A53685:146
A discourse of the work of the Holy Spirit in prayer with a brief…
A discourse of the work of the Holy Spirit in prayer with a brief enquiry into the nature and use of mental prayer and forms / by John Owen ...
London: printed for Nathanael Ponder, 1682
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.
As it is with respect unto Sin, so it is with respect unto God and Christ, and the Covenant, Grace, Holiness and Privileges. We have no spiritual conceptions about them, no right Understanding of them, no insight into them, but what is given us by the Spirit of God. And without an Acquaintance with these things, what are our Prayers, or what do they signify? Men without them may say on to the World's ⟨p. 72⟩end, without giving any thing of Glory unto God, or obtaining of any Advantage unto their own Souls.
As it is with respect unto Sin, so it is with respect unto God and Christ, and the Covenant, Grace, Holiness and Priviledges. We have no spiritual conceptions about them, no right Understanding of them, no insight into them, but what is given us by the Spirit of God. And without an Acquaintance with these things, what are our Prayers, or what do they signifie? Men without them may say on to the World's ⟨p. 72⟩end, without giving any thing of Glory unto God, or obtaining of any Advantage unto their own Souls.
And this I place as the first part of the Work of the Spirit of Supplications in Believers, enabling them to pray, according to the mind of God, which of themselves they know not how to do, as is afterward in the place of the Apostle insisted on. When this is done, when a right apprehension of Sin and Grace, and of our concernment in them, is fixed on our minds, then have we in some measure the matter of Prayer always in readiness, which words and expressions will easily follow, though the Aid of the Holy Spirit be necessary thereunto also, as we shall afterwards declare.
And hence it is, that the Duty performed with respect unto this part of the Aid and assistance of the Spirit of God, is of late by some (as was said) vilified and reproached. Formerly their exceptions lay all of them against some Expressions or weakness of some Persons in conceived Prayer, which they liked. But now scorn is poured out upon the matter of Prayer it self, especially the humble and deep confessions of Sin, which on the discoveries