Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
Why then are the prayers of them that love and fear God so little effectual many times? The main cause is the wandering of their thoughts when they are about that holy duty. For it is no wonder that God granteth not what we ask when we think not what we ask. And it were a wonder if that Holiest of Holies, being spoken to without attention, did not resent so great a contempt which we would not use to our inferiors.
Since then the wandering of our thoughts is the cause of that great evil, what is the cause of that wandering? Indeed the prime cause is the incapacity of our low carnal nature to comprehend the infinite God; who being invisible and immaterial doth not help the mind with any image proportionate to the sense and imagination; without which it is very hard for the understanding to fix his thoughts. And that defect in our nature is made worse by this defect in our duty, that we make our addresses to God having not considered before what we are going about, what God is, and what we are.
For the reference, see Peter Du Moulin on the evil of wandering thoughts in prayer.
Since then the wandering of our thoughts is the cause of that great evil, what is the cause of that wandering? Indeed the prime cause is the incapacity of our low carnal nature to comprehend the infinite God; who being invisible and immaterial doth not help the mind with any image proportionate to the sense and imagination; without which it is very hard for the understanding to fix his thoughts. And that defect in our nature is made worse by this defect in our duty, that we make our addresses to God having not considered before what we are going about, what God is, and what we are.
For the reference, see Peter Du Moulin on the evil of wandering thoughts in prayer.