A61386:61
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.
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 2 Cor. 7.1. Of a filthiness of the Spirit, whereof surely this is a part, and must be cleansed in them, that will perfect holiness in the fear of God.
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 playes therewith, and taks 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 intangles us in distractions. We read 2 Cor. 7.1. Of a filthiness of the Spirit, whereof surely this is a part, and must be cleansed in them, that will perfect holiness in the fear of God.