* Andrew Murray.
^^ HOW TO PRAY AS WE OUGHT
\ Kuyper distinguishes between the intercession of the Holy Spirit and the intercession of Christ in this way : —
(a) Christ intercedes for us in heaven, and the Holy Spirit on earth. Christ, our Holy Head, being absent from us, inter- cedes outside of us ; the Holy Spirit, our Comforter, intercedes in our own heart, which He has chosen as His temple.
(&) There is a difference, not only of place, but also in the nature of this twofold intercession. The glorified Christ inter- cedes in heaven for His elect and redeemed, to obtain for them the fruit of His sacrifice : " If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous " (1 John ii. 1). But the object of the Holy Spirit's petitions is the laying bare of all the deep and hidden needs of the saints before the eye of the Triune God.
(c) In Christ there is a union of God and man, since, being in the form of God, He took upon Himself the human nature. Hence His prayer is that of the Son of God, but in union with the nature of man. He prays as the Head of the new race, as King of His people, as the one that seals the covenant of the New Testament in His blood. In like manner, there is to some extent a union between God and man, when the Holy Spirit prays for the saints. For, by His indwelling in the hearts of the saints. He has established a lasting and most intimate union, and, by virtue of that union, putting Himself in their place, He prays for them and in their stead.^
(3) The Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings which cannot he uttered. — The " groanings " of believers find expression, adequate or inadequate, in their prayers, and in such utterances as this very passage of Eomans ; but there is a testimony to the glory awaiting them more profound and passionate than even this. It is the intercession of the Spirit with "groanings" (or sighs) that baffle words. St. Paul has represented the "whole creation " as sending up to God a cry of weariness and suffering and hope ; the heavens and the earth and all living things were created for a perfection which, as yet, they have not reached, but towards which they have been moving through unmeasured ages — " the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." The cry of weariness and suffering and hope also rises from the whole Church of the redeemed on earth ; we too are longing for a perfection as yet unattained : " We ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the » A. Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit, 637.
ROMANS VIII. 26 77
redemption of our body." And then the Apostle attributes the same cry of weariness, of suffering, of hope, to the Spirit of God Himself; He is longing to raise all that are in Christ to an unachieved power and blessedness; the sins of the Church, its infirmities, its errors, its sorrows, are a heavy burden to Him. He is "resisted" and He is "grieved"; His intercession for us — so intimately does He share all the evils of our condition — is a kind of agony; He "maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."
^ The Holy Spirit helps us, not by revealing to us precisely what we should ask for in each particular emergency, but by securing that our groanings, even though they cannot be articu- lately expressed, shall serve the purpose of prayer. The Spirit makes intercession for us with these very groanings that cannot be uttered; that is, He not only prompts them, but presents them to God in such a way that they are heard and answered. He who is the hearer of prayer searches the hearts, and does not need that their desires should be expressed in words, in order that He may know what they are.^
^ All deep emotions are too large for language — they outsoar the narrow range of human speech. Both great joys and great sorrows break forth in tears. Profound longings express them- selves in inaudible yearnings. The grandeur of God in nature — the sunset skies, with their pageantry of clouds, the ocean raging in storm, the mountains " crowned with snow and fire " — can awaken thoughts " too deep for tears," So in a profounder sense, when the soul is touched by the Spirit of God, emotions are awakened which, transcending all expression, break out in deep unutterable aspiration. He knows little of the power of prayer to whom such moments are unknown. Thus, by the inspiration of the Spirit, our wants are felt to be too deep for language, while the fulness of God's love transcends them all, and, rapt in faith and love, the soul kindles with irrepressible emotion.^
The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed If Thou the spirit give by which I pray: My unassisted heart is barren clay, That of its native self can nothing feed: Of good and pious works Thou art the seed. That quickens only where Thou say'st it may : Unless Thou show to us Thine own true way No man can find it : Father ! Thou must lead, » J. S. Candlish, « E. L. Hull