A96093:1926
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. Sometimes the work we are to do for heaven, is set out by striving, Luke 13.24. Strive to enter in at the strait gate; [Greek or Hebrew], strive as in an agony, strive as for a matter of life and death; so Cornelius à lapide; though we must be men of peace, yet in matters of Religion we must be men of strife; 'tis an holy strife, a blessed contention; indeed the Apostle saith, Let nothing be done [Greek or Hebrew] ▪ through strife; but though strife doth not do well among Christians, yet it doth well in a Christian, he must strive with his own heart, or he will never get to heaven.
1. Sometimes the work we are to do for heaven, is set out by striving, Luke 13.24. Strive to enter in at the strait gate; 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, strive as in an agony, strive as for a matter of life and death; so Cornelius à lapide; though we must be men of peace, yet in matters of Religion we must be men of strife; 'tis an holy strife, a blessed contention; indeed the Apostle saith, Let nothing be done 〈non-Latin alphabet〉 ▪ through strife; but though strife doth not do well among Christians, yet it doth well in a Christian, he must strive with his own heart, or he will never get to heaven.
2. Sometimes our work for heaven is compared to wrestling. Ephes. 6.12. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, &c. Our life is a continual wrestling; as Jacob wrestled with the Angel, so we must wrestle with our corruptions; we must not lay our sins in our bosom, but set our feet upon their necks; if we foil our sins, and get them down, 'tis not baseness or cowardice to strike them when they are down; and we must wrestle with Satan; wrestlers get one within another; Satan labours to get within us, and give us a fall, as he did our first Parents. What the Devil would have done to Christ, thrown him from the pinnacle of the Temple,