A30158:248
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.
First.
When men regard iniquity in their hearts, at the time of their Prayers before God. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear my Prayer, Psal. 66. 18. For the preventing of temptation, that by the misunderstanding of this, may seize thy heart; when there is a secret love to that ⟨p. 88⟩very thing, which thou with thy dissembling lips dost ask for strength against. For this is the wickedness of man's heart, that it will even love, and hold fast that, which with the mouth it prayeth against; and of this sort are they, that honour God with their mouth, but their heart is far from him, Ezek. 33. 31.
O how ugly would it be in our eyes, if we should see a beggar ask an alms, with intention to throw it to the dogs! Or, that should say with one breath, Pray you bestow this upon me; and with the next, I beseech you give it me not. And yet thus it is with these kind of persons; with their mouth they say, Thy Will be done; and with their hearts nothing less. With their mouth say▪ Hallowed be thy Name; and with their hearts and lives, they delight to dishonour him all the day long.