A30158:43
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
I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with the understanding… › Part 1: I. What Prayer is.
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.
All this is too too evident by the ignorance, profaneness, and spirit of envy, that reigns in the hearts of those men that are so hot for the Forms, and not the Power of prayer: Scarce one of forty among them, know what it is to be born again, to have communion with the Father through the Son; to feel the power of Grace sanctifying their hearts: but for all their prayers, they still live cursed, drunken, whorish, and abominable Lives, full of Malice, Envy, Deceit, Persecuting of the dear Children of God. Oh what a dreadful after-clap is coming upon them! which all their hypocritical assembling themselves together, with all their prayers, shall never be able to help them against, or shelter them from.
All this is too too evident by the ignorance, prophaness, and spirit of envy, that reigns in the hearts of those men that are so hot for the Forms, and not the Power of prayer: Scarce one of forty among them, know what it is to be born again, to have communion with the Father through the Son; to feel the power of Grace sanctifying their hearts: but for all their prayers, they still live cursed, drunken, whorish, and abominable Lives, full of Malice, Envy, Deceit, Persecuting of the dear Children of God. Oh what a dreadful after-clap is coming upon them! which all their hypocritical assembling themselves together, with all their prayers, shall never be able to help them against, or shelter them from.
Again, It is a pouring out of the Heart or Soul: There is in Prayer, an unbosoming of a man's self, an opening of the Heart to God, an affectionate pouring ⟨p. 15⟩out of the Soul in requests, sighs, and groans. All my desires are before thee (saith David, Psal. 38. 9.) my groanings are not hid from thee. And again, My soul thirsteth for God, even for the living God: When shall I come and appear before God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me, Psal. 42. 2, 3. Mark; I pour out my Soul: It is an Expression signifying, that in Prayer, there goeth the very life and whole strength to God. As in another place,