A29703:568
The privy key of heaven, or, Twenty arguments for closet-prayer in a select discourse…The privie key of heaven, or, Twenty arguments for closet-prayer in a select discourse…
The privy key of heaven, or, Twenty arguments for closet-prayer in a select discourse on that subject with the resolution of several considerable questions : the main objections also against closet-prayer are here answered ... with twenty special lessons ... that we are to learn by that severe rod, the pestilence that now rageth in the midst of us / by Thomas Brooks.The privie key of heaven, or, Twenty arguments for closet-prayer in a select discourse on that subject with the resolution of several considerable questions : the main objections also against closet-prayer are here answered ... with twenty special lessons ... that we are to learn by that severe rod, the pestilence that now rageth in the midst of us / by Thomas Brooks.
London : Printed for and are to be sold by John Hancock, 1665
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Secondly, When a mans head and heart is filled with worldly 1cares and distractions, this is a very unfit season for closet-prayer.
When Dinah must needs be gadding abroad to see fashions, Shechem, Prince of that country, meets with her, and forces her virginity. So when our hearts Dinah-like must needs be a roving and gadding abroad after the things of the world, then Satan, the Prince of the air, usually seizes upon us, commits ⟨p. 307⟩a rape upon our souls, and either leads us off from prayer, or else he doth so distract us in prayer, that it were better not to have prayed at all, than to have offered the sacrifice of foolish and distracted prayer.
I have read a story, how that one offered to give his horse to his fellow upon condition he would but say the Lords Prayer, and think upon nothing but God; the proffer was accepted, and he began, Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name. But I must have the bridle too (said he) no, nor the Horse neither (said the other) for thou hast lost both already. The application is easy.
I have read a story, how that one offered to give his horse to his fellow upon condition he would but say the Lords Prayer, and think upon nothing but God; the proffer was accepted, and he began, Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name. But I must have the bridle too (said he) no, nor the Horse neither (said the other) for thou hast lost both already. The application is easie.