A96093:1279
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. The fore-thoughts of persecution will be as sauce to season our delights, that we do not surfeit upon them. How soon may there be an Alarm sounded? how soon may the clouds drop blood? the thoughts of this would take off the heart from the immoderate love of the creature. Our Saviour at a great Feast breaks out into mention of his death; Mark 14.3. She hath prepared this against my Burial: So the fore-thoughts of a change would be an excellent antidote against a surfeit.
2. The fore-thoughts of persecution will be as sawce to season our delights, that we do not surfeit upon them. How soon may there be an Alarum sounded? how soon may the clouds drop blood? the thoughts of this would take off the heart from the immoderate love of the creature. Our Saviour at a great Feast breaks out into mention of his death; Mark 14.3. She hath prepared this against my Burial: So the fore-thoughts of a change would be an excellent antidote against a surfeit.
3. The fore-thoughts of sufferings would make them lighter when they come*; the suddenness of an evil adds to the sadness; this was ill news to the fool in the Gospel, (who reckoned without his Host) Hac nocte, This night shall thy soul be required of thee. This will be an aggravation of Babylons miseries, Rev. 18.8. Her plagues shall come in one day; not that Antichrist shall be destroyed in a day, but (in a day) that is, suddenly; the blow shall come unawares, when he doth not think of it; the reckoning before hand of suffering, doth alleviate and take off the edge of it when it comes; therefore Christ to lighten the Cross, still fore-warms his Disciples of sufferings, that they might not come unlooked for,