XII. SER M. fition to ftriving violently for Dominion and Poffeffions great ; then his Recompenfe is the Inheritance of the whole Earth; even the inheritance of That New Heaven and New Earth, wherein Meeknefs is to dwell and reign for ever: Blefjed are the Meek, for they shall inherit the Earth. When his fteddy Love of Truth and Right, is fet forth under the fimilitude of bungring and thirsting after Righteoufnefs; then the Promife to him is, that he fhall be fully satisfied, even to the utmost of his Defire: Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after Righteousness, for they shall be filled. When his Religion is confidered as confifting, ven XII. ven are held forth to him correfpondently SER M under This View, that he shall be admitted to See, and to dwell for ever in the Prefence of, the Fountain of Purity and Holiness itself: Blessed are the pure in Heart, for they fhall fee God. Or These Beatitudes, the First is what will be the Subject of our prefent Meditations: Bleffed are the Poor in Spirit, for Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. In difcourfing upon which Words, I fhall first endeavour to explain diftinctly the Meaning of the Phrafe, being poor in Spirit ; And then, Secondly, I fhall draw fome Obfervations, from the confideration of the Nature of the Virtue here spoken of, and of the Reward here declared to be annexed to it. I. IN order to explain diftinctly the Meaning of this phrafe, being poor in Spirit; 'tis to be observed, that those two different manners of expreffion, which we Now ufually call literal and figurative, were in the Jewish language frequently denoted by the words fle and Spirit. The flesh, fays our Saviour, profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, $ 4 they ; SERM. they are Spirit and they are life, Joh. vi. XII. 63. His meaning is He intended not to be understod literally, but figuratively. To Be therefore, or Do, any thing in Spirit; fignifies being or doing that Thing figuratively, in the fpiritual or moral, in the religious or in the abstract fenfe ; in oppofition to the grofs and more literal meaning, in which the fame words nay at other times be underftood. Thus when the Angel in the Revelation carried away St John in the Spirit into the Wildernefs, (ch. xvii. 3.) the Meaning is, he was not carried thither really and literally, but only in a vifionary Representation. By the like figure of Speech, St Paul, when he was perfonally abfent, yet because his Name, his Commission and Authority, was to be made use of, as if he had Himself been There; I therefore, fays he, verily. as abfent in Body, but prefent in Spirit, 1 Cor. v. 3; and again, (Col. ii. 5.) Though I be abfent in the Flesh, yet am I with you in the Spirit, joying and beholding your Order. And in a still more fublime Ufe of the fame Metaphor, Acts xx. 22, while he was yet at full liberty, and had XII. had no violence offered him, yet, prophe-SER M. tically foreseeing that Bonds and Afflictions were coming upon him, Behold, fays he, I go Bound in the Spirit unto Jerufalem. Upon the fame Ground of expreffion, That Moral Holiness and Purity of the Gospel, which is oppofed to the ritual and ceremonious Performance of the Jewish Law, our Saviour calls Worshipping the Father in Spirit and in Truth. John iv. 23. And That abfolute departing from all unrighteoufness, fo effentially required in the Gospel, of which the Jewish Circumcifion was but a Type or Emblem; is by the Apostle most elegantly stiled, Circumcifion in the Spirit, Rom. ii. 28. That is not Circumcifion, which is outward in the Flefb: But Circumcifion is That of the Heart, in the Spirit, and not in the letter, whofe Praise is not of men, but of God: For We are the Circumcifion, (Phil. iii. 3.) which worship God in the Spirit, -and have no confidence in the flesh. We Chriftians, fays he, if, according to our Profeffion, we purify ourselves from all Filthinefs both of Flesh and Spirit, We are the True circumcifion; while the unbelieving Jews, if they SER M. they continue impenitent, are, notwithXII. ftanding the Covenant of literal circumci fion, rejected as being, in the fight of God, uncircumcifed in Heart, Acts vii. 51. pre ANSWERABLE therefore to this figurative manner of expreffion in fo many other places; the Phrafe in the Text, Poor in Spirit, in contradiftinction to literal Poverty of Eftate, fignifies a Temper of Mind, difingaged from, and fitting loose to, the Covetous and Ambitious Defires of the fent World: That moderate and good Temper or Difpofition of mind, which caufes those who have Riches, not to fet their Hearts upon them, not to abuse them, not to trust in them, but to imploy. them virtuously to the glory of God, and to be at all times willing rather to part with them, than betray the Interest of Truth and Virtue: And which, for the fame reason, caufes thofe who have na riches, to be contented, and not murmur-. ing, nor unthankful towards God, but willing rather to continue always in a mean and low eftate, than to gain Riches by unrighteous and unlawful Methods. This is being poor in Spirit. This is what I ' the |