N04855:134
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
Case 6: CASE VI. Of Unwillingness to and Weariness in solemn Services.
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.
Answ. To which I answer these three things.
1. That as the old sinful nature is communicated from Adam the first to us, without any argumentation; so the new nature, which is the food, foundation, and plot of all grace, is diffused ⟨p. 43⟩into us by the second Adam when we are united to him, without argumentation. It is only by divine operation. The Lord leave not me, nor any friend I have, to a naked Arminian Illumination and Persuasion.
1. That as the old sinful nature is communicated from Adam the first to us, without any argumentation; so the new nature, which is the food, foundation, and plot of all grace, is diffused ⟨p. 43⟩into us by the second Adam when we are united to him, without argumentation. It is only by divine operation. The Lord leave not me, nor any friend I have, to a naked Arminian Illumination and Perswasion.
2. That to the increase of those habits, and drawing out the acts of the new creature, the Lord is pleased to use moral and rational persuasions; as in the instance you gave, Christ died for us, then hence the love of Christ constrains: But remember withal, it is not the bare meditation, or strength of reason or persuasion, that elicits such divine and noble acts in the heart and affection; but it is the blood of Christ sprinkling these serious mediations, that makes them work such graces in the soul; which I might show at large: which blood is the salve, though argumentation is the cloth or leather to which it sticks, and by which it is applied; but from such leather comes no virtue, all of it is from the blood of Christ, which by argumentation heals the Soul. For if it were nakedly in the argumentation to stir your heart, and to work strength of grace; what should be the reason that sometimes you are no more moved by all your argumentations, than a mountain of brass is by the winds? why should the same truth affect you at one time, and not at another, when you are as fitly disposed to be affected as at the first? Therefore consider it is not your reason and argumentation, but Christ's blood that doth all, by as admirable, and yet secret operation.