CONTAINS THE SECOND CAUSE OF WANDERING THOUGHTS IN PRAYER.
A SECOND cause of these wandering thoughts in prayer, is a dead and inactive heart. If the affections be once down, then the Christian is as a city whose wall is broken ; there is no keeping then the thoughts in, or Satan out. The soul is an active creature ; either it must be employed by us, or it will employ us. Like our poor, find them work, and they will keep at home ; but let them want it, and you will see them roving and begging all over the country. The affections are as the master-workmen, which set our thoughts on work. Love entertains the soul with pleasant and delightful thoughts on its beloved object ; grief commands the soul to muse with sorrowful thoughts on its trouble : so that, Christian, as long as thy heart bleeds in the sense of sin, they will have no leisure, when thou art confessing sin, to wander ; if thy desires be lively, and flame forth in thy petitions with a holy zeal for the graces and mercies prayed for, this will be as a wall of fire to keep thy thoughts at home. The lazy prayer is the roving prayer. When Israel talked of travelling three days' journey in the wilderness, Pharaoh said, ' Ye are idle, ye are idle ; therefore, ye say. Let us go.' As if he had said, Surely they have little to do, or else they would not think of gadding ; and therefore, to cure them of this, he commanded more work to be given, Exod. iii. 17, 18. We may truly say thus of our wandering hearts, they are idle : we pray, but our affections are dead and dull. The heart hath little to do in the duty, only to speak or read a few words, which is so easy that a man may do it, and sjiare whole troops of his thoughts to be employed elsewhere at the same time. But now, when the affections are up, melting into sorrow, in the confession of sin, sallying forth with holy panting and breathing in its supplications, truly this fixeth the thoughts. The soul can no more be in two places together, than the body. And as these holy affections will prevent the soul's wandering, so also make it more difficult for Satan to throw in his injections. Flies will not so readily light on a pot seething hot on the fire, as when it stands cold in the window. Beelzebub is one of the devil's names ; that is, the god of a fly : in allusion to the idolatrous sacrifices where flies were so busy. This fly will not so readily light on thy sacrifice when flaming from the altar of thy heart with zeal. Now, to preserve thy affections in prayer warm and lively, let it be thy care to stir up the natural heat that is undoubtedly in thee, if a Christian, by the serious consideration of thy sins, wants, and mercies. While thou art pondering on these, thine eye will affect thine heart : they will, as Abishag did to David, by laying them in thy bosom, bring thy soul to a kindly heat in those affections which thou art to exercise in the several parts of prayer. Thy sins reviewed, and heightened with their aggravations, will make the springs of godly sorrow to rise in thy heart. Canst thou do otherwise than mourn, when thou shalt read the several indictments to thy guilty soul, now called to hold up its hand at the bar of thy conscience? Canst thou hear how the holy law of God hath been violated, his Spirit grieved, and his Son murdered by thy bloody hands, and this when he hath been treating thee mercifully, and not mourn ? Surely, should a man walk over a field after a bloody battle, and there see the bodies, though of his enemies, lying weltering in their blood, his heart could not but then relent, though in the heat of battle his fury shut out all thoughts of pity ; but what if he should espy a father or a dear friend dead of the wounds which his unnatural hand had given, — would not his bowels turn ? Yes, surely, if he can-ied the heart of a man in his bosom. Thou mayest guess, Christian, by this, what lielp such a meditation would afford toward the breaking of thy heart for thy sins : certainly, it would make thee throw away that un- happy dagger which was the instrument to give those deep stabs to the heart of Christ, and this is the best mourning of all. Again, thy wants, well weighed,
PRAYING ALWAYS. ETC. 649
would give wings to th}' desires, if once thou wert possessed with the true state of thy affairs, how necessary it is for thee to have supplies from heaven, or to starve and die ; and so in the rest.
CHAPTER XV.
CONTAINS A THIRD CAUSE OF WANDERING THOUGHTS IN PRAYER.