A30158:88
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.
Therefore give me leave a little to ⟨p. 45⟩reason with thee, thou poor, blind, ignorant Sot; It may be, thy great prayer is to say, Our Father which art in Heaven, &c. Dost thou know the meaning of the very first words of this Prayer? Canst thou indeed, with the rest of the Saints, cry, Our Father? Art thou truly born again? hast thou received the Spirit of Adoption? dost thou see thy self in Christ? and canst thou come to God as a Member of him? Or, art thou ignorant of these things, and yet darest say, Our Father? Is not the Devil thy Father, (John 8. 44.) and dost thou not do the deeds of the flesh? and yet darest thou say to God, Our Father? Nay, art thou not a desperate Persecutor of the Children of God? hast thou not cursed them in thy heart many a time? And yet, dost thou out of thy blasphemous throat suffer these words to come, even, Our Father?
He is their Father, whom thou hatest and persecutest.
But as the Devil presented himself amongst the Sons or God, Job 1. when ⟨p. 46⟩they were to present themselves before the Father, even our Father; so is it now: because the Saints are commanded to say, Our Father; therefore all the blind ignorant rabble in the world, they must also use the same words, Our Father.