N04855:54
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 1: CASE I. Of ordering the Thoughts in Civil Employments.
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.
I. For the first briefly; all good motions and thoughts are not the spirit's motions: as may thus appear.
There be three things chiefly by which we may discern the motions, suggestions, and that's which come from God's spirit: all which concurring together in a good action, or thought, or word (not one alone) will make discovery whether they are from God's spirit or not.
There be three things chiefly by which we may discern the motions, suggestions, and thot's which come from God's spirit: all which concurring together in a good action, or thought, or word (not one alone) will make discovery whether they are from God's spirit or not.
1. If it be suggested for God's ends, its from God's spirit: to act so high as for a supernatural end, must arise from a supernatural principle, which only is God's spirit. Pharisaical actions were for a double selfish end, and hence not from God's spirit, but nature, and their own spirit, 1. To be seen of men, 2. If they did any of them abhor this, yet it was to purchase and gender in their own minds an opinion of holiness before God: and hence Christ gives them this Item, in giving Alms, that they should not let their right hand know what their left hand doth: for many men will do good acts, least they should by the neglect of them, think themselves hypocrites, and so be troubled for them. Christ would have us not to take notice of what we do for such an end.