A30158:79
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.
Fourthly, If men did see their sins, yet without the help of the Spirit, they would not pray: For they would run away from God, with Cain and Judas, and utterly despair of mercy, were it not for the Spirit. When a man is indeed sensible of his sin, and God's curse, then it is an hard thing to persuade him to pray; For saith his heart, There is no hope, It is in vain to seek God, Jer. 2. 25. Jer. 18. 12. I am so vile, so wretched, and so cursed a creature, that I shall never be regarded. Now here ⟨p. 40⟩comes the Spirit, and stayeth the soul, helpeth it to hold up its face to God, by letting into the heart some small sense of mercy, to encourage it to go to God; and hence it is called the Comforter, John 14. 26.
Fourthly, If men did see their sins, yet without the help of the Spirit, they would not pray: For they would run away from God, with Cain and Judas, and utterly despair of mercy, were it not for the Spirit. When a man is indeed sensible of his sin, and God's curse, then it is an hard thing to perswade him to pray; For saith his heart, There is no hope, It is in vain to seek God, Jer. 2. 25. Jer. 18. 12. I am so vile, so wretched, and so cursed a creature, that I shall never be regarded. Now here ⟨p. 40⟩comes the Spirit, and stayeth the soul, helpeth it to hold up its face to God, by letting into the heart some small sence of mercy, to encourage it to go to God; and hence it is called the Comforter, John 14. 26.