A49262:309
The zealous Christian taking heavenThe zealovs Christian taking heaven
The zealous Christian taking heaven by holy violence in several sermons, tending to direct men how to hear with zeal, [how] to pray with importunity / preached by ... Mr. Christopher Love ...The zealovs Christian taking heaven by holy violence in severall sermons, tending to direct men how to hear with zeal, [how] to pray with importunity / preached by ... Mr. Christopher Love ...
London: printed by R. and W. Leybourn for John Rothwell, 1653
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.
3. Meditate what chief mercies you want, and are to beg, what grace you would have strengthened, what lusts you would have quelled, what doubts you would have satisfied, what sins you would have pardoned, in a word, what blessings you would have God to bestow upon you. The meditation of these things must needs give a man more scope, and stir up a mans affections in prayer.
3. Meditate what chiefe mercies you want, and are to beg, what grace you would have strengthned, what lusts you would have quelled, what doubts you would have satisfied, what sins you would have pardoned, in a word, what blessings you would have God to bestow upon you. The meditation of these things must needs give a man more scope, and stirre up a mans affections in prayer.
Help. 3 3. If you would get this holy importunity, you must recall your thoughts from worldly and distracting cares, when you come to prayer. The Apostle therefore doth exhort the Corinthians, 1 Cor. 7. 1to f••e themselves from, and rid their ⟨p. 59⟩hands of the cares of the world, and he gives this as a reason, that they may attend upon the Lord without distraction. The cares of the world will eat out that good that is in the hearts of men, will rob a man of that freedom and enlargement, that otherwise he might have in prayer. Anselm, as he was walking in the fields, saw a shepherds boy tie a stone to a birds leg, and as the bird sought to fly up, ever and anon, the stone pulled it down again. The spiritual interpretation that he partly made, and that we may make, is this; when the soul would mount aloft in prayer, and grow fervent, the cares of the world pluck it down, and cool it. And therefore you must labour to free your selves from these encumbrances. You must do as Abraham did, when he went to sacrifice, he left his servants and cattle at the bottom of the hill: So when you go to offer to God the sacrifices of prayer, you must get above the impediments and distractions of this present life. That is the third help.