A29687:278
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.
O but when a spirit of holiness should rise upon them, then they should defile, deface, and disgrace their Idols, then they should so hate and abhor them, they should so detest and loath them, that in a holy indignation they should cast them away as a menstruous cloth, and say unto them, get ye hence, pack, be gone, I will never have any more to do with you. God hath now made an everlasting divorce between you and me. And so in Isa. 2.20. In that day, (that is, in the day of the Lords exaltation in the hearts, lives and consciences of his people, ver. 17.) a man shall cast his Idols of silver, and his Idols of gold, which they made, each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the Bats. In the day of Gods exaltation they shall express such disdain and indignation against their Idols, that they shall take not only those made of trees and stones, but even their most precious and costly Idols, those that were made of silver and gold, and cast them to the moles and to the bats; that is, they shall cast them into such blind holes, and into such dark, filthy, nasty and dusty corners as moles make under ground, and as Bats roost in: So when holiness comes to be exalted in the soul, then all a mans darling and bosom sins, which are his Idols of silver, and his ⟨p. 122⟩Idols of gold: these are with a holy indignation cast to the moles and to the bats; they are so loathed, abandoned and cashiered, that he desires they may be for ever buried in oblivion, and never see the light more. Idols were Ephraims bosom sin, Hos. 4.17. Ephraim is joined (or glued) to Idols, let him alone; but when the dew of grace and holiness fell upon Ephraim, as it did in Chap. 14.5, 6, 7. Then saith Ephraim what have I any more to do with idols! v. 8. Now Ephraim loathes his Idols as much or more then before he loved them; he now abandons and abominates them, though before he was as closely glued to them, as the wanton is glued to his Delilah, or as the Enchanter is glued to the Devil, from whom by no means he is able to stir. Ephraim becoming holy, cries out, What have I any more to do with Idols? O I have had to do with them too long and too much already! O how doth my soul new rise against them! how do I detest and abhor them! surely I will never have more to do with them. But now unholy hearts are very favourable to bosom sins;