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.

He that would pray in his own spirit, must pray in the Spirit of God 1/2

           Having despatched the first importance of this phrase, ‘praying in the spirit,’ viz. the spirit of the person that prayeth, and shown that then a person prays in the spirit when his own soul and spirit acts in the duty—when he prays with understanding, fer­vency, and sincerity; now we proceed to the second importance of the phrase.  To pray ‘in the Spirit’ is to pray in, or with, the Spirit of God; ‘praying in the Holy Ghost,’ Jude 20.  So that the note or doctrine to be insisted on will be this,

           Doctrine.  That to right praying, it is necessary that we pray in, or by, the Spirit of God.  Prayer is the creature’s act, but the Spirit’s gift.  There is a concurrence both of the Spirit of God and the soul or spirit of the Christian to the performance of it.  Hence we find both the Holy Spirit is said to pray in us, Rom. 8:26, and we said to pray in him, Jude 20.  By the first is meant is his inspiration, whereby he excites and assists the creature to and in the work; by the latter the concurrence of the saint’s faculties.  The Spirit doth not so pray in him as that the Christian doth not exercise his own faculties in the duty, as the Familists Niclaes gained many followers, among them the great publisher Christophe Plantin, who surreptitiously printed a number of Niclaes’ works.  Niclaes apparently made two visits to England, where his sect had the largest following.  Elizabeth I issued a proclamation against the Family of Love in 1580, and James I believed it to have been the source of Puritanism.  The sect did not survive after the Restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, but according to George Fox, a British preacher and the founder of the Society of Friends (or Quakers), some remaining Familists later became associated with the Quakers.  —From Encyclopædia Britannica. fondly conceive.  In handling this point I shall endeavour to do these three things: First. I shall assert the point, and prove the truth of it. Second. Explicate what it is to pray by the Spirit of God.  Third. Make some application of the point.

           First. I shall assert the truth of the point, that to right praying it is necessary we pray by the Spirit of God.  This is clear from Eph. 2:18, ‘Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.’  Mark those words, ‘by one Spirit.’  As there is but one Mediator to appear and pray for us in heaven, so but one Spirit that can pray in us, and we by it, on earth. We may as well venture to come to the Father through another Mediator than his Son, as pray by another Spirit than by the Holy Ghost.  Therefore our Saviour, when he would show his dislike of the disciples rash motion, he doth it by telling them, ‘Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of,’ Luke 9:55. As if he had said, It behoves you to be well ac­quainted with the spirit that acts you in prayer; if your prayers be not breathed in and out by my Holy Spirit, they are abominable to me and my Father also.  The name of Christ is not more necessary that the Spirit of Christ is in prayer.  Christ’s name fits only the Spirit's mouth; it is too great a word for any to speak as he ought, that hath not the Spirit to help him. ‘No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost,’ I Cor. 12:3.  One may say the words without any special work of the Spirit in him, and so may a parrot; but, to say Christ is Lord believingly, with thoughts and affections comporting with the greatness and sweetness thereof, requires the Spirit of God to be in his heart and tongue.  Now it is not the bare naming of Christ in prayer, and saying, ‘For the Lord’s sake,’ that procure’s our welcome with God; but saying it in faith, and none an do this without the Spirit.  Christ is the door that opens into God’s presence, and lets the soul into his very bosom; faith is the key that unlocks the door; but the Spirit is he that both makes this key, and helps the Christian to turn it in prayer, so as to get any access to God.  You know in the law it was a sin, not only to offer ‘strange incense,’ but also to bring ‘strange fire,’ Lev. 10:1.  By the incense, which was a composition of sweet spices appointed by God to be burned as a sweet perfume in his nostrils, was signified the merit and satisfaction of Christ, who being bruised by his Father’s wrath, did offer up himself a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour.  By the fire that was put to the in­cense—which also was appointed to be taken from the altar, and not any common hearth—was signified the Spirit of God, by which we are to offer up all our prayers and praises, even as Christ offered himself up by the eternal Spirit.  To plead Christ’s merits in prayer and not by the Spirit, is to bring right incense but strange fire, and so our prayers are but smoke, of­fensive to his pure eyes, not incense, a sweet savour to his nostrils.