A96093:1574
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
Appendix › The preciousness of the Soul.Appendix › The preciousnesse of the Soul.
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. That the soul is very precious. What Job saith §1of Wisdom, I may fitly apply to the soul. Man knows not the price thereof, it cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious Onyx, or the Sapphire, the gold and the Chrystal cannot equal it, and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold, Job 28.13, 16, 17. The soul is the glory of the Creation. The inscription of it may be [Greek or Hebrew], The soul is a beam of God; it is a sparkle of celestial brightness, as Damascene calls it; it is (according to Plato,) a Glass of the Trinity. There is in the soul an Idea, and resemblance of God: an Analogy of Similitude not proportion as the Schoolmen speak. If David did so admire the rare texture and workmanship of his body, Psal. 139.13, 15. I am wonderfully made, I was curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. If the Cabinet be so curiously wrought, what is the Jewel? how richly and gloriously is the soul embroidered! it is divinely inlaid and enamelled. The body is but the sheath, Dan. 7.15. I was grieved in the midst of my body, in the Chaldee it is, in the midst of my sheath. The most beautiful body is but like a velvet sheath, the soul is the blade of admirable metal. The soul is a ⟨p. 454⟩sparkling Diamond set in a rig of clay. [Greek or Hebrew], &c. The soul is a vessel of honour*; God himself is served in this vessel. The soul is the bird of Paradise that soars aloft: it may be compared to the wings of the Cherubims, it hath a winged swiftness to fly to heaven. The soul is Capax beatitudinis, capable of communion with God and Angels*. The soul is Gods house he hath made to dwell in, Heb. 3.6. The Understanding, Will, and Affections are the three stories in this house. What pity is it that this goodly building should be let out, and the Devil become Tenant in it. The preciousness of the soul is seen in two particulars.