Of Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

To touch a little by the way, because this is of great importance, §. 9 I will instance in one of these, as I might in every one, that you may see the difference between a spiritual revealing of our minds unto Christ, in this Acceptable manner, and that praying upon conviction which others practice: and this shall be from the first, viz. the Assistance we have by the Spirit.

To touch a little by the way, because this is of great importance, §. 9 I will instance in one of these, as I might in every one, that you may see the difference between a spirituall revealing of our minds unto Christ, in this Acceptable manner, and that praying upon conviction which others practice: and this shall be from the first, viz. the Assistance we have by the Spirit.

1. The Spirit of Christ reveals to us our own wants, that we may reveal them unto him: we know not what &c. Rom. 8. 26. no teachings under those of the spirit of God are able to make our ¹souls acquainted with their own wants, its burdens, its Temptations. For a soul to know its wants, its Infirmities, is a Heavenly discovery. He that hath this ^xassistance, his prayer is more then half made before he begins to pray. His Conscience is affected with what he hath to do: his mind & Spirit contend within him, there especially where he finds himself most straitened. He brings his burden on his shoulders, & unloads himself on the Lord Christ. He finds (not by a perplexing Conviction, but an holy sense & weariness of sin) where he is dead, where dull and cold, wherein unbelieving, wherein tempted above all his strength, where the light of Gods countenance is wanting. And all these the soul hath a sense of, by the Spirit, an unexpressible sense and experience. Without this, prayer is not prayer: ^l