A96093:2238
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.
Men know they should be winged with activity in the duties of religion, but they can be content to let these duties alone. They know they should mortify the flesh, pray in their families, be just in their dealing, give alms to the poor; but if there were no other Bible to teach us these things than the lives of most, we should not know there were any such duties Commanded. For the most part, men are no changelings; what they were twenty, thirty years ago, they are the same still; as proud and unreformed as ever. The best Tools have ⟨p. 642⟩been either broke, or worn out upon their rocky hearts, yet they are as unhewn and unpolished as ever. The Bellows are burnt, the lungs of Gods Ministers are wasted, yet how much reprobate silver remains still in many of our Congregations! If none are happy but doers of the word, how few will be saved?
Men know they should be winged with activity in the duties of religion, but they can be content to let these duties alone. They know they should mortify the flesh, pray in their families, be just in their dealing, give alms to the poor; but if there were no other Bible to teach us these things than the lives of most, we should not know there were any such duties Commanded. For the most part, men are no changlings; what they were twenty, thirty years ago, they are the same still; as proud and unreformed as ever. The best Tooles have ⟨p. 642⟩been either broke, or worn out upon their rockie hearts, yet they are as unhewn and unpolished as ever. The Bellows are burnt, the lungs of Gods Ministers are wasted, yet how much reprobate silver remaines still in many of our Congregations! If none are happy but doers of the word, how few will be saved?
But why do so few come up to the Practical part of religion? Surely it is 1. for want of deep humiliation: he that hath the spirit of bondage let loose upon him, apprehends himself as it were in the Forlorn-hope, he sees the sea of his sins before him ready to swallow him up, and the justice of God behind pursuing and ready to overtake him; he cries out as St. Paul,