I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also,…

While Prayer is making, God is searching the heart, to see from what root and spirit it doth arise. And he that searcheth the heart, knoweth (that is, approveth only) the meaning of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God, 1 John 5. 14. For in that which is according to his Will only he heareth us, and in nothing else. And it is the Spirit only that can teach us so to ask; it only being able to search out all things, even the deep things of God. Without which Spirit, though we had a thousand Common-Prayer-Books, yet we know not what we should pray for as we ought, being accompanied with those infirmities that make us absolutely uncapable of such a work. Which ⟨p. 34⟩infirmities, although it is a hard thing to name them all, yet some of them are these that follow.

While Prayer is making, God is searching the heart, to see from what root and spirit it doth arise. And he that searcheth the heart, knoweth (that is, approveth only) the meaning of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God, 1 John 5. 14. For in that which is according to his Will only he heareth us, and in nothing else. And it is the Spirit only that can teach us so to ask; it onely being able to search out all things, even the deep things of God. Without which Spirit, though we had a thousand Common-Prayer-Books, yet we know not what we should pray for as we ought, being accompanied with those infirmities that make us absolutely uncapable of such a work. Which ⟨p. 34⟩infirmities, although it is a hard thing to name them all, yet some of them are these that follow.

First, Without the Spirit, man is so infirm, that he cannot with all other means whatsoever, be enabled to think one right saving thought of God, of Christ, or of his blessed things; and therefore he saith of the wicked, God is not in all their thoughts,