The works of George Swinnock, M.A

1. If thou wouldst exercise thy self to godliness when thou art alone,¹ guard thy heart against vain thoughts; This is the first work to be done, without which all that I have to commend to thee will be in vain. Its to no purpose to expect that a glass should be filled with costly wine, when its filled already with puddle water. When the house before-hand was taken up by strangers, there was not room for Christ himself in the Inn. If such flies be suffered and allowed in our hearts, they will spoil our best pots of Ointment.

1. If thou wouldst exercise thy self to godliness when thou art alone,¹ guard thy heart against vain thoughts; This is the first work to be done, without which all that I have to commend to thee will be in vain. Its to no purpose to expect that a glass should be filled with costly wine, when its filled already with puddle water. When the house before-hand was taken up by strangers, there was not room for Christ himself in the Inne. If such flies be suffered and allowed in our hearts, they will spoil our best pots of Oyntment.

1. 1In keeping away vain thought••

Some persons, though poor, when they are solitary, delight in the fancies and imaginations of great preferments, and pleasures, and riches, as if they were real; whereas they are the mere Chimera's and Fictions of their own brains, and have no existence, but in their thoughts. No wonder our Saviour saith, [Greek or Hebrew], Out of the heart of man proceedeth madness, Mark 7.21,22. Such thoughts are distracted thoughts, and suitable to those that are out of their wits, who please themselves in thinking that their filthy holes in Bedlam, are stately Palaces, that their nasty rags are royal robes, that their iron fetters are chains of gold, and the feathers stuck in their caps are imperial Crowns. As the Spanish Page, in an high distemper