A93085:380
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.
Lastly, so seek the Lord, and so hear the Word, so seek the truth, and so hear the truth, as that you lay up your happiness in ⟨p. 191⟩this world, in closing with the truth and with the word. Brethren, what is a mans happiness in heaven, but to close with God and Christ? I cannot come to God now, the most that I can have of God now is in his word; if it be happiness in heaven to close with God in Christ, truly then it is a mans happiness to close with God in his word on earth; and if it be your happiness, lay up your happiness in it. My son, saith Solomon, if thou wilt hear my word, 1let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the middest of thy heart; place thy happiness in them. So shall they be life to thy soul. 2Nevertheless Brethren, let a mans soul be set upon any thing in the world, when he comes to hear, besides the word; if he lay not up his happiness in closing with the word; truly, the word it will be like a song to him. The Prophet Ezekiel tells them, Their hearts were gone after their covetousness: When a man comes to hear a Sermon, there is a Sermon and the Market, there is a Sermon and a friend to speak withal; and so many young people will go abroad to hear Sermons; What is the end of it? It is, that ye may get wives and husbands many of you; but it is not your blessedness to close with the Lord in his word. I have known some men that have had a distaste against the truth of the Lord; and I have known them ⟨p. 192⟩for many a day, they have not been able to understand the truth of the Lord. When it shall be thus with a man, that a mans heart is set on something else besides the word of the Lord, that it is not my happiness to close with the truth of the Lord; such a man shall never understand the truth of the Lord. Though the word be sweet to you sometimes, if your blessedness do not lye in this, to enjoy God; Oh this Gospel of God, and these Commands of God, that your blessedness do not lye in cleaving to the Lord in his word; I say, it is a certain truth, you shall be blinded and hardened by the word: For here is a Rule; Whatsoever a mans heart is set on, as his chiefest good, the presence of that good it comes with power: So here, the precious Gospel of Christ, when the presence of it commands the heart, nothing is good enough for it, and it closeth with it, and with Christ in it.