A61386:157
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.
SECT. II.
12THE second Cause of Distractions in the service of God, is, The corruption of our Nature, that is, of Soul and Body; so that our inward faculties do act our outward senses, and they infect our inward faculties in this business, *Mat. 15.19. Out of the Heart proceed vain and evil thoughts; are not forced out, as sparks out of a Flint, but come out thence of themselves, as sparks out of a Furnace: View the mind, and its accident is Vanity, and how can a vain Mind be serious with God without a great deal of grace? The Heart its name is Deceitful, and makes a trade of juggling and purloining in the solemnest Duties; and when ⟨p. 69⟩the ear receives the word as a lovely song, she runs after covetousness the while. Now is she without, now in the streets, and l•eth in wait at every corner, like the lewd woman, Prov. 7.11. The eye that should be fixed on Heaven, is in the ends of the earth, and gathering a straggling notion from every object. The ear by every noise calls off the soul from its great business, thus woefully the old man is bent against the new man. Rom. 7.23