A29687:144
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.
then may he also do good that is accustomed to do evil. The Ethiopian cannot make his black skin white: he cannot change the hew or the colour of it by washing; to attempt this is but labour in vain. Nor the Leopard cannot change his spots: no more can a poor sinner that hath habituated and accustomed himself to sin, that is desperately enthralled to sin, turn from his sin: The spots of the Leopard are not in him by accident but by nature: and they are such which no Art can cure, nor water wash off, because they are not only in the skin, but in the flesh and bones, in the sinews and most inward parts. By custom sin hath bespotted not only the skin, the life, the outside of a poor sinner, but also the very heart and soul of a poor sinner, so as that he is never able to wash off these spots. Ambrose reports of one Theotimus, that having a disease upon his body, his Physician told him, that except he did abstain from intemperance, drunkenness, uncleanness, &c. he was like to lose his eyes; his heart being habituated to sin, and set upon wickedness, he answered, Vale lumen amicum, farewell sweet light then. But,
then may he also do good that is accustomed to do evil. The Ethiopian cannot make his black skin white: he cannot change the hew or the colour of it by washing; to attempt this is but labour in vain. Nor the Leopard cannot change his spots: no more can a poor sinner that hath habituated and accustomed himself to sin, that is desperately enthralled to sin, turn from his sin: The spots of the Leopard are not in him by accident but by nature: and they are such which no Art can cure, nor water wash off, because they are not only in the skin, but in the flesh and bones, in the sinews and most inward parts. By custom sin hath bespotted not only the skin, the life, the outside of a poor sinner, but also the very heart and soul of a poor sinner, so as that he is never able to wash off these spots. Ambrose reports of one Theotimus, that having a disease upon his body, his Physitian told him, that except he did abstain from intemperance, drunkenness, uncleaness, &c. he was like to lose his eyes; his heart being habituated to sin, and set upon wickedness, he answered, Vale lumen amicum, farwell sweet light then. But,