A93085:136
Subjection to Christ in all his ordinances, and appointments, the best means to preserve…
Subjection to Christ in all his ordinances, and appointments, the best means to preserve our liberty. Together with a treatise of ineffectual hearing the word; how we may know whether we have heard the same effectually: and by what means it may be come effectual unto us. With some remarkable passages of his life. By Tho. Shepherd, late pastor of the Church of Christ in Cambridge in New-England. Now published by Mr. Jonathan Michel pastor of the said church in New England.Subjection to Christ in all his ordinances, and appointments, the best means to preserve our liberty. Together with a treatise of ineffectual hearing the word; how we may know whether we have heard the same effectually: and by what means it may be come effectual unto us. With some remarkable passages of his life. By Tho. Shephard, late pastor of the Church of Christ in Cambridge in New-England. Now published by Mr. Jonathan Michell pastor of the said church in New England.
London: printed for John Rothwell, 1652
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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 a generation of men risen up (I think Christians should send forth their groanings to the Lord, that the terror of the Lord may fall upon them) they deny all the Ordinances of the ⟨p. 68⟩Lord, and the Spirit must teach us only. 'Tis true, the Spirit must do it, but will ye therefore take away the means? and hence, the very Scripture is made an Alphabet for children, and so they do destroy the Ordinances of the Lord. Beloved, if it be from this principle, take heed of it; for if it be, ye will certainly find bondage.
and a generation of men risen up (I think Christians should send forth their gronings to the Lord, that the terrour of the Lord may fall upon them) they deny all the Ordinances of the ⟨p. 68⟩Lord, and the Spirit must teach us only. 'Tis true, the Spirit must do it, but will ye therefore take away the means? and hence, the very Scripture is made an Alphabet for children, and so they do destroy the Ordinances of the Lord. Beloved, if it be from this principle, take heed of it; for if it be, ye will certainly finde bondage.
4. When men do not thus pull down the Ordinances, the throne of Christ; but drive the Lord Jesus away out of his Ordinances, (though they have his Ordinances with them) by their secret defilings, pollutions, spiritual pollutions of the glorious Ordinances of Christ; this the Lord frequently complaineth of in Jerem. and Ezek. The very great reason why the Lord did leave his Temple, where their fathers did praise the Lord; they had polluted and defiled it, that was the reason of it: They had driven the Lord away from his throne, and this doth pull down the princely power of the Lord in his Churches. I know, there be many sins and defilements; and the sons of men have hidden ways of polluting the Ordinances of the Lord, that a man shall sit under all the Ordinances of the Lord; and as it is said of Mount Gilboa, not any dew fall upon him; never see good, when good comes; the Lord is not dear, that is the reason of it. Oh, thy secret defilements of the Ordinances of the Lord, have driven