1 Corinthians 14:15 What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit… Religious exercises have always consisted mainly of praise and prayer. If there be a Deity, then from him we have received all we possess and enjoy, and to him, therefore, our natural feelings and our reason alike urge us to present sacrifices of thanksgiving. And since we are altogether dependent upon his favour and his faithfulness, we shall not omit to other supplications and intercessions to the Giver of every good gift. Now, Christianity falls in with this natural view of religious observances, and raises these orates, which are too often perfunctorily performed, into a higher atmosphere, penetrating and sanctifying them with a new spirit. I. IN PRAYER AND PRAISE THEIR IS AN ELEMENT OF EMOTION AND COMMUNION. Human nature is so constituted that it is capable of great excitement, and Oriental nature, as is well known, is peculiarly sensitive to impressions and susceptible of enthusiasms and hallucinations. Now, religion, which consists in the relation and intercourse of the soul with the unseen, has peculiar power to raise some natures to a high pitch of excitement. The gesticulations, the self inflicted tortures of devotees, the religious campaigns and wars of the East, are illustrations. Even at Corinth, a Grecian city, though largely frequented by Orientals, manifestations of enthusiasm were common in the Christian society. Paul himself was sometimes transported, in a trance, into unfamiliar and celestial regions of experience. He has not a word to say against those religious exercises which took place in "the spirit," i.e. which consisted in highly wrought feeling, in a consciousness of the presence of God, and which manifested themselves in the utterance of musical sounds reducible to no law or system, and of words unfamiliar sometimes to both speaker and hearers, but evidently an outpouring of fervent though vague and unformed prayers. II. IN PRAYER AND PRAISE THERE IS AN ELEMENT OF THOUGHT, REASON, AND LANGUAGE. No doubt it often happens that this element preponderates. Where psalmody and common prayer are prepared beforehand, where there is a form of devotion, it is obvious that the understanding is engaged. Words are necessary in order to clear and articulate thought. It may be urged that there are higher moods of the spirit which cannot be interpreted by articulate speech. And this must be admitted. Yet the ordinary moods of the spirit have chiefly to be considered; and of these we may say, they are capable of being formulated in the conceptions of the understanding, in the phraseology of speech. And thus will devotion be most widely diffused and most profitably promoted, and Church worship be rendered most generally intelligent and fervent, and so most acceptable to God. - T. Parallel Verses KJV: What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. |
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