N04855:62
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.
Therefore when you are to pray, confer, or ⟨p. 10⟩meditate, do it with all your mind, and all your thoughts, and all your strength. So when God calls you to worldly employments, do them with all your mind and might; and when the season of meditation comes, take it: which glorious ordinance of God, although many christians use it occasionally, and against some good time, or when they have leisure meeting with them, yet to set some time apart for it in a solemn manner every day, and that in conscience as we do for prayer generally, where is the man to be found that does thus? Those men that thus neglect their season of musing and entering into parley with God's spirit daily, may be well said to grieve the spirit: through the neglect of which Ordinance, God's spirit is as much grieved by professors in England, as by any course I know. The Lord awaken us: but I have run too far already in this first part of my answer.
Therefore when you are to pray, confer, or ⟨p. 10⟩meditate, do it with all your mind, and all your thoughts, and all your strength. So when God calls you to worldly employments, do them with all your mind and might; and when the season of meditation comes, take it: which glorious ordinance of God, although many christians use it occasionally, and against some good time, or when they have leisure meeting with them, yet to set some time apart for it in a solemn manner every day, and that in conscience as we do for prayer generally, where is the man to be found that does thus? Those men that thus neglect their season of musing and entring into parley with God's spirit daily, may be well said to grieve the spirit: through the neglect of which Ordinance, God's spirit is as much grieved by professors in England, as by any course I know. The Lord awaken us: but I have run too far already in this first part of my answer.
For the second means, viz. How the soul is to carry it self in civil employments, that so you may not think you do for better, when you listen to good thoughts as you mention.