DIRECTIONS against levity in prayer 2/3

1. 3 Direction.  Go not in thy own strength to this duty, but commit thyself by faith to the conduct of the Spirit of God.  God hath promised to prepare, or establish, as the word is, the heart.  Indeed, then the heart is prepared when established and fixed.  A shaking hand may soon write a right line as our loose hearts keep themselves steady in duty.  Shouldst thou, with Job, make a covenant with thine eye, and resolve to bung up thine ear from all by‑discourse, how long, thinkest thou, shouldst thou be true to thine own self, who hast so little command of thine own thoughts?  Thy best way were to put thyself out of thine own hands, and lay thy weight on him that is able to bear thee better than thy own legs.  Pray with David, ‘Uphold me with thy free spirit,’ Ps. 51:12.  The vine leaning on a wall preserves itself and its fruit, whose own weight else, without this help, would soon lay it in the dirt.

Second Cause.   A second cause of these wander­ing roving thoughts in prayer, is a dead and unactive heart in him that prayeth.  If the affections be once down, then the Christian is as a city whose wall is broken down.  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, though to little purpose.  Like our poor, find them work and they keep at home.  But let them want for it, and you have them roving and begging all the country over. 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 in the soul to muse with sorrowful thoughts on its ail and 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 rove and 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, Ex. 5.  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 for the setting of its thoughts on work—only to speak or read a few words, which is so easy a task that a man may do it and spare 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 intended can no more be in two places together than the body.  And as these holy affections will pre­vent the soul’s wandering disposition, 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. Baalze­bub is one of the devil’s names—that is, the god os a fly—an 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.