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

(2.) It is a matter of Praise and Glory to God in an especial manner, that he hath granted an Ampliation of this Privilege under the Gospel. The Spirit is now poured forth from above, and enlarged in his dispensation both intensively and extensively. Those on whom he is bestowed, do receive him in a larger measure than they did formerly under the Old Testament. Thence is that Liberty and boldness in their access unto the Throne of Grace and their crying Abba Father, which the Apostle reckons among the great privileges of the Dispensation of the Spirit of Christ, which of old they were not partakers of. If the difference between the Old Testament State and the New, lay only in the outward letter and the Rule thereof, it would not be so easily discerned on which side the advantage lay; especially methinks it should not be so by them, who seem really to prefer the Pomp of Legal worship, before the plainness and simplicity of the Gospel. But he who understands what it is, not to receive the Spirit of Bondage to fear, but to receive the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father, and what it is to serve God in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter, understands their ⟨p. 158⟩difference well enough. And I cannot but admire that some will make use of Arguments, or a pretence of them, for such helps and Forms of Prayer as seem not compliant with the Work of the Spirit of Supplication before described, from the Old Testament, and the practice of the Church of the Jews before the time of our Saviour, though indeed they can prove nothing from thence. For do they not acknowledge that there is a more plentiful effusion of the Spirit on the Church under the New Testament than of the Old? To deny it, is to take away the principal difference between the Law and the Gospel. And is not the performance of Duties to be regulated according to the supplies of Grace? If we should suppose that the People being then carnal, and obliged to the observation of carnal ordinances, did in this particular stand in need of Forms of Prayer, which indeed they did not, of those which were merely so, and only so; nor had, that we know of, any use of them;

(2.) It is a matter of Praise and Glory to God in an especial manner, that he hath granted an Ampliation of this Priviledge under the Gospel. The Spirit is now poured forth from above, and enlarged in his dispensation both intensively and extensively. Those on whom he is bestowed, do receive him in a larger measure than they did formerly under the Old Testament. Thence is that Liberty and boldness in their access unto the Throne of Grace and their crying Abba Father, which the Apostle reckons among the great priviledges of the Dispensation of the Spirit of Christ, which of old they were not partakers of. If the difference between the Old Testament State and the New, lay only in the outward letter and the Rule thereof, it would not be so easily discerned on which side the advantage lay; especially methinks it should not be so by them, who seem really to preferr the Pomp of Legal worship, before the plainness and simplicity of the Gospel. But he who understands what it is, not to receive the Spirit of Bondage to fear, but to receive the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father, and what it is to serve God in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter, understands their