A29686:171
A cabinet of choice jewels, or, A box of precious ointment being a plain…A cabinet of choice jevvels, or, A box of precious ointment being a plain…
A cabinet of choice jewels, or, A box of precious ointment being a plain discovery of, or, what men are worth for eternity, and how 'tis like to go with them in another world ... / by Thomas Brooks ...A cabinet of choice jevvels, or, A box of precious ointment being a plain discovery of, or, what men are worth for eternity, and how 'tis like to go with them in another world ... / by Thomas Brooks ...
London : Printed and are to be sold by John Hancock ..., 1669
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Fifthly, When sin is commonly, habitually sweet, and the §5soul takes a daily pleasure and delight in it, then it reigns, as you may see by comparing the Scriptures in the margin together;1 when a man daily takes as joyful contentation and satisfaction in his lusts, and in walking after the ways of his own heart, as he does in his highest outward enjoyments, o• in his nearest and dearest relations, then certainly sin is in dominion. Such men as can go constantly on in a way of wickedness, merely to delight and content the flesh, such men are certainly under the power and reign of sin. Many of the Heathens, who knew what rational delights were, scorned sensual delights as inferior to them: These will one day rise in judgment against many of the Professors in our days. I know there is no real pleasure or delight in sin; if intemperance ⟨p. 44⟩could afford more pleasure than temperance, then Heliogabalus should have been more happy than Adam in Paradise; yea, if there were the least real delight in sin, there could be no perfect hell where men shall most perfectly sin, and most perfectly be tormented with their sins. Hark Scholar, said the Harlot to Apulciu•, 'tis but a bitter sweet that you are so fond of. 2When an Asp stings a man, it doth at first tickle him, and make him laugh till the poison by little and little gets to his heart, and then it pains him more than before it delighted him. 'Tis so with sin, it may tickle the soul at first, but it will pain it at last with a witness. I have read of a Gallant addicted to uncleanness, who at last meeting with a beautiful Dame, and having enjoyed his fleshly desires of her, he found her in the morning to be the dead body of one that he had formerly been naught with, which had been acted by the Devil all night, and left dead again in the morning; so that the Gallant's pleasure ended in no small terror. And thus 'tis doubtless with all sinful pleasures: What sin is there so sweet or profitable, that is worth burning in hell for, or worth shutting out of heaven for? &c. But,