A29687:489
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.
Seventhly, If ever you would be holy, then set in good earnest §7upon reading of the holy Scripture; many a man has been made holy by reading of the holy Word.1 The Bible is the book of books, 'tis the only book, all other books in the world are but waste paper to it: Augustin cries out, away with our writings, that room may be made for the book of God: notwithstanding the greatness and multiplicity of the affairs of Princes, yet they were diligently to read the word, Deut. 17.19. And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this Law and these Statutes, to do them. God looks that the greatest Princes on earth should make use of this Library. Though David was a great Prince, and had a multitude of weighty businesses upon his hand, yet he was so much in reading & meditating on the word, that he made it his Counsellors; the word was Davids Learned Counsel,2 to which he resorted for counsel, advice, and comfort in all his necessities and ⟨p. 316⟩miseries. Alphonsus King of Aragon hath been highly extolled for reading the Scriptures fourteen times over, with glosses and expositions, notwithstanding his great public employments. And Alphonsus King of Naples read over the Bible forty times, notwithstanding many great affairs were upon his hand. Theodosius the Emperor, and Constantine the Great, were much taken up in reading of the Scriptures. So Queen Elizabeth, when she passed in triumph through the streets of London after her Coronation, and had the Bible presented to her at the little Conduit in Cheap-side, she received the same with both her hands, and kissing it,3 laid it to her breasts, saying, That the same had ever been her chiefest delight, and should be the rule whereby she meant to frame her Government. And 'tis very observable, that the Eunuch was reading the Scripture, when Philip was commanded,4