The mind of man is notoriously fickle, and distractions too easily keep him from whole hearted service to God. Even serious Christians feel the strain caused when their desires to offer God more spiritual and well-pleasing sacrifices are hindered by remaining sin and vanity of mind. Furthermore, obtaining freedom from distractions in religious duties is very difficult. Some think lightly of the disease and imagine the cure needless. Others are discouraged from striving against distractions because they think it is impossible to overcome them. In this book, Nathanael Vincent convincingly demonstrates how everyone ought to attend upon God, recognize Him as Lord, and serve Him without interruption. In helping us to see the weight of our obligation, Vincent provides an abundance of pastoral guidance and encouragement. This book equips readers to detect distractions and deal with them. It also motivates them by showing the benefits that pertain to a focused pursuit of glorifying God.

Table of Contents:

PART ONE: EVERYONE OUGHT TO ATTEND UPON GOD

1. What Attending upon God Is

2. What Attending upon God Implies

3. Various Kinds of Attending upon God

4. Why We Ought to Attend upon God

5. Reproofs for Those Who Reject Attending upon God

6. Exhortations for Those Who Reject Attending upon God

7. Directions and Consolations for Attending upon God

PART TWO: ATTENDING UPON GOD MEANS WE SHOULD LOOK UPON HIM AS LORD AND SERVE HIM

8. How God Is the Lord

9. How God’s Lordship Should Impact Our Attending upon Him

10. Reproofs and Advice for Those Who Don’t Attend upon God as Lord

PART THREE: ATTENDING UPON GOD SHOULD BE WITHOUT DISTRACTION

11. How the Heart Is Distracted

12. How to Attend upon God without Distraction

13. The Evils and Distractions and Benefits of Avoiding Them

PART FOUR: CASES OF CONSCIENCE AND APPLICATIONS OF ATTENDING UPON GOD WITHOUT DISTRACTIONS

14. Cases of Conscience about Distractions

15. Cautions and Expostulations about Distractions

16. Directions to Remedies against Distractions

17. Advice for Avoiding Distractions in Religious Duties

18. Terrors of Distractions and Encouragements to Believers 

Author 

Nathanael Vincent (1638–1697)was born in Cornwall to John and Sarah Vincent. He graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1656 and a Master of Arts in 1657. He was then appointed chaplain of the Corpus Christi College.Vincent was ordained at age twenty-one and became rector of Langley Marish, Buckinghamshire. Ejected by the Act of Uniformity of 1662, he spent three years as a private chaplain to Sir Henry Blount before moving to London in 1666.

In 1672, Vincent was licensed as a Presbyterian preacher. While Vincent’s ministry was marked with appreciation by those who came to hear him preach, the government’s non-tolerant approach to nonconformity inflicted persecution and multiple imprisonments on him. Vincent’s imprisonments left him so weak that for some time he was unable to preach, and resorted to writing. Most of his fourteen books were written in prison. His books reflect a warm, experiential piety. His love and concern for the body of Christ is evident in every book.Vincent died suddenly in 1697, at age fifty-eight; he was survived by his wife, Anna, and six children. He was buried in the nonconformists’ burial ground at Bunhill Fields.

Endorsement 

"Attending upon God without Distraction is a practical and experiential Puritan masterpiece on a vital but often neglected subject of the Christian life. It invites and exhorts us to a close life with God through Christ, and shows us how to attend upon God as our Savior and Lord, without being drawn away by a host of distractions. Various cases of conscience, cautions, directions, and challenges are addressed with biblical and practical winsomeness and forcefulness. In some ways, this book seems even more applicable in our hurried and harried day than in Nathanael Vincent’s own day!" - Joel R. Beeke