The divine life in three treatises

But it much concerneth the members of Christ, that they deprive not themselves of this Communion with God in this Holy Sacrament through their miscarriage; which is too frequently done by one of these extremes. Either by rushing upon holy things with a presumptuous careless common frame of heart, as if they knew not that they go to feast with Christ, and discerned not his body: or else by an excess of fear, drawing back, and questioning the good will of God, and thinking diminutively of his love and mercy: By this means Satan depriveth many of the comfortable part of their communion with God, both in this Sacrament, and in other ways of grace; and maketh them avoid him as an enemy, and be loth to come into his special presence; and even to be afraid to think of him, to pray to him, or to have any holy converse with him: When the just belief and observation of his Love would stablish them, and revive their souls with joy, and give them experience of the sweet delights which are opened to them in the Gospel, and which believers find in the Love of God, and the foretaste of the everlasting pleasures.

But it much concerneth the members of Christ, that they deprive not themselves of this Communion with God in this Holy Sacrament through their miscarriage; which is too frequently done by one of these extreams. Either by rushing upon holy things with a presumptuous careless common frame of heart, as if they knew not that they go to feast with Christ, and discerned not his body: or else by an excess of fear, drawing back, and questioning the good will of God, and thinking diminutively of his love and mercy: By this means Satan depriveth many of the comfortable part of their communion with God, both in this Sacrament, and in other waies of grace; and maketh them avoid him as an enemy, and be loth to come into his special presence; and even to be afraid to think of him, to pray to him, or to have any holy converse with him: When the just belief and observation of his Love would stablish them, and revive their souls with joy, and give them experience of the sweet delights which are opened to them in the Gospel, and which believers finde in the Love of God, and the foretast of the everlasting pleasures.

4. In holy, faithful, fervent Prayer a Christian hath very much of his converse with God. For Prayer is our approach to God, and calling to mind his presence and his attributes, and exercising all his graces in a holy motion towards him, and an exciting all the powers of our souls to seek him, attend him, & reverently to worship him: It is our treating with him about the most important businesses in all the world: a begging of