Chapter 4
The nature of Prayer Romans 8:26. Opened and Vindicated.
PRayer at present I take to be, a Gift, Ability or Spiritual Faculty of exercising Faith, Love, Reverence, Fear, Delight, and other Graces in a way of vocal Requests, Supplications, and Praises unto God. In every thing making our Request known unto God, Philippians 4:6.
This Gift and Ability, I affirm to be bestowed, and this Work by Virtue thereof to be wrought in us by the Holy Ghost in the Accomplishment of the Promise insisted on, so crying Abba Father in them that do believe. And this is that which we are to given an account of, wherein we shall assert nothing but what the Scripture plainly goeth before us in, and what the experience of Believers duly exercised in Duties of Obedience, does confirm. And in the Issue of our Endeavour, we shall leave it unto the Judgement of God and his Church, whether they are ecstatical, enthusiastical, unaccountable Raptures that we plead for, or a real Gracious Effect and Work of the Holy Spirit of God.
The first thing we ascribe unto the Spirit herein is, that he supplieth and furnishs the mind, with a due comprehension of the Matter of Prayer, or what ought, both in general, and as unto all our particular occasions, to be prayed for. Without this, I suppose it will be granted, that no man can pray as he ought. For how can any man pray, that knows not what to pray for? Where there is not a Comprehension hereof, the very nature and being of Prayer is destroyed. And herein the Testimony of the Apostle is express, Romans 8:26. Likewise also the Spirit helps our Infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit it self maks Intercessionfor us with groans that cannot be uttered.
It is that expression only which at present I urge, We know not what we should pray for as we ought. This is generally supposed to be otherwise; Namely, that men know well enough what they ought to pray for, only they are wicked and careless, and will not pray for what they know they ought so to do. I shall make no excuse or Apology for the wickedness and carelesness of men, which without doubt are abominable. But yet I must abide by the truth asserted by the Apostle, which I shall further evidence immediately, namely, that without the especial Aid and Assistance of the Holy Spirit no man knows what to pray for as he ought.
But yet there is another Relief in this matter, and so no need of any Work of the Holy Ghost therein. And we shall be accounted Impudent, if we ascribe any thing unto him, whereof there is the least colourable pretense, that it may be otherwise effected or provided for: so great an unwillingness is there to allow him either Place, Work, or Office in the Christian Religion, or the practice of it. Wherefore it is pretended that although men do not of themselves know what to pray for, yet this defect may be supplied in a Prescript form of words, prepared on purpose to teach, and confine men unto, what they are to pray for.
We may therefore dismiss the Holy Spirit and his Assistance as unto this Concernment of Prayer; for the due matter of it may be so set down and fixed on Ink and Paper, that the meanest capacity cannot miss of his Duty therein. This therefore is that which is to be tryed in our ensuing discourse; Namely, what whereas it is plainly affirmed that we know not of ourselves what we should pray for as we ought, (which I judge to be universally true, as unto all Persons, as well those who prescribe Prayers, as those unto whom they are prescribed) and that the Holy Spirit helps and relievs us herein, whether we may or ought to relinquish and neglect his Assistance, and so to rely only on such supplies as are invented or used unto that end, for which he is promised; that is plainly, whether the Word of God be to be trusted unto in this matter or not.
It is true, that whatever we ought to pray for, is declared in the Scripture; yea and summarily comprised in the Lords Prayer. But it is one thing to have what we ought to pray for, in the Book; another thing to have it in our Mind, and Hearts, without which it will never be unto us, the due matter of Prayer. It is out of the abundance of the Heart that the Mouth must speak in this matter, Mat. 12:34. There is therefore in us a threefold defect with repect unto the matter of Prayer; which is supplied by the Holy Spirit, and can be so no other way, nor by any other means; And therein is he unto us a Spirit of Supplication, according to the Promise.
For (1.) we know not our own wants, (2.) we know not the supplied of them that are expressed in the Promises of God, and (3.) we know not the end whereunto what we pray for, is to be directed, which I add unto the former. Without the knowledge and understanding of all these, no man can pray as he ought; and we can no way know them, but by the Aid and Assistance of the Spirit of Grace. And if these things be manifest, it will be evident how in this first Instance we are enabled to pray by the Holy Ghost.
(1.) Our wants, as they are to be the Matter of Prayer, may be referr'd unto three Heads; and none of them of ourselves do we know aright, so as to make them the due Subject of our Supplications, and of some of them we know nothing at all.
This first consists in our outward straits, pressures and Difficulties, which we desire to be delivered from, with all other temporal things wherein we are concerned. In those things it should seem wondrously clear, that of ourselves we know what to pray for. But the truth is, whatever our sense may be of them, and our natural desires about them, yet how and when, under what conditions and limitations, with what frame of heart and Spirit, what submission unto the pleasure of God they are to be made the matter of our Prayers, we know not. Therefore does God call the Prayers of most about them, howling, and not a crying unto him with the Heart, Hos. 7:14. There is indeed a Voice of nature crying in its distress unto the God of nature. But that is not the Duty of Evangelical Prayer which we inquire after. And men oft-times most miss it, where they think themselves most ready and prepared. To know our Temporal wants so as to make them the matter of Prayer according to the mind of God, requires more Wisdom than of ourselves we are furnished withal. For who knows what is good for man in this Life, all the daysof his vain life, which he spends as a shadow? Eccl. 6:12. And oft-times Believers are never more at a loss, than how to pray aright about temporal things. No man is in pain or distress, or under any wants, whose continuance would be destructive to his Being, but he may, yea he ought to make deliverance from them the matter of his Prayer. So in that case he knows in some measure, or in general, what he ought to pray for, without any peculiar spiritual illumination. But yet the Circumstances of those things, and wherein their respect unto the Glory of God and the supreme End, or chiefest good of the Persons concerned, does stand, (with regard whereunto they can alone be made the matter of prayer acceptable unto God in Christ) is that which of themselves they cannot understand, but have need of an interest in that Promise made to the Church, that they shall be all taught of God. And this is so much more in such things as belong only unto the Conveniences of this Life, whereof no man of himself knows what is good for him, or useful unto him.
(2.) We have Internal wants that are discerned in the light of a natural Conscience: such is the Guilt of Sin, whereof that accuss; Sins against natural Light and plain outward letter of the Law. These things we know somewhat of without any especial Aid of the Holy Spirit, Romans 2:14, 15. and desires of Deliverance are inseparable from them. But we may observe here two things, [1.] That the knowledge which we have hereof of ourselves, is so dark and confused, as that we are no ways able thereby to manage our wants in Prayer aright unto God. A Natural Conscience awakened and excited by Afflictions or other providential Visitations, will discover it self in unfeign'd and severe Reflections of Guilt upon the Soul. But untill the Spirit does convince of Sin, all things are in such disorder and confusion in the mind, that no man knows how to make his Address unto God about it in a due manner. And there is more required to treat aright with God about the Guilt of Sin, than a mere Sense of it. So far as men can proceed under that sole conduct and guidance, the Heathens went in dealing with their supposed Gods, without a due respect unto the Propitiation made by the Blood of Christ. Yea Prayer about the guilt of Sin discerned in the Light of a natural Conscience, is but an abomination.
Besides, [2.] We all know how small a portion of the concernment of Believers does lye in those things which fall under the Light and determination of a natural Conscience. For,
(3.) The things about which Believers do, and ought to treat principally, and deal with God in their Supplications, are the inward Spiritual frames and dispositions of their Souls, with the actings of Grace and Sin in them. Hereon David was not satisfied with the Confession of his Original and all known actual Sins, Psalm 51:5. nor yet with an acknowledgment that none knows his own wanderings, whence he desirs cleansing from unknown Sins, Psalm 19:12. But moreover, he begs of God to undertake the inward search of his Heart, to find out what was amiss, or right, in him, Psalm 139:23, 24. as knowing, that God principally required Truth in the inward part, Psalm 51:6. Such is the carrying on of the Work of sanctification in the whole Spirit and Soul, 1 Thess. 5:23.
The inward sanctification of all our faculties, is what we want and pray for. Supplies of Grace from God unto this purpose, with a sense of the Power, Guilt, violence and deceit of Sin in its inward actings in the mind and affections, with other things innumerable thereunto belonging, make up the principal matter of Prayer as formally Supplication.
Add hereunto, that unto the matter of Prayer taken largely for the whole Duty so called, every thing wherein we have intercourse with God in Faith and Love, does belong. The Acknowledgement of the whole mystery of his Wisdom, Grace and Love in Christ Jesus, with all the Fruits, Effects and Benefits which thence we do receive, all the Workings and actings of our Souls towards him, with their Faculties and Affections; in brief, every thing and every conception of our minds, wherein our spiritual Access unto the Throne of Grace does consist, or which does belong thereunto, with all occasions and emergencies of Spiritual Life, are in like manner comprised herein. And that we can have such an Acquaintance with these things as to manage them acceptably in our Supplications, without the Grace of spiritual illumination from the Holy Ghost, few are so ignorant or profane as to assert. Some I confess seem to be strangers unto these things, which yet renders them not of the less weight or moment.
For some can see no necessity of thus understanding the Grace and Mercy, that is in the Promises unto Prayer; and suppose that men know well enough what to pray for without it.
But those who so speak, neither know what it is to pray, nor it seems are willing to learn. For we are to pray in Faith, Romans 10:14. And Faith respects Gods Promises, Hebrews 4:1. Romans 4. If therefore we understand not what God has promised, we cannot pray at all. It is marvellous what thoughts such persons have of God and themselves, who without a due comprehension of their own Wants, and without an understanding of Gods Promises, wherein all their supplies are laid up, do say their Prayers as they call it continually. And indeed in the poverty, or rather misery, of devised Aids of Prayer, this is not the least pernicious effect or consequent, that they keep men off from searching the Promises of God, whereby they might know what to pray for. Let the matter of Prayer be so prescribed unto men, as that they shall neverneed, either to search their own Hearts or Gods Promises about it, and this whole Work is dispatcht out of the way. But then is the Soul prepared aright for this Duty, and then only, when it understands its own condition, the supplies of Grace provided in the Promise, the suitableness of those supplies unto its wants, and the means of its Conveyance unto us by Jesus Christ. That all this we have by the Spirit and not otherwise, shall be immediately declared.
Thirdly, Unto the matter of Prayer I joyn the End we aim at, in the things we pray for, and which we direct them unto. And herein also are we in ourselves at a loss: And men may lose all the benefit of their Prayers by proposing undue Ends unto themselves in the things they pray for. Our Saviour saith, Ask and you shall receive; but the Apostle James affirms of some, Chapter 4:3. Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, to consume it on your pleasures. To pray for any thing, and not expresly unto the end whereunto of God it is designed, is to ask amiss and to no purpose. And yet whatever confidence we may have of our own Wisdom and Integrity; if we are left unto ourselves, without the especial guidance of the Spirit of God, our aims will never be suited unto the Will of God. The ways and means whereby we may fail, and do so in this kind, when not under the actual conduct of the Spirit of God, that is, when our own natural and distempered Affections do immix themselves in our Supplications, are innumerable. And there is nothing so excellent in its self, so useful unto us, so acceptable unto God in the matter of Prayer, but it may be vitiated, corrupted, and Prayer it self rendred vain, by an Application of it unto false or mistaken Ends. And what is the Work of the Spirit to guide us herein, we shall see in its proper place.
The nature of prayer. Romans 8:26. Opened and vindicated.
Prayer, as I take it at present, is a gift, ability, or spiritual faculty for exercising faith, love, reverence, fear, delight, and other graces through vocal requests, supplications, and praises to God. "In everything making your request known to God" (Philippians 4:6).
This gift and ability, I affirm, is bestowed by the Holy Spirit, and this work is produced in us by Him in the fulfillment of the promise examined above — so crying "Abba! Father!" in those who believe. This is what we are to give an account of; and in doing so we will assert nothing that Scripture has not plainly gone before us in, and that the experience of believers duly exercised in duties of obedience does not confirm. At the conclusion of our efforts, we will leave it to the judgment of God and His church whether what we are pleading for consists of ecstatic, enthusiastic, unaccountable raptures, or a real, gracious work and effect of the Holy Spirit of God.
The first thing we attribute to the Spirit in this work is that He supplies and furnishes the mind with a proper understanding of the matter of prayer — that is, what should be prayed for, both in general and with respect to all our particular circumstances. Without this, I suppose it will be granted, no one can pray as he ought. For how can anyone pray who does not know what to pray for? Where this understanding is absent, the very nature and being of prayer is destroyed. The apostle's testimony is explicit on this point in Romans 8:26: "Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."
It is only that part of the verse I am now using: "We do not know what we should pray for as we ought." Most people assume the opposite — namely, that people know well enough what they ought to pray for; they are just wicked and careless, and will not pray for what they know they should. I will make no excuse for the wickedness and carelessness of people, which are without doubt abominable. But I must stand by the truth the apostle asserts, which I will further evidence immediately: without the special aid and assistance of the Holy Spirit, no one knows what to pray for as he ought.
But there is, it seems, another remedy in this matter, and therefore no need for any work of the Holy Spirit here. We would be considered presumptuous if we attributed anything to Him in a case where there is even the slightest plausible claim that it could be otherwise provided for — so great is the unwillingness to allow Him any place, work, or office in the Christian religion or its practice. Therefore it is claimed that although people do not of themselves know what to pray for, this deficiency may be supplied by a prescribed form of words, prepared precisely to teach them what they are to pray for and confine them to it.
We may therefore dismiss the Holy Spirit and His assistance from this aspect of prayer, since the proper matter of it may be set down and fixed in ink and paper so that even the least capable person cannot miss his duty in it. This, therefore, is what is to be tested in the following discourse: since it is plainly stated that we do not of ourselves know what we should pray for as we ought — which I judge to be universally true, for all persons, including those who prescribe prayers as well as those to whom they are prescribed — and since the Holy Spirit helps and relieves us in this, the question is whether we may or ought to abandon and neglect His assistance and rely only on such substitutes as are invented or used for the purpose for which He is promised. That is, plainly stated: whether the Word of God is to be trusted in this matter or not.
It is true that whatever we ought to pray for is declared in Scripture, yes, and is summarized in the Lord's Prayer. But it is one thing to have what we ought to pray for in a book; it is another thing altogether to have it in our minds and hearts — without which it will never become for us the true matter of prayer. It is from the abundance of the heart that the mouth must speak in this matter (Matthew 12:34). There is therefore a threefold deficiency in us with respect to the matter of prayer, which is supplied by the Holy Spirit and can be supplied in no other way and by no other means; and in this He is to us a Spirit of supplication, according to the promise.
For (1) we do not know our own needs; (2) we do not know the supplies for those needs that are expressed in the promises of God; and (3) we do not know the end to which what we pray for is to be directed — which I add to the previous two. Without knowledge and understanding of all three, no one can pray as he ought; and we can come to know them in no way other than through the aid and assistance of the Spirit of grace. If these things are made clear, it will be evident how in this first instance we are enabled to pray by the Holy Spirit.
(1) Our needs, as they are to be the matter of prayer, may be grouped under three headings; and we do not rightly know any of them of ourselves in a way that would make them proper subjects for our supplications — and some of them we do not know at all.
The first category consists of our outward pressures, difficulties, and struggles, from which we desire deliverance, along with all other temporal concerns. In these matters it might seem remarkably clear that we know of ourselves what to pray for. But the truth is, whatever our sense of these things may be and whatever natural desires we have about them, we do not know how and when, under what conditions and limitations, with what frame of heart and spirit, and with what submission to God's pleasure they are to be made the matter of our prayers. For this reason God describes the prayers of most people about such things as howling, and not a crying to Him with the heart (Hosea 7:14). There is indeed a voice of nature crying out in distress to the God of nature. But that is not the evangelical prayer we are inquiring about. And people often miss the mark most where they think themselves most ready and prepared. To know our temporal needs in such a way as to make them the matter of prayer according to God's mind requires more wisdom than we ourselves possess. For who knows what is good for a person in this life, all the days of his fleeting existence, which he passes like a shadow? (Ecclesiastes 6:12). Believers are often never more at a loss than in knowing how to pray rightly about temporal things. No one in pain, distress, or want of a kind that threatens his very existence should be without praying for deliverance — he may and should make deliverance the matter of his prayer. In that case he knows in some measure, or in general, what he ought to pray for, without any special spiritual illumination. But the circumstances of these things, and the way in which they relate to the glory of God and the supreme end or highest good of those involved — which is the only way in which they can be made the matter of prayer acceptable to God in Christ — is something they cannot understand of themselves. They need a share in the promise made to the church that they shall all be taught by God. This is even more true of things that relate only to the conveniences of this life, of which no one of himself knows what is good for him or useful to him.
(2) We have inward needs that are discerned in the light of a natural conscience — such as the guilt of sins it accuses us of: sins against natural light and the plain outward letter of the law. These things we know something of without any special aid of the Holy Spirit (Romans 2:14-15), and desires for deliverance are inseparable from them. But two things may be noted here. [1] The knowledge we have of these things on our own is so dim and confused that we are in no way able by it to bring our needs properly to God in prayer. A natural conscience awakened and stirred by afflictions or other providential visitations will reveal itself in genuine and severe self-accusations for guilt. But until the Spirit convicts of sin, everything is in such disorder and confusion in the mind that no one knows how to approach God about it in a proper way. And there is more required to deal rightly with God about the guilt of sin than a mere sense of it. As far as people could proceed under that sole guidance, the pagans went in dealing with their supposed gods — without due respect to the propitiation made by the blood of Christ. Indeed, prayer about the guilt of sin discerned only in the light of a natural conscience is nothing but an abomination.
Besides, [2] we all know how small a part of the concerns of believers consists of things that fall under the light and determination of a natural conscience. For:
(3) The things about which believers primarily deal with God in their supplications are the inward spiritual frames and dispositions of their souls, along with the workings of grace and sin within them. For this reason David was not satisfied with confessing his original sin and all known actual sins (Psalm 51:5), nor yet with acknowledging that no one can know all his own wanderings — from which he desired cleansing from unknown sins (Psalm 19:12). Beyond all this, he begged God to undertake the inward search of his heart to find out what was right or wrong in him (Psalm 139:23-24), knowing that God principally required truth in the inward parts (Psalm 51:6). Such is the ongoing work of sanctification in the whole spirit and soul (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
The inward sanctification of all our faculties is what we need and pray for. Supplies of grace from God for this purpose, together with a sense of the power, guilt, violence, and deceit of sin in its inward workings in the mind and affections — and countless other things connected to these — make up the principal matter of prayer as formally supplication.
Add to this that the matter of prayer, taken broadly to include the whole duty so called, encompasses everything in which we have intercourse with God in faith and love. The acknowledgment of the whole mystery of His wisdom, grace, and love in Christ Jesus — with all the fruits, effects, and benefits flowing from it — and all the stirrings and actings of our souls toward Him, with their faculties and affections; in short, everything and every thought of our minds that belongs to our spiritual access to the throne of grace, together with all the occasions and emergencies of spiritual life, are likewise included. And that we can have such an acquaintance with these things as to manage them acceptably in our supplications without the grace of spiritual illumination from the Holy Spirit, few are so ignorant or irreverent as to assert. Some, I confess, seem to be strangers to these things — which does not make them less weighty or important.
For some can see no necessity for this understanding of the grace and mercy in the promises for prayer, and suppose that people know well enough what to pray for without it.
But those who speak this way neither know what prayer is, nor seem willing to learn. For we are to pray in faith (Romans 10:14), and faith has regard to God's promises (Hebrews 4:1; Romans 4). If therefore we do not understand what God has promised, we cannot pray at all. It is remarkable what thoughts such persons must have of God and themselves — who, without a proper understanding of their own needs, and without understanding God's promises in which all their supplies are stored up, say their prayers, as they call it, continually. And indeed, among the many harmful effects of devised aids for prayer, this is not the least: they keep people from searching God's promises through which they might know what to pray for. Let the matter of prayer be so prescribed that people will never need either to search their own hearts or God's promises about it, and this whole work is done away with. But the soul is truly prepared for this duty — and only then — when it understands its own condition, the supplies of grace provided in the promise, the suitableness of those supplies to its needs, and the means of their conveyance to us through Jesus Christ. That all this we receive through the Spirit and not otherwise will be declared immediately.
Third, to the matter of prayer I add the end we aim at in the things we pray for and to which we direct them. And here also we are at a loss in ourselves; and people may lose all the benefit of their prayers by setting wrong ends before them in the things they pray for. Our Savior says, "Ask and you shall receive"; but the apostle James says in chapter 4:3, "You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures." To pray for anything without expressly directing it toward the end for which God has appointed it is to ask with wrong motives and to no purpose. And yet, whatever confidence we may have in our own wisdom and integrity, if we are left to ourselves without the special guidance of the Spirit of God, our aims will never be suited to the will of God. The ways in which we may fail, and do fail, in this regard — when not under the actual direction of the Spirit of God, that is, when our own natural and disordered affections mix themselves into our supplications — are countless. And there is nothing so excellent in itself, so useful to us, so acceptable to God as the matter of prayer, that cannot be corrupted and prayer itself rendered vain by directing it toward false or mistaken ends. What the work of the Spirit is to guide us in this, we shall see in its proper place.
