The beatitudes

1. It sours your good qualities; Naaman an honourable man, a mighty man in valour, but he was a Leper, 2 King. 5.1. that but was like a dead fly in the Ointment, it spoiled all the rest. So it may be said, Such a man is a man of parts, a man of great moral endowments, he is just, affable, temperate, but he is a leper, he will not be in charity; he pays every one their own, but there ⟨p. 629⟩is one debt he will not pay though he rot in hell for it, (viz.) the debt of love; this is a [Greek or Hebrew], a brand of infamy upon him.

1. It sowres your good qualities; Naaman an honourable man, a mighty man in valour, but he was a Leper, 2 King. 5.1. that but was like a dead fly in the Oyntment, it spoiled all the rest. So it may be said, Such a man is a man of parts, a man of great moral endowments, he is just, affable, temperate, but he is a leper, he will not be in charity; he payes every one their own, but there ⟨p. 629⟩is one debt he will not pay though he rot in hell for it, (viz.) the debt of love; this is a 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, a brand of infamy upon him.

2. Uncharitableness sours your good duties; you pray and come to Church, but refuse to be tied in a knot of amity; what profit is there of all your seeming devotion? we are bid to lift up pure hands without wrath, 1 Tim, 2.8. The uncharitable person doth not lift up pure hands in prayer, but leprous hands, bloody hands: 1 Joh. 3.16. Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer. Prayer saith Chrysostom, may be compared to a fine Garland; the hands that make a Garland had need be clean: So the heart that makes a prayer had need be clean: wrath and anger do sully a Christians prayers, and will the Holy God touch them? the uncharitable man poisons his own prayers, and will the Lord accept of a poisoned sacrifice?