A29687:411
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.
Again, the days and times wherein we live, call aloud for holiness; if you look upon them as days and times of grace, what greater and higher engagements to holiness were ever put upon a people, then those that God hath put upon us, who enjoy so many ways, means and helps to make us holy? O the pains, the care, the cost, the charge that God hath been at, and that God is daily at, to make us holy! Hath he not sent,1 and doth he not still send his Messengers, rising up early, and going to bed late, and all to provoke you to be holy? Have not many of them spent their time, and spent their strength, and spent their spirits, and spit up their lungs, and spent their very lives, to make you holy? O Sirs! what do holy Ordinances call for, but holy hearts and holy lives? What do days of light call for, but walking in the light, and casting off the deeds of darkness? What is the voice of all the means of grace, but this, O labour to be gracious? And what is the voice of the holy Spirit, but this, O labour to be holy? And what is the voice of all the miracles of mercy that God hath wrote in the midst of you, but this, Be ye holy, be ye holy? O Sirs, what could the Lord have done that he hath not done, to make you holy? Hath he not lifted you up to heaven, in respect of holy helps? Hath he not to this very day followed you close with holy offers, and holy entreaties, and holy counsels, and holy encouragements, and all to make you holy? And will you be loose still, and proud still, and worldly still, and malicious still, and envious still, and contentious still, and unholy still? O what is this,2 but to provoke the Lord to put out all the lights of heaven, to drive your Teachers into corners, to remove your Candlesticks, and to send his everlasting Gospel, that hath stood long a tip-toe, among a people that may more highly prize it, and dearly love it, and stoutly defend it, and conscientiously practice it, then you have done to this very day? By what hath been said, I suppose there is nothing more evident, then that the ⟨p. 224⟩times and seasons wherein we live, calls aloud upon every one to look after holiness, and to labour for holiness; never complain of the times, but cease to do evil, and labour to do well,3