42 A wholefotveCaveat thus with a people, it is certain the Lord is now call off; and ye do as good now as live without Chrift in the world. Amos 5. 21. faith the Lord, I hate your new Moons, and Sabbaths ; For thefe forty yearsye neverfacri- ficed to me, veri. s,. Did they not facrifice thofe forty years to the Lord in the wilderneffe ? It was the very thing they came out ofEgypt for, that theymight facrifice to the Lord : Yet faith the Lord, ye did not facrifice to me ; truly here was the thing, they did facrifice, but to enjoy communion with a God, that they did not ; the Lord he law none of that, and this is theframe of many a man, ye never heard a Sermon ; ye never broke through your difficulties to come to a God in Ordinances : there- fore, in truth, though you had them, yet it is as if you never had them ; becaufe, ye never did enjoy the Lord in therm Therefore, this is that I would fay : Oh, Brethren, let the Saints, let is be the care of all the faithful; andpeo- ple ofGod ; the firft thing that ye do, before ye come to hear a Sermon, or receive aSacrament, or to any Cirri- than communion, or other Ordinance of God : Before thou do'ft come, indeavour it atleaft to bring thy foul to a God, to Chrift , above all Ordinances, and break through the difficulties ; heart is dead,and 'allude is blind, and God is gone ; but yet break through difficulties, and wrefile with the Lord in prayer, and then yewil find the bleffingof the Lord. Thegreat reafonwhy we enjoy not that mighty pretence of the Lord in his Or- dinances, it is this; Men come to Ordinances , and would enjoy Ordinances, but they never broke through difficulties, to come to a God When men (hall come to Ordinances only, (& bleffed be God we have the temple of the Lord;) truly this wiI do you no good in the world. The stb Degree of callingoff the fupreme power of Chrift in his Ordinances ; many times when the foul can- not come to Chrift, the Lord comes to it : Now then the fupreme power of Chrift is can off, when the foul is un- willing orcareleffe, to receive the ftroke of the Eternall power of the life ofjefus into his heart ; but contents himfelf with fome beginnings, Come Pips and raftes, and dothnot lye under the firoke of the eternall Spirit of the life ofChrift. Look as it is with a companyof Subjeas , they are in tome great Town, that Stands it out against a Prince If the
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