A30158:307
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.
Poor souls! they are very apt to entertain strange thoughts of God, and his carriage towards them, and suddenly ⟨p. 103⟩to conclude, that God will have no regard unto them; when yet he is upon the Mercy-Seat, and hath taken up his place on purpose there, to the end he may hear and regard the prayers of poor creatures.
If he had said, I will commune with thee from my Throne of Judgement; then indeed you might have trembled and fled from the face of the great and glorious Majesty. But when he saith, he will hear and commune with souls upon the Throne of Grace, or from the Mercy-Seat; this should encourage thee, and cause thee to hope, nay to come boldly to the Throne of Grace, that thou mayest obtain mercy, and find Grace to help in time of need, Heb. 4. 16.
3. There is yet another Encouragement to continue in Prayer with God, and that is this.
As there is a Mercy-Seat, from whence God is willing to commune with poor sinners; so there is also by this Mercy-seat, Jesus Christ who continually