sloth, or else the Spirit will be gone, — it will be worse with thee than ever. Who hast thoii then to help thee in thy work ? And thou wilt find it harder to bring him back than to keep him from going. The necessary infirmities which cleave to thy impei-fect state (if protested against) shall not drive him away, but if thou lettest them nestle in thy heart, he takes it as thy giving him warning to be gone. An affront done to an ambassador by the baser sort of people, as he walks in the sti'eet, while resident in a foreign state, may be passed over ; but when such shall find discountenance from the prince, it then makes a breach. Take heed, therefore, of shewing favour to such disturbers of the league between God and thy soul. Tliy heart, which should be a house of prayer, Christ will not endiu"e to have it a place of merchandize. Either thou must whip these buyers and sellers out, or the Spirit will go out. We read of an 'abomination of desolation standing in the holy place,' Matt. xxiv. 15, which some interpret to be the Roman ensigns displayed when Jerusalem was taken. This abomination ushered in desolation. What dost thou by thy roving thoughts, but set up an abomination in the temple of thy heart ? Oh I down with these, as thou wouldst not be left desolate, and wholly void of God's gracious presence with thee.
CHAPTER XIII.
CONTAINS THE FIRST CAUSE OF ROVING THOUGHTS IN PRAYER.
But you will ask. What counsel can you give to ami us against both these incursions of Satan, and wanderings of our own vain hearts in prayer? Impossible indeed it is, wholly to pi-event them, they come so suddenly and secretly, even as lightning in at the window. We may as well keep the wind out of our house (which gets in at every crevice, though the doors be shut,) as wholly free our hearts from their disturbance. Yet this will not exempt us from taking the utmost care to hinder the prevalency of them. Humours, while rolling here and there, do not endanger us so much as when they gather to a head, and settle in some part of the body. I have read of some place, where such multitudes of locusts are seen, that they almost darken the air as they fly, and devour every green thing where they alight. The inhabitants, therefore, when they perceive this army hovering over them, by making fires in their fields, keep them from alighting with the smoke. Tliou canst not hinder these roving thoughts from flying now and then over thy head, bvit surely thou niayest do something that may prevent their settling; toward which take these directions, which I shall endeavour to suit to those several causes ft-om whence they proceed.
Section I. — The first cause, and original of all other, is the natviral vanity and levity of our minds, which are as inconstant as quicksilver. They are as unstable as water, which element diffuseth itself hither and thither, and so is soon drunk up and lost. Thus do our vain minds scatter themselves, but never so much as when we are conversant about spiritual duties ; then, above all, we discover the lightness of our spirits ; and this is not the least part of that evil which followed man's degeneracy, who, by his fall, wounded both head and heart. Now, though thei'e be a cure in part made by the grace of God, as to both these in a saint, yet there still remains a weakness in his soul, whereby he is not able to dwell long upon spiritual things without some dissipation of thoughts, as innocent Adam could, who, before his fall, might have walked through the whole world, and not have had one thought of his heart displaced, or turned from its right point by the diversity of objects he met, they being all to the eye of his soul a clear medium, through which it passed to terminate itself in God, as the air is now to our bodily eye, through which it pierceth, and stays not till it comes at the body of the sun. But, alas ! it is with us as with one that hath had his skull broke by some dangerous fall, who, when recovered, finds his brain so weakened, that when he goes about any serious business, he cannot do much, or pei'sist long : such vagaries do our hearts take in duty, and this gives Satan advantage enough to work upon. If the ship be light for want of ballast, and a strong gust of wind arises, O, how hard then is it to make it sail trim, or keep it from turning over. A vain heart, and a strong temptation together, make sad work when God stands by, and gives Satan leave to prac-
PRAYING ALWAYS, ETC. 617
tise upon it. Be, therefore, careful to take in thy hallast, before thou puttest to sea. Labour to poise thy lieart before thou goest to pray ; which, that thou mayest do, —