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

(5.) There is an use herein of the Natural Abilities of Invention, Memory and Elocution. Why should not men use in the Service and Worship of God what God hath given them, that they may be able to serve and worship him? Yea, it setteth off the Use and Excellency of this Spiritual Gift, that in the Exercise of it, we use and act our Natural Endowments and Abilities, as spiritualised by Grace, which in the ⟨p. 133⟩way, set up in Competition with it, cannot be done. The more the Soul is engaged in its Faculties and Powers, the more intent it is in and unto the Duty.

Nor do I deny but that this Gift may be varied in degrees and divers Circumstances according unto these Abilities, though it have a Being of its own, distinct from them. Even in Extraordinary Gifts, as in the receiving and giving out of immediate Revelations from God, there was a variety in outward Modes and Circumstances which followed the diversity and variety of the Natural Abilities and Qualifications of them who were employed in that Work. Much more may this Difference both be, and appear, in the Exercise of ordinary Gifts, which do not so absolutely influence and regulate the faculties of the mind, as the other.

Nor do I deny but that this Gift may be varied in degrees and divers Circumstances according unto these Abilities, though it have a Being of its own, distinct from them. Even in Extraordinary Gifts, as in the receiving and giving out of immediate Revelations from God, there was a variety in outward Modes and Circumstances which followed the diversity and variety of the Natural Abilities and Qualifications of them who were imployed in that Work. Much more may this Difference both be, and appear, in the Exercise of ordinary Gifts, which do not so absolutely influence and regulate the faculties of the mind, as the other.