Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n
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A44559
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A plain discourse shewing how we are to walk after the Lord's Supper necessary for every communicant. From I Col. 10. That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing. Being the substance of several sermons preached to a congregation in Hatton-Garden. By John Horsman, an unworthy servant of Jesus Christ.
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Horsman, John, fl. 1698.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing H2871A; ESTC R219052
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49,125
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155
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it than this a becoming walk or a suitable walk but let your Conversation be worthy of the Gospel of Christ. So in the 1 Thes 2.12 That you would walk worthy of God who ha h called you into his Kingdom and Glory It is the same word in the original in all these places 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is in the forquoted place rendered becoming Let your Conversation be as becometh the Gospel Let your Conversation be worthy of the Gospel or becoming the Gospel of Christ So here walking worthy of God is no more than walking suitably to the Nature of that God who is the true and living God That ye may walk like a People that are taken into Covenant with God and express the Virtues and Praises of him who hath called you out of Darkness into his marvelous Light in your Lives and Conversations according to that which we have in the 1 Pet. 2.9 Ye are a chosen generation a royal priesthood an holy nation a peculiar people that you should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light Or that ye should walk suitably to this great Mercy and glorious Priviledges and Benefits ye have received from him So that to walk worthy of the Lord is to live and behave our selves as becometh those to whom God hath vouchsafed so great a Mercy that passing by many Thousands of a nobler extraction of a sweeter disposition and in many outward respects better than we That he should out of his meer Grace and Love in Christ chuse and call us out of the World to be partakers of Eternal Life with him That he should take us and leave others chuse us and pass by others as it is wonderful and astonishing so it ought to influence us into a walking some way suitable and becoming these great Mercies bestowed upon us And if we would know what this suitable walking is why the next words explain it It is a walking unto all pleasing so that the observation is this viz. Observ That where a Person or a People receive great Mercys Benefits or Priviledges from God there ought to be a suitable answerable and becoming walking thereunto or thus It ought to be our study and endeavour to live and act suitably and becoming the Mercies and Favours we receive from God God hath dealt Bountifully and Graciously with us remembered us not only with Common and Temporal but with Special and Spiritual Mercys too Do we enjoy Peace and Quietness when many other are involved in great Troubles and Perplexities Is Plenty and Fulness our Inheritance when Scarcity and Want is the lot of many others Do we enjoy such a competency of Health and Strength when many others are Sick and weak Languishing and Dying Hath God set any of us at Liberty from our Confinements wrought out a Recovery for any of us from any tedious and dangerous Distemper which detained us from waiting and attending upon God in the Publick and Solemn Dutys of his Worship when many others are still confined to their Chambers and many to their Beds How doth it concern such to walk answerably and suitably to the Mercies they have received Let such remember that advice of our Saviour to the man upon whom he had wrought a great cure John 5.14 And he said unto him go thy way behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worse thing befal thee God hath done great things for us and in some respects for all of us In bearing so long with our renewed and repeated Provocations insomuch that we are under a necessity of acknowledging and confessing that it is of the Lords Mercys we were not consumed that our Bodies are not in the silent Grave and our Souls roaring in Hell That notwithstanding all our Barrenness and Unfruitfulness under the means and Seasons of Grace that yet the day and season of Grace should be lengthned out to us that after so many denyals and refusals Christ should still continue to knock at the door of our Hearts That when we have so frequently turned a deaf Ear to the calls and invitations of Christ in the Gospel that he should still continue to call and invite and promiseth a kind Reception and hearty Welcome to all those that will come unto him That he should still continue wooing and beseeching us by his Ministers and Ambassadors to be reconciled unto God after our so long continuance in ways of Enmity and Rebellion against him O the Patience Long-suffering and Forbearance of God! that ever he should so long put up the affronts and indignitys that are every day offered to his Blessed Majesty by such crawling Worms of the Earth bear so long with the Rebellions and Ingratitudes of his Creatures Lord how good art thou to the worst of Men and the vilest of Sinners in sparing and forbearing them in protecting and providing for them in calling and inviting them in waiting to be gracious to them in offering Mercy and Pardon and Grace and Christ to them in affording them time and space and opportunity for Repentance and turning unto God in vouchsafeing to them many Temporal Blessings and Favours in the midst and face of such dayly Provocations and abuse of his Bounties Thus I say in some respects God is good to us all and hath done great things for us all even for the worst and vilest Sinner now in his Presence And to some of us he hath been more peculiarly and specially and distinguishingly good In chusing and calling us not only by the outward call of his Word but by an inward and effectual call of his Spirit out of darkness unto light and from the power of Sin and Self and Satan and the World to Himself out of a state of Nature unto his Kingdom and Glory unto his Kingdom of Grace here and in a little time longer will call us to his Kingdom of Glory In Justifying us freely by his Grace and Sanctifying us by his Holy Spirit throughout and adopting us into his Family In remembering us in our low and lost estate and condition when we were blind and naked and wretched and miserable cast out into the open field to the loathing of our Persons in the gall of bitterness and bond of Iniquity held in the snare of the Devil and led captive by him at his pleasure under the power and dominion of many vile Lusts and Corruptions in bondage and slavery to Sin and Satan subjected and enthrawl'd to Death under the Wrath and Curse of God liable to all the miseries of this Life and to the pains of Hell for ever ignorant of God and Christ and Spiritual things nay enemies to God and Christ nay enmity it self When we were in such a forlorn helpless and miserable state and condition as this he pittyed us and helped us when none other eye pittyed us nay when we had no pitty for our selves he pittyed us and helped us when none other could help
and bountifully Communicate to the Necessities of the Poor Saints at Jerusalem they did to their Power nay they did beyond their Power their Charity was larger than their Ability thus open-handed and open-hearted were these Macedonians Where shall we find such Charitable Professours in our days Well then this they did And was this all that they did No they did not only give the greatest parts of their Estates towards the Relief of the poor distressed Saints but they gave their own selves unto the Lord. This they did not as we hoped that is * Erasm Multo amplius quam sper are audebamus much more than we could hope they exceeded our hopes and expectations But wherein why Quia non suas tantum facultates habuerunt expositas sed seipsos impendere parati fuerunt †Calvin sayes one Because they were ready not only to bestow their Goods but to offer also themselves They gave themselves sayes he first to the Lord and then to us by the will of God The giving of their Estates towards the relief of the Saints was highly commendable in them Their relieving others was very well especially when they were so low themselves But this was not all there was still some thing higher than this they gave themselves to the Lord. To give their Estates was vety much but to give themselves was much more and this was that which was given by these Believers Non solum res suas sed semetipsos dederunt domino quasi sacrificium immaculatum * Anselm They did not only give their Substance but Themselves unto the Lord as an unspotted undefiled Sacrifice Now to this great work and business of giving up our selves to the Lord I would hope there be none of us strangers to it who have this day been sitting down at our Lord's Table I would hope that this hath been in some measure done by every one of us before we did first venture to sit down at this Table Else from the time we first ventured upon this Ordinance we have been eating and drinking Damnation to our selves All that draw nigh to this Table who have not first given themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ are unfit and unworthy Guests indeed We find that these Macedonians first gave themselves unto the Lord before they sat down in Church-fellowship and Communion They first gave themselves unto the Lord and then to us by the will of God They first joyned themselves to the Lord before they joyned in this great Ordinance of Communion And this I have reason to hope concerning every one of you that before you did venture upon this Solemn Ordinance of the Lord's Supper that you were such as had solemnly and seriously given up your selves to the Lord Jesus Christ But yet there are none of us so much given up to Christ but we may be still more given up to him Alas there is a great deal of Carnality and Corruption and Unhelief in the best and holyest on this side Heaven which is the occasion of frequent backslidings and Apostacys from God And often times puts us upon doing those things that are very much unbecoming the Dedication of our selves to the Lord too much harkening to the whisperings of the Old Man Too much complyance with the Solicitations of the Flesh Top great an Adherence to the World and Conformity to the Vanities and Pleasures to the Fooleries and Fopperies and Fashions and Customs thereof Too much Self-seeking Self-love and Self-pleasing all which are wonderful unbecoming this Serious and Solemn Dedication of our selves to the Lord Jesus Christ Therefore there is great need that this work be often and frequently renewed It is not enough that it be done once but it must be done often and daily It ought not to suffice us that we be in some measure given up to Christ but we must still be more and more given up to him Daily Backslidings call for frequent and daily Renewals of our Dedication David renewed the Dedication of his House after Absalom's Sins and also renewed the Dedication of his Person after his own Foul and Personal Miscarriages Times of great Affliction call for the Renewal of our Dedication Thus when Jacob was reduced to great straits and knew not what to do then he sets upon the Renewing the Dedication of himself to God If God says he will be with me in the way that I shall go and will give me bread to eat and rayment to put on c. then shall the Lord be my God Gen. 28.20 21. Again renewed Mercys call for renewed dedication of our selves to God And lastly great dutys call for this renewal of our dedication Every time we Pray we are to renew our dedication But in Sacramental work we must do it in a more solemn and explicit manner not only before and at but after that Ordinance as coming under new and fresh Obligations and Engagements to be the Lords Thus much for the Exhortation Present your Bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable to God that is give up your whole selves Souls and Bodies to the Lord. Now the Argument or motive by which he presseth it is the Mercies of God in that Rom. 12.1 I beseech you Brethren by the Mercys of God that ye present your Bodies c. The Mercys of God are a great Argument or Motive to press us to this very thing of giving up our selves to God The Temporal but especially the Spiritual Mercys of God he doth not say Mercy but Mercies in the Plural number because they are many viz. Election of Grace Calling to Christ Justification by Faith Sanctification by the Spirit By all these Mercies which are every one of them more worth than a thousand Worlds he beseecheth them to give up or present themselves to God As if an indulgent compassionate Mother should beseech her child to do something by the womb that bare him by the paps that gave him suck by the knees that dandled him by the hands that fed him by all her tender compassions and indulgence towards him Certainly the heart of this child must be harder than any Flint not to yeild to her it would argue a temper very ungrateful not to comply with her So it would argue our hearts very hard and our tempers very ungrateful not to yeild to God when he that might condemn us doth intreat and beseech even by those tender Mercies whereby he begat us pardoned us called us renewed and saved us If Love and Kindness and Mercy will not win us and prevail upon us pray what will So the love of the Lord Jesus Christ his love in coming into the World in assuming our Nature his love in doing for us and dying for us and suffering for us is a great Motive and Argument to perswade us to give up our selves and all that we are and have fully and seriously and solemnly to him in token of our gratitude and thankfulness And O that the sense and feeling and