The beatitudes

1. Inure your selves to suffering. 2 Tim. 2.3. As a good Soldier of Christ endure hardship. Jacob made the stone his pillow, Gen. 28.18. 'Tis good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth, Lam. 3.27. The bearing of a lighter cross will fit for bearing an heavier: Learn to bear a reproach with patience, and then you will be fitter to bear an iron chain^*. Saint Paul did dye daily; he began with lesser sufferings, and so by degrees learned to be a Martyr; as it is in sin, a wicked man learns to be expert in sin by degrees^*; first he commits a lesser sin, then a greater, then he arrives at custom in sin, then he grows impudent in sin, then he glories in sin, Phil. 3.19. so it is in suffering, first a Christian takes up the chips of the Cross, a disgrace, a prison, and then he carries the Cross it self.

1. Inure your selves to suffering. 2 Tim. 2.3. As a good Souldier of Christ endure hardship. Jacob made the stone his pillow, Gen. 28.18. 'Tis good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth, Lam. 3.27. The bearing of a lighter cross will fit for bearing an heavier: Learn to bear a reproach with patience, and then you will be fitter to bear an iron chain^*. Saint Paul did dye daily; he began with lesser sufferings, and so by degrees learned to be a Martyr; as it is in sin, a wicked man learns to be expert in sin by degrees^*