A96093:931
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.
8. Strife and contention hinder the growth of grace: Can good seed grow in a ground where there is nothing but thorns and briars to be seen? Matth. 13. The thorns choked the seed. When the heart is as it were stuck with thorns, and is ever tearing and rending, can the seed of grace ever grow there? Historians report of the Isle of Patmos, that the natural soil of it is such, that nothing will grow upon that Earth. A froward heart is like the Isle of Patmos, nothing of grace will grow there, till God changeth the soil, and makes it peaceable. How can faith grow in an unpeaceable heart? for faith works by love. Impossible it is that he should bring forth the sweet fruits of the Spirit, who is in the gall of bitterness; if a man hath received poison into his body, the most excellent food will not nourish, till he takes some antidote to expel that poison. Many come to the Ordinances with seeming zeal, but being poisoned with wrath and animosity, they receive no spiritual nourishment. Christs body mystical edifieth it self in love, Eph. 4.16. There may be praying and hearing, but no spiritual concoction, no edifying of the body of Christ without love and peace.
8. Strife and contention hinder the growth of grace: Can good seed grow in a ground where there is nothing but thorns and bryars to be seen? Matth. 13. The thorns choaked the seed. When the heart is as it were stuck with thorns, and is ever tearing and rending, can the seed of grace ever grow there? Historians report of the Isle of Patmos, that the natural soile of it is such, that nothing will grow upon that Earth. A froward heart is like the Isle of Patmos, nothing of grace will grow there, till God changeth the soile, and makes it peaceable. How can faith grow in an unpeaceable heart? for faith works by love. Impossible it is that he should bring forth the sweet fruits of the Spirit, who is in the gall of bitterness; if a man hath received poyson into his body, the most excellent food will not nourish, till he takes some antidote to expel that poyson. Many come to the Ordinances with seeming zeal, but being poysoned with wrath and animosity, they receive no spiritual nourishment. Christs body mystical edifieth it self in love,