Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	pray_v	prayer_n	supplication_n	6,912	5	11.1562	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53961	A practical discourse upon prayer by Edward Pelling ...	Pelling, Edward, d. 1718.	1693 (1693)	Wing P1088; ESTC R9437	29,107	80

signifying the Spiritual Cleanness which is requisite in all that prepare themselves to speak unto the God of Purity And so the Psalmist explains it Psal 26. 6. I will wash my hands in Innocency and so will I compass thine Altar O Lord. These places of Scripture do not mean that we must not Pray if we have committed Sin or if we have the sense of any guilt upon us No we must Pray the rather that God may forgive and pardon the Sins we have committed But the meaning is that we are not to go to our Prayers with the love of Sin about us or with purposes to Sin on still Our Souls must be clean and pure from wicked Resolutions and Affections we must appear before the Lord empty in this sense void of all sinful Habits and Intentions The Heart is the Censer and it must be Holy and the Incense must be Holy which comes out of it If any Lusts of Uncleanness be burning there it is as abominable as the offering up of Unhallowed fire If there be Envy or Hatred Malice Bitterness or designs of Revenge it is as if we lifted up hands defiled with Blood For in the construction of the Gospel he that hateth his Brother is a murderer 1 Jo. 3. 15. If there be that which the Scripture calls Filthiness of Spirit it is like the offering of Swines-Flesh If there be a Ravenous or Quarrelsome temper it is like the presenting of a Dog's Neck If there be an insatiable or inordinate love of the World it is like Sacrificing to an Idol We should be sure therefore at our Devotion to have Penitent and Honest Hearts pure Affections and gracious Lips It is the Holy Person that makes the Prayer Holy that Sanctifies the Altar and the Sacrifice upon it so as to make the savour thereof sweet in God's Nostrils Where Sin lyeth at the Door it stops the passage of Prayer and hinders it from being successful Such a one hath no benefit either by his own Prayers or other Mens Witness the Story of Achan Jos 7. Achan had kept some of the spoil of Jericho which was consecrated unto the Lord this Sin was imputed to the whole Congregation and God refused to hear Joshua's Prayer for them The Lord said unto Joshua get thee up wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face Israel hath sinned for they have even taken of the accursed Thing that is the thing which was devoted unto me and which hath now brought a Curse upon them Jos 7. 10 11. Sin unrepented of hinders the Power and Efficacy of Prayer II. Besides Innocence of Heart there is required in a devout Person Constancy and Perservance Pray without ceasing 1 Thess 5. 17. Continuing instant in Prayer Rom. 12. 12. Praying always with all Prayer and Supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance Ephes 6. 18. Continue in Prayer and watch in the same with Thanksgiving Col. 4. 2. All which commands are pursuant to that of our Blessed Saviour that Men ought always to Pray and not to faint Luk. 18. 1. These places of Scripture are not to be understood in such a strict sense as if we were to employ our whole time at Prayer without doing any thing else for that is inconsistent with the business of our Calings and impossible for humane Nature to do But the meaning is that our minds must always be devoutly disposed that some portions of every day should be set aside for Prayer that we should be diligent and frequent at it addicted to it and intent upon it and that we should not let slip any set or convenient hours of Devotions but observe them constantly as oft as they return As Saint Chrysostom hath rightly noted in Col. 4. 2. the Devil throughly knows what a good thing Prayer is and therefore he mightily endeavours to keep People from it He draws them into his own Snares by drawing them away from God by tempting them first to Pray seldom and so by degrees to give it quite over By this wile of the Devil there is a great strangeness between them and God which at last endeth in direct Enmity and then it falls out as it happens usually in differences between Man and Man that the offender is the hardest to be Reconciled It is therefore our Wisdom to Renew our Prayers and to draw nigh unto God often to repair to him as frequently at least as the Holy Psalmist speaks of Evening and Morning and at Noonday will I pray and cry aloud Ps 55. 17. By this means our Hearts will be kept up at a high Key our acquaintance with God will not only be preserved but increase too the Duty it self will become easie and delightful our Life will resemble in some measure the Heavenly state and we shall prepare our selves by it for the services of Eternity the Joys above will be our portion here our Conversation will be every day in Heaven together with our Hearts our Temptations unto Sin will lessen our irregular Affections will be the better conquered and the sooner transformed into a Divine Love and if there could be a Sinless state on Earth this would be the ready way to it because it would keep the minds of Men under a continual Awe and Dread of offending that Holy Just and Omniscient Being in whose Presence they must appear and to whose Majesty they must speak the next hour Besides we must not always expect to be heard for once or twice speaking God doth many times suspend the answering our desires to Try and Exercise our Faith to envigorate our Zeal to make our Devotion the more fervent and our Addresses to him the more and more importunate like the crys of the restless Widow in the Parable which our Saviour used as an argument to shew that Men ought always to pray and not to faint Luke 18. If therefore our wants are not supplied as we would have them the fault is in our selves because we are not so Constant so Frequent so Importunate at our Prayers as we should be It is a set and stated Course of Devotion that God is pleased with and this is one reason why we reap so little profit by all our Labours under the Sun because we squander away a great part of our time upon Vanity or upon Vice which should be devoted unto God to maintain a continual intercourse and communion with him and to fetch down his Blessings upon us Such an intercourse as was between God and Jacob when the Angels were Ascending and Descending on the Ladder III. Prayer must be accompanied with Faith If any of you lack Wisdom let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him But let him ask in Faith or with Faith nothing wavering c. James 1. 5 6. The meaning is not that we must always confidently believe that we shall most certainly receive every particular thing we pray for We cannot confidently expect what

employ them with such seriousness and united consideration as if we were going to die The custom of the Lord Jesus was to go up to some Mountain to pray thereby teaching all his followers to take their leave of the World for the due performance of their Devotion and during the time of it to retire as near as may be to Heaven and to have their minds there and there only To draw nigh unto God with our Lips and at the same time to let our thoughts rove and ramble and run away at a great distance from him is in effect to tell God that we are willing to pay him some outward Civility but care not for the business we come to him about and how then can we expect that God will attend to it 'T is necessary therefore to recollect our selves to fix our minds when we fall down on our Knees before him and in order thereunto we should consider how infinitely great that Being is to whom we make our Addresses and of what vast importance the thing is which we are transacting with him no less than the Eternal Welfare of our Soul and Body which we should pray for with the greater attention because we are not sure of another Opportunity to sollicite God about it At the Publick Service of the Church it is an excellent means to keep our thoughts at Home to give great heed to what is uttered by him that ministreth that is our Mouth and Intercessour not to lose a word but to keep an even pace with him in our Meditations and as he goes along to mind ponder and weigh the things spoken because the Soul lodgeth so near unto the Ear that if the door be open to let in the voice the Inhabitant within cannot but listen and be attentive VI. If we carefully observe this it will help to carry us on to that which is another Qualification of Prayer I mean Affection and Fervency When we apprehend and mind the matter of our Prayers and add to it an Earnestness and Vehemence of desire then is our Devotion truly said to be Fervent and Affectionate And this is one sense of that Phrase which we meet with thrice in the Epistles Praying with the Spirit 1 Cor. 14. 15. Supplication in the Spirit Ephes 6. 18. and Praying in the Holy Spirit Jude 20. In the strict sense it signifies Praying by the Extraordinary Assistance and Gift of the third Person in the Holy Trinity For in those first times of Christianity there was among many other Extraordinary Gifts a Miraculous Gift of Prayer wherewith some of the Church were Divinely and immediately inspired so that they were able on a sudden to conceive and utter Prayers which were apt and suitable to the Christian Religion the old Jewish Forms being then some of them useless and all of them imperfect because the condition of Church-affairs was now changed Upon this account there was then great need of an exttaordinary Gift of Prayer to supply the wants of the Christian Assemblies But this extraordinary Gift ceased in a little time stated Forms of Divine Service being provided for the Churches use Forms which had been Originally conceived by inspired Men and which were afterward preserved and used See Dr. Hammond an Jude the 20th and his Vindication of the Liturgy by those who had benefited so much by them There is no such thing as Praying by the Spirit in a strict sense or Praying by the extraordinary Gift of the Holy Ghost nor in truth is there any need of it now when there is a sufficiency of Useful Ancient and excellent Forms And yet we must in some sense pray in or by the Spirit or else our Prayers will do us no good We must pray with that Zeal which is kindled in the Heart by the ordinary operation of the Holy Spirit We must Pray with Spiritual Affection with ardency of Desire with Fervency of Spirit and with Hearts lifted up and Inflamed Our Prayers must not be Spiritless nor must we be Cold or Lukewarm at them God heareth not Prayers which are offered up by People that do not stir up their Affections nor chafe their Desires nor move their Minds into a Warmth but Pray carelesly as if they were indifferent whether God heard them or no. Such Prayers can never reach the Heavens they are lost by the way they drop down presently to the ground for want of Affection and Fervency which should have been their Wings In short when we call upon God we should imploy all the powers and faculties of our Souls and lay out our whole Man upon the business before us and because the consideration of God's Attributes gives life and vigour to the whole body of Religion we should possess our minds with the sense of those perfections and especially with the sense of his great Goodness For as the Notion of his Greatness Power Justice and Omnipresence is naturally apt to create in us attention of mind to what we say so the consideration of his Mercy and Benignity is enough to Charm our Affections In order therefore to Fervency in Prayer let us think of the wonderful kindness and goodness of God and carry the thoughts of it along with us throughout the whole tenor of our Devotion how good he is in his own Nature how Communicative and Beneficent to his poor Creatures how Gracious to Mankind how Merciful to Sinners how easie to be intreated upon our Repentance and how ready he is to pardon Iniquity Transgression and Sin 2. We should cast our selves down under an humble sense of our own Unworthiness and Vileness and with a thankful acknowledgment of the Happiness we have that Worms Dust and Ashes Nothings Creatures that by our Sins are worse than nothing have the favour and freedom to speak before him and to him These Considerations are good inward means to raise our Hearts and Affections into a warmth when we lift up our voice in Prayer To which I shall add 3. but one direction more touching outward help and it is in all your Devotions to use some wholesome and affecting Forms of Prayer Whatever hath been objected against them they are all Pious and Unprejudiced Spirits of great advantage For thereby the Soul is rid of a great variety of thoughts which bring Distractions The Mind is not at a loss for Words nor the Invention to seek for Matter nor is there that fear upon us which otherwise must needs be upon all humble men of speaking irreverently or unbecomingly to God Every thing else being prepared we have no more to do but to prepare our Hearts and stir our Affections The Wood and the Sacrifice being ready at hand our only business is to bring Fire to the Altar and to keep it burning And here let me recommend unto your special use those Forms of Prayer which our Church useth in her Publick Liturgy Forms that carry with them the true Spirit of Primitive Christianity and are agreeable to those