The divine life in three treatises

3. If God be not in all your thoughts, they are all in vain. They are like the drone that gathereth no honey: They fly abroad and return home empty: They bring home no matter of honour to God, of profit or comfort to your selves: They are employed to no more purpose than in your dreams: Only they are more capable of sin: Like the distracted thoughts of one that doteth in a fever, they are all but non-sense, whatever you employ them on, while you leave out God who is the sense of all.

3. If God be not in all your thoughts, they are all in vain. They are like the drone that gathereth no honey: They fly abroad and return home empty: They bring home no matter of honour to God, of profit or comfort to your selves: They are employed to no more purpose than in your dreams: Only they are more capable of sin: Like the distracted thoughts of one that doteth in a feaver, they are all but non-sense, whatever you employ them on, while you leave out God who is the sense of all.

4. If God be not in all your thoughts, they are nothing but confusion: There can be no just Unity in them, because they forsake him who is the only Centre, and are scattered abroad upon incoherent creatures. There can be no true Unity but in God: The further we go from him, the further we run into divisions and confusions. There can be no just Method in them, because he is left out that is the Beginning and the End. They are not like a well ordered Army, where every one is moved by the will of one Commander, and all know their colours and their ranks, and unanimously agree to do their work: But like a swarm of Flies, that buzz about they know not whither, nor why, nor for what. There is no true Government in your thoughts, if God be not in them; they are masterless and vagrants, and have no true order, if they be not ordered by him and to him; if he be not their First and Last.

4. If God be not in all your thoughts, they are nothing but confusion: There can be no just Unity in them, because they forsake him who is the only Center, and are scatterad abroad upon incoherent creatures. There can be no true Unity but in God: The further we go from him, the further we run into divisions and confusions. There can be no just Method in them, because he is left out that is the Beginning and the End. They are not like a well ordered Army, where every one is moved by the will of one Commander, and all know their colours and their ranks, and unanimously agree to do their work: But like a swarm of Flyes, that buzze about they know not whither, nor why, nor for what. There is no true Government in your thoughts, if God be not in them; they are masterless and vagrants, and have no true order, if they be not ordered by him and to him; if he be not their First and Last.