A93085:14
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.
His manner of preaching was close and searching, and with abundance of affection and compassion to his hearers. He took great pains in his preparations for his public labours, accounting it a cursed thing to do the work of the Lord negligently; and therefore spending usually two or three whole days in preparing for the work of the Sabbath, and having his sermons finished upon friday night; He hath sometime expressed himself thus in public; God will curse that mans labours that lumbers up and down in the world all the week, and then upon Saturday in the afternoon goes to his study, when as God knows that time were little enough to pray and weep in, and to get his heart in frame, &c. He affected plainness together with power in preaching, not seeking abstrusities, nor liking to hover and soar aloft in dark expressions, and so to shoot his arrows (as many ⟨image 5⟩Preachers do) over the heads of his hearers.
His manner of preaching was close and searching, and with abundance of affection and compassion to his hearers. He took great paines in his preparations for his publick labours, accounting it a cursed thing to do the work of the Lord negligently; and therefore spending usually two or three whole dayes in preparing for the work of the Sabbath, and having his sermons finished upon friday night; He hath sometime exprest himself thus in publicke; God will curse that mans labours that lumbers up and down in the world all the week, and then upon Saturday in the afternoon goes to his study, when as God knows that time were little enough to pray and weep in, and to get his heart in frame, &c. He affected plainenesse together with power in preaching, not seeking abstrusities, nor liking to hover and soare aloft in dark expressions, and so to shoot his arrowes (as many ⟨image 5⟩Preachers do) over the heads of his hearers.
It is a wretched stumbling block to some, that his Sermons are somewhat strict, and (as they term it) legal: some souls can relish none but meal-mouthed Preachers, who come with soft and smooth, and toothless words, byssina verba byssinis viris: But these times need humbling Ministries, and blessed be God that there are any; for where there are no Law-Sermons, there will be few Gospel-lives, and were there more Law-preaching in England by the men of gifts, there would be more Gospel-walking both by themselves and the People. To preach the Law, not in a forced affected manner, but wisely and powerfully, together with the Gospel, as Christ himself was wont to do (