Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A86435
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A treatise concerning prayer; containing particularly an apology for the use of the Lords prayer. / By Thomas Hodges, B.D. Rector of the Church of Souldern.
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Hodges, Thomas, d. 1688.
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1656
(1656)
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Wing H2323; Thomason E1712_1; ESTC R209609
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38,565
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187
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A Treatise CONCERNING PRAYER Containing particularly AN APOLOGY For the use of the LORDS PRAYER By THOMAS HODGES B.D. Rector of the Church of Souldern LONDON Printed by John Grismond 1656. TO The very much Honoured John Crew Esq SIR YOu may perhaps wonder that the ensuing Treatise being for the maine the substance of a Sermon lately preached in your eares at Brackley should now be presented to the eye of the world And again that it should come forth after this manner fronted with your name And the rather at both because you will finde your selfe surprised without the least fore knowledge or fore-thought of either My answer for the first of these shall be this That it containes an Apology for the use of the Lords Prayer and consequently a justification of my own and many of my deare Brethrens practise conformable to the Directory for publique Prayer compiled by the Reverend Fathers of the late Assembly and authoriZed to be observed by Ordinance of Parliament whereof you were a Member I would not have it said No Leiturgie no Lords Prayer that since the Church of England hath laid aside the former as unnecessary or inconvenient she hath cast out the latter as unlawfull And my desires and endeavours are that as in the Marian times times of Idolatry superstition some were martyr'd upon occasion of their saying the Lords Prayer in English now in these dayes of reformation the Lords Prayer it selfe may not be made a Martyr and they suffer in their names and reputations that dare to use or rehearse it at all as a Prayer Now as for the present addresse to you give me leave Sir to say for say it I must that when I consider how many yeares you have been an eminent Patron of Preaching and Prayers in these parts of the Nation and withall that you were an Auditor of the Sermon that your own house is an house of prayer that God hath remarkably endued and blessed you with an understanding Head an honest Heart a fixed and stable Soule and so qualified you to be a fit judge of Truth I must confesse looking about I doe no where see such another excellent Theophilus under whose name and patronage I may with so much reason and boldness commit the following Treatise to the Presse I am not without some hope that it may meet with the better entertainment in the world because it comes forth with the priviledge of your name so that if the obscurity of the Author should hazard to darken the present Truth the lustre of your name may be a meanes to scatter that cloud and to cleare up that truth to the otherwise blere-ey'd i. e. prejudic'd Reader And now Sir not despairing of your pardon for ingaging you thus far let me beg your patience a little farther viz. whilst by way of supplement to the Sermon I premise in this Epistle a few words concerning this six finger'd Monster of errour about the Doctrine of Prayer herein handled Sir there are three paire of Errours if I may so speak contrary to this Truth and each paire consisting of two extreames the one contrary to the other The first pair this That we ought to do nothing at all but pray and that we ought not to pray at all the first an error of some in the Primitive times the latter a fancy of these last daies The second paire this That 't is absolutely necessary alwaies when we pray to use a form and that 't is utterly unlawfull at any time when we pray to pray with or by a form the former the opinion of some chiefly raised by Prelacy when at its height the latter originally the conceit of others cast down and kept under by the Hierarchy The third paire this That the often bare repetition of the Lords Prayer merits pardon of sin and heaven and that the once rehearsing it for a Prayer is a sin and so deserves Hell the former the tenet of some Papists and fancy of ignorant Protestants the latter the error of some reall enemies both to Popery and Formality Sir these are the several errors to the followers and patrons of which may I have your leave and patronage to speak a few words To the poore Euchite if any such there be in these daies who will doe nothing else but pray I say and that justly Wherefore is this losse who hath required these things at your hands Go to Paradise and there learn of Adam by Gods own direction and command to keep and dresse the Garden as well as to sanctifie or keep holy the Sabbath day As for those who are guilty of the second error viz. who will not pray at all I have preached to them the following Sermon here shall tell them I pray for them because they pray not for themselves and that I think it more necessary to write The Lord have mercy on their doores in whose houses Prayer is not than where the Plague is Those of the third rank who will allow of no prayer except with or by a form supposing they will not decline the judgement and practise of the Ancients without weighty reasons I referre to * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just Mart. Apol. 2. Justin Martyr and Tertullian and if their testimony will not amount to this that it was their judgement Sine monitore quia de pectore oramus Tert. Apol. cap. 30. and the practise of Christians in their time to pray according to their ability without any Booke or Prompter and so without any set form yet let them shew us how to construe their sayings so as to reconcile them to their opinion And again I beg of them to heare King James who in his advice to Prince Henry counsels him to pray as his heart moves him pro re natâ and not bee as the ignorant ones who pray nothing but out of a book I would desire men of this perswasion to consider that they make the way to the throne of grace onely in a beaten path or road and narrower than God and the holy Scriptures have made it and that probably this their inordinate Zeale for set Formes and their intemperate heat against conceived Prayers gave the first occasion of throwing out all Liturgies out of the Church When they who are allowed crutches or staves to help their weaknesse make use of them to fight withall and to break the heads of those who offer to goe without them then 't is thought no injustice or imprudence to take them away When once the Liturgie that Sheepherds staff would pretend to be like that rod of Aaron when it devoured the rods of the Egyptian Magitians that is would become a Serpent and devour all other prayers in the Church as if they had not been the product of the holy Spirit but a delusion then it was thought high time to remove it Those in the fourth place who decry all forms as utterly unlawfull are reasoned withall in the following Discourse It shall suffice
according to the Directory So here it doth not follow that we may not use the words of either of the Evangelists but on the contrary that we may indifferently use the words of either and so may pray either in the form of words recorded by the Evangelist Matthew or else according to this form in the text We think it not unlawfull but expedient in the celebration of the Lords Supper to retain the words of some of the Evangelists or of the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 11. upon that occasion And so I see no sufficient reason but we may and that it is expedient to use Christs owne words either at his first or second delivery of it either as recorded by one or the other Evangelist And lastly who knowes but Jesus Christ speaking Syriack the language then commonly used by the Jewes might expresse himselfe in the same Syriack words at both times and yet the Evangelists render the same diversly in another tongue keeping still the same sense as the same Greek words may be truly translated and yet rendred in English in severall or diverse words but all to the same sense Obj. But it is our duty to pray in the Spirit in the holy Ghost and so as the holy Spirit immediately moves us or suggests to us for matter and words and method and so we are not to be tied to any form of prayer Possibly this was and might be used for a time namely till Christ was glorified and the holy Ghost given as Johns form might last till Jesus Christ gave a new one so this form of prayer might be of use untill the coming down of the holy Ghost to teach Christians to pray of themselves without this or any other form Ans To this Objection I say three things 1. That we are now to pray in the holy Ghost in a right sense but not in the sense and manner above alleadged And so to say no more did those before Christs coming 2. That we may truly pray in the Spirit according to our duty although we use the Lords Prayer 3. The coming of the holy Ghost hath not taken away the Lords Prayer but that notwithstanding it may be used in the prayers of the Church and her Members until Christ come again Of the first All Christians 't is true must pray in the Spirit as all Ministers of Christ are to preach in the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit and in words which the holy Ghost teacheth and yet this hinders not but we may and must study and premeditate for our Sermons not alway expecting extraordinary supplies from the holy Ghost so as that it should be given us always in that houre what to preach and it should not be we that preach or speak but the holy Ghost in us The holy Ghost hath made known to us the minde of God in the Scriptures we are to study them and the matters contained in them and to preach the Word of God Scripture-truthes plainly and affectionately as those who have found favour to be taught of God to have our understandings opened to understand the Scriptures to have our wills bowed to Gods revealed will and our affections warmed with love to the truth and zeale for it and as those who have in themselves experimented those things which they declare unto others Besides Ministers may and ought to read the holy Scriptures and in so doing although for the present they are tied unto words yet this doth in no wise quench the Spirit the Scriptures themselves being dictated by the Spirit so when we pray we are to pray in the Spirit that is for such things and in such a manner as the holy Ghost teacheth in the Scriptures of truth we are to pray in faith to come to God in Christs name merits mediation trusting to be heard and answered for Christs sake with earnestnesse and importunity and so with such sighs and groans which are unutterable which cannot sufficiently be expressed in words 2. As Believers before Christ particularly Moses and Aaron had the Spirit and his help and assistance in prayer so far as was requisite notwithstanding they sometimes used prescribed forms of Gods own inditing appointing And as Iesus Christ himself prayed in the spirit when he prayed in the words of David Psal 22.1 My God my God why hast thou forsaken me So those that are Christs may pray also in the spirit in the using the prayer of Christ that being a Prayer for matter method words composed by him who had the Spirit without measure recorded in the very form of a Prayer and with this preface When ye pray say c. by the holy Ghost that is by the Evangelist moved and assisted infallibly by the holy Ghost If that place be urged 1 Cor. 14.15 I will pray with the spirit and with understanding also I answer it followes I will sing with the Spirit and with understanding also So that if the former part could possibly with any good reason be expounded so as to debarre us from the use of the Lords prayer the latter will exclude Davids and all Scripture-Psalmes too out of the Church But the sense and meaning of that place is of another importance as appeares by the context and that may seem to be this I will not make use of the extraordinary gift of the Spirit inabling me to speak in an unknown or strange language either in praying to or praising of God in the Church where it is not understood by the unlearned and therefore cannot be to edification My own spirit or I may indeed pray according to the inward man and make use outwardly of the gift of Tongues that gift of the holy Ghost in praying but I make no use of my understanding to the benefit of others I resolve therefore so to pray and so to sing as I may be understood by others even as if I had no such gift of Tongues as a man would pray that hath not that gift of tongues which is an extraordinary gift of the Spirit 3. I come to my third Proposition and that is to prove that the coming of the holy Ghost doth not take away the use of the Lords Prayer as a Prayer And were it so as is presumed in the Objection that it was given onely for that time untill the coming of the holy Ghost and that it was out of date in the day of Pentecost even this Evangelical form of prayer like the legall observations I say were it so then the use of the Lords Prayer should cease both as a pattern and as a form of prayer it should neither be any more since Pentecost a Directory or Liturgy But the truth is that the promise of the holy Ghost to teach Christians to pray and the gift of the holy Ghost so promised doth not necessarily take away all helps or directions from Christ or from the Scriptures of the Prophets so that they should thenceforth be void and of none effect to all intents and