He that would pray in his own spirit, must pray in the Spirit of God 2/2

           Second.  I proceed to explicate what it is to pray by the Spirit of God.  To the better opening of this, we must know that there are two ways that the Spirit of God helps persons in prayer; one way is by his gifts, the other by his grace.

           First.  The Spirit of God helps in prayer by his gifts.  Now those gifts which he furnisheth a person with for prayer are either extraordinary or ordinary. The extraordinary gifts of the Spirit in prayer were, in the primitive times, shed forth, whereby the apostles and others were able in a miraculous manner to pray as well as preach on a sudden in a language that they never had learned.  Of this gift interpreters under­stand that passage of Paul, ‘I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also,’ I Cor. 14:15.  That is, he would make use of this extraor­dinary gift Christ had furnished him with, but so as he might edify the church by it, and no otherwise.  This extraordinary gift was fitted for the infancy of the gospel church, and ceased—as others of the like nature did—with it.  The ordinary gift of the Spirit in prayer is that special faculty whereby persons are en­abled on a sudden to form the conceptions of their minds and desires of their hearts into apt words be­fore the Lord in prayer.  This is a common gift, and is bestowed on those that are none of the best men. The hypocrite may have more of this gift than some sincere Christian.  It is a gift that commonly bears proportion to natural endowments, a ready apprehen­sion, fruitful fancy, voluble tongue, and audacity of spirit, which are all gifts of the Spirit, and do dispose a person for this.  Now we see that the head may be ripe and the heart rotten; and, on the contrary, the heart sound and sincere where the head is low‑parted.

           Second. The Spirit helps in prayer by his grace. His gifts help to the outward expression, but his grace to the inward affection.  By the gifts of the Spirit a person is enabled to take the ear and affect the heart of men that hear him; but by the grace of the Spirit acting a soul in prayer, he is enabled to move his own heart and the heart of God also; and this is the man that indeed prays ‘in the Spirit.’  The other hath the gift, but this hath the spirit, of prayer.  Now, there is a twofold grace necessary to pray thus in the Spirit.  1. Grace from the Spirit to sanctify the person that prays.  2. Grace to act and assist this person sanctified in prayer.  By the first, the Spirit dwells in the soul; by the second, he acts the soul.

1. There is necessary to this praying in the Spirit, grace to sanctify the person that prays.  Before the creature is renewed and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, it can neither apprehend nor desire things aright.  ‘The carnal mind receiveth not the things of God,’ nay, ‘it is enmity to God.’  And is how such a one fit to pray in an acceptable manner?  First, then, the Spirit renews the creature by infusing those super­natural qualities, or habits of saving sanctifying graces, which makes him a new creature; by these he comes to dwell and live in him, and then he acts his own graces thus infused.  The soul is in the body before it acts and moves it.  We read of living in the Spirit and walking in the Spirit, Gal. 5:25: ‘If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.’  Walking supposeth life.  To pray, hear, or perform any other holy action in a holy manner, is to walk in the Spirit; but we must live in the Spirit, or the Spirit live in us —which is all one—before we can thus walk in the Spirit.  There are some acts indeed the Spirit of God puts forth upon souls that are not thus sanctified —acts of common illumination, restraining grace, and assisting also.  Thus many hypocrites are enabled to pray in excellent expressions.  But he never did assist hypocrite, or any unsanctified person, to perform the inward part of prayer, to mourn sincerely for sin, to pant after Christ and his grace, or to cry, ‘Abba Father,’ believingly; these are the vital acts of the new creature, and flow from a Spirit of grace infused into the soul, which follows this ‘spirit of supplication,’ Zech. 12:10.

           2. As habitual grace is required to sanctify the person, so actual grace to assist him as oft as he prays. The Spirit of God may dwell in a soul by his habitual grace, yet deny actual assistance to this or that parti­cular duty, and then the poor Christian is becalmed, as a ship at sea when no wind is stirring.  For as grace cannot evidence itself, so neither can it act itself. Hence it is that sometimes the saint’s prayers speed no better, because he is not acted by the Spirit in it.  Samson, when his lock was cut, was ‘weak like anoth­er man.’  A saint, when the Spirit of God denies his help, prays no better than a carnal man.  The Spirit of God is a free agent: ‘Uphold me,’ saith David, ‘with thy free spirit,’ Ps. 51:12.  He is not as a prisoner tied to the oar, that must needs work when we will have him; but, as a prince, when he pleaseth he comes forth and shows himself to the soul, and when he pleaseth he retires and will not be seen.  What freer than the wind? not the greatest king on earth can command it to rise for his pleasure; to this the Spirit of God is compared, John 3:8.  He is not only free to breathe where he lists, in this soul and not that, but when he pleaseth also.