A30158:126
I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also,…
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.
London : Printed for the author, 1663
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.
It is the easiest thing of an hundred, to fall from the Power to the Form; but it is the hardest thing of many, to keep in the Life, Spirit and Power of any one duty, especially Prayer: That is such a work, that a man without the help of the Spirit cannot so much as pray once; much less, continue without it in a sweet praying frame, and in praying, so to pray, as to have his Prayers to ascend into the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth.
It is the easiest thing of an hundred, to fall from the Power to the Form; but it is the hardest thing of many, to keep in the Life, Spirit and Power of any one duty, especially Prayer: That is such a work, that a man without the help of the Spirit cannot so much as pray once; much less, continue without it in a sweet praying frame, and in praying, so to pray, as to have his Prayers to ascend into the ears of the Lord God of Sabbaoth.
Jacob did not only begin, but held it; I will not let thee go, unless thou bless me, Gen. 32.
So did the rest of the Godly, Hos. 12. 4. But this could not be without the Spirit of Prayer. It is through the Spirit that we have access to the Father, Ephes. 2. 18.