Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A26705
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A companion for prayer, or, Directions for improvement in grace and practical Godliness in time of extraordinary danger by Richard Allein.
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R. A. (Richard Alleine), 1611-1681.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing A985; ESTC R19955
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10,781
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A COMPANION FOR PRAYER OR Directions for Improvement in Grace and Practical Godliness in time of Extraordinary Danger By RICHARD ALLEIN Author of Vinditiae Pietatis LONDON Printed by J. R. for T. G. MDCLXXXIV Reverend Sir THE motion made in yours concerning Prayer hath much affected me and hath occasioned some workings of my thoughts which though in a conscience of mine own weakness I more than once laid aside yet they still return'd upon me and I do now here offer the result of them to your Consideration We all know and teach that they are only returning and reforming Prayers that will prevail with God and 't is to be doubted that in this dead and decayed age there are too many professors who will joyn in the design of Prayer whom this must serve instead of Reformation 't is to such especially that the Directions in the inclosed Papers are intended I send them to you desiring you to read them and then to do what you please with them beseeching you and trusting upon your friendly faithfulness herein thar you will take your full freedom either to keep them in silence to your self or else to communicate and make them publick I should thankfully accent of any expungings alterations or additions that you shall think needful The Lord pardon the failings and accent the sincere aims of my soul herein To his Grace I commend you and in him I rest Dear Sir Your unworthy Friend and Servant RICHARD ALLEIN A COMPANION FOR PRAYER OR Directions for Improvement in Grace and Practical Godliness c. TO make way for and to press to the diligent observing the following Directions let these things be premised 1. That the Power of Religion is much fallen at least is at a stand amongst multitudes of Professors in England Sure this needs no proof when we have so many sad ocular Demonstrations hereof before us 2. That for this the Lord hath a controversie with us at this day Rev. 2.4 Whatever controversie the Lord hath with the Belials amongst us whose horrible wickedness hath even repined them for vengeance his special quarrel seems to be with his own people We may guess against whom the special anger is by observing at whose faces chiefly his arrows are levelled Against whom do our enemies the rod of his anger make a wide mouth and draw forth the tongue and lift up their fiercest hands 3. No Prayers will avail nor have the least help in them but the Prayers of such with whom the Lords controversie is taken up and composed those with whom he hath a particular quarrel are like to be unhappy Mediators for others We chuse the savourites of Princes to be our Intercessors with them 4. There can he no taking up Gods controversie unless the matter of it be removed by repentance and reformation Rev. 2.5 Isa 1.15 16 18. When ye make many prayers I will not hear your hands are full of blood wash ye make you clean c Come now and let us reason together Josh 7.10 Get thee up wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face Israel hath sinned they have taken the accursed thing and v. 12. I will not be with you any more except the accursed thing be destroyed from amongst you Is there no accursed thing amongst even the Professors of Religion Behold the wedg of Gold and the Babylonish garment their pride and their covetousness hid in their hearts for a tent Go search out these and every other accursed thing within you let them be destroyed if ye would have the Lord to be at peace 5. If there may be such a spirit of Prayer stir'd up amongst us as may have his fruit unto Holiness and real reformation of the evils of our ways this would comfort us and give us great hopes in the hardest cases 6. Therefore in all our crying to God for his help in case of publick fears dangers or distresses our eye should be firstly upon and we should wrestle with the Lord for the pardoning purging and sanctification of our own hearts and lives wherein if we prevail not we shall be as a rotten tooth or a bone out of joynt for any help there is in us or in any thing we do unless we can pray up a spirit of Holiness in our selves a spirit of Love and of Power and of a sound mind we are not like to do any thing to purpose in praying down Mercy for the people the Devil will give us leave to vifit the Throne of Grace so we will but carry our hard and uncircumcised hearts with us if we cannot get to be of the Lords holy Ones though we make many Prayers he will not hear here the interest and the hopes of the people of God lye in the shedding abroad of the sanctifying and quickning spirit upon them for this therefore should we firstly pray 7. 'T is not praying alone that will do to the bringing on our Reformation there must be also a constant and sedulous use of all Gods other means in our whole course of Life 8. Some of these means are presented in the following Directions 1. General Directions Direct 1. Take up a deep and serious design of making an advance in serious Religion Sit not down by take not up with what you have already attained but resolve for reaching forward and following after towards that which you have not attained content not your selves to drive gently on as your flesh will bear but stir up your selves to follow hard after the Lord and let this be the deliberate decree and intent of your hearts Say to thine heart How is it with me Doth my Soul prosper Are my ways such as please the Lord What is mine expectation and mine hope What is the aim and business of my life Is it that Christ may be magnified by me and that I may be made partaker of his Holiness and shew forth his Vertues in my generation Can I say with the Apostle To me to live is Christ Ah wretch that I am how deeply hath this self and this world gone shares with my Lord O! how little of my time my parts my strength yea and of my very heart also have been inclosed and consecrated as Holiness to the Lord how much of me hath been left out in common for the world Well but what meanest thou for the future Wilt thou henceforth change the purpose and intent of thine heart Come man wilt take up a design for and henceforth determine and set thine heart upon a more watchful fruitful and heavenly life If thou wilt not be brought to decree and resolve upon a better life much less wilt thou be perswaded actually to it What 's begun well is half done and an holy design deeply laid is a good beginning Direct 2. Let Gods Calls to extraordinary prayer and a sense of the necessity of your recovery and reformation to your prevailing in prayer quicken you on in the vigorous pursuance of your holy design Now is a time wherein
what ground hast thou gotten of those very corruptions under which thou most groanedst How is it with thee with respect to temptation Dost thou fear and fly from temptation and do what thou canst to keep thy self out of harms way and when thou fallest into temptation when thou art actually tempted to Pride or Covetousness when thou art provoked to passion or impatience how goes it with thee then how standest thou in the day of temptation How is it with thee in regard of thy wonted evils in thy conversation Hast thou sounded a retreat from thy eager chase after the great things of the world Thou hast been a zealot for encreasing thine earthly Substance art thou now become more moderate Thou wert once a sloathful lazy foul in the matters of God art thou now more diligent and industrious art thou fervent in spirit serving the Lord Thou once livedst a jolly frothy and merry life dost thou now carry it with more seriousness Hast thou left thy lying and deceitful dealing Thou hast been a self-seeker and a flesh-pleaser but canst say through the Grace of God I have now betaken my self to a self-denying-life and doest thou deny thy self in those very things wherein thou wert used most to seek thy self Put thy self upon a close and severe trial here and know that if the strong hold be not battered and broken if thine old lusts do still hold their power in thee if the old sore be still issuing out the old stream be still running its course if thou canst not say I have kept me from mine iniquity or at least am sighting more resolvedly against it if thou still stickest where thou wert wont to stick whatsoever flush thou seemest to have of good affections whatsoever confidence thou hast of thy good condition 't is a sure sign it is not so well with thee Look to what degree of success thou hast attained in those things wherein thy great difficulty lay to such a degree of soul-prosperity thou hast attained and no more Direct 5. Measure your hopes of the Answer of your Prayers for the publick by your experience of their speeding in your own particular cases If thy sin can stand before all thy prayers thy Enemies fears and dangers are not like to fall ever the sooner for such praying what God may do upon the prayers of others thou knowest not but nothing is like to go the better for thee If thou hast run with the foot men within thee and these have been too hard for thee how wilt thou contend with them that ride upon horses If thou canst not stop the muddy streams of thine own cistern how wilt thou stand before the swelling of Jordan If thy prayers prevail so little to the setting thine own heart or thine own house in order how canst think they will do any thing against the hosts of the uncircumcised God heareth not sinners not only such sinners as are in a state of sin and totally alienated from the life of God but even such also who though for the main they have been once washed in the blood of Christ are again fallen into and wallowing in the mud and mire of anyone allowed sin they are all like to be but miserable comforters in the day of distress Remember that Scripture mentioned before Psal 66.18 If I regard iniquity in my heart God will not hear my prayer But on the other side if thou dost obtain if thou dost prevail in thine own personal case this hath good hope in it 'T is an argument that thy Prayers are accepted with God and if the Lord accept thee when thou prayest for thy self or for thine house thence the greater hope will spring that he will accept thee when thou prayest for his own house and people And if he doth accept thee for them he will either deliver them out of their distress and thou shalt have the honour to be one of those for whose sake deliverance comes or if he should not grant thy request as to the publick yet he will not fail to give thee thine own soul for a prey though he do not give thee the lives of them that sail with thee in the Ship And now you see the best way that is open to you to help at a pinch to save the poor distressed Churches of God in this time of their need such praying as may have its fruit unto holiness in your selves by this you may do much to promote the holiness and happiness of the people if any thing this will do it Wherefore gird up your loyns and set in good earnest upon this seasonable and mighty duty Go into your closets list up your hearts draw forth your souls pour out your tears weep in your prayer weep over your own and the peoples sins and fears and bow your selves with your might before the Lord this once try what you can do try the strength of Prayer Pray all to rights within you and at home and then seek and cry and wrestle and trust and wait for the Salvation of God to be revealed in due time upon his people Let us at length hear the conclusion of the whole matter what shall be the fruit of all this What will you now do If I should only ask Who among you will join in and pray pray for the peace of Jerusalem the Church of the living God every one would readily answer I will be for one I for another God forbid I should hold my peace I will pray for the peace of Jerusalem Let them prosper that love thee Peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy Palaces For my Brethren and companions sake I will pray Peace be within thee because of the House of the Lord our God I will seek thy good If it be asked further and who will pray for the destruction of Babylon O every one of us that have an heart for the peace of Jerusalem Down with it down with it even to the Ground Remember O Lord the Children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem who said Raze it raze it even to the very soundation O Daughter of Babylon that art to be destroyed happy let him be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us But would you that your Prayers should be heard Then arise out of your places and fall every man upon a personal Reformation Down with your sin and out with the world lift up Christ in your own hearts if you would have Antichrist fall in the Earth let Christ have a name within you above every name and let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity from his own iniquity seek not for Corn and for wine or for freedom to sit down every man under his own Vine and under his own fig-tree where none shall make them afraid but seek the Lord that the Lord God may dwell among you may delight in you and be exalted by you that you may indeed become the people of his Holiness and the people of his Prayer seek to be made partakers of his holiness and follow after holiness and so follow after that ye may obtain Let there be such a heart in you and such an holy design heartily taken up and zealously pursued by you and the Lord will certainly accept you and answer your prayers and your prophane enemies will then learn to take heed how they again mock or boast themselves against the Prayers of the Saints It was reported of a great Church-man that when several Ministers were turn'd out of their places for non-conformity he said in disdain Wee 'l turn them out and let them see if they can pray them in again Once lift up holy hands to the Lord and God will give such Answer that they will take heed of boasting again against Prayer And if yet they should take unto them the hardiness to say where is your God Doubt not but in a little time you shall have this song put into your mouths Lo this is our God we have waited for him and he will save us this is the Lord we have waited for him we will be glad and rejoyce in his salvation But if it must suffice you to pray and you will still go on to traverse your old ways suffering your sins and the world to hold the head of you let not such men think they shall receive any thing of the Lord. Wherefore once again be exhorted to come to a point in this matter and determine what ye will do If ye will not heartily come in in this necessary design of advancing in holiness you may even stand aside and sit out from that of Prayer for any good we can expect from you But if you are resolved on the former and that with all imaginable seriousness you will the more prosper in the latter let both go together in one and thenceforth look for good speed in either Well shall this Decree immediately go forth Say the word once but let it be with an unalterable resolution at least be advised to this which I pray forget not from the day of your next solemn appearing before God in this duty of Prayer for the publick let your Decree be dated and if need be let the very day be written down and so go and let it be heedfully prosecuted and upon each return of this solemn service let it be actually and expresly renewed O Lord God of Abraham Isaac and Israel keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people and prepare their heart unto thee FINIS