A29687:124
The crown & glory of Christianity, or, Holiness, the only way to happiness discovered…The crovvn & glory of Christianity, or, Holiness, the only way to happiness discovered…
The crown & glory of Christianity, or, Holiness, the only way to happiness discovered in LVIII sermons from Heb. 12. 14, where you have the necessity, excellency, rarity, beauty and glory of holiness set forth, with the resolution of many weighty questions and cases, also motives and means to perfect holiness : with many other things of very high and great importance to all the sons and daughters of men, that had rather be blessed then cursed, saved then damned / by Thomas Brooks ...The crovvn & glory of Christianity, or, Holiness, the only way to happiness discovered in LVIII sermons from Heb. 12. 14, where you have the necessity, excellency, rarity, beauty and glory of holiness set forth, with the resolution of many weighty questions and cases, also motives and means to perfect holiness : with many other things of very high and great importance to all the sons and daughters of men, that had rather be blessed then cursed, saved then damned / by Thomas Brooks ...
London: printed for H. Crips, 1662
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.
but it is as true, we must not lie with wicked men in their enormities. There are many professors that are like the Planet Mercury, good in conjunction with those that are good, and bad with those that are bad; but these wound many at once: God, Christ, the Gospel, and their own credits and consciences: These do virtutis stragulam pudefacere, put virtue to an open shame: And these are deservedly to be shamed by your separating from them, and by your renouncing all intimate communion or fellowship with them. But,
Secondly, As Relative holiness takes in a separation of persons or things from common use,1 so it takes in a dedication and devoting of them to a holy use. And thus the Nazarites, Temple, Mount Zion, the Sabbath day, and other Festival days are said to be holy under the Law. In short, the whole Jewish Religion did lie in holy times, holy places, holy persons, and holy things; and certainly without this holiness, without this dedicating of our selves to God, we shall never come to a glorious fruition of God; he that doth not dedicate himself really to God, wholly to God, only to God, and always to God on earth, shall never come to a sight and vision of God in heaven: if we do not give up our selves to God, God will never give up himself to us, Hos. 3.3. And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days: thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee. God will be only theirs that are really his: and he will be altogether theirs that are wholly his; he will only ⟨p. 15⟩be a husband to them that dedicate themselves to him, as a wife doth to her husband: he will devote himself theirs, who devote themselves his: he will avouch himself to be theirs who avouch themselves to be his, Deut. 26.17, 18, 19. Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways, and to keep his Statutes, and his Commandments, and his Judgements, and to hearken unto his voice. And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldst keep all his commandments: And to make thee high above all Nations which he hath made in praise, and in name, and in honour, and that thou mayst be a holy people unto the Lord thy God, as he hath spoken.