30. Chapter IV.

Chapter IV. The nature of prayer — Romans 8:26 explained and vindicated.

Prayer at present I take to be a gift and ability, or a spiritual faculty of exercising faith, love, reverence, fear, delight, and other graces, in a way of vocal requests, supplications, and praises to God: "In everything … let your requests be made known to God," Php 4:6.

I affirm this gift and ability is bestowed; and by virtue of this, this work is wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, in the accomplishment of the promise insisted on, crying "Abba, Father," in those who believe. And this is what we are to give an account of. In this we will assert nothing but what the Scripture plainly goes before us in, and what the experience of believers confirms, duly exercised in duties of obedience. And in the issue of our endeavor, we will leave it to the judgment of God and his church, whether they are "ecstatic, enthusiastic, unaccountable raptures" that we plead for, or a real gracious effect and work of the Holy Spirit of God. The first thing we ascribe to the Spirit in this, is that he supplies and furnishes the mind with a due comprehension of the matter of prayer, or what ought to be prayed for, both in general and as to all our particular occasions. Without this, I suppose it will be granted that no man can pray as he should; for how can any man pray who does not know what to pray for? Where there is not a comprehension of this, the very nature and being of prayer is destroyed. And in this, the testimony of the apostle is express:

Romans 8:26, "Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we do not know what we should pray for as we should: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."

It is this expression alone which I urge at present: "We do not know what we should pray for as we should." This is generally supposed to be otherwise — namely, that men know well enough what they should pray for. Only, they are wicked and careless, and will not pray for what they know they should. I will make no excuse or apology for the wickedness and carelessness of men, which without a doubt, are abominable. Yet I must abide by the truth asserted by the apostle, which I will further evidence immediately: namely, that without the special aid and assistance of the Holy Spirit, no man knows what to pray for as he should.

Yet there is another relief in this matter, and so there is no need for any work of the Holy Ghost in this. And we will be accounted impudent if we ascribe anything to him of which there is a token pretense that it may be otherwise effected or provided for. There is such a great unwillingness to allow him either place, work, or office in the Christian religion or the practice of it! It is therefore pretended that, although men do not know what to pray for of themselves, this defect may be supplied in a prescribed form of words, prepared on purpose, to teach and confine men to what they are to pray for.

We may, therefore, dismiss the Holy Spirit and his assistance as to this concern of prayer. For the due matter of it may be so set down and fixed on ink and paper, that the lowliest capacity cannot miss his duty in this! This, therefore, is what is to be tried in our ensuing discourse: namely, that because it is plainly affirmed that "we do not know" of ourselves "what we should pray for as we should" (which I judge to be universally true for all persons, those who prescribe prayers, as well as those for whom they are prescribed), and because the Holy Spirit helps and relieves us in this, we may or should relinquish and neglect his assistance, and rely only on those supplies which are invented or used to that end for which he is promised. Plainly put, the question is 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 the Scripture; and yes, it is summarily comprised in the Lord’s Prayer. But it is one thing to have what we ought to pray for in the book, and another thing to have it in our minds and hearts — without which it will never be the due matter of our prayer. It is out of the "abundance of the heart" that the mouth must speak in this matter, Matthew 12:34. There is, therefore, a threefold defect in us with respect to the matter of prayer, which is supplied by the Holy Spirit, and this cannot be supplied in any other way nor by any other means. And in this, he is a Spirit of supplication to us, according to the promise.390 For —

1. We do not know our own wants;

2. We do not know the supplies of them, 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 former.

Without the knowledge and understanding of all these, no man can pray as he should; and we can in no way know them except by the aid and assistance of the Spirit of grace. And if these things are manifest, it will be evident how in this first instance, we are enabled to pray by the Holy Ghost.

First. Our wants, as they are to be the matter of prayer, may be referred to three heads. And we know none of them rightly of ourselves, so as to make them the due subject of our supplications; and we know nothing at all about some of them:

1. This first consists in our outward restraints, pressures, and difficulties, which we desire to be delivered from, with all other temporal things in which 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, we do not know how and when, under what conditions and limitations, with what frame of heart and spirit, with what submission to the pleasure of God, they are to be made the matter of our prayers. Therefore, God calls most prayers about such matters a "howling," and not crying to him with the heart, Hos 7.14.391 There is indeed a voice of nature crying in its distress to the God of nature; but that is not the duty of evangelical prayer which we inquire after. And men oftentimes most miss it when they think they are most ready and prepared for it. To know our temporal wants so as to make them the matter of prayer according to the mind of God, requires more wisdom than we are furnished with of ourselves. For "who knows what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spends as a shadow?" Ecclesiastes 6:12. Often, believers are never more at a loss than [knowing] how to rightly pray about temporal things. No man is in pain or distress, or under any wants, where continuance would be destructive to his being, that he may not, indeed, 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 special spiritual illumination. Yet men cannot understand of themselves the circumstances of those things, and in what respect they stand to the glory of God, and to the supreme end or highest good of the persons concerned. And it is with regard to these things alone that the matter of prayer can be made acceptable to God in Christ. They need an interest in that promise made to the church, that "they will all be taught by God." And this is so much more in those things which belong only to the conveniences of this life — of which no man, of himself, knows what is good for him or useful to him.

2. We have internal wants that are discerned in the light of a natural conscience: such is the guilt of sin which the conscience accuses us of — sins against natural light and the plain outward letter of the law. We know something about these things without any special aid of the Holy Spirit, Rom 2.14-15;392 and desires for deliverance are inseparable from them. But we may observe two things:

(1.) That the knowledge which we have of this, of ourselves, is so dark and confused that we are in no way able to thereby rightly manage our wants in prayer to God. A natural conscience, awakened and excited by afflictions or other providential visitations, will reveal itself in unfeigned and severe reflections of guilt upon the soul. But until the Spirit convinces us of sin, all things are in such disorder and confusion in the mind, that no man knows how to make his address to God about it in a due manner. There is more required to rightly deal with God about the guilt of sin, than a mere sense of it. Men can proceed under that sole conduct and guidance, just as the heathens did in dealing with their supposed gods, without a due respect for the propitiation made by the blood of Christ. Indeed, prayer about the guilt of sin, discerned in the light of a natural conscience, is but an "abomination." 393 Besides,

(2.) We all know how small a portion of the concern of believers lies 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 principally address 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. Concerning this, David was not satisfied with the confession of his original and all known actual sins, Psalms 51:1-5; nor with an acknowledgment that "no one knows his own wanderings," which is why he desires cleansing from "unknown sins," Psalms 19:12. But moreover, he begs God to undertake the inward search of his heart, to find out what was amiss or not right in him, Psalms 139:23-24, knowing that God principally required "truth in the inward parts," Psalms 51:6. Such is the work of sanctification carried on in the whole spirit and soul, 1Thes 5.23.394 The inward sanctification of all our faculties is what we want and pray for. Supplies of grace from God for 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 innumerable things belonging to this, make up the principal matter of prayer as it is formally a supplication.

Add to this that everything in which we have intercourse with God in faith and love, belongs to prayer; this is largely understood to be the whole duty of prayer. Similarly comprised in this duty are the acknowledgment of the whole mystery of his wisdom, grace, and love in Christ Jesus, along with all the fruits, effects, and benefits which we receive from it; all the workings and actions of our souls towards him, along with their faculties and affections; in brief, every thing and every conception of our minds in which our spiritual access to the throne of grace consists, or which belongs to it, along with all occasions and emergencies of spiritual life.

Few are so ignorant or profane as to assert 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. Some, I confess, seem to be strangers to these things — yet this renders them of no less weight or moment.

Hence it comes to pass that the prayers of believers about these things, especially their confessions of what sense they have of the power and guilt of the inward actings of sin, have been exceedingly maligned and reproached by some. For out of their ignorance they cannot understand such things; out of their pride, heightened by sensuality of life, they despise and contemn them.

Secondly. The matter of prayer may be considered with respect to the promises of God. These are the measure of prayer, and they contain the matter of it. We are to pray for what God has promised, all that he has promised, and nothing else. For "secret things belong to the Lord our God" alone. But the declaration of his will and grace belongs to us, and it is our rule.Deuteronomy 29:29 Therefore, there is nothing that we really do or may stand in need of, that God has not promised to supply, in such a way and under such limitations as may make it good and useful to us. And there is nothing that God has promised that we do not stand in need of, or that in some way or other we are not concerned with as members of the mystical body of Christ. Therefore, "we do not know what we should pray for as we ought," unless we know or understand the goodness, grace, kindness, and mercy, that is prepared and proposed in the promises of God. For how could we, seeing that we are to pray for all that God has promised, and for nothing except what God has promised, and as he has promised it? The inquiry that remains, therefore, is whether we of ourselves, without the special assistance of the Holy Spirit, understand these things or not. The apostle tells us that the "things of God," spiritual things, "no one knows, except the Spirit of God;" and we must receive the Spirit of God to "know the things that are freely given to us by God," 1 Corinthians 2:11-12. These are the grace, mercy, love, and kindness of the promises, 2Cor 7.1.395 To say that of ourselves we can perceive, understand, and comprehend these things, without the special assistance of the Holy Ghost, is to overthrow the whole gospel and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, as demonstrated elsewhere. But it may and will be said, "There is more stirred than needs to be in this matter. God help poor sinners, if all this is required for their prayers! Surely men may pray at a cheaper rate, and with much less trouble, or else very few will continue long in that duty." For some can see no necessity to thus understand the grace and mercy that is in the promises, as to prayer, and suppose that men know well enough what to pray for without it. But those who speak in this way, do not know what it is to pray, nor are they willing to learn, it seems. For we are to pray in faith, Romans 10:14; and faith respects God’s promises, Hebrews 4:1, Romans 4. Therefore, if we do not understand 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 God’s promises, in which all their supplies are laid up, "say their prayers," as they call it, continually. And indeed, in the poverty, or rather, in the misery of devised aids to prayer, this is not the least pernicious effect or consequent: that they keep men from searching the promises of God, by which they might know what to pray for. Let the matter of prayer be so prescribed to men that they never need either to search their own hearts, or God’s promises about it, and this whole work is dispatched out of the way. The soul is rightly prepared for this duty only when it understands its own condition, the supplies of grace provided in the promises, the suitableness of those supplies for its wants, and the means of its conveyance to us by Jesus Christ. It will immediately be declared that we have all this by the Spirit, and not otherwise.

Thirdly. As to the matter of prayer, I join the end we aim at in the things we pray for, and which we direct them to. And in this, also, we are at a loss in ourselves. Men may lose all the benefit of their prayers by proposing undue ends for themselves in the things they pray for. Our Savior says, "Ask, and you will receive." But the apostle James affirms of some, James 4:3, "You ask, and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it on your pleasures." To pray for anything, and not to expressly pray for the end to which God designed it, is to ask amiss, and to no purpose. 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. There are countless ways and means by which we may and do fail in this way, when we are not under the actual conduct of the Spirit of God — that is, when our own natural and distempered affections intermix themselves in our supplications. There is nothing so excellent in itself, so useful to us, so acceptable to God, in the matter of prayer, that it may not be vitiated and corrupted, and prayer itself be rendered vain, by applying it to false or mistaken ends. In its proper place, we will see what the work of the Spirit is, to guide us in this.