A96093:1037
The beatitudes
The beatitudes: or A discourse upon part of Christs famous Sermon on the Mount. Whereunto is added Christs various fullness. The preciousness of the soul. The souls malady and cure. The beauty of grace. The spiritual watch. The heavenly race. The sacred anchor. The trees of righteousness. The perfume of love. The good practitioner. By Thomas Watson, minister of the word at Stephens Walbrook in the city of London.The beatitudes: or A discourse upon part of Christs famous Sermon on the Mount. Wherunto is added Christs various fulnesse. The preciousnesse of the soul. The souls malady and cure. The beauty of grace. The spiritual watch. The heavenly race. The sacred anchor. The trees of righteousnesse. The perfume of love. The good practitioner. By Thomas Watson, minister of the word at Stephens Walbrook in the city of London.
London: printed for Ralph Smith, 1660
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.
2. Circumspection. He who is born of the Spirit is careful to preserve grace; he plies the breast of Ordinances, 1 Pet. 1.2. he is fearful of that which may endanger his spiritual life, 1 John 5.18. he lives by faith, yet passeth the time of his sojourning in fear, 1 Pet. 1.17. This is the first work of the Spirit in them who are made children, a regenerating work.
3. The Spirit of God hath a supplicating work in the heart: The spirit of adoption is a spirit of supplication, Rom. 8.15. Ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father. While the child is in the womb it cannot cry: while men lie in the womb of their natural estate, they cannot pray effectually, but when they are ⟨p. 303⟩born of the Spirit, then they cry Abba Father. Prayer is nothing else but the souls breathing it self into the bosom of its Father. 'Tis a sweet and familiar intercourse with God; as soon us ever the Spirit of God comes into the heart, it sets it a praying; no sooner was Paul converted, but the next word is, behold he prayeth*, Acts 9.11. It is reported in the life of Luther, when he prayed, it was with so much reverence as if he were praying to God, and with so much boldness, as if he had been speaking to his friend*. And Eusebius reports of Constantine the Emperor, that everyday he used to shut up himself in some secret place in his Palace, and there on bended knees did make his devour prayers and soliloquies to God; Gods Spirit tunes the strings of the affections, and then we make melody in prayer. For any to say in derision, you pray by the Spirit, is a blasphemy against the Spirit: it is a main work of the Spirit of God in the hearts of his children to help them to pray,