An antidote against distractions, or, An endeavour to serve the church, in the daily…An antidote against distractions, or, An indeavour to serve the church, in the daily…

Consider, ^*that else thou art as a mad man before God, and God hath no need of mad men: if one should come to thee about business of life and death, and after a word or two therein, should run from one impertinent thing to another, would you not think him mad? If thy thoughts were put into words and mingled with thy prayers, what strange mad prayers would they be?

1. *Mr. White of Thoughts. p. 93.

2. It is spiritual-worship, and therefore you may not be distracted in it. Joh. 4.23, 24. The true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him. ^**Others may seek to worship the Father, but the Father seeketh such to worship him, to wit, that worship in Spirit and in Truth, In Spirit, and so not like the formal ⟨p. 42⟩Jews, In Truth, and so not like the ignorant Gentiles. And then vers. 24. God is a Spirit, and must be worshipped. Here's Must and Shall, and Reason for it. As a spirit can do nothing at eating, so a carcass can do nothing at praying. The elegantest tongues on earth cannot take one stroke at prayer; no, the soul must be in it, and the soul must be busy too^*. If we had only an Idol to serve, the body were enough, but God is a spirit and cannot be conversed with without the spirit, yea and the whole spirit also. Fond man, that thinks with his narrow soul to deal with God and somewhat else, who alone is immense and beyond our greatest capacity. He must be taken up, and go out of the world in a sense that will get into Heaven. The soul on the lip, and the soul in the ear, do rid work in the service of God.