Antidote Against Distractions, Chapter 1
CHAP. I. The Text explained, The Doctrine proposed, and a Distraction described.
SECTION I.
1 CORINTH. 7.35.
—That you may attend upon the Lord without Distraction.foreign.
THe Apostle is a Casuist in this Chapter,§. 1. The dependance of the words. and the present Case is about Virginity and Marriage; wherein I. He determines for the former, [vers. 26.] when the Church was in the bonds of Persecution, it was not safe to be in the bond of Marriage. II. He prevents mistakes, [vers. 27, 28.] though the single man be fittest to suffer, yet there is neither that sin nor misery on the married, as to dissolve the sacred knot. III. He offers Reasons for this Resolve. 1. One, from the crosses and troubles then attending the state of Marriage, [vers. 28.] Thorns as well as Roses. 2. The other, from the Cares that alwaies accompany it [vers. 32.] For the Man, now is his heart *foreign.divided. Before, if I can but please the Lord, and and contrive how to live comfortably with my God *Si orationem facit ad Dominum, propè est Coelo, Scripturis incumbit, totu… ill…c est. Si Psalmum canit, placet sibi. Tertul. de exh. cast. p. 670.; this is all my care and ambition. Now, the stream of my thoughts and affections is parted; I must please and provide for my Wife, [vers. 32, 33.] For the Woman, now is her task doubled. Before, her whole aim was to please her Husband in Heaven. Now must her designs and respects be for her earthly Husband also. [vers. 34] Not that these several Relations are inconsistent, but to provide for these new Duties and Temptations will distract the mind, especially in the daies of Tryal. ::Tu de castitate canis… illae somniant etiam viros, flammas patiuntur & saciunt, ubi decorum? ubi adhasio Domini? ubi finis à Paulo positus? sublato fine, tolli debent ad illud destinata. Are…ius in loc.IV. He qualifies his Counsel, and explains himself, [vers. 35.] It is no… part of my meaning, either to obtrude the Doctrine or Duty of Coelibate upon you, that to avoid a strait, you should run upon a sin; but my motion is, 1. For your profit; my office, and so my counsel is rather to profit, than to please you, 2. There is a comeliness or *So the word is used. 1 Cor. 14.40.conveniency in it; both states are alwaies lawful, but the one may sometimes be more convenient. And 3. My ultimate design is, that you may chuse that state, wherein you may best Attend upon the Lord without Distraction. This the occasion and tendency of these words.
SECT. II.
FRom the general import of these words flows this Annotation,§. 2.
That condition should be chosen by all, An Observation.that's best for their souls. Your outward condition must serve your inward condition; and this life must be subservient to another life. If single-life do every way better qualifie you, to serve the Lord, and save your souls, this is the best life for you; and if Marriage be better for your souls, no state is better.
For if the soul prosper, All prospers; and if tha… miscarry, All's lost. If to be a Prince were dangerous for the soul, 'twere better to be a Beggar: If a poor state do enrich the soul, it is the best estate.
This needs not to be proved unto Christians, that will be granted by Heathens? some of whom have so powerfully discoursed of the immortality and excellency of the soul, that their Auditors have posted to death by self-destruction, for the happy state thereof. If Pagans would chuse to dye, as a condition best for the soul, well may we chuse that condition of life, which best serves the soul; lest those Acts which were unable to justifie them, prove able to condemn us with a witness.
Let this Axiom come in, when you are disposing your children or your selves; being confident, when you are most sollicitous about the soul, God will be most careful for the body, and you will meet with least distress, when you flee the least Distraction.
§. 3.SECT. III.
The Explication of the Text.THe words of the Text present us with a Design, that Believers as often aim at, and yet miss, as any in the World; and which is so excellent a rare attainment, that the Holy Ghost even makes two words on purpose to express it by, no where else found in the New-Testament; (a)Quod inteniè facit servire Domino sine ullâ distractione. Hieron. lib. 1. contr. Jo. vin. By comparing whereof with the present vulgar you may easily see the Vulgar was none of Hieromes. For thus the Vulgar, Quod facultatem praebeat sine impedimento Dominum obsecrandi, miswritten for observandi, as Beza thinks… But Erasmus sayes the oldest Translation was, Domino observiendi, after turned into observandi and by some obsecrandi.To Attend on the Lord without Distraction. Hierome confesseth that the Latine can hardly express the Emphasis of the Greek in this clause, and that thereupon it was wholly omitted in the Latine books. In the words we must consider,
1. The Matter What, [Attend upon the Lord.]
2. The Manner how, [Without Distraction.]
1. The Matter what, [Attend upon the Lord] The Greek word for [Attend] in our Copies hath a notable elegancy in it. 1. That you may be (b)Some Copies read foreign some foreign acceptab…le, This way the Arabick speaks ut confortemini quàm proximè secùndum Dominum. But the truest is our own. foreign de…omposit…m of foreign sedeo from which the Syriack differs little.Fit and ready for Gods Service, That Religion and religious Duties may sit fitly on you, that you may be ready to serve the Lord in Duty or Suffering. A most sweet frame of soul, to be alwayes bent and strung for the Service of God. That man is meet for the Masters use, that is prepared unto every good work, 2 Tim. 2.21. How many choice opportunities for instruction, for reproof, for charity, for prayer do we hazard, yea and lose for want of a Soul quick and ready to our duty. 2. That you may be (c)Assidere, apiè adhaerefcere Legh. Assiduus in aliquo negotio. Stephan.Fix… and setled in his Service. The word intimates such an (d)Indivulsè adhaerens. Budaeus. Quasi à latere alicujus nunquam discedens. Stephan. Ut sitis seduli more fidorum servorum qui à latere domini sui non discedunt. Bez. è Syr.inseparable cleaving, such a marriage of the mind to the work of God, that we have in hand, as can by no means suffer a divorce. It should be as hard a matter, to break off the heart from God in his service, being married to him, and setled in holy duties, as it is to abstract the misers soul from the world, to which it is glued.
2. The Manner how, [Without Distraction] The sense hereof is almost prevented, by the Emphasis of the former word. Yet this Word is not without its great weight: And it speaks a (e)foreign of foreign Trabo, immobilis, inconcussus, quietus, & qui distrahi nequit Budaeu… Stephan. Usus est hac voce Plut. de Curiosit. foreign appellans, …ffiduum studium sapientiae, nullis negotiis ali… mentem avocantibus.quiet unshaken and immoveable frame of Soul, which cannot be whirled about with vain trifles. The soul is never at that holy quiet, as when it is directly ascending and communing with the Lord; and therefore Satan exceedingly envies this Coelestial happiness of the Saints, and if he cannot distract them from duty, be sure he will distract them in it; and this he doth very much (f)Ut fitis seduli erga Dominum vestrum, cum honestate decorá non cogitantes de mundo. Tre…ull.by the World and the business thereof. And therefore (sayes the Apostle) guide your condition so, in this suffering season, as that it may not misguide your hearts, in your attendance on the Lord; that you may not attend on your selves, nor on others; but (g)Ut srequens sit oratio. Sedulius.on Him, who is the Centre of an Ordinance, and your All in All.
Take the sum of all in this Assertion, the main Doctrine from the Text.
It is a Christians Duty to attend on the Lord without Distractions.Doct.
And that I may from this Text and Doctrine profitably handle the Case, and attempt the Cure of Distractions, I shall proceed to shew these things, 1. The Nature of a Distraction. 2. The Kinds of Distractions. 3. That it is our Duty to attend upon the Lord without Distr…ctions. 4. The reasons why we must attend on the Lord without Distractions. 5. Answer the Objections. 6. Describe the Causes of Distractions. 7. The Evil of them. 8. The Cure of them. 9. Propound some encouragements under the burden of Distractions. 10 Draw some Inferences from this Doctrine. And first of the first, viz. the nature of a Distraction.
SECT. IV.
§ 4 The first general Head. viz. The description of Distractions.THE first Head will be to describe a Distraction. A Distraction is a secret wandring of the Heart from God, in some Duty in hand.
1. It is a wandring, As the remisness of our Devotion shoots short, so Distraction shoots awry. 'Tis said, Prov. 27.8. As a bird that wandereth from his nest, so is a man from his place. *Primum argumentum compositae mentis existimo esse, consistere & secum morari. Senec. Epist. 2.Its commonly known, the ready way to destroy the young in the shell, is discontinuance of heat; and to wander from our heavenly work, produces the dead off-spring of unprofitable Duties. It would be almost as easie to trace and follow the Bird in her vagaries, as the volatile and intricate imaginations of the heart ::The same word foreign signifies the Soul, and a Butterfly, because our wandring imaginations make our wavering spirits like wagling Butterflies puffed up and down with every blast of vanity. Mr. Pagets Primmer.It is a digression: you that are curious to observe the Minister in his digressions; how much more necessary is it to observe your own?
2. It is secret, in the Heart. And this contracts the guilt and nature of Hypocrisie upon a Distraction; for we have a short and clear description of hypocrisie, which agrees too well with distractions. Matth, 15.7, 8. This People draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips: but their heart is far from me. To have a bended knee, a craving eye, are choice Expressions of Duty: but without the Impressions and attendance of the heart, *In the Sacrifices of the Law, the Inwards still were offered to God, the skin was for the Priest.are double iniquity and flat hypocrisie. How empty would our Congregations be sometimes, if no more bodies were present, than there are souls: And what abundance of sorry service hath our God, that no body sees?
Yet how unknown soever these triflings of the mind are to others, or to our selves, yet are they most palpable to the Lord, who sets our most secret sins in the clearest light of his Countenance;Psal. 90.8. and though these primo-primi motus may antevert the use of Reason, and therefore seem small Peccadillo's yet they fall under the rebuke of Religion; and are as sinfull as they are secret: Good in secret is the best Goodness; and secret sinfulness, the worst sinfulness.
3. This wandering of the Heart is from God, for God is the Object of Worship. To pray aright is, Zech. 8.21. To pray before the Lord. To give thanks aright is, Dan. 6.10. To give thanks before his God, not in his sight only, for so you are, when your hearts are worst; but they did look on God when they spake to him, as we do look on men, when we speak to them. Melancthon sayes, he hath heard Luther in his secret prayers so pray, that one would verily think, there were some body in the room with him to whom he spake.
4. This wandring is, while some Duty is in hand, to desert Duty is Nihil agere, to do divine duties to Diabolical ends is Male agere, to divert the Soul is Aliud agere. Hoc age must be the Christians motto, in the Worship of God. That was a good answer, Neh. 6.3. of Nehemiah to his false friends, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down, Why should the work cease while I leave it and come down to you? He that is in a Duty to God, is about a very great work, And that work stands, or goes backward every moment the heart is away; and why should a *When King Ethelbert was at his Devotions, news was brought of the Danes invasion at Essenden, but he neither omitted nor abreviated his prayers, he would hear no suit on Earth, till he had made his requests in Heaven, and afterwards he bravely vanquished them. Dr T. Fuller.temporal vanity set back, and perhaps quite unravel your eternal concernment? How will that Spartan youth rise up in judgement against us, that holding the Censer during Alexanders Heathen Sacrifices, would not stir his hand from its duty; though the burning coals fell thereon, and made his flesh to fry and s…ell in the presence of all the Spectators?