A96093:1247
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.
1. I shall show what that suffering is which will not make us blessed.
1. I shall shew what that suffering is which will not make us blessed.
1. That suffering is not reckoned for Martyrdom, when we pull a cross upon our selves, there is little comfort in such suffering. Austin speaks of some in his time that were called Circumcelliones, who out of an itch (rather than zeal) of Martyrdom, would run themselves into sufferings; these were accessory to their own death; like Saul, who fell upon hi• own sword; we are bound by all lawful means to preserve our own lives. Jesus Christ did not suffer till he was called to it; suspect that to be a tentation which bids us cast our selves down into sufferings; when men through precipitancy and rashness run themselves into trouble, it is a cross of their own making, and not of Gods laying upon them.
2. That is not to be accounted Martyrdom, when we suffer for our offences, 1 Pet. 4.15. Let none of you suffer as an evil doer. Luke 23.41. We indeed suffer justly. I am not of Cyprian's mind, that the Thief on the Cross suffered as a Martyr; no, he suffered as an evil doer; Christ indeed took pity on him, and saved him; he dyed a Saint, but not a Martyr. When men suffer by the hand of the Magistrate for their uncleanness, blasphemies, &c. these do not suffer persecution, but execution; they dye not as Martyrs, but Malefactors; they suffer evil, for being evil.