A29687:13
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
Dedication: To all the Lords, Knights, Ladies, Gentry, Ministers and Commons of England, (and the D…
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.
All men in the general desire to be happy, but all men do not desire in this or that particular, or in this or that way to be happy; here there is an infinite difference, quot homines tot sententiae, so many men so many minds.
A desire of happiness is planted in all men by the constitution of nature; this is so intrinsical, and so innate in nature, it is so engraven in it, that even the fall of Adam, as great as it was, hath not blotted it out.
A desire of happiness is planted in all men by the constitution of nature; this is so intrinsecal, and so innate in nature, it is so ingraven in it, that even the fall of Adam, as great as it was, hath not blotted it out.
This desire of happiness is left in man for a stock to graft holiness on: God grafts the plant of Grace upon the stock of nature.1 Indeed Happiness, like Rachel, is so fair and so beautiful a thing, that every one is apt to fall in love with it, and earnestly to desire it; yea many there be, that would serve twice seven years to enjoy it; but by the standing Law of that heavenly Country above, the younger sister must never be bestowed before the elder; you can never enjoy fair Rachel, Heaven and Happiness, except you are first married to tender-eyed Leah, real holiness; he that will have heaven, must have union and communion with Christ: and he that will have union and communion with Christ,2 must be holy. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Of all the many thousands that have travelled to happiness, there is not one to be found but hath travelled thither in a way of holiness. Now the drift, the scope of this following Treatise, is to make men holy, that they may be happy: it is to make men gracious on earth, that they may be glorious in heaven. Now to prevent all mistakes, rash censures and misconstructions, I judge it very convenient and necessary before I go any further, to acquaint the Reader plainly and