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The saints daily exercise A treatise concerning the whole duty of prayer. Delivered in…The saints daily exercise A treatise concerning the whole dutie of prayer. Delivered in…
The saints daily exercise A treatise concerning the whole duty of prayer. Delivered in five sermons upon I Thess. 5.17. By the late faithful and worthy minister of Jesus Christ, John Preston, Dr. in Divinity, chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty, Master of Emmanuel College in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolns Inn.The saints daily exercise A treatise concerning the whole dutie of prayer. Delivered in fiue sermons vpon I Thess. 5.17. By the late faithfull and worthy minister of Iesus Christ, Iohn Preston, Dr. in Divinity, chaplaine in ordinary to his Maiesty, Master of Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge, and sometimes preacher of Lincolnes Inne.
London: printed by W. Jones, 1629London: printed by W. Iones, 1629
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
I take this to be the meaning of it, the Apostle his scope, is to distinguish the true and holy services of God from those that are but shadows, and counterfeit, that are but the body and carcass of right service. Therefore, when he saith. I serve the Lord in my spirit, or I pray in the spirit. The meaning is this, when the prayer of a man is not only that which the understanding dictates to him, but when the whole soul, the will and affection• go together with his petition, and whatsoever the petition is, a mans heart is affected accordingly. As, for example, if a man come to confess his sins, and yet sleights them inwardly in his heart; If a man pray for reconciliation with God, and yet have no longing and sighing in his heart after it, if he earnestly ask grace, and the •ortification of sinful lusts, when the heart doth not inwardly seek it, now he prays not in the spirit. To pray in the spirit is as that in John 4. 24. He will be worshipped in spirit and in truth. The m•ning is, so to pray, that the heart 1go together with our petition, also, this is the meaning of that […] •owreth forth his soul before the Lord. So […] saith of her self; I am a woman troubled, &c. And po•re •t my soul before the Lord. That is when a man delivers ⟨p. 8⟩to God that which the understanding and mind ha• devised (for prayer is not a work of […], or of memory,) but when a man poureth forth his whole soul (that is) his will, and affections, when they go together, when there is no reservation in his mind; but when all within him is opened and explicate, and exposed to the view of the Lord, not as […] saith of himself, when he came to pray for the mortifying of his lusts, saith he, I had a secret inward desire that it should not be done. Therefore when the soul is po•red earth, the meaning is, that all •e opened to him; so that when a man wi make an acceptable prayer, he must make this account, he must then call in all […] thoughts and affections, and collect them together […], o […] the sne