SERMON II.

PART II.

3. THE Spirit of God is given us as an antidote against evil concupiscences and sinful desires, and is then called the Spirit of prayer and supplication.' For, ever since the affections of the outward man prevailed upon the ruins of the soul, all our desires were sensual, and therefore hurtful: for, ever after, our body grew to be our enemy. In the loosenesses of nature, and amongst the ignorance or imperfection of Gentile philosophy, men used to pray with their hands full of rapine, and their mouths full of blood; and their hearts full of malice; and they prayed accordingly, for an opportunity to steal, for a fair body, for a prosperous revenge, for a prevailing malice, for the satisfaction of whatsoever they could be tempted to by any object, by any lust, by any devil, whatsoever.

The Jews were better taught; for God was their teacher, and he gave the Spirit to them in single rays. But as the 'Spirit of obsignation' was given to them under a seal, and within a veil so the Spirit of manifestation,' or 'patefaction,' was like the gem of a vine, or the bud of a rose, plain 'indices' and significations of life, and principles of juice and sweetness; but yet scarce out of the doors of their causes : they had the infancy of knowledge, and revelations to them were given as catechism is taught to our children; which they read with the eye of a bird, and speak with the tongue of a bee, and understand with the heart of a child; that is, weakly and imperfectly. And they understand so little, that 1. they thought God heard them not, unless they spake their prayers, at least, efforming their words within their lips; and, 2. their forms of prayer were so few and seldom, that to teach a form of prayer, or to compose a collect, was thought a work fit for a prophet, or the founder of an institution. 3. Add to this, that, as their promises were temporal, so were their hopes; as were their hopes, so were their desires: and, according to their desires, so were their prayers. And although the Psalms of David was their great office, and the treasury of devotion to their nation, and very worthily; yet it was full of wishes, for temporals, invocations of God the avenger, on God the

Lord of hosts, on God the enemy of their enemies: and they desired their nation to be prospered, and themselves blessed, and distinguished from all the world by the effects of such desires. This was the state of prayer in their synagogues ; save only that it had also this allay; 4. that their addresses to God were crass, material, typical, and full of shadows and imaginary, and patterns of things to come; and so in its very being and constitution was relative and imperfect. But that we may see how great things the Lord hath done for us, God hath poured his Spirit into our hearts, the Spirit of prayer and supplication.'

And now, 1. Christians pray in their spirit,' with sighs and groans, and know that God, who dwells with them, can as clearly distinguish those secret accents, and read their meaning in the Spirit, as plainly as he knows the voice of his own thunder, or could discern the letter of the law written in the tables of stone by the finger of God.

2. Likewise, "the Spirit helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for, as we ought." That is, when God sends an affliction or persecution upon us, we are indeed extreme apt to lay our hand upon the wound, and never take it off, but when we lift it up in prayer to be delivered from that sadness; and then we pray fervently to be cured of a sickness, to be delivered from a tyrant, to be snatched from the grave, not to perish in the danger. But the Spirit of God hath, from all sad accidents, drawn the veil of error and the cloud of intolerableness, and taught us that our happiness cannot consist in freedom or deliverances from persecutions, but in patience, resignation, and noble sufferance; and that we are not then so blessed when God hath turned our scourges into ease and delicacy, as when we convert our very scorpions into the exercise of virtues so that now the Spirit having helped our infirmities, that is, comforted our weaknesses and afflictions, our sorrows and impatience, by this proposition, that "All things work together for the good of them that fear God," he taught us to pray for grace, for patience under the cross, for charity to our persecutors, for rejoicing in tribulation, for perseverance and boldness in the faith, and for whatsoever will bring us safely to heaven.

3. Whereas only a Moses or a Samuel, a David or a Daniel, a John the Baptist or the Messias himself, could de

scribe and indite forms of prayer and thanksgiving to the tune and accent of heaven; now every wise and good man is instructed perfectly in the Scriptures,-which are the writings of the Spirit,-what things he may, and what things he must ask for.

4. The Spirit of God hath made our services to be spiritual, intellectual, holy, and effects of choice and religion, the consequence of a spiritual sacrifice, and of a holy union with God. The prayer of a Christian is with the effects of the 'Spirit of sanctification;' and then we pray with the Spirit, when we pray with holiness, which is the great fruit, the principal gift, of the Spirit. And this is by St. James called " the prayer of faith," and is said to be certain that it shall prevail. Such a praying with the Spirit when our prayers are the voices of our spirits, and our spirits are first taught, then sanctified by God's Spirit, shall never fail of its effect; because then it is that the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us; that is, hath enabled us to do it upon his strengths; we speak his sense, we live his life, we breathe his accents, we desire in order to his purposes, and our persons are gracious by his holiness, and are accepted by his interpellation and intercession in the act and offices of Christ. This is praying with the Spirit.'-To which, by way of explication, I add these two annexes of holy prayer, in respect of which also every good man prays with the Spirit.

5. The Spirit gives us great relish and appetite to our prayers; and this St. Paul calls "serving of God in his Spirit," TVEúuari nov; that is, with a willing mind: not as Jonas did his errand, but as Christ did die for us; he was straitened till he had accomplished it. And they—that say their prayers out of custom only, or to comply with external circumstances, or collateral advantages, or pray with trouble and unwillingness,—give a very great testimony that they have not the Spirit of Christ within them, that Spirit which maketh intercession for the saints: but he that delighteth in his prayers, not by a sensible or fantastic pleasure, but whose choice dwells in his prayers, and whose conversation is with God in holy living, and praying accordingly, that man hath the Spirit of Christ, and therefore belongs to Christ; for by this Spirit it is that Christ prays in heaven for us and if we

do not pray on earth in the same manner according to our measures, we had as good hold our peace; our prayers are an abominable sacrifice, and send up to God no better a perfume, than if we burned assa foetida,' or the raw flesh of a murdered man upon the altar of incense.

6. The Spirit of Christ and of prayer helps our infirmities, by giving us confidence and importunity. I put them together for as our faith is, and our trust in God, so is our hope, and so is our prayer; weary or lasting, long or short, not in words, but in works and in desires: for the words of prayer are no part of the Spirit of prayer. Words may be the body of it, but the Spirit of prayer always consists in holiness, that is, in holy desires and holy actions. Words are not properly capable of being holy; all words are in themselves servants of things; and the holiness of a prayer is not at all concerned in the manner of its expression, but in the spirit of it, that is, in the violence of its desires, and the innocence of its ends, and the continuance of its employment. This is the verification of that great prophecy which Christ made, that "in all the world the true worshippers should worship in spirit and in truth;" that is, with a pure mind, with holy desires, for spiritual things, according to the mind of the Spirit, in the imitation of Christ's intercession, with perseverance, with charity or love. That is the Spirit of God, and these are the spiritualities of the Gospel, and the formalities of prayers as they are Christian and evangelical.

7. Some men have thought of a seventh way, and explicate our praying in the Spirit by a mere volubility of language which indeed is a direct undervaluing the Spirit of God and of Christ, the Spirit of manifestation and intercession' it is to return to the materiality and imperfection of the law; it is to worship God in outward forms, and to think that God's service consists in shells and rinds, in lips and voices, in shadows and images of things; it is to retire from Christ to Moses, and, at the best, it is going from real graces to imaginary gifts. And when praying with the Spirit hath in it so many excellences, and consists of so many parts of holiness and sanctification, and is an act of the inner man; we shall be infinitely mistaken, if we let go this substance, and catch at the shadow, and sit down and rest in the imagination of an improbable, unnecessary, use

less gift of speaking, to which the nature of many men, and the art of all learned men, and the very use and confidence of ignorant men, is too abundantly sufficient. Let us not so despise the Spirit of Christ, as to make it no other than the breath of our lungs. For though it might be possible, that at the first, and when forms of prayer were few and seldom, the Spirit of God might dictate the very words to the Apostles, and first Christians; yet, it follows not, that therefore he does so still, to all that pretend praying with the Spirit. For if he did not then, at the first, dictate words (as we know not whether he did or no), why shall he be supposed to do so now? If he did then, it follows that he does not now: because his doing it then, was sufficient for all men since for so the forms taught by the Spirit, were patterns for others to imitate, in all the descending ages of the church. There was once an occasion so great, that the Spirit of God did think it a work fit for him, to teach a man to weave silk, or embroider gold, or work in brass (as it happened to Bezaleel and Aholiab): but then, every weaver or worker in brass may, by the same reason, pretend that he works by the Spirit, as that he prays by the Spirit, if by prayer he means forming the words. For although in the case of working, it was certain that the Spirit did teach,-in the case of inditing or forming the words, it is not certain whether he did or no: yet because in both it was extraordinary (if it was at all), and ever since in both it is infinitely needless; to pretend the Spirit, in forms of every man's making (even though they be of contrary religions, and pray one against the other), it may serve an end of a fantastic and hypochondriacal religion, or a secret ambition, but not the ends of God, or the honour of the Spirit.

The Jews in their declensions to folly and idolatry did worship the stone of imagination, that is, certain smooth images, in which, by art-magic, pictures and little faces were represented, declaring hidden things and stolen goods; and God severely forbade this baseness.* But we also have taken up this folly, and worship the stone of imagination : we beget imperfect phantasms and speculative images in our fancy, and we fall down and worship them; never considering, that the Spirit of God never appears through such spec

* Levit. xxvi. 1.