A93085:138
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.
First, When there is a secret contempt grown upon a mans spirit of the Ordinances of Christ, attended with a secret weariness of them: this doth now pollute the Ordinances of the Lord, and this doth drive the Lord from his Ordinances: Mal. 1.7. Ye have offered polluted bread; wherein have we done it, say they? this was the cause of it; Ye say, that the Table of the Lord is contemptible; the meaning is, you do despise my Table and Ordinances, and so now do despise me too, and so ye do vilify and contemn the Ordinances of the Lord: Therefore saith the Lord, in the conclusion of that Chapter, vers. 11. From the rising of the Sun, my name it shall be known. As if he should say, I am not bound to you, I can have a people, among whom my name shall be great; For, saith the Lord, I am a great King. If one should have asked men in those days what good is in your sacrifices? what great glory can ye see in them? the Saints can see a great deal of glory in mean outsides: Now when this is wanting, the name of the Lord is polluted, and so the Lord driven from his Ordinances. Heb. 12.15. Take heed, lest there be in any of you an evil root of bitterness springing up, and ⟨p. 70⟩many thereby be defiled. When men do live in secret lusts, or open profaneness; a man that hath a profane heart, such a heart as doth contemn the portion of mercy the Lord doth offer to him; who like Esau, did sell his birth-right for a mess of pottage.
First, When there is a secret contempt grown upon a mans spirit of the Ordinances of Christ, attended with a secret wearinesse of them: this doth now pollute the Ordinances of the Lord, and this doth drive the Lord from his Ordinances: Mal. 1.7. Ye have offered polluted bread; wherein have we done it, say they? this was the cause of it; Ye say, that the Table of the Lord is contemptible; the meaning is, you do despise my Table and Ordinances, and so now do despise me too, and so ye do vilifie and contemne the Ordinances of the Lord: Therefore saith the Lord, in the conclusion of that Chapter, vers. 11. From the rising of the Sun, my name it shall be known. As if he should say, I am not bound to you, I can have a people, among whom my name shall be great; For, saith the Lord, I am a great King. If one should have asked men in those dayes what good is in your sacrifices? what great glory can ye see in them? the Saints can see a great deal of glory in mean outsides: Now when this is wanting, the name of the Lord is polluted, and so the Lord driven from his Ordinances.