A29687:215
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.
God will wash his hands of them for ever, to whom he will not give a hand. Which made Austin say, that he would not be a wicked man one half hour for all the world, because he might die in that half hour. God will wash his hands of every man that lives and dies a wicked man, Mat 25.11.12. The hearts and ways of wicked men are full of hells: and therefore to fill heaven with such, would be to fill heaven with hells.
God will wash his hands of them for ever, to whom he will not give a hand. Which made Austin say, that he would not be a wicked man one half hour for all the world, because he might die in that half hour. God will wash his hands of every man that lives and dies a wicked man, Mat 25.11.12. The hearts and ways of wicked menare full of hells: and therefore to fill heaven with such, would be to fill heaven with hells.
Secondly, This truth may serve to convince those that §2are scoffers and mockers at holiness of their woeful and miserable estate. Holiness is so high, and so noble a thing,1 that men should rather honour it, then deride it; reverence it, then reproach it: they should rather set a crown of glory, then a crown of thorns upon the head of it. Holiness is the glorious Image of God fairly stamped upon the foul; and to deride holiness, is to deride God himself: God takes all the affronts that are done to his Image: as done to himself: and this scoffers shall know at last to their eternal woe.2 If it was such a heinous crime in Tiberius his days to carry the Image of Augustus upon a Ring or Coin into any sordid place; Ah how heinous a crime is it then to cast dirt and filth, scorn and reproach upon holiness, which is the Image of the invisible God! The despite and contempt that is done to the Image or coin of a Prince is done to the Prince himself; and accordingly he will revenge it. In old Rome there were near as many Statues as there were living people; and some were made of Gold, some of Silver, some of Brass, some of Ivory, and some of polished Marble: And there was an Earl appointed whose office it was continually to walk up and down in the night attended with many soldiers to see that none did wrong the Statues of those that were set up in the City,