Certain select cases resolved specially tending to the right ordering of the heart, that…

Gods Spirit sets a man on work in due season; for let the duty be commanded and rightly directed, yet if it be not done in season, it is not from Gods Spirit: hence Psal. 1. The righteous bring forth fruit in its season: and hence Solomon speaks of words spoken in season, ar•as apples of Gold: and hence we read in Ecclesiastes of a time, and season for •very thing under the Su•ne: and therefore when there is a season of Gods appointing for civill things or business, it is not season now to be molested or perplexed in it, by the injection and evocation of those thoughts which we think to proceed from the Spirit of God: I know indeed, that the Spirit of God doth enable a man to do whatever good he doth; but as Grace makes Nature sometimes to serve, so sinful Nature ⟨p. 7⟩brings Grace into captivity, (which Paul complains of, Rom. 7.) and makes Grace to serve it. To exhort and reprove another for sin, is from Gods Spirit that it is done, but to reprove at an unseasonable time, its from sinful corruption, abusing Gods grace, and making S•••son to grind. Its from the excellency of a […] to cut well, but to cut my singer with it […] • should be cutting of my meat with it, […] not from the end of the knife, nor from the intention of him that made it: so to think of good things, it is from the spirit, I grant, but to think of them in such a season that God sets you a work to mind and follow other occasions, its from the enemy of Gods spirit, and your own peace; for as it is a sin to nourish worldly thoughts when God sets you a work in spiritual heavenly employments, so it is (in some respects) as great a sin to suffer your self to be distracted by spiritual thoughts, when God sets you on work in Civill (yet lawful) employments: such thoughts (I conceive) are but the leaven of Monkish holiness, if they divert you from your lawful affairs, when the Lord calls you to follow them. For the Lord never calls you to two divers employments at the same time, unless you make the one to be a means to further the good of the other;