A guide to godliness or a Treatise of a Christian life showing the dutiesA guide to godlynesse or a Treatise of a Christian life shewing the duties

§. Sect. 2 That we must with all diligence banish out of our minds all wandering thoughts, and the means hereof.

§. Sect. 2 That we must with all diligence banish out of our minds all wandring thoghts, and the means hereof.

And yet seeing through the malice of the devil and our own corruption we are, even at our best, apt to fall into this foul infirmity, let us with ¹all care and diligence look to our hearts when we perform this duty, and earnestly desire the Lord to tie them fast unto himself in the bonds of his fear, that they may not, in this holy exercise, slip aside and depart from him. And if we find our sinful flesh so sluggish and secure, so worldly and earthly-minded, that it dulleth our devotion, and stealeth and carrieth, every hand while, our hearts away after things impertinent, if not worldly and carnal: I think it a good course, in our private prayer, to repeat that again in which we were distracted, labouring in our repetition to call our hearts back to join with our voice; seeing hereof cometh a double benefit: first, that we shall have our suites more powerfully offered unto God, when as they are propounded in this hearty manner. And secondly, hereby we shall tame the flesh, and make it not so eager to interrupt us in these holy duties, when as the spiritual part imposeth upon it this punishment by way of revenge, for its sloth and worldliness, to make it to continue so much the longer at this exercise, unto which naturally it is so backward and averse; and not to feed it self upon any worldly thoughts, wherein it wholly delighteth, till it have first waited on the Spirit, and suffered it, without interruption, to refresh it self with this heavenly breakfast. Let us meditate also on that glorious presence before whom we stand, who looketh not so much to the phrase of our words, and the well-running stile of our speech, as to the discourse of our souls and hearts; which being so full of distractions and senseless ravings and rovings from the matter; one while speaking to God, and (as it were) with the same breath, and in the middest of a sentence breaking off, and speaking to the world; jumbling, and confusedly mingling things spiritual and carnal, heavenly and earthly, holy and profane; how can it be but ugly and mis-shapen in his sight? being like Antic-work, consisting of monstrous compositions, wherein the body of a bird, and the tail of a serpent; the face and fore-part of a man, and the hind-part