A29686:407
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.
First, True love to the Saints is spiritual, it is a love for the Image of God that is stamped upon the soul, 1 John 5.1. Every one that loveth him that begat, 1loveth him also that is begotten of him. A soul that truly loves, loves the father for his own sake, and the children for the fathers sake. If the Image of God be the load-stone that draws out our love to the Saints, then our love is real to them; he that does not love the Saints as Saints, he that does not love them under a spiritual notion he hath no true affection to them. Naturally we hate God,2 because he is a holy God, and his Law because it is an holy Law, and his people because they are a holy people. 'Tis only the Spirit of God that can enable a man to love a Saint for the image of God that is in him; many there are which love Christians for their goods, not for their good; they love them for the money that is in their purses, but not for the grace that is in their hearts; many like the Bohemian Cur, fawn upon a good suit. Love to the Saints for the Image of God stamped upon them, is a flower that does not grow in natures garden. No man can love grace in another mans heart, but he that hath grace in his own; men do not more naturally love their parents,3 and love their children, and love themselves, than they do naturally hate the image of God upon his people and ways. I have read of one who was so lusty and quarrelsome, that he was ready to fight with his own image so often as he saw it in a glass. O! how many are there in these days, that are still a quarrelling and fighting with the image of God wherever they see it? True love is for what of the divine nature, for what of Christ and grace shines in a man; it is one thing to love a godly man, and anther thing to love him for godliness: Many love godly men as they are Politicians, or Potent, or Learned, or of a sweet nature, or affable, or related, or as they have been kind to them; but all this is but natural love, but to love them because they are spiritually lovely, because of the ⟨p. 191⟩seed of God in them, because they are all glorious within,