OR,

Practical Discourses

Upon the

BEATITUDES

Of our LORD and SAVIOUR

JESUS CHRIST.

WITH

Three other Volumes of
PRACTICAL DISCOURSES.

By JOHN NORRIS, M. A. Rector of
Bemerton-near Sarum.

The TENTH EDITION.

LONDON:

Printed for Edmund Parker, at the Bible and Crown
in Lombard-Street. 1724.

Mona Tomy much Honoured G
Friend and Patron

JOSEPH LANGTON, Efq;

SIR,

'T

ISa Maxim of Prudence given by some of the Nicer Describers of the Bounds of Gratitude, That it ought to be temper'd between a total Neglect and a full and just Requital. To strike off all Scores is, they say, as uncivil as to discharge none, and every whit as disingenuous not to fuffer, as not to acknowledge an Obligation.

Now, Sir, 'tis one of the proper Happinefses of my little Fortune to be neceffarily calt upon this Measure. I am got too far in your Accounts to be able to requite to the full; fome part of them I must ever leave uncrossed as a standing Hold upon me; and tho' my Gratitude it felf be never so strong and pregnant, yet the most forward Instance of it can rise no higher than an Acknowledgment.

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AND

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AND as this is the utmost I can do, so of de ing this too I have so few Capacities and Oppo tunities, that I am the less willing to let go an that offer themselves; which indeed has give a speedier Issue to my Deliberation, whether ought to Address these Discourses to your Pa tronage or no, which perhaps without the For mality of a Dedication, would of Right belong to you, as falling within your District, and a being the Fruits of that Retirement which by your Free Bounty I enjoy.

As an Acknowledgment therefore of this and your other constant Favours, I presume to put these Discourses into your Hands, which I hope will be able to do both You and Me that Justice, as to convince the World, that as you proceeded by generous and uncorrupt Measures in difpo. fing of this Publick Trust, so you was not altogether mistaken in your Choice, when you thought fit to Oblige

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TO THE

READER.

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HERE commend to thy serious PeruSal Set of Select Discourses upon the Beatitudes, which were at first undertaken, and are now publish'd for the Publick Benefit of all well-disposed Christians. The Subjects themselves are as Great and Noble as any perhaps that occur in all Practical Divinity, being the Prime and Capital Aphorisms of our Saviour's excellent Sermon upon the Mount, and containing the Fundamental Principles of all Chrift's Practical In structions, and of a true Christian Temper and Life.

Here we may see (what the Philosopher so much desired) the true Living Idea of Vertue and Goodness; nay more, what 'tis to be a Christian, an Interiour Chriftian, a Christian indeed. And I heartily wish that those whose Orthodoxy is chiefly employed in giving out Marks and Signs of Conversion and Saintship, wherein their End feems rather to be the distinction of a Party, than any real Promotion of Godliness, would choose rather to dress their Interiour by this Glass, and afterwards try it by this Mea

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fure.

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