A29686:423
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.
Seventeenthly, Such a poor soul that dares not say, that God is his God; or that Christ is his Redeemer, or that he has a work of grace upon his heart; yet can say with some integrity ⟨p. 203⟩of heart before the Lord, that if God and Christ, grace and glory, holiness and happiness were offered to him on the one hand, and all the honours, pleasures, profits, delights, and carnal contents of the world were offered him on the other hand, he had infinitely rather ten thousand thousand times choose God and Christ, grace and glory, holiness and happiness, than the contrary. Certainly such a soul has true grace in him, and a saving work past upon him; for none can freely, seriously, habitually, resolutely, choose God and Christ, grace and glory, holiness and happiness, as their (summum bonum) chiefest good, but such who are really good.1 Look, as our love to God is but an effect of his love to us; We love him because he first loved us; so our choosing of God for our God, is but an effect of God's choosing us for his people; we choose him because he first chose us: Such, who in their serious choice, set up God and Christ above all other persons and things, such God will certainly make happy and blessed for ever. God never did, nor never will, reject those, or damn those, who really choose him for their God, and for their great all. The greatest part of the world choose their lusts rather than God, and the creatures rather than Christ;2 they choose rather to be great than gracious, to be rich in this world than to be rich towards God, to be outwardly happy than to be inwardly holy,3 to have a heaven on earth than to have a heaven after death, and so they miscarry for ever. That soul that with Mary has chosen the better part, that soul with Mary shall be happy for ever; every man must stand or fall for ever as his choice has been. But,
Seventeenthly, Such a poor soul that dares not say, that God is his God; or that Christ is his Redeemer, or that he has a work of grace upon his heart; yet can say with some integrity ⟨p. 203⟩