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…

THE Twelfth Cause of wandering Thoughts in God's Worship,¹ is,² an opinion that there is no great evil in them; which partly proceeds from that Notion, that thoughts are free, or at least, that no sin is really sin, except it be voluntary, and these are without consent; partly from our being used to greater sins, which do widen the conscience to digest these lesser ones, without any staying: And partly from the commonness of them, being the snares wherein we are most frequently taken; and the oftener they walk through the heart, the less strange are they there; the more familiar they are, the more apology we have for them; and so usually it becomes no sin, that we have a mind unto^*.

THE Twelfth Cause of wandring Thoughts in God's Worship,¹ is,² an opinion that there is no great evil in them; which partly proceeds from that Notion, that thoughts are free, or at least, that no sin is really sin, except it be voluntary, and these are without consent; partly from our being used to greater sins, which do widen the conscience to digest these lesser ones, without any staying: And partly from the commonness of them, being the snares wherein we are most frequently taken; and the oftener they walk thorow the heart, the less strange are they there; the more familiar they are, the more apology we have for them; and so usually it becomes no sin, that we have a mind unto^*.

1. 1§ 12.
2. 2XII. An opinion of no great evil in them.
3. *Non feci; si seci, non malè feci; si maleè, non multum malè; si multum malè, non malâ intentione. Bern.