A96093:196
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.
SECT. 6.
A serious exhortation to Christians.
Use 3 USE 3. Exhortation. And it hath a double aspect; it looks,1 1. towards the wicked. Is there a Kingdom to be had, a Kingdom so enamelled and bespangled with glory? Oh then do not by your folly make your selves uncapable of this preferment; do not for the satisfying a base lust forfeit a Kingdom; do not drink away a Kingdom, do not for the lap of pleasure lose the Crown of life; if men before they did commit a sin, would but sit down and rationally consider whether the present gain and sweetness in sin would countervail the loss of a Kingdom, I believe it would put them into a cold sweat, and give some check to their unbridled affections. Jacob took Esau by the heel. Look not upon the smiling face of sin, but take it by the heel, look at the end of it; it will deprive you of a Kingdom; and can any thing make amends for that loss*? O is it not madness for the unfruitful works of darkness†, to lose a Kingdom? How will the Devil at the last day reproach and laugh at men that they should be so stupidly sottish, as for a rattle to forgo a Crown! Like those Indians, who for pictures and glass-beads will part with their gold. Surely it will much contribute to the vexation of the damned to think how foolishly they missed of a Kingdom.