A96093:85
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. 4.
Having shown wherein blessedness doth not consist, I shall next show wherein it doth consist. Blessedness doth stand in the fruition of the chief good. 1. It consists in fruition; there must not be only possession, but fruition. A man may possess an Estate, yet not enjoy it; he may have the dominion of it, but not the comfort; as when he is in a Lethargy, or under the predominancy of melancholy; but in true blessedness there must be a sensible enjoyment of that which the soul doth possess. 2. Blessedness lies in the fruition of the chief good; it is not every good makes a man blessed, but it must be the supreme good, and that ⟨p. 25⟩is God. Psal. 144.15. Happy is that people whose God is the Lord. God is quies animae, here the soul doth rest: Psal. 116.7. Now that only in which the soul doth acquiesce and rest, can make it blessed. The Globe or Circle, as is observed in Mathematics, is of all others the most perfect figure, because the last point of the figure ends in that first point where it began: So when the soul meets in God, whence it sprang as its first original, then it is completely blessed. That which makes a man blessed, must have six Qualifications or Ingredients in it, and these are found no where, but in God the chief good.
HAving shewn wherein blessedness doth not consist, I shall next shew wherein it doth consist. Blessedness doth stand in the fruition of the chief good. 1. It consists in fruition; there must not be only possession, but fruition. A man may possess an Estate, yet not enjoy it; he may have the dominion of it, but not the comfort; as when he is in a Lethargy, or under the predominancy of melancholy; but in true blessedness there must be a sensible enjoyment of that which the soul doth possess. 2. Blessedness lies in the fruition of the chief good; it is not every good makes a man blessed, but it must be the supream good, and that