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.

SECT. VI.

* 1.1IN the next place, the Evil of Distra∣ctions is seen in the Effects, whereof these are some.

First, They do alienate the heart from holy duties * 1.2. When we miss of God, we have small mind to his service again. It is the comparison of a learned Divine, when there is no marow in the bone, we quickly throw the bone away; even so when the sweet injoyment of God is not found in an Ordinance, which is lost by the roving heart, we shall ere long cast away that Or∣dinance, except shame or custom restrain us. Now when the soul cares not for prayer, or other Ordinances, it is a sad effect: the Lord may say to thee, with more right and reason, than Dalilah did, Iudg. 16.15. How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me? What love is that without an heart? where the affection is, there the cogita∣tion will be also. I may truly invert this, and say, where the heart is not before, there love will not come after. Let all the soul be seriously bestowed in any duty of prayer, singing, reading, or hearing, and

you will be loth to leave that duty, and long to be at it again. O the sweetness therein, and love thereunto! Psal. 119.93. I shall never forget thy precepts, for with them thou hast quickened me. Oh when shall I come and appear before God! O that every day were a Sabbath, then should I be well, as said that famous * 1.3 Instance of Practical Piety. Hence, with a gra∣cious heart, one duty prepares, and gets a stomach for another. But you shall find, when the heart is out of tune, and beating about the bush, and not half quarter of it with God; O then it is the most weari∣some imployment in the world! A man had rather thresh than pray, that hath his heart in the Barn, when he is in prayer. And there is no lively desires, or longings of soul to that business, wherein he felt so little of God. Hence it is so hard to get a worldly family to get together to prayer; Alas! the duty is a distraction to them; when they come, they still leave their hearts behind them; you can make them no penny-worth of an Ordinance, whose hearts do usually run out of an Ordinance.

Notes

• * 1.1

  §. 6. Distracti∣ons alie∣nate the heart from duties.
• * 1.2

  In this sense they are a curse; for what is a curse but separation from God, think then, when wan∣dring thoughts come to us in holy duties, the curse comes, and when they stay with us, the curse stayes. Mr. Angier. p. 186.
• * 1.3

  Mr. Bru∣en of Bru∣en-staple∣ford. Cestr.