Selected quad for the lemma: saint_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
saint_n	pray_v	prayer_n	supplication_n	1,875	5	11.3215	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

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

sweet sence of mercy received encouraging comforting strengthening enlivening enlightening mercy c. Thus David pours out his soul to bless and praise and admire the great God for his loving kindness to such poor vile wretches Psal. 103. 1 2. Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy Name Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits Who forgiveth all thine iniquities who healeth all thy diseases and crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies who redeemeth thy life from destruction who satisfieth thy mouth with good things so that thy youth is renewed as the Eagles And thus is the Prayer of Saints sometimes turned into praise and thanksgiving and yet are Prayers still This is a Mystery God's people pray with their praises as it is written Phil. 4. 6. Be careful for nothing but in every thing by Prayer with supplication and thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God A sensible thanksgiving for mercies received is a mighty Prayer in the sight of God it prevails with him unspeakably 3dly In Prayer there is sometimes in the soul a sence of Mercy to be received This again sets the soul all on a flame Thou O Lord God saith David 2 Sam. 7. 27. hast revealed unto thy Servant saying I will build thee an house therefore hath thy Servant found in his heart to pray unto thee This provoked Jacob David Daniel with others even a sence of Mercies to be received as you may see Gen. 32. 9 10 11 12. Dan. 9. 2 3 4. which caused them not by fits and starts nor yet in a foolish frothy way to babble over a few words written in a paper but mightily fervently and continually to groan out their conditions before the Lord as being sensible sensible I say of their wants their misery and the willingness of God to shew mercy A good sence of sin and the wrath of God with some encouragement from God to come unto him is a better Common Prayer-Book than that which is taken out of the Papistical Mass-Book being the Scraps and Fragments of the devices of some Popes some Friars and I wot not what 3. Prayer is a sincere sensible and an affectionate pouring out of the soul to God O the heat strength life vigor and affection that is in right Prayer As the heart panteth after the Water-brooks so longeth my soul after thee O God Psal. 42. 1. I have longed for thy Precepts I have longed after thy Salvation Psal. 119. 40. My soul longeth yea fainteth for the Courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh cryeth out for the living God Psal. 84. 2. My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy Judgements at all times Psal. 119. 20. Mark ye here My soul longeth it longeth it longeth c. Oh what affection is here discovered in Prayer The like you have in Daniel Dan. 9. 19. O Lord hear O Lord forgive O Lord hearken and do defer not for thy Names sake O my God Every syllable carrieth a mighty vehemency in it This is called the fervent or the working Prayer by James Jam. 5. And so again Luke 22. 44. And being in an Agony he prayed more earnestly or had his affections more and more drawn out after God for his helping hand Oh how wide are the most of men with their Prayers from this Prayer that is Prayer in God's account Alas the greatest part of men make no conscience at all of the duty and as for them that do it is to be feared that many of them are very great strangers to a sencere sensible and affectionate pouring out their hearts or souls to God but even content themselves with a little lip-labour bodily exercise mumbling over a few imaginary Prayers When the Affections are indeed engaged in Prayer then then the whole man is engaged and that in such sort that the soul will spend it self to nothing as it were rather than it will go without that good desired even communion and solace with Christ. And hence it is that the Saints have spent their strengths and lost their lives rather than go without the blessing Psal. 69. 3. Psal. 38. 9 10. Gen. 32. 24 25 26. All this is too too evident by the ignorance prophaness and spirit of envy that reigns in the hearts of those men that are so hot for the Forms and not the Power of prayer Scarce one of forty among them know what it is to be born again to have communion with the Father through the Son to feel the power of Grace sanctifying their hearts but for all their prayers they still live cursed drunken whorish and abominable Lives full of Malice Envy Deceit Persecuting of the dear Children of God Oh what a dreadful after-clap is coming upon them which all their hypocritical assembling themselves together with all their prayers shall never be able to help them against or shelter them from Again It is a pouring out of the Heart or Soul There is in Prayer an unbosoming of a man's self an opening of the Heart to God an affectionate pouring out of the Soul in requests sighs and groans All my desires are before thee saith David Psal. 38. 9. my groanings are not hid from thee And again My soul thirsteth for God even for the living God When shall I come and appear before God When I remember these things I pour out my soul in me Psal. 42. 2 3. Mark I pour out my Soul It is an Expression signifying that in Prayer there goeth the very life and whole strength to God As in another place Psal. 62. 8. Trust in him at all times ye people pour out your hearts before him This is the Prayer to which the Promise is made for the delivering of a poor Creature out of captivity and thraldom If from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thou shalt find him if thou seekest him with all thy heart and with all thy soul Deut. 4. 29. Again It is a pouring out of the heart or soul to God This sheweth also the Excellency of the Spirit of prayer it is the great God to which it retires When shall I come and appear before God And it argueth that the Soul that thus prayeth indeed sees an emptiness in all things under heaven That in God alone there is rest and satisfaction for the Soul Now she that is a Widow and desolate trusteth in God 1 Tim. 5. 5. So saith David In thee O Lord do I put my trust let me never be put to confusion deliver me in thy Righteousness and cause me to escape incline thine ear to me and save me be thou my strong habitation whereunto I may continually resort For thou art my rock and my fortress deliver me O God out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man For thou art my hope O Lord my God thou art my trust from my mouth Many in a wording way speak of God but right Prayer makes God

must the Scripture be fulfilled that thus it must be Mat. 26. 53 54. As who should say were there but a word for it in the Scripture I should soon be out of the hands of mine enemies I should be helpt by Angels but the Scripture will not warrant this kind of praying for that saith otherwise It is a praying then according to the word promise The Spirit by the Word must direct as well in the manner as in the matter of Prayer I will pray with the Spirit and I will pray with the Understanding also But there is no understanding without the Word For if they reject the Word of the Lord what wisdom is in them Jer. 8. 9. 6. For the good of the Church This clause reacheth in whatsoever tendeth either to the honour of God Christ's advancement or his Peoples benefit For God and Christ and his People are so linked together that if the Good of one be prayed for to wit the Church the glory of God and advancement of Christ must needs be included For as Christ is in the Father so the Saints are in Christ John 17. 23. And he that toucheth the Saints toucheth the Apple of God's Eye Deut. 32. 10. Psal. 17. 8. Zach. 2. 8. And therefore pray for the Peace of Jerusalem and you pray for all that is required of you Psal. 122. 6. Psal. 51. 8. Isa. 62. 6 7. For Jerusalem will never be in perfect peace until she be in Heaven and there is nothing that Christ doth more desire than to have her there That also is the place that God through Christ hath given to her He then that prayeth for the peace and good of Sion or the Church doth ask that in prayer which Christ hath purchased with his Blood and also that which the Father hath given to him as the price thereof Now he that prayeth for this must pray for abundance of Grace for the Church for help against all its temptations that God would let nothing be too hard for it and that all things might work together for its good that God would keep them blameless and harmless the Sons of God to his glory in the midst of a crooked and perverse Nation And this is the substance of Christ's own Prayer in the seventeenth of John And all Paul's Prayers did run that way as one of his Prayers do eminently shew in Ephes. 1. 16 to the 21. and Chap. 3. ver 14 to the 19th with Col. 1. 9 10 11 12 13. And Phil. 1. 9 10 11. he saith And this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in all knowledge and in all judgement that ye may approve things that are excellent that you may be sincere and without offence until the day of Christ. Being filled with the fruits of Righteousness which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God But a short Prayer you see and yet full of good desires for the Church from the beginning to the end That it may stand and go on and that in the most excellent frame of spirit even without blame sincere and without offence until the day of Christ let its temptations or persecutions be what they will And because as I said Prayer doth submit to the will of God and say Thy Will be done as Christ hath taught us Matth. 6. 10. therefore the People of the Lord in humility are to lay themselves and their prayers and all that they have at the foot of their God to be disposed of by him as he in his heavenly wisdom seeth best Yet not doubting but God will answer the desire of his People that way that shall be most for their advantage and his glory When the Saints therefore do pray with submission to the Will of God it doth not argue that they are to doubt or question Gods love and kindness to them But because they at all times are not so wise but that sometimes Satan may get that advantage of them as to tempt them to pray for that which if they had it would neither prove to God's glory nor his Peoples good 1 John 5. 14 15. Yet this is the confidence we have in him that if we ask any thing according to his Will he heareth us And if we know that he heareth us whatsoever we ask we know that we have the Petition that we ask of him that is we asking in the Spirit of grace and supplication For as I said before that Petition that is not put up in and through the Spirit it is not to be answered because it is beside the Will of God For the Spirit only knoweth that and so consequently knoweth how to pray according to that Will of God For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man that is in him even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2. 11. But more of this hereafter Thus you see first what Prayer is Now to proceed II. I will pray with the Spirit Now to pray with the Spirit for that 's the praying man and none else so as to be accepted of God It is for a man as aforesaid sincerely and sensibly with affection to come to God through Christ c. which sincere sensible and affectionate coming must be by the working of God's Spirit There is no man nor Church in the world that can come to God in Prayer but by the assistance of the holy Spirit For Eph. 2. 18. through Christ we all have access by one Spirit unto the Father Wherefore Paul saith We know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered And he that searcheth the heart knoweth the meaning of the Spirit because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God And because there is in this Scripture so full a discovery of the Spirit of Prayer and of mans inability to pray without it therefore I shall in a few words comment upon it Rom. 15. 16. For we Consider first the person speaking even Paul and in his person all the Apostles We Apostles we extraordinary Officers the wise Master-builders that have some of us been caught up into Paradise 1 Cor. 3. 10. 2 Cor. 12. 4. We know not what we should pray for Surely there is no man but will confess that Paul and his Companions were as able to have done any work for God as any Pope or proud Prelate in the Church of Rome and could as well have made a Common-Prayer-Book as those who at first composed this as being not a whit behind them either in grace or gifts For we know not what we should pray for We know not the Matter of the things for which we should pray neither the Object to whom we pray nor the Medium by or through whom we pray none of these things know we but by the help and assistance of the Spirit Mat.