The Beatitudes

by

 Thomas Watson
(1620-1686)

An exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

To the Reader

Christian Reader,

I here present you with a subject full of sweet variety. This Sermon of Christ on the Mount is a piece of spiritual needlework, wrought about with divers colours; here is both usefulness and sweetness. In this portion of Holy Scripture you have a breviary of religion, the Bible epitomised. Here is a garden of delight, set with curious knots, where you may pluck those flowers which will deck the hidden man of your heart. Here is the golden key which will open the gate of Paradise. Here is the conduit of the Gospel, running wine to cherish such as are poor in spirit and pure in heart. Here is the rich cabinet wherein the Pearl of Blessedness is locked up. Here is the golden pot in which is that manna which will feed and refocillate (revive) the soul unto ever-lasting life. Here is a way chalked out to the Holy of Holies.

Reader, how happy were it if, while others take up their time and thoughts about secular things which perish in the using, you could mind eternity and be guided by this Scripture-clue which leads you to the Beatific Vision. If, after God has set life before you, you indulge your sensual appetite and still court your lusts, how inexcusable will be your neglect and how inexpressible your misery!

The Lord grant that while you have an opportunity, and the wind serves you, you may not lie idle at anchor, and when it is too late begin to hoist up sails for Heaven. Oh now, Christian, let your loins be girt, and your lamps burning, that when the Lord Jesus, your blessed Bridegroom, shall knock, you may be ready to go in with Him to the marriage-supper, which shall be the prayer of him who is

Yours in all true affection and devotion,

Thomas Watson

1. Introduction

And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him. And he opened his mouth, and taught them. Matthew 5:1, 2

The blessed evangelist St Matthew, the penman of this sacred history, was at first by profession a publican or gatherer of toll; and Christ, having called him from the custom-house, made him a gatherer of souls. This holy man in the first chapter sets down Christ’s birth and genealogy. In the second, his dignity — a star ushers in the wise men to him, and as a king he is presented with gold and frankincense and myrrh (vv 9-11). In the third chapter the evangelist records his baptism; in the fourth, his temptations; in the fifth, his preaching, which chapter is like a rich mine. Every vein has some gold in it.

There are four things in this chapter which offer themselves to our view,

1 The Preacher

2 The Pulpit

3 The Occasion

4 The Sermon

I The Preacher. Jesus Christ. The best of preachers. ‘He went up.’ He in whom there was a combination of virtues, a constellation of beauties. He whose lips were not only sweet as the honey-comb, but did drop as the honey-comb. His words, an oracle; his works, a miracle; his life, a pattern; his death, a sacrifice. ‘He went up into a mountain and taught., Jesus Christ was every way ennobled and qualified for the work of the ministry.

(i) Christ was an intelligent preacher. He had ‘the Spirit without measure’ (John 3:34) and knew how to speak a word in due season, when to humble, when to comfort. We cannot know all the faces of our hearers. Christ knew the hearts of his hearers. He understood what doctrine would best suit them, as the husbandman can tell what sort of grain is proper for such-and-such a soil.

(ii) Christ was a powerful preacher. ‘He spake with authority’ (Matthew 7:29). He could set men’s sins before them and show them their very hearts. ‘Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did’ (John 4:29). That is the best glass, not which is most richly set with pearl, but which shows the truest face. Christ was a preacher to the conscience. He breathed as much zeal as eloquence. He often touched upon the heart-strings. What is said of Luther is more truly applicable to Christ. He spake ‘as if he had been within a man’. He could drive the wedge of his doctrine in the most knotty piece. He was able with his two-edged sword to pierce an heart of stone. ‘Never man spake like this man’ (John 7:46)

(iii) Christ was a successful preacher. He had the art of converting souls. ‘Many believed on him.’ (John 10:42), yea, persons of rank and quality. ‘Among the chief rulers many believed’ (John 12:42). He who had ‘grace poured into his lips’ (Psalm 45:2), could pour grace into his hearers’ hearts. He had the key of David in his hand, and when he pleased did open the hearts of men, and make way both for himself and his doctrine to enter. If he did blow the trumpet his very enemies would come under his banner. Upon his summons none dare but surrender.

(iv) Christ was a lawful preacher. As he had his unction from his Father, so his mission. ‘The Father that sent me bears witness of me’ (John 8:18). Christ, in whom were all perfections concentred, yet would be solemnly sealed and inaugurated into his ministerial as well as mediatory office. If Jesus Christ would not enter upon the work of the ministry without a commission, how absurdly impudent are they who without any warrant dare invade this holy function! There must be a lawful admission of men into the ministry. ‘No man taketh this honour to himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron’ (Hebrews 5:4). Our Lord Christ, as he gave apostles and prophets who were extraordinary ministers, so pastors and teachers who were initiated and made in an ordinary way (Ephesians 4:11); and he will have a ministry perpetuated; ‘Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world’ (Matthew 28:20). Sure, there is as much need of ordination now as in Christ’s time and in the time of the apostles, there being then extraordinary gifts in the church which are now ceased.

But why should not the ministry lie in common? ‘Hath the Lord spoken only by Moses?’ (Numbers 12:2). Why should not one preach as well as another? I answer — Because God (who is the God of order) has made the work of the ministry a select, distinct office from any other. As in the body natural the members have a distinct office, the eye is to see, the hand to work; you may as well say, why should not the hand see as well as the eye? Because God has made the distinction. He has put the seeing faculty into the one and not the other. So here, God has made a distinction between the work of the ministry and other work.

Where is this distinction? We find in Scripture a distinction between pastor and people. ‘The elders (or ministers) I exhort . . . Feed the flock of God which is among you’ (1 Peter 5:2). If anyone may preach, by the same rule all may, and then what will become of the apostle’s distinction? Where will the flock of God be if all be pastors?

God has cut out the minister his work which is proper for him and does not belong to any other. ‘Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine . . . give thyself wholly to them’, or, as it is in the Greek, ‘Be thou wholly in them’ (1 Timothy 4, 13-15). This charge is peculiar to the minister and does not concern any other. It is not spoken to the tradesman that he should give himself wholly to doctrine and exhortation. No, let him look to his shop. It is not spoken to the ploughman that he should give himself wholly to preaching. No, let him give himself to his plough. It is the minister’s charge. The apostle speaks to Timothy and, in him, to the rest who had the hands of the presbytery laid on them. And ‘Study to shew thyself approved . . ., a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth’ (2 Timothy 2:15). This is spoken peculiarly to the minister. Everyone that can read the word aright cannot divide the word aright. So that the work of the ministry does not lie in common; it is a select, peculiar work. As none might touch the ark but the priests, none may touch this temple-office but such as are called to it.

But if a man has gifts, is not this sufficient? I answer, No! As grace is not sufficient to make a minister, so neither are gifts. The Scripture puts a difference between gifting and sending. ‘How shall they preach unless they be sent?’ (Romans 10:15). If gifts were enough to constitute a minister, the apostle should have said, ‘How shall they preach unless they be gifted?, but he says ‘unless they be sent?’ As in other callings, gifts do not make a magistrate. The attorney that pleads at the bar may have as good gifts as the judge that sits upon the bench, but he must have a commission before he sit as judge. If it be thus in matters civil, much more in ecclesiastical and sacred, which are, as Bucer says, ‘things of the highest importance’. Those therefore that usurp the ministerial work without any special designation and appointment discover more pride than zeal. They act out of their sphere and are guilty of theft. They steal upon a people, and, as they come without a call, so they stay without a blessing. ‘I sent them not, therefore they shall not profit this people at all’ (Jeremiah 23:32). And so much for the first, the preacher.

2. The pulpit where Christ preached. ‘He went up into a mountain.’

The law was first given on the mount, and here Christ expounds it on the mount. This mount, as is supposed by Jerome and others of the learned, was Mount Tabor. It was a convenient place to speak in, being seated above the people, and in regard of the great confluence of hearers.

3 The occasion of Christ’s ascending the mount: ‘Seeing the multitude.’

The people thronged to hear Christ, and he would not dismiss the congregation without a sermon, but ’seeing the multitude he went up’. Jesus Christ came from heaven as a factor for souls. He lay leiger here awhile; preaching was his business. The people could not be so desirous to hear as he was to preach. He who treated faint bodies with compassion (Matthew 15:32), much more pitied dead souls. It was his ‘meat and drink, to do his Father’s will (John 4:34). ‘And seeing the multitude’, he goes up into the mount and preaches. This he did not only for the consolation of his hearers, but for the imitation of his ministers.

From whence observe that Christ’s ministers according to Christ’s pattern must embrace every opportunity of doing good to souls. Praying and preaching and studying must be our work. ‘Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season’ (2 Timothy 4:2). Peter, seeing the multitude, lets down the net and, at one draught, catches three thousand souls (Acts 2:41). How zealously industrious have God’s champions been in former ages in fulfilling the work of their ministry, as we read of Chrysostom, Augustine, Basil the Great, Calvin, Bucer and others, who for the work of Christ ‘were nigh unto death’. The reasons why the ministers of Christ (according to his pattern) should be ambitiously desirous of all opportunities for soul-service are:

(i) Their commission: God has entrusted them as ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20). Now you know an ambassador waits for a day of audience, and as soon as a day is granted, he faithfully and impartially delivers the mind of his prince. Thus Christ’s ministers, having a commission delegated to them to negotiate for souls, should be glad when there is a day of audience, that they may impart the mind and will of Christ to his people.

(ii) Their titles: Ministers are called God’s sowers (1 Corinthians 9:11). Therefore they must upon all occasions be scattering the blessed seed of the Word. The sower must go forth and sow; yea, though the seed fall upon stones, as usually it does, yet we must disseminate and scatter the seed of the Word upon stony hearts, because ‘even of these stones God is able to raise up children’ to himself.

Ministers are called stars. Therefore they must shine by word and doctrine in the firmament of the church. Thus our Lord Christ has set them a pattern in the text: ‘Seeing the multitude, he went up into the mountain.’ Here was a light set upon an hill, the bright morning star shining to all that were round about. Christ calls his ministers ‘the light of the world’ (Matthew 5:14). Therefore they must be always giving forth their lustre. Their light must not go out till it be in the socket, or till violent death as an extinguisher put it out.

(iii) Christ’s ministers must catch at all occasions of doing good to others, in regard of the work which they are about, and that is saving of souls. What a precious thing is a soul! Christ takes, as it were, a pair of scales in his hands and he puts the world in one scale and the soul in the other, and the soul outweighs (Matthew 16:26). The soul is of a noble origin, of a quick operation; it is a flower of eternity; here, in the bud; in heaven, fully ripe and blown. The soul is one of the richest pieces of embroidery that ever God made, the understanding bespangled with light, the will invested with liberty, the affections like musical instruments tuned with the finger of the Holy Ghost. The soul is Christ’s partner, the angels, familiar. Now if the souls of men are of so noble an extract and made capable of glory, oh how zealously industrious should Christ’s ministers be to save these souls! If Christ spent his blood for souls, well may we spend our sweat. It was Augustine’s prayer that Christ might find him at his coming either praying or preaching. What a sad sight is it to see precious souls as so many pearls and diamonds cast into the dead sea of hell!

(iv) The ministers of Christ, ’seeing the multitude’, must ‘ascend the mount’, because there are so many emissaries of Satan who lie at the catch to subvert souls. How the old serpent casts out of his mouth floods of water after the woman to drown her! (Revelation 12:15). What floods of heresy have been poured out in city and country, which have overflowed the banks not only of religion but civility. Ignatius calls error ‘the invention of the devil’, and Bernard calls it ‘a sweet poison’. Men’s ears, like sponges, have sucked in this poison. Never were the devil’s commodities more vendible in England than now. A fine tongue can put off bad wares. The Jesuit can silver over his lies, and dress error in truth’s coat. A weak brain is soon intoxicated. When flattery and subtlety meet with the simple, they easily become a prey. The Romish whore entices many to drink down the poison of her idolatry and filthiness, because it is given in ‘a golden cup’ (Revelation 17:4). If all who have the plague of the head should die, it would much increase the bill of mortality. Now if there be so many emissaries of Satan abroad, who labour to make proselytes to the church of Rome, how it concerns them whom God has put into the work of the ministry to bestir themselves and lay hold on all opportunities, that by their spiritual antidotes they may ‘convert sinners from the error of their way and save their souls from death!’ (James 5:20). Ministers must not only be ‘pastores’, but ‘proeliatores’ (fighters, warriors). In one hand they must hold the bread of life and ‘feed the flock of God’; in the other hand, they must hold the sword of the Spirit and fight against those errors which carry damnation in their front.

(v) The ministers of Christ should wait for all opportunities of soul-service, because the preaching of the Word meets so many adverse forces that hinder the progress and success of it. Never did a pilot meet with so many Euroclydons and crosswinds in a voyage, as the spiritual pilots of God’s church do when they are transporting souls to heaven.

Some hearers have bad memories (James 1:25). Their memories are like leaking vessels. All the precious wine of holy doctrine that is poured in runs out immediately. Ministers cannot by study find a truth so fast as others can lose it. If the meat does not stay in the stomach, it can never breed good blood. If a truth delivered does not stay in the memory, we can never be, as the apostle says, ‘nourished up in the words of faith’ (1 Timothy 4:6). How often does the devil, that fowl of the air, pick up the good seed that is sown! If people suffer at the hands of thieves, they tell everyone and make their complaint they have been robbed; but there is a worse thief they are not aware of! How many sermons has the devil stolen from them! How many truths have they been robbed of, which might have been so many deathbed cordials! Now if the Word preached slides so fast out of the memory, ministers had need the oftener to go up the preaching mount, that at last some truth may abide and be as ‘a nail fastened by the masters of assemblies’.

The ears of many of our hearers are stopped with earth. I mean the cares of the world, that the Word preached will not enter, according to that in the parable, ‘Hearing they hear not’ (Matthew 13:13). We read of Saul, his eyes were open, yet ‘he saw no man’ (Acts 9:8). A strange paradox! And is it not as strange that men’s ears should be open, yet ‘in hearing hear not?’ They mind not what is said: ‘They sit before thee as my people sitteth . . . but their heart goeth after their covetousness’ (Ezekiel 33:31). Many sit and stare the minister in the face, yet scarce know a word he says. They are thinking of their wares and drugs and are often casting up accounts in the church. If a man be in a mill, though you speak never so loud to him, he does not hear you for the noise of the mill. We preach to men about matters of salvation, but the mill of worldly business makes such a noise that they cannot hear; ‘in hearing they hear not’. It being thus, ministers who are called ’sons of thunder’ had need often ascend the mount and ‘lift up their voice like a trumpet’ (Isaiah 58:1) that the deaf ear may be syringed and unstopped, and may hear ‘what the Spirit saith unto the churches’ (Revelation 2:7).

Others, as they have earth in their ears, so they have a stone in their hearts. They make ‘their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law’ (Zechariah 7:12). The ministers of Christ therefore must be frequently brandishing the sword of the Spirit and striking at men’s sins, that, if possible, they may at last pierce the heart of stone. When the earth is scorched with the sun, it is so hard and crusted together, that a shower of rain will not soften it. There must be shower after shower before it will be either moist or fertile. Such an hardened piece is the heart of man naturally. It is so stiffened with the scorchings of lust, that there must be ‘precept upon precept’ (Isaiah 28:10). Our doctrine must ‘distil as the dew, as the small rain on the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass’ (Deuteronomy 32:2).

(vi) Christ’s ministers, according to the example of their Lord and Master, should take all occasions of doing good, not only in regard of God’s glory, but their own comfort. What triumph is it, and cause of gladness, when a minister can say on his deathbed, ‘Lord, I have done the work which thou gayest me to do’, I have been trading for souls! When a minister comes to the mount of glory, the heavenly mount, it will be a great comfort to him that he has been so often upon the preaching mount. Certainly if the angels in heaven rejoice at the conversion of a sinner (Luke 15:7,10), how shall that minister rejoice in heaven over every soul that he has been instrumental to convert! As it shall add a member to Christ’s body, so a jewel to a minister’s crown. ‘They that are wise’, or as the original carries it, ‘They that are teachers shall shine (not as lamps or tapers, but) as stars (Daniel 12:3); not as planets, but as fixed stars in the firmament of glory for ever.,

And though ‘Israel be not gathered’, yet shall God’s ministers ‘be glorious in the eyes of the Lord’ (Isaiah 49:5). God will reward them not according to their success, but their diligence. When they are a ’savour of death’ to men, yet they are a ’sweet savour’ to God. In an orchard the labourer that fells a tree is rewarded as well as he that plants a tree. The surgeon’s bill is paid though the patient die.

First, let me crave liberty to speak a word to the Elishas, my reverend and honoured brethren in the ministry. You are engaged in a glorious service. God has put great renown upon you. He has entrusted you with two most precious jewels, his truths and the souls of his people. Never was this honour conferred upon any angel to convert souls! What princely dignity can parallel this? The pulpit is higher than the throne, for a truly constituted minister represents no less than God himself. ‘As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God’ (2 Corinthians 5:20). Give me leave to say as the apostle, ‘I magnify my office’ (Romans 11:13). Whatever our persons are, the office is sacred. The ministry is the most honourable employment in the world. Jesus Christ has graced this calling by his entering into it. Other men work in their trade; ministers work with God. ‘We are labourers together with God’ (1 Corinthians 3:9). O high honour! God and his ministers have one and the same work. They both negotiate about souls. Let the sons of the prophets wear this as their crown and diadem.

But while I tell you of your dignity, do not forget your duty. Imitate this blessed pattern in the text, ‘the Lord Jesus who, seeing the multitudes, went up and taught’. He took all occasions of preaching Sometimes he taught in the temple (Mark 14:49); sometimes in a ship (Mark 4:1), and here, upon the mount. His lips were a tree of life that fed many. How often did he neglect his food, that he might feast others with his doctrine! Let all the ministers of Christ tread in his steps! Make Christ not only your Saviour, but your example. Suffer no opportunities to slip wherein you may be helpful to the souls of others. Be not content to go to heaven yourselves, but be as the Primum Mobile, which draws other orbs along with it. Be such shining lamps that you may light others to heaven with you. I will conclude with that of the apostle: ‘Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord’ (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Secondly, let me turn myself to the flock of God. If ministers must take all opportunities to preach, you must take all opportunities to hear. If there were twice or thrice a week a certain sum of money to be distributed to all comers, then people would resort thither. Now think thus with yourselves; when the Word of God is preached, the bread of life is distributed, which is more precious than ‘thousands of gold and silver’ (Psalm 119:72). In the Word preached, heaven and salvation is offered to you. In this field the pearl of price is hid. How should you ‘flock like doves’ to the windows of the sanctuary (Isaiah 60:8)! We read the gate of the temple was called ‘beautiful’ (Acts 3:2). The gate of God’s house is the beautiful gate. Lie at ‘these posts of wisdom’s doors’ (Proverbs 8 34).

Not only hear the Word preached, but encourage those ministers who do preach by liberal maintaining of them. Though I hope all who have God’s Urim and Thummim written upon them, can say, as the apostle, ‘I seek not yours, but you’ (2 Corinthians 12:14), yet that scripture is still canonical, ‘So hath the Lord ordained, that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel’ (1 Corinthians 9:14). Are not labourers in a vineyard maintained by their labours? says Peter Martyr. And the apostle puts the question, ‘Who planteth a vineyard and eateth not the fruit of it? (1 Corinthians 9:7). Hypocrites love a cheap religion. They like a gospel that will put them to no charges. They are content so they may have golden bags, to have wooden priests. How many by saving their purses have lost their souls! Julian the Apostate robbed the ministers, pretending conscience. I need not tell you how vengeance pursued him. Is it not pity the fire on God’s altar should go out for want of pouring on a little golden oil? David would not offer that to God which cost him nothing (2 Samuel 24:24).

Encourage God’s ministers by your fruitfulness under their labours. When ministers are upon the ‘mount’, let them not be upon the rocks. What cost has God laid out upon this city! Never, I believe, since the apostles, times was there a more learned, orthodox, powerful ministry than now. God’s ministers are called stars (Revelation 1:20). In this city every morning a star appears, besides the bright constellation on the Lord’s Day. Oh you that feed in the green pastures of ordinances, be fat and fertile; you that are planted in the courts of God, flourish in the courts of God (Psalm 92:13). How sad will it be with a people that shall go laden to hell with Gospel blessings! The best way to encourage your ministers is to let them see the travail of their souls in your new birth. It is a great comfort when a minister not only woos souls, but wins souls. ‘He that winneth souls is wise’ (Proverbs 11:30). This is a minister’s glory. ‘For what is our joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye?’ (1 Thessalonians 2:19). A successful preacher wears two crowns, a crown of righteousness in heaven, and a crown of rejoicing here upon earth. ‘Are not ye our crown?’

Encourage your ministers by praying for them. Their work is great. It is a work that will take up their head and heart, and all little enough. It is a work fitter for angels than men. ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ (2 Corinthians 2:16). Oh pray for them! Christ indeed, when he ascended the mount and was to preach, needed none of the people’s prayers for him. He had a sufficient stock by him, the divine nature to supply him, but all his under-officers in the ministry need prayer. If Saint Paul, who abounded in the graces of the Spirit and supernatural revelations, begged prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:25), then surely other ministers need prayer who do not pretend to any such revelations.

And pray for your ministers that God will direct them what to preach, that he will cut out their work for them. ‘Go preach . . . the preaching that I bid thee’ (Jonah 3:2). It is a great matter to preach suitable truths; there are ‘acceptable words’ (Ecclesiastes 12:10).

Pray that God will go forth with their labours, or else ‘they toil and catch nothing’. God’s Spirit must fill the sails of our ministry. It is not the hand that scatters the seed which makes it spring up, but the dews and influences of heaven. So it is not our preaching, but the divine influence of the Spirit that makes grace grow in men’s hearts. We are but pipes and organs. It is God’s Spirit blowing in us that makes the preaching of the Word by a divine enchantment allure souls to Christ. Ministers are but stars to light you to Christ. The Spirit is the loadstone to draw you. All the good done by our ministry is ‘due to the Lord’s excellent and effectual working’ (Bucer). Oh then pray for us, that God will make his work prosper in our hands. This may be one reason why the Word preached does not profit more, because people do not pray more. Perhaps you complain the tool is dull, the minister is dead and cold. You should have whetted and sharpened him by your prayer. If you would have the door of a blessing opened to you through our ministry, you must unlock it by the key of prayer.

There is a blessedness in reversion

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Matthew 5:3

Having done with the occasion, I come now to the sermon itself. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’. Christ does not begin his Sermon on the Mount as the Law was delivered on the mount, with commands and threatenings, the trumpet sounding, the fire flaming, the earth quaking, and the hearts of the Israelites too for fear; but our Saviour (whose lips ‘dropped as the honeycomb’) begins with promises and blessings. So sweet and ravishing was the doctrine of this heavenly Orpheus that, like music, it was able to charm the most savage natures, yea, to draw hearts of stone to him.

To begin then with this first word, ‘Blessed’. If there be any blessedness in knowledge, it must needs be in the knowledge of blessedness. For the illustration of this, I shall lay down two aphorisms or conclusions.

[1] That there is a blessedness in reversion!

[II] That the godly are in some sense already blessed.

[1] That there is a blessedness in reversion: The people of God meet with many knotty difficulties and sinking discouragements in the way of religion. Their march is not only tedious but dangerous, and their hearts are ready to despond. It will not be amiss therefore to set the crown of blessedness before them to animate their courage and to inflame their zeal. How many scriptures bring this olive-branch in their mouth, the tidings of blessedness to believers! ‘Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing’ (Matthew 24:46). ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father’ (Matthew 25:34). Blessedness is the perfection of a rational creature. It is the whetstone of a Christian’s industry, the height of his ambition, the flower of his joy. Blessedness is the desire of all men. Aquinas calls it the ‘ultimate end’. This is the ‘white’ every man aims to hit; to this centre all the lines are drawn.

Wherein does blessedness consist? Millions of men mistake both the nature of blessedness and the way thither. Some of the learned have set down two hundred and eighty eight several opinions about blessedness, and all have shot wide of the mark. I shall show wherein it does not consist, and then wherein it does consist.

(1) Wherein blessedness does not consist. It does not lie in the acquisition of worldly things. Happiness cannot by any art of chemistry be extracted here. Christ does not say, ‘Blessed are the rich’, or ‘Blessed are the noble’, yet too many idolise these things. Man, by the fall, has not only lost his crown, but his headpiece. How ready is he to terminate his happiness in externals! Which makes me call to mind that definition which some of the heathen philosophers give of blessedness, that it was to have a sufficiency of subsistence and to thrive well in the world. And are there not many who pass for Christians, that seem to be of this philosophical opinion? If they have but worldly accommodations, they are ready to sing a requiem to their souls and say with that brutish fool in the gospel, ‘Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease . . .’ (Luke 12:19). ‘What is more shameful’, says Seneca, ‘than to equate the rational soul’s good with that which is irrational.’ Alas, the tree of blessedness does not grow in an earthly paradise. Has not God ‘cursed the ground’ for sin? (Genesis 3:17). Yet many are digging for felicity here, as if they would fetch a blessing out of a curse. A man may as well think to extract oil out of a flint, or fire out of water, as blessedness out of these terrestrial things.

King Solomon arrived at more than any man. He was the most magnificent prince that ever held the sceptre. For his parentage: he sprang from the royal line, not only that line from which many kings came, but of which Christ himself came. Jesus Christ was of Solomon’s line and race, so that for heraldry and nobility none could show a fairer coat of arms. For the situation of his palace: it was in Jerusalem, the princess and paragon of the earth. Jerusalem, for its renown, was called ‘the city of God’. It was the most famous metropolis in the world. ‘Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord’ (Psalms 122:4). For wealth: his crown was hung full of jewels. He had treasures of gold and of pearl and ‘made silver to be as stones’ (1 Kings 10:27). For worldly joy: he had the flower and quintessence of all delights — sumptuous fare, stately edifices, vineyards, fishponds, all sorts of music to enchant and ravish the senses with joy. If there were any rarity, it was a present for king Solomon’s court. Thus did he bathe himself in the perfumed waters of pleasure.

For wisdom: he was the oracle of his time. When the queen of Sheba came to pose him with hard questions, he gave a solution to all her doubts (1 Kings 10:3). He had a key of knowledge to unlock nature’s dark cabinet, so that if wisdom had been lost, it might have been found here, and the whole world might have lighted their understanding at Solomon’s lamp. He was an earthly angel, so that a carnal eye surveying his glory would have been ready to imagine that Solomon had entered into that paradise out of which Adam was once driven, or that he had found another as good. Never did the world cast a more smiling aspect upon any man; yet when he comes to give in his impartial verdict, he tells us that the world has vanity written upon its frontispiece, and all those golden delights he enjoyed were but a painted felicity, a glorious misery. ‘And behold all was vanity’ (Ecclesiastes 2:8). Blessedness is too noble and delicate a plant to dwell in nature’s soil.

That blessedness does not lie in externals, I shall prove by these five demonstrations.

(i) Those things which are not commensurate to the desires of the soul can never make a man blessed; but transitory things are not commensurate to the desires of the soul; therefore they cannot render him blessed. Nothing on earth can satisfy.

‘He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver’ (Ecclesiastes 5:10). Riches are unsatisfying:

Because they are not real. The world is called a ‘fashion’ (1 Corinthians 7:31). The word in the Greek signifies a mathematical figure, sometimes a show or apparition. Riches are but tinned over. They are like alchemy, which glisters a little in our eyes, but at death all this alchemy will be worn off. Riches are but sugared lies, pleasant impostures, like a gilded cover which has not one leaf of true comfort bound up in it.

Because they are not suitable. The soul is a spiritual thing; riches are of an earthly extract, and how can these fill a spiritual substance? A man may as well fill his treasure chest with grace, as his heart with gold. If a man were crowned with all the delights of the world, nay, if God should build him an house among the stars, yet the restless eye of his unsatisfied mind would be looking still higher. He would be prying beyond the heavens for some hidden rarities which he thinks he has not yet attained to; so unquenchable is the thirst of the soul till it come to bathe in the river of life and to centre upon true blessedness.

(ii) That which cannot quiet the heart in a storm cannot entitle a man to blessedness; but earthly things accumulated cannot rock the troubled heart quiet; therefore they cannot make one blessed. If the spirit be wounded, can the creature pour wine and oil into these wounds? If God sets conscience to work, and it flies in a man’s face, can worldly comforts take off this angry fury? Is there any harp to drive away the ‘evil spirit’? Outward things can no more cure the agony of conscience than a silken stocking can cure a gouty leg. When Saul was sore distressed (1 Samuel 28:15), could all the jewels of his crown comfort him? If God be angry, whose ‘fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him’ (Nahum 1:6), can a wedge of gold be a screen to keep off this fire? ‘They shall cast their silver in the streets; their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord’ (Ezekiel 7:19). King Belshazzar was carousing and ranting it. ‘He drank wine in the golden vessels of the temple’ (Daniel 5:3), but when the fingers of a man’s hand appeared, ‘his countenance was changed’ (verse 6), his wine grew sour, his feast was spoiled with that dish which was served in upon the wall. The things of the world will no more keep out trouble of spirit, than a paper sconce will keep out a bullet.

(iii) That which is but for a season cannot make one blessed; but all things under the sun are but ‘for a season’, therefore they cannot enrich with blessedness. Sublunary delights are like those meats which we say are a while in season, and then presently grow stale and are out of request. ‘The world passeth away’ (1 John 2:17). Worldly delights are winged. They may be compared to a flock of birds in the garden, that stay a little while, but when you come near to them they take their flight and are gone. So ‘riches make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven’ (Proverbs 23:5). They are like a meteor that blazes, but spends and annihilates. They are like a castle made of snow, lying under the torrid beams of the sun. Augustine says of himself, that when any preferment smiled upon him, he was afraid to accept of it lest it should on a sudden give him the slip. Outward comforts are, as Plato says, like tennis balls which are bandied up and down from one to another. Had we the longest lease of worldly comforts, it would soon be run out. Riches and honour are constantly in flight; they pass away like a swift stream, or like a ship that is going full sail. While they are with us they are going away from us. They are like a posy of flowers which withers while you are smelling it; like ice, which melts away while it is in your hand. The world, says Bernard,’ cries out, ‘I will leave you’, and be gone. It takes its salute and farewell together.

(iv) Those things which do more vex than comfort cannot make a man blessed; but such are all things under the sun, therefore they cannot have blessedness affixed to them. As riches are compared to wind (Hosea 12:1) to show their vanity, so to thorns (Matthew 13:17) to show their vexation. Thorns are not more apt to tear our garments, than riches to tear our hearts. They are thorns in the gathering, they prick with care; and as they pierce the head with care of getting, so they wound the heart with fear of losing. God will have our sweetest wine run dregs, yea, and taste of a musty cask too, that we may not think this is the wine of paradise.

(v) Those things which (if we have nothing else) will make us cursed, cannot make us blessed; but the sole enjoyment of worldly things will make us cursed, therefore it is far from making us blessed. ‘Riches are kept for the hurt of the owner’ (Ecclesiastes 5:13). Riches to the wicked are fuel for pride: ‘Thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches’ (Ezekiel 28:5); and fuel for lust: ‘when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery’ (Jeremiah 5:7). Riches are a snare: ‘But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in perdition’ (1 Timothy 6:9). How many have pulled down their souls to build up an estate! A ship may be so laden with gold that it sinks; many a man’s gold has sunk him to hell. The rich sinner seals up money in his bag, and God seals up a curse with it. ‘Woe to him that ladeth himself with thick clay’ (Habakkuk 2:6). Augustine says that Judas for money sold his salvation, and the Pharisees bought their damnation; so that happiness is not to be fetched out of the earth. They who go to the creature for blessedness go to the wrong box.

If blessedness does not consist in externals, then let us not place our blessedness here. This is to seek the living among the dead. As the angel told Mary concerning Christ, ‘He is not here, he is risen’ (Matthew 28:6), so I may say of blessedness, It is not here, it is risen; it is in a higher region. How do men thirst after the world, as if the pearl of blessedness hung upon an earthly crown! O, says one, if I had but such an estate, then I should be happy! Had I but such a comfort, then I should sit down satisfied! Well, God gives him that comfort and lets him suck out the very juice and spirits of it, but, alas, it falls short of his expectation. It cannot fill the hiatus and longing of his soul which still cries ‘Give, give’ (Proverbs 30:15); just like a sick man. If, says he, I had but such a meat, I could eat it; and when he has it, his stomach is bad, and he can hardly endure to taste it. God has put not only an emptiness, but bitterness into the creature, and it is good for us that there is no perfection here, that we may raise our thoughts higher to more noble and generous delights. Could we distil and draw out the quintessence of the creature, we should say as once the emperor Severus said, who grew from a mean estate to be head of the greatest empire in the world: I have, says he, run through all conditions, yet could never find full contentment.

To such as are cut short in their allowance, whose cup does not overflow, but their tears be not too much troubled; remember that these outward comforts cannot make you blessed. You might live rich and die cursed. You might treasure up an estate, and God might treasure up wrath. Be not perplexed about those things the lack of which cannot make you miserable, nor the enjoyment make you blessed.

(2) Having shown wherein blessedness does not consist, I shall next show wherein it does consist. Blessedness stands in the fruition of the chief good.

(i)) 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 predominance of melancholy. But in true blessedness there must be a sensible enjoyment of that which the soul possesses.

(ii) Blessedness lies in the fruition of the chief good. It is not every good that makes a man blessed, but it must be the supreme good, and that is God. ‘Happy is that people whose God is the Lord’ (Psalm 144:15). God is the soul’s rest (Psalm 116:7). Now that only in which the soul acquiesces and rests 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 fixed qualifications or ingredients in it, and these are found nowhere but in God the chief good.

In true blessedness there must be meliority; that which fills with blessedness must be such a good as is better than a man’s self. If you would ennoble a piece of silver, it must be by putting something to it which is better than silver, as by putting gold or pearl to it. So that which ennobles the soul and enriches it with blessedness, must be by adding something to it which is more excellent than the soul, and that is God. The world is below the soul; it is but the soul’s footstool; therefore it cannot crown it with happiness.

Another ingredient is delectability: that which brings blessedness must have a delicious taste in it, such as the soul is instantly ravished with. There must be in it spirits of delight and quintessence of joy, and where can the soul suck those pure comforts which amaze it with wonder and crown it with delight, but in God? ‘In God’, says Augustine, ‘the soul is delighted with such sweetness as even transports it.’ The love of God is a honeycomb which drops such infinite sweetness and satisfaction into the soul as is ‘unspeakable and full of glory.’ (1 Peter 1:8). A kiss from God’s mouth puts the soul into a divine ecstasy, so that now it cries out, ‘It is good to be here.’

The third ingredient in blessedness is plenty; that which makes a man blessed must not be too scanty. It is a full draught which quenches the soul’s thirst; and where shall we find plenty but in Deity? ‘Thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures’ (Psalm 36:8); not drops but rivers! The soul bathes itself and is laid, as it were, asteeping in the water of life. The river of paradise overflowed and empties its silver streams into the souls of the blessed.

In true blessedness there must be variety. Plenty without variety is apt to nauseate. In God there is ‘all fullness’. (Colossians 1:19). What can the soul want, but it may be had in the chief good? God is ‘the good in all good things’. He is a sun, a shield, a portion, a fountain, a rock of strength, an horn of salvation. In God there is a complication of all excellencies. There are every moment fresh beauties and delights springing from God.

To make up blessedness there must be perfection; the joy must be perfect, the glory perfect. ‘Spirits of just men made perfect’ (Hebrews 12:23). ‘Blessedness must run through the whole.’ If there be the least defect, it destroys the nature of blessedness, as the least symptom of a disease takes away the wellbeing and right temperature of the body.

True blessedness must have eternity stamped on it. Blessedness is a fixed thing; it admits of no change or alteration. God says of every child of his, ‘I have blessed him and he shall be blessed.’ As the sunshine of blessedness is ‘without clouds’, so it never sets. ‘I give unto them eternal life’ (John 10:28). ‘And so shall we ever be with the Lord’ (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Eternity is the highest link of blessedness. Thus we have seen that this diamond of blessedness is only to be found in the Rock of Ages. ‘Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord.’

If there is such a blessedness in reversion, be convinced of the truth of this; set it down as an article of your faith. We live in times wherein many are grown atheists. They have run through all opinions, and now of professors they are turned epicures; they have drunk in so much of the poison of error that they are quite intoxicated and fallen asleep, and begin to dream there is no such state of blessedness after this life; and this opinion is to them above the Bible. When men have the spiritual staggers, it sadly presages they will die. Oh, it is a dangerous thing to hesitate and waver about fundamentals; like Pythagoras, who doubted whether there was a God or no; so, whether there be a blessedness or no. Doubting of principles is the next way to the denying of principles. Let it be a maxim with every good Christian, there is a blessedness in reversion. ‘There remains a rest for the people of God’ (Hebrews 4:9).

Revolve this truth often in your mind. There are many truths swim in the brain, which do not sink into the heart, and those do us no good. Chew the cud. Let a Christian think seriously with himself, there is a blessedness feasible and I am capable of enjoying it, if I do not lay bars in the way and block up my own happiness. Though within I see nothing but guilt, and without nothing but curses, yet there is a blessedness to be had, and to be had for me too in the use of means.

The serious meditation of this will be a forcible argument to make the sinner break off his sins by repentance and sweat hard till he find the golden mine of blessedness. I say, it would be the break-neck of sin. How would a man offer violence to himself by mortification and to heaven by supplication, that at last he may arrive at a state of blessedness? What, is there a crown of blessedness to be set upon my head? A crown hung with the jewels of honour, delight, magnificence? a crown reached out by God himself? and shall I by sin hazard this? Can the pleasure of sin countervail the loss of blessedness? What more powerful motive to repentance than this? Sin will deceive me of the blessing! If a man knew certainly that a king would settle all his crown revenues on him after a term of years, would he offend that regal Majesty and cause him to reverse or alter his will? There is a blessedness promised to all that live godly. ‘This is the promise he has promised us, even eternal life’ (1 John 2:25). We are not excluded, but may come in for a child’s part. Now shall we, by living in sin, provoke God and forfeit this blessedness? O what madness is this! Well may the apostle call them ‘foolish and hurtful lusts’ (1 Timothy 6:9), because every lust does what in it lies to cut off the entail of mercy and block up the way to happiness. Every sin may be compared to the ‘flaming sword’, which keeps the heavenly paradise that the sinner cannot enter.

Let us so deport ourselves, that we may express to others that we do believe a blessedness to come, and that is by seeking an interest in God. For the beams of blessedness shine only from his face. It is our union with God, the chief good, that makes us blessed. Oh, let us never rest till we can say, ‘This God is our God for ever and ever’ (Psalm 48:14). Most men think because God has blessed them with an estate, therefore they are blessed. Alas, God often gives these things in anger. ‘God grants a thing when he is angry which he does not will to give when he is tranquil.’ He loads his enemies with gold and silver; as Plutarch reports of Tarpeia, a vestal nun, who bargained with the enemy to betray the Capitol of Rome to them, if she might have the golden bracelets on their left hands, which they promised; and being entered into the Capitol, they threw not only their golden bracelets, but their bucklers too upon her, through the weight whereof she was pressed to death. God often lets men have the golden bracelets, the weight whereof sinks them into hell. Oh, let us pant after things heavenly, let us get our eyes fixed, and our hearts united to God, the supreme good. This is to pursue blessedness as in the chase.

Let us proclaim to the world that we do believe a blessedness to come by living blessed lives; walk as becomes the heirs of blessedness. A blessed crown and a cursed life will never agree. Many tell us they are bound for heaven, but they steer their course a quite contrary way. The Devil is their pilot, and they sail hell-ward, as if a man should say he were going a voyage to the east, but sails quite westward. The drunkard will tell you he hopes for blessedness, but he sails another way; you must go weeping to heaven, not reeling. The unclean person talks of blessedness, but he is fallen into that ‘deep ditch’ (Proverbs 23:27), where he is like sooner to find hell than heaven. A beast may as well be made an angel as an unclean person in his leprosy enter into the paradise of God. The covetous person (of whom it may be said, ‘he is a worm and no man’, for he is ever creeping in the earth) yet would lay a claim to blessedness; but can earth ascend? Shall a lump of clay be made a bright star in the firmament of glory? Be assured they shall never be blessed who bless themselves in their sins. If, says God, the sinner ‘bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of my heart, to add drunkenness to thirst; the Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and the Lord shall blot out his name under heaven’ (Deuteronomy 29:19). A man can no more extract blessedness out of sin than he can suck health out of poison. O let us lead blessed lives, and so ‘declare plainly that we seek a country’ (Hebrews 11:14).

To you that have any good hope through grace that you have a title to blessedness, let me say as the Levites did to the people, ‘Stand up and bless the Lord your God for ever and ever’ (Nehemiah 9:5). What infinite cause have you to be thankful that the lot of free grace is fallen upon you! Though you had forfeited all, yet God has provided a haven of happiness, and he is carrying you thither upon the sea of Christ’s blood, the gale of his Spirit blowing your sails. You are in a better condition through Christ, than when you had the robes of innocence upon you. God has raised you a step higher by your fall. How many has God passed by and looked upon you! Millions there are who shall lie under the bitter vials of God’s curses, whereas he will bring you into his banqueting-house and pour out the flagons of wine and feast you eternally with the delicacies of heaven. O adore free grace; triumph in this love of God. Spend and be spent for the Lord. Dedicate yourselves to him in a way of resignation, and lay out yourselves for him in a way of gratulation. Never think you can do enough for that God who will shortly set you ashore in the land of promise.

3. The godly are in some sense already blessed

I proceed now to the second aphorism or conclusion, that the godly are in some sense already blessed. The saints are blessed not only when they are apprehended by God, but while they are travellers to glory. They are blessed before they are crowned. This seems a paradox to flesh and blood. What, reproached and maligned, yet blessed! A man that looks upon the children of God with a carnal eye and sees how they are afflicted, and like the ship in the gospel which was ‘covered with waves’ (Matthew 8:24), would think they were far from blessedness. St Paul brings a catalogue of his sufferings: ‘Thrice was I beaten with rods; once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck . . .’ (2 Corinthians 11:24-26). And those Christians of the first magnitude, of whom the world was not worthy, ‘had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings; they were sawn asunder; they were slain with the sword’ (Hebrews 11:36, 37). What? And were all these during the time of their sufferings blessed? A carnal man would think, If this be to be blessed, God deliver him from it.

But, however sense and reason give their vote, our Saviour Christ pronounces the godly man blessed; though a mourner, though a martyr, yet blessed. Job on the dunghill was blessed Job. The saints are blessed when they are cursed. Shimei cursed David. ‘He came forth and cursed him’ (2 Samuel 16:5). Yet when he was cursed David, he was blessed David. The saints, though they are bruised, yet they are blessed. Not only shall they be blessed, they are so. ‘Blessed are the undefiled’ (Psalm 19:1). ‘Thy blessing is upon thy people’ (Psalm 3:8).

(1) How are the saints already blessed? In that they are enriched with heavenly blessings (Ephesians 1:3). They are ‘partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1:4), not by an incorporation into the divine essence, but by transformation into the divine likeness. This is blessedness begun. As the new-born babe is said to have life in it as well as he who is fully grown, so the saints, who are partakers of the divine nature, have an inchoate blessedness, though they have not arrived yet at perfection. Believers have the seed of God abiding in them (1 John 3:9). And this is a seed of blessedness. The flower of glory grows out of the seed of grace. Grace and glory differ not in kind but degree. The one is the root, the other the fruit. Grace is glory in the dawning; glory is grace in the meridian. And in this sense that assertion of Augustine is true, ‘Blessed are we in faith and in hope., Grace is the first link in the chain of blessedness. Now he that has the first link of the chain in his hand, has the whole chain. The saints have the Spirit of God in them, ‘The Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us’ (2 Timothy 1:14). How can the blessed Spirit be in a man and he not blessed? A godly man’s heart is a paradise, planted with the choicest fruit, and God himself walks in the midst of this paradise, and must the man not needs be blessed?

(2) The saints are already blessed because their sins are not imputed to them. ‘Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity’ (Psalm 32:2). God’s not imputing iniquity, signifies God’s making of sin not to be. It is as if the man had never sinned. The debt book is cancelled in Christ’s blood, and if the debtor owe never so much, yet if the creditor cross the book, it is as if he had never owed anything. God’s not imputing sin signifies that God will never call for the debt, or, if it should be called for, it shall be hid out of sight. ‘In those days the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found’ (Jeremiah 50:20). Now such a man who has not sin imputed to him, is blessed, and the reason is, because if sin be not imputed to a man, then the curse is taken away; and if the curse be taken away, then he must needs be blessed.

(3) The saints are already blessed because they are in covenant with God. This is clear by comparing two scriptures: ‘I will be their God’, (Jeremiah 31:33), and ‘Happy is that people whose God is the Lord’ (Psalm 144:15). This is the crowning blessing, to have the Lord for our God. Impossible it is to imagine that God should be our God, and we not be blessed.

This sweet word, ‘I will be your God’, implies propriety, that all that is in God shall be ours. His love is ours, his Spirit ours, his mercy ours. It implies all relations: of a father, ‘I will be a father unto you’ (2 Corinthians 6:18). The sons of a prince are happy. How blessed are the saints who are of true blood royal? It implies the relation of an husband: ‘Thy Maker is thy husband’ (Isaiah 54:5). The spouse, being contracted to her husband, is happy by having an interest in all he has. The saints being contracted by faith are blessed, though the solemnity of the marriage be kept for heaven. It implies terms of friendship. They who are in covenant with God are favourites of heaven. ‘Abraham my friend’ (Isaiah 41:8). It is counted a subject’s happiness to be in favour with his prince, though he may live a while from court. How happy must he needs be who is God’s favourite!

(4) The saints are already blessed because they have a reversion of heaven, as, on the contrary, he who has hell in reversion is said to be already condemned. ‘He that believeth not is condemned already’ (John 3:18). He is as sure to be condemned, as if he were condemned already. So he who has heaven in reversion may be said to be already blessed. A man that has the reversion of a house, after a short lease is run out, he looks upon it as his already. This house, says he, is mine. So a believer has a reversion of heaven after the lease of life is run out, and he can say at present, Christ is mine and glory is mine. He has a title to heaven, and he is a blessed man who has a title to show; nay, faith turns the reversion into a possession.

(5) The saints are already blessed because they have the first-fruits of blessedness here. We read of the earnest of the Spirit, and the seal (2 Corinthians 1:22), and the first-fruits (Romans 8:23). Heaven is already begun in a believer. ‘The kingdom of God is peace and joy in the Holy Ghost’ (Romans 14:17). This kingdom is in a believer’s heart (Luke 17:21). The people of God have a prelibation and taste of blessedness here. As Israel tasted a bunch of grapes before they were actually possessed of Canaan, so the children of God have those secret incomes of the Spirit, those smiles of Christ’s face, those kisses of his lips, those love-tokens that are as bunches of grapes; and they think themselves sometimes in heaven. ‘Paul was let down in a basket’ (Acts 9:25). Oftentimes the Comforter is let down to the soul in an ordinance, and now the soul is in the suburbs of Jerusalem above. A Christian sees heaven by faith, end testes it by joy; end what is this but blessedness?

(6) The saints may be said in this life to be blessed, because all things tend to make them blessed. ‘All things work together for good to them that love God’ (Romans 8:28). We say to him that has everything falling out for the best, You are a happy man. The saints are very happy, for all things have a tendency to their good. Prosperity does them good; adversity does them good. Nay, sin turns to their good. Every trip makes them more watchful. Their maladies are their medicines. Are not they happy persons that have every wind blowing them to the right port?

(7) A saint may be said to be blessed, because part of him is already blessed. He is blessed in his head; Christ, his head, is in glory; Christ and believers make one body mystical; their head is gotten into heaven.

See the difference between a wicked man and a godly. Let a wicked man have never so many comforts, still he is cursed; let a godly man have never so many crosses, still he is blessed. Let a wicked man have the ‘candle of God shining’ on him (Job 29:3), let his way be so smooth that he meets with no rubs; let him have success; yet still there is a curse entailed upon him. You may read the sinner’s inventory (Deuteronomy 28:16, 17, 18). He is not more full of sin than he is of a curse. Though perhaps he blesses himself in his wickedness, yet he is heir to God’s curse. All the curses of the Bible are his portion, and at the day of death this portion is sure to be paid. But a godly man in the midst of all his miseries is blessed. He may be under the cross, but not under a curse.

It shows the privilege of a believer. He not only shall be blessed, but he is blessed. Blessedness is begun in him. ‘You are blessed of the Lord’ (Psalm 115:15). Let the condition of the righteous be never so sad, yet it is blessed; he is blessed in affliction. ‘Blessed is he whom thou chastenest’ (Psalm 94:12); blessed in poverty, ‘poor in the world, rich in faith’ (James 2:5); blessed in disgrace, ‘The spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you’ (1 Peter 4:14). This may be a cordial to the fainting Christian; he is blessed in life and death! Satan cannot supplant him of the blessing.

How may this take away murmuring and melancholy from a child of God? Will you repine and be sad when you are blessed? Esau wept because he wanted the blessing. ‘Bless me, even me also, O my father, and Esau lifted up his voice and wept’ (Genesis 27:38). But shall a child of God be immoderately cast down when he has the blessing? Adam sinned in the midst of paradise. How evil it is to be blessed, and yet murmur!

What an encouragement is this to godliness! We are all ambitious of a blessing, then let us espouse religion: ‘Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord’ (Psalm 112:1). But you will say, This way is every where spoken against. It is no matter, seeing this is the way to get a blessing. Suppose a rich man should adopt another for his heir, and others should reproach him, he does not care as long as he is heir to the estate. So, what though others may reproach you for your religion, as long as it entails a blessing on you; the same day you become godly, you become blessed.

4. Blessed are the poor in spirit

Having spoken of the general notion of blessedness, I come next to consider the subjects of this blessedness, and these our Saviour has deciphered to be the poor in spirit, the mourners, etc. But before I touch upon these, I shall attempt a little preface or paraphrase upon this sermon of the beatitudes.

1 Observe the divinity in this sermon, which goes beyond all philosophy. The philosophers use to say that one contrary expels another; but here one contrary begets another. Poverty is wont to expel riches, but here poverty begets riches, for how rich are they that have a kingdom! Mourning is wont to expel joy, but here mourning begets joy: ‘they shall be comforted’. Water is wont to quench the flame but the water of tears kindles the flame of joy. Persecution is wont to expel happiness, but here it makes happy: ‘Blessed are they that are persecuted’. These are the sacred paradoxes in our Saviour’s sermon.

2 Observe how Christ’s doctrine and the opinion of carnal men differ. They think, ‘Blessed are the rich.’ The world would count him blessed who could have Midas, wish, that all he touched might be turned into gold. But Christ says, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’. The world thinks, Blessed are they on the pinnacle; but Christ pronounces them blessed who are in the valley. Christ’s reckonings and the world’s do not agree.

3 Observe the nature of true religion. Poverty leads the van, and persecution brings up the rear. Every true saint (says Luther) is heir to the cross! Some there are who would be thought religious, displaying Christ’s colours by a glorious profession, but to be ‘poor in spirit’ and ‘persecuted’, they cannot take down this bitter pill. They would wear Christ’s jewels, but waive his cross. These are strangers to religion.

4 Observe the certain connection between grace and its reward. They who are ‘poor in spirit’ shall have the ‘kingdom of God’. They are as sure to go to heaven, as if they were in heaven already. Our Saviour would encourage men to religion by sweetening commands with promises. He ties duty and reward together. As in the body the veins carry the blood, and the arteries the spirits, so one part of these verses carries duty, and the other part carries reward. As that scholar of Apelles painted Helena richly drawn in costly and glorious apparel, hung all over with orient pearl, and precious stones; so our Lord Christ, having set down several qualifications of a Christian, ‘poor in spirit’, ‘pure in heart’, etc.’ draws these heavenly virtues in their fair colours of blessedness, and sets the magnificent crown of reward upon them, that by this brilliance, he might the more set forth their unparalleled beauty, and entice holy love.

5 Observe hence the concatenation of the graces: poor in spirit, meek, merciful, etc. Where there is one grace there is all. As they say of the cardinal virtues that they are strung together, so we may say of the graces of the spirit, they are linked and chained together. He that has poverty of spirit is a mourner. He that is a mourner is meek. He that is meek is merciful, etc. The Spirit of God plants in the heart an habit of all the graces. The new creature has all the parts and lineaments, as in the body there is a composition of all the elements and a mixture of all the humours. The graces of the Spirit are like a row of pearls which hang together upon the string of religion and serve to adorn Christ’s bride. This I note, to show you a difference between a hypocrite and a true child of God. The hypocrite flatters himself with a pretence of grace, but in the meantime he does not have an habit of all the graces. He does not have poverty of spirit, nor purity of heart, whereas a child of God has all the graces in his heart, at least radically though not gradually. These things being premised, I come in particular to those heavenly dispositions of soul to which Christ has affixed blessedness. And the first is Poverty of Spirit: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’.

Chrysostom and Theophylact are of opinion that this was the first sermon that ever Christ made, therefore it may challenge our best attention. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’. Our Lord Christ being to raise an high and stately fabric of blessedness, lays the foundation of it low, in poverty of spirit. But all poverty is not blessed. I shall use a fourfold distinction.

1 I distinguish between ‘poor in estate’, and ‘poor in spirit’. There are the Devil’s poor, poor and wicked, whose clothes are not more torn than their conscience. There are some whose poverty is their sin, who through improvidence or excess have brought themselves to want. These may be poor in estate but not poor in spirit.

2 I distinguish between ’spiritually poor’ and ‘poor in spirit’. He who is without grace is spiritually poor, but he is not poor in spirit; he does not know his own beggary. ‘Thou knowest not that thou art poor’ (Revelation 3:17). He is in the worst sense poor who has no sense of his poverty.

3 I distinguish between ‘poor-spirited’ and ‘poor in spirit’. They are said to be poor-spirited who have mean, base spirits, who act below themselves. As they are men; such are those misers, who having great estates, yet can hardly afford themselves bread; who live sneakingly, and are ready to wish their own throats cut, because they are forced to spend something in satisfying nature’s demands. This Solomon calls an evil under the sun. ‘There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, a man to whom God has given riches, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof’ (Ecclesiastes 6:2). Religion makes no man a niggard. Though it teaches prudence, yet not sordidness.

Then there are those who act below themselves as they are Christians, while they sinfully comply and prostitute themselves to the humours of others; a base kind of metal that will take any stamp. They will for a piece of silver part with the jewel of a good conscience. They will be of the state religion. They will dance to the devil’s pipe, if their superior commands them. These are poor-spirited but not poor in spirit.

4 I distinguish between poor in an evangelical sense and poor in a popish sense. The papists give a wrong gloss upon the text. By ‘poor in spirit’, they understand those who, renouncing their estates, vow a voluntary poverty, living retiredly in their monasteries. But Christ never meant these. He does not pronounce them blessed who make themselves poor, leaving their estates and callings, but such as are evangelically poor.

Well then, what are we to understand by ‘poor in spirit’? The Greek word for ‘poor’ is not only taken in a strict sense for those who live upon alms, but in a more large sense, for those who are destitute as well of inward as outward comfort. ‘Poor in spirit, then signifies those who are brought to the sense of their sins, and seeing no goodness in themselves, despair in themselves and sue wholly to the mercy of God in Christ. Poverty of spirit is a kind of self-annihilation. Such an expression I find in Calvin. The poor in spirit (says he) are they who see nothing in themselves, but fly to mercy for sanctuary. Such an one was the publican: ‘God be merciful to me a sinner’ (Luke 18:13). Of this temper was St Paul: ‘That I may be found in Christ, not having mine own righteousness’ (Philippians 3:9). These are the poor which are invited as guests to wisdom’s banquet (Proverbs 7:3, 4).

Here several questions may be propounded.

(i) Why does Christ here begin with poverty of spirit? Why is this put in the forefront? I answer, Christ does it to show that poverty of spirit is the very basis and foundation of all the other graces that follow. You may as well expect fruit to grow without a root, as the other graces without this. Till a man be poor in spirit, he cannot mourn. Poverty of spirit is like the fire under the still, which makes the water drop from the eyes. When a man sees his own defects and deformities and looks upon himself as undone, then he mourns after Christ. ‘The springs run in the valleys’ (Psalm 104:10). When the heart becomes a valley and lies low by poverty of spirit, now the springs of holy mourning run there. Till a man be poor in spirit, he cannot ‘hunger and thirst after righteousness’. He must first be sensible of want before he can hunger. Therefore Christ begins with poverty of spirit because this ushers in all the rest.

(ii) The second question is, what is the difference between poverty of spirit and humility? These are so alike that they have been taken one for the other. Chrysostom, by ‘poverty of spirit’, understands humility. Yet I think there is some difference. They differ as the cause and the effect. Tertullian says, none are poor in spirit but the humble. He seems to make humility the cause of poverty of spirit. I rather think poverty of spirit is the cause of humility, for when a man sees his want of Christ, and how he lives on the alms of free grace, this makes him humble. He that is sensible of his own vacuity and indigence, hangs his head in humility with the violet. Humility is the sweet spice that grows from poverty of spirit.

(iii) What is the difference between poverty of spirit and self-denial? I answer, in some things they agree, in some things they differ. In some things they agree; for the poor in spirit is an absolute self-denier. He renounces all opinion of himself. He acknowledges his dependence upon Christ and free grace. But in some things they differ. The self-denier parts with the world for Christ, the poor in spirit parts with himself for Christ, i.e. his own righteousness. The poor in spirit sees himself nothing without Christ; the self-denier will leave himself nothing for Christ. And thus I have shown what poverty of spirit is.

The words thus opened present us with this truth: that Christians must be poor in spirit; or thus, poverty of spirit is the jewel which Christians must wear. As the best creature was made out of nothing, namely, light; so when a man sees himself nothing, out of this nothing God makes a most beautiful creature. It is God’s usual method to make a man poor in spirit, and then fill him with the graces of the Spirit. As we deal with a watch, we take it first to pieces, and then set all the wheels and pins in order, so the Lord first takes a man all to pieces, shows him his undone condition, and then sets him in frame.

The reasons are:

1 Till we are poor in spirit we are not capable of receiving grace. He who is swollen with an opinion of self-excellency and self-sufficiency, is not fit for Christ. He is full already. If the hand be full of pebbles, it cannot receive gold. The glass is first emptied before you pour in wine. God first empties a man of himself, before he pours in the precious wine of his grace. None but the poor in spirit are within Christ’s commission. ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted’ (Isaiah 61:1), that is, such as are broken in the sense of their unworthiness.

2. Till we are poor in spirit, Christ is never precious. Before we see our own wants, we never see Christ’s worth. Poverty of spirit is salt and seasoning, the sauce which makes Christ relish sweet to the soul. Mercy is most welcome to the poor in spirit. He who sees himself clad in filthy rags (Zechariah 3:4,5), what will he give for change of raiment, the righteousness of Christ! What will he give to have the fair mitre of salvation set upon his head! When a man sees himself almost wounded to death, how precious will the balm of Christ’s blood be to him! When he sees himself deep in arrears with God, and is so far from paying the debt that he cannot sum up the debt, how glad would he be of a surety! ‘The pearl of price’ is only precious to the poor in spirit. He that wants bread and is ready to starve, will have it whatever it cost. He will lay his garment to pledge; bread he must have or he is undone. So to him that is poor in spirit, that sees his want of Christ, how precious is a Saviour! Christ is Christ and grace is grace to him! He will do anything for the bread of life. Therefore will God have the soul thus qualified, to raise the price of his market, to enhance the value and estimate of the Lord Jesus.

3 Till we are poor in spirit we cannot go to heaven. ‘Theirs is the kingdom of heaven’. This tunes and prepares us for heaven. By nature a man is big with self-confidence, and the gate of heaven is so strait that he cannot enter. Now poverty of spirit lessens the soul; it pares off its superfluity, and now he is fit to enter in at the ’strait gate’. The great cable cannot go through the eye of the needle, but let it be untwisted and made into small threads, and then it may. Poverty of spirit untwists the great cable. It makes a man little in his own eyes and now an entrance shall be made unto him, ‘richly into the everlasting Kingdom’ (2 Peter 1:11). Through this temple of poverty, we must go into the temple of glory.

It shows wherein a Christian’s riches consist, namely in poverty of spirit. Some think if they can fill their bags with gold, then they are rich. But they who are poor in spirit are the rich men. They are rich in poverty. This poverty entitles them to a kingdom. How poor are they that think themselves rich! How rich are they that see themselves poor! I call it the ‘jewel of poverty’. There are some paradoxes in religion that the world cannot understand; for a man to become a fool that he may be wise (1 Corinthians 3:18); to save his life by losing it (Matthew 16:25); and by being poor to be rich. Reason laughs at it, but ‘Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom’. Then this poverty is to be striven for more than all riches. Under these rags is hid cloth of gold. Out of this carcass comes honey.

If blessed are the poor in spirit, then by the rule of contraries, cursed are the proud in spirit (Proverbs 16:5). There is a generation of men who commit idolatry with themselves; no such idol as self! They admire their own parts, moralities, self-righteousness; and upon this stock graft the hope of their salvation. There are many too good to go to heaven. They have commodities enough of their own growth, and they scorn to live upon the borrow, or to be beholden to Christ. These bladders the Devil has blown up with pride, and they are swelled in their own conceit; but it is like the swelling of a dropsy man whose bigness is his disease. Thus it was with that proud justiciary: ‘The Pharisee stood and prayed, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican; I fast twice in the week, I give tithes ...’ (Luke 18:11). Here was a man setting up the topsail of pride; but the publican, who was poor in spirit, stood afar off and would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’ This man carried away the garland. ‘I tell you’ (says Christ) ‘this man went down to his house justified rather than the other’. St Paul, before his conversion, thought himself in a very good condition, ‘touching the law, blameless’ (Philippians 3:6). He thought to have built a tower of his own righteousness, the top whereof should have reached to heaven; but, at last, God showed him there was a crack in the foundation, and then he gets into the ‘rock of ages’. ‘That I may be found in him’ (Philippians 3:9). There is not a more dangerous precipice than self-righteousness. This was Laodicea’s temper: ‘Because thou sayest I am rich and I have need of nothing . . .’ (Revelation 3:17). She thought she wanted nothing when indeed she had nothing. How many does this damn! We see some ships that have escaped the rocks, yet are cast away upon the sands; so some who have escaped the rocks of gross sins, yet are cast away upon the sands of self-righteousness; and how hard is it to convince such men of their danger! They will not believe but that they may be helped out of their dungeon with these rotten rags. They cannot be persuaded their case is so bad as others would make it. Christ tells them they are blind, but they are like Seneca’s maid, who was born blind, but she would not believe it. The house, says she, is dark, but I am not blind. Christ tells them they are naked, and offers his white robe to cover them, but they are of a different persuasion; and because they are blind, they cannot see themselves naked. How many have perished by being their own saviours! O that this might drive the proud sinner out of himself! A man never comes to himself till he comes out of himself. And no man can come out, till first Christ comes in.

If poverty of spirit be so necessary, how shall I know that I am poor in spirit? By the blessed effects of this poverty, which are:

1 He that is poor in spirit is weaned from himself. ‘My soul is even as a weaned child’ (Psalm 131:2). It is hard for a man to be weaned from himself. The vine catches hold of everything that is near, to stay itself upon. There is some bough or other a man would be catching hold of to rest upon. How hard is it to be brought quite off himself! The poor in spirit are divorced from themselves; they see they must go to hell without Christ. ‘My soul is even as a weaned child’.

2 He that is poor in spirit is a Christ-admirer. He has high thoughts of Christ. He sees himself naked and flies to Christ that in his garments he may obtain the blessing. He sees himself wounded, and as the wounded deer runs to the water, so he thirsts for Christ’s blood, the water of life. Lord, says he, give me Christ or I die. Conscience is turned into a fiery serpent and has stung him; now all the world for a brazen serpent! He sees himself in a state of death; and how precious is one leaf of the tree of life, which is both for food and medicine! The poor in spirit sees all his riches lie in Christ, ‘wisdom, righteousness, sanctification . . ’. In every exigency he flies to this magazine and storehouse. He adores the all-fullness in Christ.

They say of the oil in Rheims, though they are continually almost spending it, yet it never wastes. And such is Christ’s blood; it can never be emptied. He that is poor in spirit has recourse still to this fountain. He sets an high value and appreciation upon Christ. He hides himself in Christ’s wounds. He bathes himself in his blood. He wraps himself in his robe. He sees a spiritual dearth and famine at home, but he makes out to Christ. ‘Show me the Lord (says he) and it sufficeth’.

3 He that is poor in spirit is ever complaining of his spiritual estate. He is much like a poor man who is ever telling you of his wants; he has nothing to help himself with; he is ready to starve. So it is with him that is poor in spirit. He is ever complaining of his wants, saying, I want a broken heart, a thankful heart. He makes himself the most indigent creature. Though he dares not deny the work of grace (which were a bearing false witness again the Spirit), yet he mourns he has no more grace. This is the difference between an hypocrite and a child of God. The hypocrite is ever telling what he has. A child of God complains of what he lacks. The one is glad he is so good, the other grieves he is so bad. The poor in spirit goes from ordinance to ordinance for a supply of his wants; he would fain have his stock increased. Try by this if you are poor in spirit. While others complain they want children, or they want estates, do you complain you want grace? This is a good sign. ‘There is that maketh himself poor yet hath great riches’ (Proverbs 13:7). Some beggars have died rich. The poor in spirit, who have lain all their lives at the gate of mercy and have lived upon the alms of free grace, have died rich in faith, heirs to a kingdom.

4 He that is poor in spirit is lowly in heart. Rich men are commonly proud and scornful, but the poor are submissive. The poor in spirit roll themselves in the dust in the sense of their unworthiness. ‘I abhor myself in dust’ (Job 42:6). He who is poor in spirit looks at another’s excellencies and his own infirmities. He denies not only his sins but his duties. The more grace he has, the more humble he is, because he now sees himself a greater debtor to God. If he can do any duty, he acknowledges it is Christ’s strength more than his own (Philippians 4:13). As the ship gets to the haven more by the benefit of the wind than the sail, so when a Christian makes any swift progress, it is more by the wind of God’s Spirit than the sail of his own endeavour. The poor in spirit, when he acts most like a saint, confesses himself ‘the chief of sinners’. He blushes more at the defect of his graces than others do at the excess of their sins. He dares not say he has prayed or wept. He lives, yet not he, but Christ lives in him (Galatians 2:20). He labours, yet not he, but the grace of God (1 Corinthians 15:10).

5 He who is poor in spirit is much in prayer. He sees how short he is of the standard of holiness, therefore begs for more grace; Lord, more faith, more conformity to Christ. A poor man is ever begging. You may know by this one that is poor in spirit. He is ever begging for a spiritual alms. He knocks at heaven-gate; he sends up sighs; he pours out tears; he will not away from the gate till he have his dole. God loves a modest boldness in prayer; such shall not be non-suited.

6 The poor in spirit is content to take Christ upon his own terms. The proud sinner will article and indent with Christ. He will have Christ and his pleasure, Christ and his covetousness. But he that is poor in spirit sees himself lost without Christ, and he is willing to have him upon his own terms, a Prince as well as a Saviour: ‘Jesus my Lord’ (Philippians 3:8). A castle that has long been besieged and is ready to be taken will deliver up on any terms to save their lives. He whose heart has been a garrison for the devil, and has held out long in opposition against Christ, when once God has brought him to poverty of spirit, and he sees himself damned without Christ, let God propound what articles he will, he will readily subscribe to them. ‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do’ (Acts 9:6). He that is poor in spirit will do anything that he may have Christ. He will behead his beloved sin. He will, with Peter, cast himself upon the water to come to Christ.

7 He that is poor in spirit is an exalter of free grace. None so magnify mercy as the poor in spirit. The poor are very thankful. When Paul had tasted mercy, how thankfully does he adore free grace! ‘The grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant’ (1 Timothy 1:14). It was super-exuberant. He sets the crown of his salvation upon the head of free grace. As a man that is condemned and has a pardon sent him, how greatly he proclaims the goodness and clemency of his prince! So St Paul displays free grace in its orient colours. He interlines all his epistles with free grace. As a vessel that has been perfumed makes the wine taste of it, so St Paul, who was a vessel perfumed with mercy, makes all his epistles to taste of this perfume of free grace. They who are poor in spirit, bless God for the least crumb that falls from the table of free grace. Labour for poverty of spirit. Christ begins with this, and we must begin here if ever we be saved. Poverty of spirit is the foundation stone on which God lays the superstructure of glory.

There are four things may persuade Christians to be poor in spirit.

1 This poverty is your riches. You may have the world’s riches, and yet be poor. You cannot have this poverty without being made rich. Poverty of spirit entitles you to all Christ’s riches.

2 This poverty is your nobility. God looks upon you as persons of honour. He that is vile in his own eyes is precious in God’s eyes. The way to rise is to fall. God esteems the valley highest.

3 Poverty of spirit sweetly quiets the soul. When a man is brought off from himself to rest on Christ, what a blessed calm is in the heart! I am poor but ‘my God shall supply all my need’ (Philippians 4:19). I am unworthy but Christ is worthy. I am indigent, Christ is infinite. ‘Lead me to the rock that is higher than I’ (Psalm 61:2). A man is safe upon a rock. When the soul goes out of itself and centres upon the rock, Christ, now it is firmly settled upon its basis. This is the way to comfort. You will be wounded in spirit till you come to be poor in spirit.

4 Poverty of spirit paves a causeway for blessedness. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’ Are you poor in spirit? You are blessed persons. Happy for you that ever you were born! If you ask, Wherein does this blessedness appear? read the next words, ‘Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven’.

5. The poor in spirit are enriched with a kingdom

Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:3

Here is high preferment for the saints. They shall be advanced to a kingdom. There are some who, aspiring after earthly greatness, talk of a temporal reign here, but then God’s church on earth would not be militant but triumphant. But sure it is the saints shall reign in a glorious manner: ‘Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.’ A kingdom is held the acme and top of all worldly felicity, and ‘this honour have all the saints’; so says our Saviour, ‘Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ All Christ’s subjects are kings. By the kingdom of heaven is meant that state of glory which the saints shall enjoy when they shall reign with God and the angels for ever; sin, hell and death being fully subdued. For the illustration of this I shall show first wherein the saints in heaven are like kings.

Kings have their insignia or regalia, their ensigns of royalty and majesty.

1 Kings have their crowns. So the saints after death have their crown-royal. ‘Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life’ (Revelation 2:10). Believers are not only pardoned but crowned. The crown is an ensign of honour. A crown is not for every one. It will not fit every head. It is only for kings and persons of renown to wear (Psalm 21:3). The crown which the poor in spirit shall wear in heaven is an honourable crown. God himself installs them into their honour and sets the crown-royal upon their head. And this crown that the saints shall wear, which is divinely orient and illustrious, exceeds all other.

(i) It is more pure. Other crowns, though they be made of pure gold, yet they are mixed metal; they have their troubles. A crown of gold cannot be made without thorns. It has so many vexations belonging to it, that it is apt to make the headache. Which made Cyrus say, did men but know what cares he sustained under the imperial crown, he thought they would not stoop to take it up. But the saints’ crown is made without crosses. It is not mingled with care of keeping, or fear of losing. What Solomon speaks in another sense I may say of the crown of glory, ‘It adds no sorrow with it’ (Proverbs 10:22). This crown, like David’s harp, drives away the evil spirit of sorrow and disquiet. There can be no grief in heaven any more than there can be joy in hell.

(ii) This crown of glory does not draw envy to it. David’s own son envied him and sought to take his crown from his head. A princely crown is oftentimes the mark for envy and ambition to shoot at, but the crown the saints shall wear is free from envy. One saint shall not envy another, because all are crowned, and though one crown may be larger than another, yet everyone shall have as big a crown as he is able to carry.

(iii) This is a never-fading crown. Tertullian says that this crown is not made out of either roses or gems. Other crowns quickly wear away and tumble into the dust: ‘Doth the crown endure to all generations?’ (Proverbs 27:24). Henry VI was honoured with the crowns of two kingdoms, France and England. The first was lost through the faction of his nobles; the other was twice plucked from his head. The crown has many heirs and successors. The crown is a withering thing. Death is a worm that feeds in it; but the crown of glory is immarcescible, ‘it fadeth not away’ (1 Peter 5:4). It is not like the rose that loses its gloss and vernancy. This crown cannot be made to wither, but like the flower we call Everlasting, it keeps always fresh and splendent. Eternity is a jewel of the saints’ crown.

2 Kings have their Robes. The robe is a garment wherewith Kings are arrayed. ‘The King of Israel and the King of Judah sat clothed in their robes’ (2 Chronicles 18:9). The robe was of scarlet or velvet lined with ermine, sometimes of a purple colour, when it was called ‘Purpura,; sometimes of an azure brightness. Thus the saints shall have their robes. ‘I beheld a great multitude which no man could number of all nations and kindreds, clothed in white robes’ (Revelation 7:9). The saints, robes signify their glory and splendour; white robes denote their sanctity. They have no sin to taint or defile their robes. In these robes they shall shine as the angels.

3 Kings have their Sceptres in token of rule and greatness. King Ahasuerus held out to Esther the golden sceptre (Esther 5:2); and the saints in glory have their sceptre, and ‘palms in their hands’ (Revelation 7). It was a custom of great conquerors to have palm branches in their hand in token of victory. So the saints, those kings have ‘palms’, an emblem of victory and triumph. They are victors over sin and hell. ‘They overcame by the blood of the Lamb’ (Revelation 12:11).

4 Kings have their Thrones. When Caesar returned from conquering his enemies, there were granted to him four triumphs in token of honour, and there was set for him a chair of ivory in the senate and a throne in the theatre. Thus the saints in heaven returning from their victories over sin shall have a chair of state set them more rich than ivory or pearl, and a throne of glory (Revelation 3:21). (i) This shall be a high throne. It is seated above all the kings and princes of the earth. Nay, it is far above all heavens (Ephesians 4). There is the airy heaven, which is that space from the earth to the sphere of the moon; the starry heaven, the place where are the stars and those ’superior planets’, as the philosophers call them, planets of higher elevation, as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars etc.; the empyrean heaven, which is called the ‘third heaven’ (2 Corinthians 12:2). In this glorious sublime place shall the throne of the saints be erected. (ii) It is a safe throne. Other thrones are unsafe; they stand tottering. ‘Thou hast set them in slippery places’ (Psalm 73:18); but the saints’ throne is sure. ‘He that overcomes shall sit with me upon my throne’ (Revelation 3:21). The saints shall sit with Christ. He keeps them safe, that no hand of violence can pull them from their throne. O ye people of God, think of this; though now you may be called to the bar, yet shortly you shall sit upon the throne.

Having shown wherein the saints in glory are like kings, let us see wherein the kingdom of heaven excels other kingdoms.