A93085:142
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.
Fourthly, When the soul doth not so openly, manifestly drive away the Lord; but when men shall come to the Ordinances, and never come to the Lord Jesus in them; now the Lord is cast off. A great Prince that comes to a mans house, though he be not driven out of doors; yet if not attended ⟨p. 73⟩on, he accounts himself cast off. The Lord Jesus Christ is in his Ordinances, Ezek. 48.35. The Lord is there; the Saints, they come to God in them, and are carried to him by them: Therefore, 'tis said, Acts 10.33, 34. Now therefore, we are all present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God, and Psal. 84.7. Every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. Now the Saints and people of God, when they do thus come to the Lord, they find many difficulties to break through, a valley of Baca. Sometimes their heart is turned from the Lord, and sometimes God is turned from them: so that now, the Saints when they do come to the Lord in his Ordinances; They go through the valley of Baca, that they may see God in Zion. But now, when men do never break through difficulties; but give way to a sluggish heart; when it is thus with a people, it is certain the Lord is now cast off; and ye do as good now as live without Christ in the world. Amos 5.21. saith the Lord, I hate your new Moons, and Sabbaths; For these forty years ye never sacrificed to me, vers. 25. Did they not sacrifice those forty years to the Lord in the wilderness? It was the very thing they came out of Egypt for, that they might sacrifice to the Lord: Yet saith the Lord, ye did not sacrifice to me; truly here was the thing, they did sacrifice, but, to enjoy communion ⟨p. 74⟩with a God, that they did not; the Lord he saw none of that, and this is the frame of many a man, ye never heard a Sermon; ye never broke through your difficulties to come to a God in Ordinances: therefore, in truth, though you had them, yet it is as if you never had them; because, ye never did enjoy the Lord in them.