which is laid up for you in heaven c. And then shews himself greatly concerned for their good and welfare in praying always for them For this cause we also since we heard of it do not cease to pray for you v. 9. See what concernedness he manifests and expresses for his Brethren his Kinsmen according to the flesh Rom. 9.1 2 3. I say the truth I lie not my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart for I could wish my self accursed from Christ for my Brethren my Kinsmen according to the flesh It is a very strange expression but it notes his zeal and affection and concernedness for their good and welfare Rom. 10.1 Brethren my hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved It is a great sign that Grace hath taken hold of our hearts when we are really concerned for the good of others that the same Grace that hath taken hold of us may take hold of others too By this says the Apostle John we know that we are passd from death to life because we love the brethren 1 Joh. 3.14 And truly our love to others cannot be more fully expressed and truly demonstrated than by an affectionate concernment for their spiritual good and welfare If they be wholly ignorant of God and Christ that they may be brought to a saving knowledge of God and Christ Or if they be such as have been in any measure brought to a saving knowledge of God then that there may be a dayly increase of it And this was the Apostles Prayer for these Colossians having heard of their Faith in Christ and their Love to the Saints and their Knowledge of God he prays that they may be filled with it in a dayly encrease of it for a stronger Faith in Christ and for a farther increase in the Knowledge of God He is not you see of a little narrow private spirit swallowed up in his own private concernments but of a brave noble generous spirit imploying his desires and endeavours not only to his own good but to the good of others too And this is one character and property of a gracious Soul of a sanctifyed person that he is full of constant and ardent desires after the good and welfare of others The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every Member to profit withall 1 Cor. 12.7 Religious love seeketh not her own things 1 Cor. 13.5 We should not seek our own things as many do but the things which are Jesus Christ's viz. that which tends to his Glory and the Good of his Members Christians should serve one another by Love Certainly what a Man is in Religion he is relatively so If not fit to serve the Body than not fit to be of the Body He is no Saint that seeks not the Communion of Saints Having taken notice of this by the way I come now to the words themselves In which words we have not only the Apostle's Desire and Prayer for them but we may also read our own Duty in them and that is to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing This is the end of all our Knowledge of God and his will which in the 9th verse he desired they might be filled with Why filled with the Knowledge of God's Will Why That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing To this end we should be filled with the Knowledge of God's Will that our Conversations may be rightly ordered to the Glory of God that our Lives may answer the Profession we make and the Knowledge we have obtain'd and the Mercies we receive and the Means we enjoy The Papists would find Merit of Works in this Verse Both because holiness of Life is so much urged by it And also because here is the word Worthy used as if the Apostle should grant that they might be worthy of or Merit the Blessings of God Now to this might be returned a Two-fold Answer 1. That Merit cannot be founded upon Scripture 2. That it cannot be founded upon this Scripture First It cannot be founded upon Scripture The Scripture doth abundantly and in many places declare against it It cuts off and excludes all glorying and boasting in our selves as if by our worthiness we could procure any thing of favour at the hands of God or by our goodness any way recommend our selves to the favour and acceptance of God You see your Calling Brethren how that not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called for God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise c. And all this that no flesh should glory in his presence But he that gloryeth let him glory in the Lord 1 Cor. 1.26 27 28. Alas we are so indebted to the Divine Bounty and Goodness that gave us our beings both in Nature and Grace that when we have done all we can we are forced to acknowledge that we are unprofitable servants Luk. 17.10 Whatever good we do it is from God and therefore cannot Merit any thing at the hands of God 2 Cor. 3.5 So says the Apostle Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency it is of God 1 Cor. 4.10 For who maketh thee to differ from another And what hast thou that thou hast not received Now if thou didst receive it Why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it Were there no other Scriptures these were sufficient to overthrow the Notion ef Merit 2. Nor can it be founded upon this Scripture This expression of walking worthy of the Lord cannot be applied to Merit by any means in as much as the Lord had bestowed many of his Blessings and Favours and Benefits already They cannot by any good Works afterward be said any ways to Merit what is past now it is very absurd to think that we can by any after good Works Merit what was given us before But we will pass by this and come to the true meaning of this expression To walk worthy of the Lord is no more than to walk suitably and agreeably and some way answerably and becomingly to the many-fold Favours of God vouchsafed to us which will be better understood by comparing it with the parallel places Eph. 4.1 I therefore the Prisoner of the Lord beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called Walk worthy of your vocation that is answerably and suitably and becoming your Calling as appears by the following words which fully explain it viz. With all lowliness and meekness with long-suffering forbearing one another in love c. This is such a kind of Walking as is becoming and agreeable to our High and Holy Calling Phil. 1.27 only let your Conversation be as becometh the Gospel of Christ This is the true meaning and explication of this Expression of walking worthy He means no more by
A Plain Discourse Shewing how we are to WALK After the Lord's Supper Necessary for every Communicant From 1 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 Vivimus non loquimur magna London Printed for E. Richardson at the Naked Boy in Blowbladder-Street over aâ—gainst St. Martins le Grand 1698. TO THE Serious Reader IT was not without great conflict and strugling within my self that this comes forth into Publick View being very sensible of my great unfitness for such an appearance for tho' as one says the plain thread bare suit may do well enough at home yet when persons go abroad a better habit is required and expected But such as have not this change of Apparel must be content with what they have If it be the bravery and gaudery of Language that thou expectest in the following Discourse thy expectations will be frustrated for however such a garb might suit the airy humour of the Age yet it would no ways be agreeable or suteable to the weightyness and gravity of the Subject treated on which is not to show how we may please Men but how we may please God how we may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing I am not unsensible that this Piece will fall into divers and different hands and according to the hands it falls into such will be the Treatment it must expect By the Prophane it is probable it will be Derided For to such as have no sense nor relish nor savour of Spiritual Things and Serious Matters such things as these are will be the Object of their Scorn and Derision with whom the deep things of God are counted no better than Mysterious Nonsense And whatever hath but the Face and Shew of Seriousness with such it is accounted Canting and Affected Singularity By the Curious and Captious it is most probable it will be despised because such will not meet with that exactness and accuracy of Method and Stile with those flights and strains of Rhetorick which is most pleasing and grateful to this sort By the Learned it also may be but little set by because they will not find a Margin filled with Quotations of Fathers and Schoolmen nor with the Sayings of Poets and Philosophers It may possibly pass for a Plain Honest Well-meaning-Discourse And indeed were it otherwise it would not Answer its Title nor would it be so suited to that sort of Reader for which it was chiefly and principally designed viz. The Serious Reader For such it was chiefly design'd and to such it is humbly Dedicated Whatever relish it may have with others yet I hope it may be as Manna sweet to the Tast of all serious Christians How weak soever the manner of handling this Subject is yet the Subject it self is very weighty and seasonable The Duty press'd to is very necessary but too much neglected We are ready to take up with the Theory of Religion and the Speculative part of Piety but are too great Strangers to the Practical part thereof We may know many things and believe many things but yet if we do not put into Practice the things that we know and believe we only have a name to live but yet are dead We have only a form of Godliness but are strangers to the Life and Power of it We are for Reading and Studying and Hearing of Notions but the Apostle James his Advice is Not to be Hearers of the Word only but Doers of the Word also 1 Jam. 22. The Beauty and Power and Life of Religion lies in the Practice of it It is not enough that we make a Profession that we are taken into Church-Fellowship and Partake of the Ordinances of the Gospel unless we do adorn this Profession with a suteable and agreeable Walk and Conversation according to that advice of the Apostle Paul 1 Phil. 27. Only let your Conversation be as becometh the Gospel of Christ The neglect of this among the Professars of this Age is very much to be lamented and bewailed Now to quicken and direct us herein is the main drift and tendency of the following Discourse And particularly how we are to Walk after that Great Ordinance of the Lord's Supper I hope it will not be judged to be altogether needless nor prove altogether useless And that it may not be altogether fruitless and successless I commend both thee and it to the Divine Benediction which crowns all our Labours and gives Success to all our Lawful Endeavours Paul may plant and Apollos water but it is God that giveth the increase for neither is he that planteth any thing neither he that watereth any thing but God that giveth the increase I am Thine in our Blessed Lord J. Horsman A PLAIN DISCOURSE SHEWING How we are to WALK after the Lord's Supper From 1 Col. 10. That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing THESE words are the Matter of the Apostles Prayer for these Collossians In two things among others the Apostle did express and demonstrate his great love to them The first was in giving Thanks for them The Second was in Praying for them He gave Thanks for them and he Prayed for them v. 3. We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ praying always for you Now the matter of his Thankfulness for them he refers to Two Heads 1. Their Graces 2. The Means by which they are wrought Their Graces which were chiefly Three viz. Faith Hope and Love Their Faith by the Object Their Love by the Extent Their Hope by the Place v. 4. Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus there is the Object of their Faith and of the love which ye have to all the Saints there is the Extent of their Love and for the hope which is laid up for you in Heaven there is the place of their Hope The Means by which these Graces were wrought which was the Word from vers 5. to vers 9. Thus much for the Matter of his Thanksgiving The Matter of his Prayer for them was this viz. That they might be filled with the knowledge of Gods will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding that they might walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God From whence we may take notice of this by the way that next to our own good and welfare we ought to rejoyce at and be concerned for the good and welfare of others Thus it was with this blessed Apostle He was not only thankful to God for his goodness to himself in particular 1 Tim 1.12 13. But he is thankful for Gods for goodness unto others We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for your faith in Christ and for your love which ye have to all the Saints and for the hope
soveraign Grace and Almighty Power owning and acknowledging whatever Grace there is already in our hearts we had it from his fulness in whom it pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell And what farther supplys of Grace we shall stand in need of we must still have it from him who is not only the head of Government to his Church but the head of Influence too in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily A fulness of wisdom as the Prophet of the Church A fulness of Merit as the Priest of the Church A fulness of Power and Efficacy as the King of the Church A fulness of all habitual created Grace not for himself only but in a way of Communication and Derivation to others the Godhead continually emptying it self into the Manhood by vertue of that near close intimous union of the Humane with the Divine Nature in the Person of Christ from this fulness it is that we are still expecting fresh supplies of Grace and Comfort Distrusting our own strength as well as renouncing our own Righteousness submitting to all the commands and ordinances of the Lord Jesus Christ A proud heart shakes off the Yoke of Christ and will not be subject to the Lord the Redeemer and will be under the government of none but his own will and his own lusts like those proud Citizens we read of in Luke who said We will not have this man to reign over us We walk humbly when we lie at Christ's foot desiring to know his pleasure claiming no power over our selves or any thing that we have but intirely submit our selves to be commanded and governed by him submiting our selves wholly to his command and conduct This is to walk humbly and thus we are to walk after this Supper 3. More Thankfully What Christ hath done and suffered for us calls for the highest and most raised Thanksgivings from us We are to screw our Praises to the highest note Let us say to our Souls as holy David did to his Bless the Lord O our souls and let all that is within us bless his holy Name for his redeeming love who loved us and gave himself for us an Offering and a Sacrifice to satisfie Divine Justice O how should we be singing that new song of the heavenly Jerusalem above saying Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us unto God by thine own Blood out of every Kindred and Tongue and People and Nation and hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests and we shall reign on the earth c. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive Power and Riches and Wisdom and Strength and Honour and Glory and Blessing The work that Christ came to do and finish for us had in it all the expressions of love and calls for the greatest expressions of thankfulness and praise This is a just debt that we owe to Christ All the evil and misery we are freed and delivered from and the good we are possessed and made partakers of is owing to the Obedience and Sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ Now that our hearts may be the more affected with this love of Christ and drawn out in thankfulness to him let us consider the evils we are delivered from and the good we are possessed and made partakers of by the Lord Jesus Christ First The evils and miseries we are delivered from and they are very great indeed But what are they you will ask why the guilt of sin the curse of the Law the wrath of God and the flames of Hell Man's state was once an holy state and whilst such an holy state But it was not long that he continued in this state being left to the freedom of his own will he quickly fell from that state in which he was created by sinning against God which sin was the Inlet of all misery It wofully corrupted depraved and debased our Natures robbed us of the Image of God which once was the greatest ornament and perfection of our Nature deprived us of all comfortable Fellowship and Communion with God laid us open and obnoxious to his wrath and curse to all the miseries of this Life and to the pains of Hell for ever O the depth of misery that all Mankind is plunged into O the innumerable evils that do encompass and surround us Temporal Spititual and if not found in Christ Eternal evils too will befall us but in and through Christ Believers are delivered from all that evil and misery that the Fall and Apostacy of our First Parents involved all Mankind into Through him the Guilt of Sin is removed the Wrath and Anger of God appeased the Thundering Law silenced the Image of God restored many Powerful and Potent Enemies Conquered and Subdued Secondly The good which we are possessed and made partakers of this also is owing to Christ to what he hath done and suffered for us even the good of present Grace and future Glory the good of Justification Sanctification Reconciliation for all these great benefits and good things we are beholden to Christ We are Justified by his Righteousness Sanctified by his Spirit Reconciled by his Attoning Blood Adopted by virtue of our Union with him and relation to Christ's Person as he is God's Natural Son All these blessed Benefits and Priviledges that we are made partakers of are owing unto Christ As the evils we lay under were too great for any meer creature to remove so the good things we stand in need of are too great for any mere creature to procure None beside that Person who was God as well as Man could either remove the one or procure the other Had not Christ himself undertaken the work nothing could have been done had not this Samaritain taken pitty and compassion on us in our miserable and forlorn condition we must for ever have dispaired of mercy or relief The Lord looked and there was none to help at length his own arm brought Salvation As for us we lay under an eternal incapacity and impossibility of helping or relieving our selves as for Angels they could not help us could any creature have done the work God would have employed that creature and spared his own Son But God very well knew that Redemption work was no work for an Angel no not for the whole Body of Angels If the whole order of them had come from Heaven and united all their force and strength together they could not have redeemed so much as one Soul How far God by his Almighty power could have enabled an Angel to have born up under the greatest sufferings we will not dispute but suppose an Angel might have been furnished with so much strength as to have been able to undergo and suffer all that Christ did yet under the highest communications of grace and strength to him he being still but a meer finite Creature could never satisfie for what was past nor Merit for what was