N04855:711
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
MEDITATIONS AND Spiritual Experiences OF Mr. THOMAS SHEPARD.
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.
And thus my Soul was sweetly stayed upon Christ by Faith this Day, and much comforted.—Yet I saw there might be a Deceit in one Thing, viz. in Reasoning and bringing my Heart to do a Duty by the Power of that; (1) To believe a Truth, not only by Means of Reason, but only upon that Ground, because it agrees to right Reason: as that Christ must suffer, because else God must be false and his Word not true; (2) To do a Duty from the Persuasion of Reason, because it pleaseth me, not because it pleaseth the LORD.
And thus my Soul was sweetly stayed upon Christ by Faith this Day, and much comforted.—Yet I saw there might be a Deceit in one Thing, viz. in Reasoning and bringing my Heart to do a Duty by the Power of that; (1) To believe a Truth, not only by Means of Reason, but only upon that Ground, because it agrees to right Reason: as that Christ must suffer, because else God must be false and his Word not true; (2) To do a Duty from the Perswasion of Reason, because it pleaseth me, not because it pleaseth the LORD.
And here I saw, if it was from Reason, the Power of Reason would never carry me against my own Will and my own Ends.
Octob. 18. On Monday Morning, my Child was born. And when my Wife was in Travail, the Lord made me pray that she might be delivered, and the Child given in Mercy, having had some Sense of Mercy the Day before at the Sacrament; and the Lord stayed my Heart there. But I began to think, What if it should not be so, and her Pains be long, and the Lord remember my Sin? and I began to imagine and trouble my Heart with Fear of the worst. And I understood at that Time, that my Child had been born, and my Wife delivered in Mercy already. Hereupon I saw the Lord's Mercy and my own Folly, to disquiet my Heart with Fear of what never shall be, nor will be; and not rather to submit to the Lord's Will; ⟨p. 56⟩