A29687:182
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.
Eighthly, you must have no intimate, no special communion with such as are obstinate and refractory, and that will not submit to Christs Rules and Laws,1 2 Thes. 3.14. And if any man obey not our word by this Epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed, or that he may turn into himself, as it is in the Original. Such as are refractory, must be noted with a brand of infamy; such must be infamous in your eye who look with an eye of contumacy upon any command, or institution of Christ. The Greek word (Semeiousthai,) signifies to note him so as to make a sign (as it were) of him; or to mark him so as to put him to the blush, to put him to shame. The obstinate, the refractory person should be a marked person, you must set a cross upon him, that all may know him, and shun him; the Assemblies of the Saints are honourable, and refractory Christians are to be shut out of them; Matth. 18.15, 16, 17. Moreover, if thy Brother shall trespass against thee, go and t•ll him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy Brother. But if he will not hear thee, (if he be refractory) then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established; And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church: ⟨p. 49⟩but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man, and a Publican. He that shall be refractory under private and public admonition, is to be shut out from Church-communion: He that to small faults shall add contumacy, is to be cut off from the Saints Society. We must turn our backs upon him that turns his back upon the Church. As we would keep our selves untainted, as we would preserve the Church from being infected, as we would not have the name of God blasphemed, and as we would have the refractory Christian ashamed and humbled, we must neither have Sacred nor Civil Society with him.
Eighthly, you must have no intimate, no special communion with such as are obstinate and refractory, and that will not submit to Christs Rules and Laws,