Chapter 6

CHAP. VI.

Q. Whether or no are we to believe, pray, praise, read, confer only then when the Spirit actually moves us to believe, pray, praise, &c. and not otherwise? 1. Duties are to be done under spiritual withdrawings. 2. The precept and the influence differ. 3. We are and may pray at fixed hours.

The question is the same of elicite acts, of love, fear, hope, faith, and of imperate acts of praying, hearing, praising; only the difference is, hardly can we set a time to believing; the object sometime wakens us (Psalm 56:3): What time I am afraid, I'll trust in you; otherwise that binds ever, which is (Psalm 62:8): Trust in him at all times. The Lord has more fixed a time for praying continually, and for praising the Lord always (1 Thessalonians 5; Psalm 146:1).

2. The question is alike in all actions, and in spiritual and supernatural actions; as whether the husbandman may plow and sow at fit seasons, or only when the Lord the cause of causes joins his influence; for these and the like are no less impossible without the connatural influences of God, than the acts of praying, believing without the supernatural influences of grace. Now we would think it ridiculous, should the husbandman never plow but only when he is disposed to plow; suppose he sleep longer in the morning than he should.

3. The actual influence cannot be a rule; for we cannot know or feel the actual influence of God, Creator, or of grace, but only when we are aworking.

4. The question of the obligation is one thing, and the question of ability to pray is another; for Magus yet in the gall of bitterness, is under the obligation of a commandment (Acts 8:22): Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thoughts of your heart may be forgiven you. And in a state of nature, he is most unable and so far more indisposed to pray and repent; and the believing Thessalonians are under a command to pray continually (1 Thessalonians 5:17), to praise, to rejoice (ver. 16, 18), whatever their indisposition be. Now though the man fallen in Adam be unable to keep and do the law, and natural men living in the visible Church, be unable and indisposed to believe in Christ and to pray, yet except we say that such are under neither law nor Gospel, we cannot say that men, because of their wretched estate, are not obliged to pray, believe, love Christ, walk with God. Libertines say it is unlawful and a taking of the name of God in vain, to aim at praying, when the Spirit withdraws. Suppose we could not reconcile our inability and our indisposition to pray, nor the acting of strong grace and of weak will; yet when God has undeniably commanded duties and promised in the new Covenant grace, and gives the new heart, and the habit of grace, no man has warrant upon the account of the Lord's denying influence to abstain from duties; for upon the same account one might cast himself in the fire, and another in the water; why, it may be the Lord shall deny his influence to the fire and water, to burn or consume us, and so the water shall not overwhelm me, nor the fire consume me, though I wickedly cast myself in fire and water.

Now what Familists and Libertines may object on the contrary should be heard.

Obj. 1. We are never to take the name of God in vain, but to pray without the acting of the Spirit is to take the name of God in vain.

Ans. The antecedent is true; we are never to take the name of God in vain, nor obliged to any sin: but the consequence is naught; therefore we are not to pray, nor obliged to pray, except the Spirit either by disposition facilitate us, or actually move us; for the disposition or actual motion of the Spirit, is neither our rule, nor a part of our rule. For 1. The command to pray is the common obliging rule to both elect and reprobate, and obligeth all equally; but neither the spiritual disposition, nor the saving acting of the Spirit so equal to all is our rule. 2. The command is exposed to every one to make use of it as he pleases; but the saving acting of the Spirit is not in every man's power. 3. The command is a rule and object of our faith, and gives me not strength to obey; but the heavenly disposition and saving acting are not the object, but the efficient cause which adds strength to obey: the command craves the debt; it is true, it is impossible to pray in faith without the acting of the Spirit; it follows only that it is so impossible that we are also guilty and unexcusable in our virtual desiring that it may be so. We are wounded but we love to shed our own blood. As also in the regenerate there is never an utter withdrawing; the habit of grace keeps the heart warm, and loves to be blown upon and stirred, even under actual ceasing of breathings.

Obj. 2. When there is an utter ceasing of the Spirit, it would appear that the Spirit forbids us to lift at his work, until the Spirit the only master of work be there himself.

Ans. One of the three is ever a work, either the Father is waiting till the Son pray (John 14), or the Son is commanding the breathings of the Spirit. It is some casual work that the sinner is the passive object of the Spirit; there is never an utter ceasing of the Spirit. There are some habitual stirrings of the seed of God under the ceasing of actual influence, as the ripe apple inclines to fall off the tree when there is no shaking of it; the ship is a mending in the shore when she sails not: and if it were no more, but one of the three is a working about a child of God; it is not to be despised; for who knows the thoughts of Christ and his pleading in Heaven for such as suffer the evil of affliction for Christ? And if a believer wrestle under deadness, Christ much more is a work to help a more spiritual sufferer, to wit, one that is as it were a patient under sin and flesh, and the withdrawing of God.

Obj. 3. There is no commandment in the New Testament for the doing of half a duty, to wit, to pray and not to pray in faith, and fervor; therefore we cannot be commanded to pray, when the Spirit withdraws his influence, without which, the duty, of necessity, must be lame and broken.

Ans. It follows not, for there is less of the Gospel in the command as a command; for, in either Law-command or in Gospel-precept, the Lord commands whole and unbroken obedience; and in it God seeks somewhat, which he lost in Adam, which we are obliged to doe, and he is under no Law to give us grace to obey; and as is said, we are willing to want his help, where the command should put us to a humble missing and mourning for our wants, and a distrusting of our own strength, and a weeping over our broken condition, and a high prizing of our surety and his strength. 2. Its a part of command that we go about the bulk or body of the duty, and gather together the dry bones and wait humbly until he command the Wind and Spirit to blow on them, and we sin in omitting of half a command.

Obj. 4. His yoak is easie, and his Commandments are not grievous; but if it be not in our power to pray, when he withdraws, his Commandments shall be unpossible and his yoak heavy.

Ans. His command is easie by the grace of God and love of Christ; the wheels move sweetly, when grace and love oyls the soul; and yet it no more hinders that we cannot pray, when he withdraws, then the burning of the fire, and the rising of the sun, which are works of nature most easie and sweet, are possible; when the Lord forbids the fire to burn, and the sun to rise, his Gospel commands actu primo, of themselves are sweet, but under withdrawings hard and legal.

Obj. 5. Praying and seeking of God at set and fixed hours were not lawful; for if we cannot pray, but when the Spirit moves us, we cannot say, we shall pray at any hour: for we cannot tie the Spirit's joyning to our hours; and again, if we are to pray at any hour we please, we use the habit of grace and supplication, when, and as we will; as a Musitian may sing when he will, or not sing.

Ans. 1. We have not any question now about religious set hours, such as the morning and evening Sacrifice, or the three hours of prayer used by David, Morning, Evening, and at Noon (Psalms 55:17), and Daniel (chapter 6:10, 11), (Acts 3:1), (Acts 10:3, 9, 10), and the godly Jews; for by no divine precept are we tied to such hours. Papists abuse the Scripture to Canonick hours; but in Christian prudence we may fix a time to reading, praying, conferring on the Word, and to other sacred duties; yet do we not tie the Spirit's joyning to our hour; the man Christ set a night apart for praying; and so did Jacob for wrestling by tears with the great Angel (Genesis 32:24), (Hosea 12:3, 4), without limitting the Spirit in his influences to any time; nor yet will it follow that we use the habit or spirit of grace and supplication, when we will; for sanctified will is to set the time, and to actuate it self by the habit of grace. And the same Argument shall conclude, that the Husbandman who sets a time for plowing and sowing, must limit the Lord to joyn his influences: for except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain, who build it; though they set days to the hired Masons. Except the Lord keep the City, the Watch-man watcheth but in vain; though times be set to the hired Watchers. Its in vain to rise up early (Psalms 127:1, 2), and its as impossible to plow, build, watch, rise early, without the common influence of God the first cause, as it is to pray in faith without the special breathing of the Spirit of grace. Yet Libertines and Antinomians will not say that they sin in setting a time for building, plowing, watching; these seem considerable about hours of praying.

1. Though we fix an hour, it becomes faith to await the Angels moving of the water, and when the Lord adds his influences to step in and joyn our strength cheerfully and with humble praises to him who draws.

When there is a bentness of heart such a day or such a fixed hour to pray, build not too much upon the appointment and promises of our own heart, to say tomorrow, I'll do wonders by prayer, and remove mountains. It's good here, as in a purpose of going to a city to continue there a year, and buy and sell and get gain, to say in a trembling subordination to God, as James counsels (James 4:13, 15), If the Lord will, we shall live; so, to say if the holy sovereignty of grace breathe fairly and strongly, I'll do well in praying; yet not I, but his grace; and if the wind of the Lord blow not, ah I cannot sail. As in the case of James his merchant, and of Peter's undertaking, I'll die with you, rather or I deny you. So here: first, the man sows broad hopes upon his own praying, and the harvest is thin and nothing. Second, such a preacher shall set the ship afloat, and all shall be well, if such an instrument act, and then the Lord is away, and the reed is broken, and the sea flows not. Third, at the death of such an eminent Christian, O there must be strange manifestations; and the poor man is taken away under a cloud, and in a huge deal of darkness. The faith of our reposing upon ourselves and the creature, and our not reposing on the Lord's acting in us to will and to do, in these set times does disappoint us. A godly jealousy and despair of ourselves, and a relying wholly upon the Lord's actings is good; and seldom can we difference between presumptuous confidence on ourselves, with a godly trembling, and a pure and spiritual relying upon God in his breathings of grace. We stumble, that when the impetuous fervor of resolving is on, and possibly the Lord effectually acting us; yet when it comes to the time of praying, the whole spirit is a lump of deadness, and the Comforter is away; and the flesh says, I covenanted a meeting with Christ, and he covenanted with me; but I kept the appointed time, and he failed and came not according to his promise; and we do not remember, that there is a promise that he will work in us to will and to do; but for a covenant that the Spirit shall keep your fixed hour, where is that? For the Spirit, even the hour before blows sweetly and the hour after; but he is absent at your fixed hour. In a word, we may limit a time for your duty; for the obligation (to pray continually) is perpetual; but we cannot limit a time or an hour to his breathing. It's ever true (John 3:8), The wind blows where it lists. The more angel-like and the more spiritual pride is, such as is angel-haughtiness in the damned spirits who were not content with their own station, and in Eve, the more sinful guiltiness is in it; pride resulting from acts common to men, as that of the king of Assyria (Isaiah 37) and that of the king of Babylon (Habakkuk 2; Isaiah 14:13, 14), is nothing so damnable as the proud fathering of holiness and grace upon our vain nature; and here we think we can command the ebbing and flowing of the sea, and have the breathings of the Spirit at our will; and if we be humble, it should especially be in stooping to the most poor and holy actings of the sovereign Lord, and presumptuous relying on self; here is the first exemplar pride.

Neither do we consider that most of the arguments, if we may act when, and where, we will, salvation and damnation, and all the high actings of gracious sovereignty must be under our power; if we may, or can act without the habit and influence of grace, and must be here, as when one great higher wheel moves and turns about many wheels, and the first moves the second, and second the third, and the third the fourth, and so forth; so must the habits of grace, and the influences of the Spirit, and all the outgoings of God be subject to man's free will as the first mover; if we can pray and praise under the withdrawings of God.

Hence the sixth argument may be removed, that though we cannot pray, but when, and as the Spirit moves us; it follows, both that we are not loosed from our obligation to pray, nor can we pray more or less fervently, but as the grace of Christ, in whom is all fullness, qualifies us in the habit and actings, because the gracious acts depend not upon our free will simply, but upon our free will as instructed with the supernatural habit infused; nor do the more intense and stronger actings of love, of faith, of prayer, depend upon our free will, but as instructed with the stronger habit and actual influences of God; but more hereafter of this.