N04855:753
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.
2. Quest. Whether it was a Duty, or an Error, to pray and look for the Fullness of the Spirit in me, without coming by Faith out of my self, and so finding and feeling the Fullness of the Spirit out of me in Christ? And whether I might not be mistaken, and think I was empty of the Spirit, because I did not feel it in me, when haply of the Time when I am most empty, I might be most full, by Faith in Christ? And whether the Fullness of the Spirit in the Apostles was not chiefly a Power of the Spirit, giving them a Subsistence out of themselves in Christ, in whom their Life and Joy was; seeing that Paul oft complains of his Sin and Insufficiency and Inability to think or speak?
2. Quest. Whether it was a Duty, or an Error, to pray and look for the Fulness of the Spirit in me, without coming by Faith out of my self, and so finding and feeling the Fulness of the Spirit out of me in Christ? And whether I might not be mistaken, and think I was empty of the Spirit, because I did not feel it in me, when haply of the Time when I am most empty, I might be most full, by Faith in Christ? And whether the Fulness of the Spirit in the Apostles was not chiefly a Power of the Spirit, giving them a Subsistence out of themselves in Christ, in whom their Life and Joy was; seeing that Paul oft complains of his Sin and Insufficiency and Inability to think or speak?
Answ. Here I saw these Things; (1) That Christ had all Fullness, and so all Fullness of the Spirit: (2) That all that Fullness which I did want in my self was in Christ, for his People, not for himself. He had perfect Knowledge and Grace and Righteousness; not only that by it he might virtually make me see and be righteous; but that it might be mine: (3) I saw it my Duty therefore, out of Sense of my Emptiness, to go unto Christ and possess and enjoy all that Fullness that is in him, as mine own; and to be as much filled with that, and to rejoice as much in that, as if I had it in my self, because it is for me in Christ, and my own there: (4) I saw when I did thus, then I was full of the Spirit: and that I was now as a Fish that is got from the Shore to the Sea, where it hath all Fullness ⟨p. 72⟩