Heaven taken

Alas, how far are they from offering violence to themselves in prayer, 1. That give God a dead heartless prayer^*. God would not have the blind offered, Mal. 1. 8. As good offer the blind as the dead. Some are half a sleep when they pray; and will a sleepy prayer ever awaken God^*? Such as mind not their own prayers, how do they think that God should mind them? Those prayers God likes best which come seething hot from the heart.

1. *Th•bulum sine Pru•is. Luth.
2. *Psal. 44. 23.

2. How far are they from offering violence, that give God distracted prayer? while they are praying, they are thinking of their shop and trade^*. How can he shoot right whose eye is quite off the mark? Ezek. 33. 31. Their heart goes after their covetousness. Many are casting up their accounts in prayer, as Hierom once complained of himself. How can God be pleased with this? ⟨p. 36⟩Will a King endure that while his subject is delivering a petition, and speaking to him, he should be playing with a feather? When we send our hearts on an •rrand to Heaven, how often do they loiter and play by the way? This is matter of blushing. That we may offer violence to our selves, and by fervency feather the wing of prayer: let these things be duly weighed.