N04855:98
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
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.
1. I shall show you to what end, and for what use and purpose God has made absolute promises, not only to them that be for the present his people, but to them that in respect of their estates and condition are not. 2. I shall show you how every Christian is to make use of them, and how and when he ought to apply them. For the first of these.
1. I shall shew you to what end, and for what use and purpose God has made absolute promises, not only to them that be for the present his people, but to them that in respect of their estates and condition are not. 2. I shall shew you how every Christian is to make use of them, and how and when he ought to apply them. For the first of these.
I. First, I conceive, that as in respect of God himself, there are many ends which I shall not mention, as being needless; so in respect of man there are principally these two ends for which the Lord has made absolute promises.
1. To raise up the Soul of a helpless, sinful, cursed, lost sinner in his own eyes, to some hope, at least, of mercy and help from the Lord. For thus usually every man's Soul is wrought, to whom the Lord doth intend grace and mercy; he first turns his eyes inward, and makes him to see he is stark naught, and that he has not one dram of grace in him, who thought himself rich, and wanting nothing before; and consequently, that he is under the curse and wrath of God for the present, and that if the Lord should but stop his breath, and cover his face, and take him away, which he may easily do, and this to be feared he will, that he is undone forever. Hereupon the Soul is awakened and falls to his kitchen physic, as I spake before, prays, and hears, and amends, and strives to grow better, and to stop up every hole, and to amend it self of ⟨p. 29⟩