_Secondly_, The spirit is indisposed by _a throng of worldly affairs, and these oft jostle out duty_. Christ tells us they have the same influence upon men that gluttony and drunkenness have, and these unfit men for action. ‘Take heed,’ saith Luke xxi. 34, ‘to yourselves, lest at any time your heart be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life.’ These then may at so high a rate overcharge the souls of men so as to make them frame excuses: ‘I have bought a farm or oxen,’ and therefore ‘I cannot attend;’ and by this means may they grow so neglective that the ‘day of the Lord may come upon them at unawares.’ _Thirdly_, Sometimes the soul is _discomposed through passion_, and then it is indisposed, which opportunity the devil espying, he closeth in with it. Sometime he ‘blows the fire,’ that the heat of anger may put them upon a carelessness. Sometimes he pleads their present frame as an unfitness for service, and so upon a pretence of reverence to the service, and ‘leaving the gift at the altar’ till they be in a better humour, many times the gift is not offered at all, 1 Pet. iii. 7. The apostle directs husbands to manage their authority over their wives with prudence, for the avoiding of brawls and contentions: ‘Ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour to the wife as the weaker vessel;’ the reason of which advice he gives in these words, ‘that your prayers be not hindered.’ Prayers are hindered partly in their success when they prevail not, partly they are hindered when the duty of prayer is put by and suspended; and this doubtless the apostle aims at, to teach us that contentious quarrellings in a family hinder the exercise of the duty of prayer. Elisha, 2 Kings iii., discomposed himself in his earnest reproof of Jehoram, for with great vehemency he had spoken to him: ver. 13, 14, ‘What have I to do with thee? get thee to the prophets of thy father. Were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, I would not look toward thee, nor see thee.’ But when he set himself to receive the visions of God, he calls for a minstrel, ver. 15, the reason whereof, as P[eter] Martyr and others suppose,[200] was this, that however what he spake to Jehoram proceeded from zeal, yet being but a man, and subject to the like infirmities of other men, it had distracted and discomposed his spirit, which made him unfit and uncapable to entertain the visions of God. Music then being a natural means for the composure and quiet of the mind, he takes that course to calm and fit himself for that work.