N04855:117
Some select cases resolved. Specially, tending to the right ordering of the heart, that…
Some select cases resolved. Specially, tending to the right ordering of the heart, that we may comfortably walk with God in our general and particular callings: &c. In a letter to a pious friend in England. / By Thomas Shepard, M.A. Formerly of Emmanuel-College in Cambridge in England: afterward Minister of Cambridge in New-England. ; Corrected by four several editions.
Boston: printed by Rogers and Fowle, 1747
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1. Let him consider the Freeness of God's promise, whereby he may be stirred up to conceive some hope it may be made good to him in ⟨p. 38⟩time. For the promise is very free and large, excluding none (except those that sin unpardonably) be their sins and natures never so vile before God; and yet not including any by name, for that is in the conditional promise: And hence such an one is to make this use of it; Who knows but the Lord may have pity upon me in time? and so hang thy hope upon him.
2. Let him consider the Worth and Price of God's promise, bought by blood, and for which some men would give a thousand worlds for the benefit and comfort of; and hereby raise up his heart, as by the Freeness of it to hope, so by the Price of it to esteem of the thing promised, above pearls, and all the honour and pomp of the world.
3. Let him consider the Fullness of the promise, which is a plaster as big as his sore, just answerable to all his wants, nay infinitely more large than his wants. And surely these three things will draw his heart to long for the promise; and then you know what is conditionally promised and bequeathed to them that thirst: For similitude is the ground of love. Now when the Fullness of the Promise is seen, there will appear such a suitableness and fitness of the promise to his soul, that he cannot but long for it.
3. Let him consider the Fulness of the promise, which is a plaister as big as his sore, just answerable to all his wants, nay infinitely more large than his wants. And surely these three things will draw his heart to long for the promise; and then you know what is conditionally promised and bequeathed to them that thirst: For similitude is the ground of love. Now when the Fulness of the Promise is seen, there will appear such a sutableness and fitness of the promise to his soul, that he cannot but long for it.