A93085:146
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.
In one word thus; this is certain, a man never gets good by any Ordinance, nor the Lord Jesus doth never attain his end in any Ordinance, till there bean everlasting power and life of Christ Jesus communicated by the Ordinance. There, saith he, God commandeth his blessing, 1life for evermore; mercy, for ever comforting; and light, for ever teaching; and humbling, for ever continuing: and a man will never think he ⟨p. 77⟩doth receive any good till he doth it: For If a man be healed of his blindness, and be blind presently again; what is be the better? So, if a man hath some flash of light in the Ordinance, bless the Lord for it. The Lord quickens up the heart to walk with the Lord, Blessed be the Lord for it: Ay, but when the heart now shall lose that life, and strength which it had, (not but that a Christian do's lose to his feeling, but it will return again.) When he is a hearing, some affection, but he goes away dead as he came: no, but when the Lord comes by his everlasting power and mercy, and life in any Ordinance; now Christ comes in his power, and now ye receive the King in his power, and Christ attains his end in the Ordinance. This is all that I would say, I do beseech you brethren, in the Lord Jesus Christ: Oh seek for this blessed life, everlasting life Lord, everlasting power Lord; beg for that, and seek for that, and pray for that, and weep for that; do not content thy self with sippings and tastings, look for everlasting life and power to come with the Ordinance; though means be weak in themselves, do not therefore vilify them: Look upon the brazen serpent, what a poor thing was that to heal the people that were stung? yet the institution of Christ did put virtue into it: So do thou attend on the Ordinances, and never be content, till ⟨p. 78⟩thou dost find the Lord, and feel the Lord, and say as some have said; though I feel not the Lord now as I have done, yet I think I shall for ever bless the Lord. Never be content till ye find the Lord bringing your heart to this pass, and then the King of glory, the Prince of peace is come; though ye find not the fame power at all times, yet if ye find that power which do's inure your heart for ever to bless the Lord, here is everlasting power. Jesus is now come to thy soul; Ay, but when ye content your selves with some movings and beginnings;