The right manner ofdraving nigh Praying, yet if they be not pertinent to the duty thou muffeaff them away as the temptation of the Devil. Youwill fay, Can any thing that is good come from the De- vil Certainly that which is materialy good, and coming - unfeafonably, maybe from the Devil ; thr Devil may take ad- vantage by what is in it felt materially good, and bring in that in an unfeafonable time, and fo he may turn it to evil : As now, when thou art hearing the Word, it may be the Devil chinks he cannot prevail to caufe thee to have thy heart running about, uncleannefs ; yea, but ( faith theDevil) If I can inject good thoughts, l will put into their minds fome place of Scripture that is no way pertinent to this, only to divert them : The De- vil gets much by this ; therefore look to it, and know that God expels the ftren thof thy Brit in dut ; that is, Strong in- tention ; thou an worfhipingof o , and therefore thouhadff need be intent about what thou arc doing : Indeed fometimes before you are aware, evil thoughts will come into your minds, Its when a man is keeping of a doore, and there is a crowd of people without that would come in, perhaps the man cloth open the door for fome Gentleman that he hearer is at the door, but when he opens it for one that is to come in ' fourty others will croud in : And fo it is many times with the foul, that when it opens the door for fome good thought, a great many evil thoughts will crowd in : Thofe people might 'come in if they would ftay their time, but they fhould not now come in. So, about worldly bufinefs, that are not in themfelves unlawful, ifthey will ffay the time they may come in ; but they muff be bard our now_at this time. There is required ftrength of Inten- tion. 2. Secondly,Strerigtb ofAffeaion k required alto That is,. The Affeerions muff work mightily after God, ftriving with God in Prayer : Ifever thou hada a heart inflam'd in any thing, it fhould be when thouart pra in ,or actendin u on theWord; as the Heathens that won ipe t e un, ometimes I have told you that they wouldnot have a Snail, but a flyingHorfe, they wouldoffer that that was fwift : fo when we come to the living God, we muff have living Affeaions, our Affeaions boyling ; andthat will be the way to cure irain thoughts; as the Flies will nog .
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