A30158:58
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.
II. I will pray with the Spirit.
Now to pray with the Spirit; for that's the praying man, and none else, so as to be accepted of God: It is for a man (as aforesaid) sincerely and sensibly, with affection to come to God through Christ, &c. which sincere, sensible, and affectionate coming, must be by the working of God's Spirit.
There is no man, nor Church in the world, that can come to God in Prayer but by the assistance of the holy Spirit; For (Eph. 2. 18.) through Christ we all have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Wherefore Paul saith, We know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit it self maketh intercession for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the heart, knoweth the meaning of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God. And because there is in this Scripture so full a discovery of the Spirit of Prayer, and of mans inability ⟨p. 29⟩to pray without it; therefore I shall in a few words comment upon it.
Rom. 15. 16. For we.] Consider first the person speaking, even Paul, and in his person all the Apostles. We Apostles, we extraordinary Officers, the wise Master-builders, that have some of us been caught up into Paradise,