632-1707.	1695 (1695)	Wing T1917; ESTC R30168	29,972	66

Deploring Mournful Penitential Crys of Prayer although there are a Praying People yet left with us those who are Gods Remembrancers who stand before him in the Gap But alas how much of the Spirit Life and Power of Prayer is decayed and wanting among People and Professors in Publick Private Secret and how much we have failed and falsifyed with God in our Prayers We have sad cause to Consider O that there might be such a General Powerful cry of Prayer as sometimes there hath been with us and as God now expects and looks for and which is absolutely necessary as the way and means wherein we are to seek and labour to obtain this Salvation from God God hath therefore promised that his People shall pray Jer. 29.11 12. Then shall ye call upon me and ye shall goe and Pray unto me and I will hearken unto you and yee shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart This is a promise that then they should Pray when the time of Salvation was come God alwayes Saves his People in the way of Prayer Jer. 31.9 They shall come with Weeping and with Supplication will I lead them Oh that God would pour out the Spirit of Grace Supplication upon us But it may be inquired What we are more especially and particularly to Believe and Pray for in order to the Obtainment of such Salvation I Reply It must be for the returns and continuance of the Divine Presence and the accomplishment of the Promise of the Spirit 1. That God would no further or longer withdraw himself His Spiritual Gracious Saving Presence but return to us in those ways and by those degrees wherein and whereby he hath been departing from us We have yet all the visible signs and means of his presence that ever we had or any People can have But alas how much have we lost of the Spiritual Beauty Glory Power Saving Effects and Blessedness of his presence and of the comfortable Beatifical Apprehensions of his presence in Spiritual Communion with him and communications from him God is much with-drawn from our hearts and from his own House much of the Protecting Directing Prospering Propitious presence of God in the wayes of his Providence gone And truly the Divine presence seems still to be upon its remove from us we our People seem to be very little sensible of it and growing more insensible unconcerned about it surely then it is high time for us to stir up our selves to take hold of God we may complain with the Church Isa 64.7 There is none that call upon thy Name that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee for thou hast hid thy face from us and consumed us Hos 10.12 It is time to seek the Lord till he come that is till he return Truly Wo will be to us if we suffer God to depart quite away from us Hos 9.12 It was therefore the burthen of the Churches Prayer Psa 80.3.7.19 Cause thy face to shine upon us and we shall be Saved More plainly Expressed Verse 14. Return O Lord we beseech thee When ever God Saves his People he returns and when ever he returns he brings Salvation with him Zech. 1.16 I am returned to Jerusalem with great Mercies 2. We must believe and pray for the accomplishment of the great Promise of the Spirit It was intimated before that God works more immediately to Save his People by his Spirit they therefore can expect no such Salvation otherwise then by the accomplishment of that Promise of the Spirit which indeed seems to be a Fundamental Article of the Covenant of Grace because it is by the performance of that he brings his People into Covenant with himself and applies all the Saving Grace of the Covenant unto them and so thereby he becomes their God and makes them his People therefore it is so often in express terms given and renewed in the Scripture both of the Old and New Testament as Isa 44.1 6. Isa 59.20 21. Ezek. 36.27 Ezek. 37.14 Ezek. 39.29 Joel 2.28 and elsewhere abundantly which signifies that God hath laid this Promise of his Spirit in the foundation of the Faith Hope and Confidence of his People and that the accomplishment of it is the great thing which they are to believe and pray for in order to their Salvation and therefore he hath directed his Church to wait upon him for Salvation until he pour out his Spirit Isa 32.15 Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high and the Wilderness become a fruitful field There were gracious Promises of Salvation made to the Church in that Context but they were to wait for it until the Spirit was poured upon them from on high It all depended upon the accomplishment of the Promise of the Spirit We have it may be sometimes thought and hoped that we had seen God working in the way of his Providence at this time and at that for our Salvation and we have been apt to be much raised in our Spirits with what we have so thought God hath been doing for us and that with very high hopes of being suddenly and perfectly restored to as good and happy condition as ever But alas do we see do we feel God working by the power of his Spirit Truly if not whatever other Signs or Prognosticks of good we may think we see we may assure our selves that all such hopes and confidences will fail us and we shall be left to complain with the Church Jer. 14.19 We looked for peace but no good hath come for a time of healing and behold trouble and as Isa 59.9 11. We wait for light and behold obscurity for brightness but we walk in darkness We looked for Judgment but there is none for Salvation but it is far from us Thus it will be so long as God doth with hold and suspend the Dispensation of the Spirit which is of all other the most humbling consideration of our present state and condition and therefore if we hope that God should ever have mercy upon New-England and Save us by himself we must labour our very Souls must labour by Faith in Prayer for the accomplishment of the Promise of the Spirit It is by the accomplishment of this Promise that God doth accomplish all other Promises and Prophesies also to his Church referring to their Salvation Yea it is by the accomplishment of this Promise of the Spirit that he doth accomplish all his most great and Glorious Works in the World referring more directly to his own Kingdom Name and Glory O may we obtain this Dispensation of the Spirit then his will be filled with his Spirit whereby the Ministry and Ministration of it will be made mighty and powerful as the Rod of Christs Strength sent out of Zion and we shall be made a willing people in such a day of his Power Psal 110.2 3. Then all Ordinances shall be filled with the Spirit and so become

Unstedfastness in the Work of God doth render us not only unworthy and unfit but utterly uncapable of such Salvation 6. We must hearken most intensely and effectually subjecting our very Souls to the Word of God which is the highest means of the working of Divine Wisdom Power Grace and Mercy in all Saving Work for the Children of men Yea and in working all kind of Salvations for the Church and People of God The whole glorious work of Salvation out of Egypt was wrought by the Word Hos 12.13 By a Prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt and by a Prophet he preserved them by the Ministry of his Word he Saved them out of their Apostacy and the Calamity of the Babylonish Captivity as appears by the whole History of Ezra and Nehemiah and the Prophesies of Zechariah and Haggai and by the Ministry of the Word the great and last Salvation for the Church shall be wrought Isa 52.6 7. How beautiful upon the Mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings that publisheth peace that bringeth good tydings of good that publisheth Salvation that saith to Zion thy God reigneth Our Lord also prophesieth the same Mat. 23.39 For I say unto you ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord Surely it was by the Ministry of the Word that God wrought gloriously for New-England in giving of us our Being as his People It is by the Ministry of his Word that he upholds and carries on the work of Conversion and thereby upholds his Churches in their Spiritual Being and Constitution and Religion in them and therefore it must be by the Ministry of his Word that that Work and these Churches and Religion which are now sinking and dying must be recovered and revived by a thorough Saving Reformation It is by the power of the Word that God makes Mercies and Judgments and all other Providential Dispensations even all his wayes and works unto his people saving nothing will do us good till God work by his Word to make all effectual It is by his Word that he doth lead and guide his people into and in the way of Salvation It is by his Word that he removes all obstructions subdues all opposition that the great Mountains before Zerubbabel become a Plain Zech. 4.7 It is by his Word that he doth stir up and strengthen all Instruments quicken sanctifie and spirit all his Servants to his work O when God comes to Save New-England by himself we shall see and feel wonderful effects changes wrought by the Ministry of the Word and when once our hearts are fully generally subjected to the power of the Word then we may be assured that God is arisen and at work for us in a glorious way of Salvation by himself then we shall be prepared to be the Subjects of such Salvation When our hearts tremble under the power of the Word as it was with them when God was at work with them to reform them Ezra 9.4 Then were assembled to me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel and again Ezra 10.3 According to the counsel of my Lord and of those that tremble at the Commandment of our God God would do nothing for them till they did thus subject themselves to his Word Zech. 7.7 Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the voice of the former Prophets whilst Jerusalem was inhabited Surely God expects that New-England should hear and obey those many solemn words which he hath cried to them by the voice of the former Prophets as well as those which he is still crying unto us by the present Ministry and this we must do before we can upon any grounds of Faith and Hope expect that God should Save us by himself Thus we ought to approve our selves unto God I Proceed 3. To shew how we ought to apply our selves to God for such Salvation and this I need not tell you we all know it must be by Faith and Prayer 1. By Faith and it must be Pure Faith without the least mixture or tincture of carnal Confidence Prefidence or Diffidence and our Faith must work under a most humbling sence of our sins and of our unworthiness and of our own utter insufficiency to help our selves and our present Extream necessity of help from God and from God alone and that with a full reliance and recumbence upon him and an high and strong Confidence in him for such Salvation with an humble and yet firm dependence upon his Infinite Sufficiency and his Sovereign Grace and Mercy and with an hopeful patient earnest instant Expectation looking longing waiting and watching for him in this way of Salvation Thus we must believe by Faith Asserting our Covenant interest in him and relation unto him as our God the God of our Salvation as the Church Isa 25.9 Lo this is our God we have waited for him he will save us this is the Lord we have waited for him we will rejoyce and he glad in his Salvation 2. With such an exercise of Faith we are to apply unto God by Prayer for such Faith works most powerfully and effectually by Prayer and is ever prevalent with God never fails but ever obtains help from God but then we must pray indeed Pray in good earnest with utmost Sincerity Fervency Instancy Importunity labouring therein even unto an Agony not only cry but cry mightily with an out-cry of Prayer as a People ready to perish as the Children of Israel at the Red-Sea Exod. 14.10 The People of Israel Cryed out to the Lord. Truly we are now concerned to Pray as for our Lives yea much more than for our own Lives by the utmost improvement of all Arguments of Faith and Hope in pleading with God Striving as it were once for all resolving with Wrestling Jacob that through his Grace and by his own strength we will Hold him and not let him go till we obtain as Remembering that we are Praying and Crying for Sovereign Mercy and being sensible that not only the eternal concernments of our own Souls but that all the Saving concernments of our Churchces and People and of all Posterity that our very being and standing before God under his Covenant in his Kingdom as his People Yea that all the concernments of Gods own Cause Interest Name and Glory with us have great dependance upon the success of our Prayers at this time God hath been labouring long to make New-England cry God doth Expect Wait to hear us cry to him as Jer. 3.14 Wilt thou not at this time cry to me my Father thou art the guide of my youth he hath promised that he will be very gracious to the Voice of our cry that when he doth hear it he will answer Isa 30.19 Truly it is much to be feared that New-England doth not yet know what it is to cry that is with Lamenting Bemoaning Bewailing