Banner of Truth Ministers Conference Tuesday Morning 2023

We had two good sessions this morning, the first from Philip Eveson on the Old Testament church and the second from Warren Peel on the significance of public worship. Mr Eveson's emphasis was on the continuty of the Old Testament and New Testament church. He spoke of the church then as a redeemed church, an elect church, a holy church and a worshipping church.

Mr Peel took up David Clarkson's sermon on Public worship is to be preferred before private. Warren ended with this striking quotation from George Swinnock

“Prepare to meet thy God,’ O Christian! Betake thyself to thy chamber on the Saturday night, confess and bewail thine unthankfulness for, and unfruitfulness under the ordinances of God; shame and condemn thyself for thy sins, entreat God to prepare thy heart for, and assist it in, thy religious performances —

Spend some time in consideration of the infinite majesty, holiness, jealousy, and goodness of that God, with whom thou art to have to do in sacred duties; ponder the weight and importance of his holy ordinances; how they concern thy salvation or damnation, thine everlasting life or death, how certainly they will either further thine unchangeable welfare, or increase thine endless woe —

Mediate upon the shortness of the time thou hast to enjoy Sabbaths in; how near thy life may be to an end, how speedily and how easily God may take down thine earthly tabernacle, how there is no working, no labouring, no striving in the other world, to which thou art hastening; and continue musing and blowing till the fire burneth; thou canst not think the good thou mayest gain by such afterthoughts, how pleasant and profitable the Lord’s-day would be to thee after such preparation.

The oven of thine heart thus baked in, as it were, overnnight, would be easily heated the next morning; the fire so well raked up when thou wentest to bed, would be the sooner kindled when thou shouldst rise.

If thou wouldst thus leave thine heart with God on the Saturday night, thou shouldst find it with him in the Lord’s-day morning.