A61386:163
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.
The Remedy against this corruption of our Nature is hard. To divert a stream is easy, but to dry up a spring is hard, stop it here, and it breaks out there. So to divert and discharge a wandering thought is easy in comparison, but the womb of the heart is pregnant; kill one Viper, and there's an hundred more ready for the birth. *We think our worldly business is the only cause of them, but the most retired Hermits tell us, that an unsanctified or half-sanctified heart can find matter enough of diversion in a naked Cell. And that the corruption of the subject, as well as the bewitching of the object, makes us trifle in Gods worship. As Hierom tells of Hilarion*, whose heart roving from God, was soundly scourged for his labour by an Angel. And therefore the only cure of this is, to get a true and greater degree of sanctifying grace.
The Remedy against this corruption of our Nature is hard. To divert a stream is easie, but to dry up a spring is hard, stop it here, and it breaks out there. So to divert and discharge a wandring thought is easie in comparison, but the womb of the heart is pregnant; kill one Viper, and there's an hundred more ready for the birth. *We think our worldly business is the only cause of them, but the most retired Hermites tell us, that an unsanctified or half-sanctified heart can find matter enough of diversion in a naked Cell. And that the corruption of the subject, as well as the bewitching of the object, makes us trifle in Gods worship. As Hierom tells of Hilarion*, whose heart roving from God, was soundly scourged for his labour by an Angel. And therefore the only cure of this is, to get a true and greater degree of sanctifying grace.
- *As the Ivy, though stump, body and branches be cut off, yet some sprigs will sprout, till the wall be pulled down So it is with us.
- *Oravit semel sixo in terram capite & ut natura sert hominum, abducta ab oratione mens nescio quid aliud cogitabat: insiliit dorso ejus sestinans gladiator & latera calcibus, cervicem flageilo verberans: eja inquit, cur dormita? carbinnansque desupr, cum desecisset, an hordeum vellet accipere, sciscitabatur. Hieron. in vita Hilar. p. 243.