A29687:587
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.
Sixthly, I answer, that all the joys, delights, and pleasures §6that holiness debars men of, are sinful joys, delights and pleasures: Unsanctified souls take pleasure in unrighteousness,1 they rejoice to do evil, they make a sport of sin, and delight to dishonour their God, and damn their own immortal souls. Pro. 2.14. They rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked. And this is brought in as an aggravation of Jerusalems sin, Jer. 11.15. When thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest. Ah how madly merry are they that can take delight and content in that which is their shame and misery? ah how is man fallen from his primitive glory, that he can now rejoice in that which is a dishonour to God, a reproach to Christ, a grief to the Spirit, a provocation to divine wrath, a blot upon his name, a curse upon his estate, a wound upon his conscience, and a plague upon his soul? Now what a mercy must it be to ⟨p. 360⟩be taken off from that carnal mirth that ends in mourning, and from those vain delights that ends in unspeakable torments,2 and from that foolish jollity that leads to everlasting misery. I have read of King Lysimachus, that when he and his Army were besieged in one of his Cities,3 and in great danger of perishing by thirst, for a Cup of cold water he delivered up the keys of the City to his enemy, which cold comfort he had no sooner tasted, but his tongue bewrayed the grief of his heart, saying, O that in lieu of so momentary a pleasure, I should be made of a Sovereign a Servant, of a King a Captive. Ah what folly and madness is it for men to run the hazard of losing the kingdom of heaven,4 and the pleasures that be at Gods right hand, for those short lived pleasures that are but like a blaze, or like the lightning, or like a morning cloud, or the early dew which soon passeth away? ah who would endure an Ocean of torture, for a drop of sensual pleasure, or for a few bitter sweets? And therefore, doubtless, God can't do the soul a greater pleasure, then to take it off from such vanishing pleasures; all sensual pleasures defile the soul, they debase the soul, yea they debauch the soul, they take off the heart from God, and they deaden the heart towards God. The widow whilst she lived in pleasure is reckoned dead,