A65285:1419
A Body of Practical Divinity
A body of practical divinity consisting of above one hundred seventy six sermons on the lesser catechism composed by the reverend assembly of divines at Westminster : with a supplement of some sermons on several texts of Scripture / by Thomas Watson ...
London: printed for Thomas Parkurst, 1692
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.
Sign 1. When we have lost our Spiritual Appetite. A Consumptive Person hath not that Stomach to his Meat as formerly. Perhaps Christian, thou canst remember the time when thou didst Hunger and Thirst after Righteousness; thou didst come to Ordinances with such a Stomach as to a Feast, but now it is otherwise. Christ is not so prized, nor his Ordinances so loved; a sad presage, Grace is on the declining Hand; thou art in a deep Consumption. A sign David was near his Grave, when he covered him with Clothes and he got no heat, 1 Kings 1.1. So when a Person is plied with hot Clothes, I mean Ordinances, yet he hath no heat of Affection to Spiritual things; this is a sign he is declining in Grace.
Sign 1. When we have lost our Spiritual Appetite. A Consumptive Person hath not that Stomach to his Meat as formerly. Perhaps Christian, thou canst remember the time when thou didst Hunger and Thirst after Righteousness; thou didst come to Ordinances with such a Stomach as to a Feast, but now it is otherwise. Christ is not so prized, nor his Ordinances so loved; a sad presage, Grace is on the declining Hand; thou art in a deep Consumption. A sign David was near his Grave, when he covered him with Cloaths and he got no heat, 1 Kings 1.1. So when a Person is plyed with hot Cloaths, I mean Ordinances, yet he hath no heat of Affection to Spiritual things; this is a sign he is declining in Grace.
Sign 2. When we grow more Worldly. Perhaps once we were mounted into higher Orbs, we did [Greek or Hebrew], set our Hearts on things above, and speak the Language of Canaan, but now our Minds are taken off of Heaven, we dig our Comfort out of these lower Mines, and with Satan compass the Earth: A sign we are going down the Hill apace, and our Grace is in a Consumption. It is observable when Nature decays, and People are near Dying, they grow more stooping; and truly when Mens Hearts go more stooping to the Earth, and they can hardly lift up themselves to an Heavenly Thought; if Grace be not Dead, yet it is ready to Dye,