What Prayer Is

On Praying with the Spirit and With the Understanding Also--Part One of John Bunyan

Intercessor Todd

Apr 22, 2024

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There is no subject of more solemn importance to human happiness than prayer. It is the only medium of intercourse with heaven.
--George Offor, Editor
(from the Introduction of the book1)

NOTE: This article is much longer than our usual, even then it is an abridged version of the original section of the book. I consider it time well spent. O, that we all could learn well to pray like this!

On Praying in the Spirit

I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind. I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind. –(1 Corinthians 14:15)

PRAYER is an ORDINANCE of God, and that to be used both in public and private; yes, such an ordinance as brings those that have the spirit of supplication into great familiarity with God; and is also so prevalent in action, that it gets of God, both for the person that prays, and for them that are prayed for, great things.

It is the opener of the heart of God, and a means by which the soul, though empty, is filled. By prayer the Christian can open his heart to God, as to a friend, and obtain fresh testimony of God's friendship to him.

I might spend many words in distinguishing between public and private prayer; as also between that in the heart, and that with the vocal voice. Something also might be spoken to distinguish between the gifts and graces of prayer; but [refraining] this method, my business shall be at this time only to show you the very heart of prayer, without which, all your lifting up, both of hands, and eyes, and voices, will be to no purpose at all.

"I will pray with the Spirit."

The method that I will go on in at this time will be:

FIRST. To show you what true prayer is.
SECOND. To show you what it is to pray with the Spirit.
THIRD. What it is to pray with the Spirit and understanding also. And so,
FOURTHLY. To make some short use and application of what will be spoken.

WHAT PRAYER IS

What [true] prayer is. Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to the Word, for the good of the church, with submission, in faith, to the will of God.

In this description are these seven things:

It is a sincere;
A sensible;
An affectionate, pouring out of the soul to God, through Christ;
By the strength or assistance of the Spirit;
For such things as God has promised, or, according to his word;
For the good of the church;
With submission in faith to the will of God

First. For the first of these, it is a SINCERE pouring out of the soul to God. Part of the exercise of prayer is sincerity, without which God looks not upon it as prayer in a good sense (see Psalm 16:1-4). Then "ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:12-13). The want of this made the Lord reject their prayers in Hosea 7:14, where he saith, "They have not cried unto me with their heart," that is, in sincerity, "when they howled upon their beds." Thus, "The prayer of the upright is his delight" (Proverbs 15:8).

And why must sincerity be one of the essentials of prayer which is accepted of God, but because sincerity carries the soul in all simplicity to open its heart to God, and to tell him the case plainly, without equivocation; to condemn itself plainly, without dissembling; to cry to God heartily, without complimenting.

Second. It is a SENSIBLE pouring out of the heart or soul. It is not, as many take it to be, even a few babbling, chatter, complimentary expressions, but a sensible feeling there is in the heart. Prayer has in it a sensibleness of diverse things; sometimes sense of sin, sometimes of mercy received, sometimes of the readiness of God to give mercy, so on.

1. A sense of the want of mercy, by reason of the danger of sin. The soul, I say, feels, and from feeling sighs, groans, and breaks at the heart. David roars, cries, weeps, faints at heart, fails at the eyes, loses his moisture, (Psalm 38:8-10). Hezekiah mourns like a dove (Isaiah 38:14). Ephraim bemoans himself (Jeremiah 31:18). Peter weeps bitterly (Matthew 26:75).

2. Sometimes there is a sweet sense of mercy received; encouraging, comforting, strengthening, enlivening, enlightening mercy. Thus David pours out his soul, to bless, and praise, and admire the great God for his loving- kindness to such poor vile wretches. "Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

3. In prayer there is sometimes in the soul a sense of mercy to be received. This again sets the soul all on a flame. "Thou, O lord of hosts," saith David, "hast revealed to thy servant, saying I will build thee an house; therefore has thy servant found in his heart to pray - unto thee" (2 Samuel 7:27).

Third. Prayer is an AFFECTIONATE pouring out of the soul to God. O! the heat, strength, life, vigor, and affection, that is in right prayer! "As the hart pants after the water-brooks, so pants my soul after thee, O God" (Psalm 42:1). "I have longed after thy precepts" (Psalm 119:40). "I have longed for thy salvation" (verse 174).

“O! How wide are the most of men with their prayers from this prayer, that is, PRAYER in God's account!”

When the affections are indeed engaged in prayer, then, then the whole man is engaged, and that in such sort, that the soul will spend itself to nothing, as it were, rather than it will go without that good desired, even communion and solace with Christ. And hence it is that the saints have spent their strengths, and lost their lives, rather than go without the blessing (Psalm 69:3; 38:9,10; Genesis 32:24,26).

Fourth. Prayer is by the strength or ASSISTANCE OF THE SPIRIT. For all these things do so depend one upon another, that it is impossible that it should be prayer, without there be a joint concurrence of them. For without a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart to God, it is but lip-labor; and if it be not through Christ, it falls far short of ever sounding well in the ears of God. So also, if it be not in the strength and assistance of the Spirit, it is but like the sons of Aaron, offering with strange fire (Lev 10:1,2). That which is not petitioned through the teaching and assistance of the Spirit, it is not possible that it should be "according to the will of God (Romans 8:26,27).

Fifth. Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart, or soul, to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Spirit, FOR SUCH THINGS AS GOD HAS PROMISED, (Matthew 6:6-8). Prayer it is, when it is within the compass of God's Word; and it is blasphemy, or at best vain babbling, when the petition is beside the book.

David therefore still in his prayer kept his eye on the Word of God. "My soul," he says, "clings to the dust; quicken me according to thy word." And again, "My soul melts for heaviness, strengthen me according unto thy word" (Psalm 119:25-28; see also 41, 42, 58, 65, 74, 81, 82, 107, 147, 154, 169, 170). And indeed the Holy Ghost does not immediately quicken and stir up the heart of the Christian without, but by, with, and through the Word, by bringing that to the heart, and by opening of that, whereby the man is provoked to go to the Lord, and to tell him how it is with him, and also to argue, and supplicate, according to the Word, as did Daniel.

It is a praying then according to the Word and promise. The Spirit by the Word must direct, as well in the manner, as in the matter of prayer. "I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also" (I Corinthians 14:15). But there is no understanding without the Word. For if they reject the word of the Lord, "what wisdom is in them?" (Jeremiah 8:9).

Sixth. FOR THE GOOD OF THE CHURCH. This clause reaches in whatsoever tends either to the honor of God, Christ's advancement, or his people's benefit.

For God, and Christ, and his people are so linked together that if the good of the one be prayed for--the church, the glory of God, and advancement of Christ, must needs be included. For as Christ is in the Father, so the saints are in Christ; and he that touches the saints, touches the apple of God's eye; and therefore pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and you pray for all that is required of you.

He that prays for the peace and good of the church, asks in prayer which Christ has purchased with his blood; and also which the Father has given to him as the price thereof. Now he that prays for this, must pray for abundance of grace for the church, for help against all its temptations; that God would let nothing be too hard for it; and that all things might work together for its good, that God would keep them blameless and harmless, the sons of God, to his glory, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation. And this is the substance of Christ's own prayer in John 17.

And all Paul's prayers were that way, as one of his prayers shows: "And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge, and in all judgment; that you may approve things that are excellent; that you may be sincere, and without offense, till the day of Christ. Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God" (Philippians 1:9-11).

Seventh. And because, as I said, prayer does SUBMIT TO THE WILL OF GOD, and says, Thy will be done, as Christ has taught us (Matthew 6:10); therefore the people of the Lord in humility are to lay themselves and their prayers, and all that they have, at the foot of their God, to be disposed of by him as he in his heavenly wisdom sees best. Yet not doubting but God will answer the desire of his people that way that shall be most for their advantage and his glory. When the saints therefore do pray with submission to the will of God, it does not argue that they are to doubt or question God's love and kindness to them.

"Yet this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us; and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him," that is, we asking in the Spirit of grace and supplication (1 John 5:14,15).

For, as I said before, that petition that is not put up in and through the Spirit, it is not to be answered, because it is beside the will of God. For the Spirit only knows that, and so consequently knows how to pray according to that will of God.

"For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knows no man but the Spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 2:11).

But more of this hereafter. Thus you see, first, what prayer is.

Next to proceed (in another article) - What it is to pray with the Spirit.

For now, if you would be so kind as to

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