A29687:229
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.
Pretended holiness will double damn souls at last. Sirs, do not deceive your own souls: A painted sword shall as soon defend a man, and a painted mint shall as soon enrich a man, and a painted fire shall as soon warm a man, and a painted friend shall as soon counsel a man, and a painted horse shall as soon carry a man, and a painted feast shall as soon satisfy a man, and a painted house shall as soon shelter a man, as a painted holiness shall save a man. He that now thinks to put off God with a painted holiness, shall not fare so well at last, as to be put off with a painted happiness. The lowest, the hottest, and the darkest habitation in hell will be his portion, whose religion lies all in shows and shadows. Well, spiritual Counterfeits, remember this, it will not be long before Christ will unmask you, before he will uncase you, before he will disrobe you, before he will take off your visors, your hoods, and turn your rotten insides outward, to your eternal shame and reproach before all the world. Counterfeit Diamonds may sparkle and glister, and make a great show for a time, but their lustre will ⟨p. 84⟩soon wear off (Nil fictum est diuturnum) nothing counterfeit will last long. Maud, mother to King Henry the second, being besieged in Winchester-castle, counterfeited her self to be dead,1 and so was carried out in a Coffin, whereby she escaped; at another time being besieged at Oxford in a cold Winter, by wearing white apparel she got away in the snow undiscovered, but at last vengeance did over-take her. So though hypocrites may for a time seem to be dead to sin,2 and dead to the world, though they may clothe themselves with a snow-like purity, and with the white satin of seeming sanctity, yet God at last will unmask and unmuffle them, and vengeance will with a witness overtake them, Isa. 33.14. Hypocrites are like blazing Stars, which so long as they are fed with vapours,3 shine as if they were fixed Stars; but let the vapours dry up, and presently they vanish and disappear: As the joy of the hypocrite, so the goodness of the hypocrite is but for a moment; it is as a morning cloud and as the early dew; an hypocrite is a mere comet, a flaunt, a flash; principles of holiness are lasting, but hypocrisy makes a man only constant in inconstancy.