A29686:399
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.
Tenthly, No man can sincerely desire & earnestly endeavour §10after the highest pitches of grace, but he that has true grace; though the weak Christian has but a little grace in his heart,1 yet he has the top of grace, the perfection of grace in his sincere aims, in his sincere desires, and in his earnest and constant endeavours; and if the weakest Saint might have his ⟨p. 184⟩desires, his mind, his wish, his will, his choice, he would never sin more, he would never dishonour Jesus Christ more, he would never grieve the spirit of grace more, he would yield unsinning obedience, he would obey in this lower world, as the Angels, and as the spirits of just men made perfect do obey in that upper world;2 the weakest Christian has his eye to the highest round in Jacob's ladder, and fain he would be at the top of it; and Oh, how sweet is every Providence, and every Ordinance, and every duty, and every mercy, and every opportunity, that helps his soul more Christ-wards, and heaven-wards, and holiness-wards! sincere desires, and serious endeavours to grow in grace,3 is an infallible evidence of the truth of grace. Look, as a man may have grace and not know it, so a man may grow in grace and yet not discern it. As in the lopping of a Tree there seems to be a kind of diminution and destruction, yet the end and issue of it is better growth; and as the weakening of the body by Physic seems to tend to death, yet it produceth better health and more strength; and as the Ball by falling downward riseth upward, and water in pipes descends that it may ascend, so the Christians spiritual growth, when seemingly dead and declining, and to stand at a stay, is still carried on by the hidden method of God to increase; for every true Christian is a member of a thriving body, in which there is no Atrophy, but a continual issuing of spirits from the head;4 so that life being wrought by the spirit of life never dyeth, but is always upon the growing hand (except in the dark winter night of desertion and temptations) ripening and increasing even in the midst of all ordinary troubles and trials.