'Voices From The Past' Vol. 1 — September 11

The godly are blessed not only in heaven but as they travel to glory. This is a paradox to flesh and blood; blessed while being reproached and maligned? No matter how sense and reason cast their vote, the godly man is blessed. Though a mourner or martyr, yet blessed. Saints are blessed when cursed or bruised. Not only shall they be blessed, they are blessed. They are partakers of the divine nature, so this blessedness has begun. Believers have the seed of God abiding in them. Grace and glory differ not in kind but degree. One is the root, and the other is the fruit. Grace is glory in the dawning. A godly man's heart is a paradise, planted with the choicest fruit, and God himself walks in the midst of this paradise. We are blessed because our sins are gone. The debt book is cancelled in Christ's blood. Saints are blessed because they are in covenant with God (Psa. 144:15). This is the crowning blessing, to have the Lord for our God. This sweet word, ‘I will be your God', implies that all that is in God is ours—his love, his Spirit, and his mercy are ours. If the sons of a prince are happy, how blessed are the saints who are of true royal blood! We have a title to heaven after the lease of life is run out. Saints are blessed now because they have the first fruits of heaven. We have the earnest of the Holy Spirit. Heaven has already begun in a believer; ‘the kingdom of God is peace and joy in the Holy Spirit' (Rom. 14:17). This kingdom is in a believer's heart (Luke 17:21). Israel tasted the fruit of the land before they entered Canaan. Believers have secret incomes of the Spirit, the smiles of Christ's face, those kisses, those love-tokens, and they think themselves sometimes in heaven. A Christian sees heaven by faith, and tastes it by joy, and what is this, but blessedness? This makes a happy man.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Devotional Readings 'Voices From The Past Vol.1.'
Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes, pp. 34-37
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