A discourse of the work of the Holy Spirit in prayer with a brief…

They are indeed sometimes ready of themselves to like things spiritual under false Notions of them, and divine Worship under Superstitious Ornaments and meretricious dresses, in which respect they are the spring and life of all that Devotion, ⟨p. 70⟩which is in the Church of Rome. But take Heavenly and Spiritual things in themselves with respect unto their proper Ends, and there is in all our Affections, as corrupted, a dislike of them and aversation unto them, which variously act themselves, and influence our Souls unto Vanities and disorders in all Holy Duties. And no man knows what it is to pray, who is not exercised in Supplications for mortifying, changing and renewing of these Affections as spiritually irregular. And yet is it the Spirit of God alone, which discovereth these things unto us and gives us a sense of our concernment in them. I say the Spiritual irregularity of our Affections, and their Aversation from spiritual things, is discernible in no Light, but that of supernatural illumination. For if without that, Spiritual things themselves cannot be discerned, as the Apostle assures us they cannot, 1 Cor. 2. it is impossible that the disorder of our Affections with respect unto them, should be so. If we know not an object in the true nature of it, we cannot know the actings of our minds towards it. Wherefore although there be in our Affections an innate universal aversation from spiritual things, seeing by nature we are wholly alienated ⟨p. 71⟩from the life of God, yet can it not be discerned by us in any Light but that which discovers these spiritual things themselves unto us. Nor can any man be made sensible of the Evil and Guilt of that disorder, who hath not a Love also implanted in his Heart unto those things, which it finds obstructed thereby. Wherefore the Mortification of these Affections and their Renovation with respect unto things Spiritual and Heavenly, being no small part of the matter of the Prayers of Believers, as being an especial part of their Duty, they have no otherwise an acquaintance with them or sense of them, but as they receive them by Light and Conviction from the Spirit of God. And those who are destitute hereof must needs be strangers unto the Life and Power of the Duty of Prayer it self.