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…

And His suggestions in Religious duties are usually more ^**violent and impetuous, more dreadful and impious than they of our own breeding; called therefore Darts, and fiery Darts of that wicked one; Though he lay these brats of his at thy door, yet they will be counted in the number of his sins, and of thy afflictions.

And His suggestions in Religious duties are usually more ^**violent and impetuous, more dreadfull and impious than they of our own breeding; called therefore Darts, and fiery Darts of that wicked one; Though he lay these brats of his at thy door, yet they will be counted in the number of his sins, and of thy afflictions.

1. **Impetus Diabolici fortiores affectibus naturalibus. Joab could hinder David from weeping for Absalom, not from numbering the people to which Satan stir'd him up. D. Arrows.Impetus Diabolici fortiores affectibus naturalibus. Ioab could hinder David from weeping for Absolon, not from numbring the people to which Satan stir'd him up. D. Arrows.

2. Our Distractions proceed from the mind and understanding. The Vanity of the mind alienates us from the life of God, and from communion with him. When a present and seasonable petition or instruction is conveyed through the ear into the understanding, It wantonly plays therewith, and takes occasion to run out on some contiguous notion, and from that to another, and at length rests and dwells on some alien and unseasonable point, till the gales of the good Spirit, and the present Matter be overpast. And thus by a default in the understanding we seek not God, ¹nor find him as we might; And that excellent faculty, that would penetrate into the Divine Mysteries, and should guide the will and heart unto God, by the Ignis fatuus of its unmortified Vanity, misleads us from the chief Good, and entangles us in distractions. We read