A93085:230
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.
Object. Leave them to the Church. Object.
Answ. True, leave them 1. there. Answ. But 2. Sometimes the Church will not, sometimes they are not of any Church. A Papist, an Arminian may come in and leaven and damn many a soul, for which they had better never been; If it were but one, and if he says, I do it with a meek spirit, (their trick of late) and none must meddle, because mercy must be shown to these wolves: A wise shepherd had rather let a hunter come in and kill one of his sheep, then let a wolf or fox escape, Act. 20.29. and see his people persecuted, then their souls worried.
Answ. True, leave them 1. there. Answ. But 2. Sometimes the Church will not, sometimes they are not of any Church. A Papist, an Arminian may come in and leaven and damne many a soul, for which they had better never been; If it were but one, and if he sayes, I do it with a meek spirit, (their trick of late) and none must meddle, because mercy must be shewen to these wolves: A wise shepherd had rather let a hunter come in and kill one of his sheep, then let a wolfe or fox escape, Act. 20.29. and see his people persecuted, then their soules worried.
Heresy and Error hath this property; it ever dies by severe opposition, and truth ever riseth the more; because Christ is against the one, Hence it must fall; but for the other, hence it shall rise by its fall: Hence, set your selves against this, 'tis to oppose the power of Christ Jesus. And hence in Henry the 8th time, the Abbeys fell, and never could rise to this day; but the six Articles against the Saints pursued with blood, made them increase the more.