A61386:118
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…
An antidote against distractions, or, An endeavour to serve the church, in the daily case of wanderings in the worship of God by Richard Steele M.A. and minister of the Gospel.An antidote against distractions, or, An indeavour to serve the church, in the daily case of wandrings in the worship of God by Richard Steele M.A. and minister of the Gospel.
London: printed for Elizabeth Calvert, 1667
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.
1. They divide the Heart, *and disable ⟨p. 47⟩it wholly; now a divided heart can do nothing at all, Hos. 10.2. Their heart is divided, now shall they be found faulty; If one heart divided from another make a fault, much more faulty is one heart divided within it self. Hence it comes to pass, that Satan offers, as the false Mother did about the living Child, 1 King. 3.26. Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it, If he cannot block your way to the presence of God, and make good his claim to the living Child; as She would have done, then with might and main, he furthers all imaginable diversions to part the Soul; and cries, Lord let it be neither thine nor mine, but divide it; well knowing that (as the Child, so) the heart while entire, is a living and lively heart, but divide it and destroy it; As he that runs at once after two Hares, catches neither, so two businesses at once, spoils both. He that thinks to treat the Creator and the creature at the same time, enjoys neither of them: And thus the vain heart of man by over-doing, undoes it self, and reaching at two matters, spoils them both.
1. They divide the Heart,