N04855:63
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.
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.
I say but two things;
1. Learn to follow them out of an awful respect to the eye, presence, and command of Jesus Christ: and to do what you do in civil businesses, as the work of Christ: When you are riding, or making up breaches between man and man, and then think I am now about the work of Jesus Christ.
2. Seeing your self thus working in worldly ⟨p. 11⟩employments for him, you may easily apprehend that for that time God calls you to them, and you attend upon the work of Jesus Christ in them; that you honour God as much, nay more by the meanest servile worldly act, than if you should have spent all that time in meditation, prayer, or any other spiritual employment, to which you had no call at that time. It is noted therefore by some of Peter's wives mother, that when Christ had healed her of her fever, she sate not down at table with Christ in communion with him, which, no question, was sweet; but ministered at the table, and ran too and fro, and so served him, and acted for him; wherein she showed more love, and gave him more honour, viz. in that mean service, and in acting for him, than in having communion with him. Now if the Lord would out of his abundant goodness, set the soul in such an acting frame for him, and if it could do its worldly employments, as the work of Christ, and see how greatly it honours Christ in attending on him; Oh what peace should a christian enjoy, notwithstanding all his distractions every day! and how easily would such devout thoughts you speak of, be repelled like darkness before the light? For the nobleness of those good thoughts you speak of presenting themselves against the mean and base outsides of civil affairs, makes you ready to honour the one, when you are called to serve the other: but now, by seeing you do the work of Christ Jesus in them, you shall hereby