A29687:216
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.
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,3 and if any such were found that had done wrong to any of the Statues, they were put to death. Holiness is the Statue of God, and such as shall dare to deface it and wrong it, ⟨p. 72⟩God will destroy:4 The old world scoffed and scorned at righteousness, and God sweeps them away with a flood. Ham mocked and scoffed at Righteous Noah; and what did he get by it, but a curse? Ismael scoffed at holy Isaac; and what did he get by his scoffing and mocking but ejection out of Abraham's family? And what became of those two and forty young scoffers that scoffed and mocked at holy Elisha? were they not cursed in the name of the Lord, and torn in pieces by two She bears, which were more fierce and cruel then others? The Jews were much given up to scoffing and mocking of the messengers of the Lord, till there was no remedy: till old and young were destroyed by the sword of the Chaldees: till their Temple and City were fired and sacked, and thirty of them sold for a penny: &c. and those that escaped the sword, were captivated and enslaved.