A29687:615
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 their prayers were no cold prayers, no formal prayers, no luke-warm prayers, nor no dull or drowsy prayers, but their prayers were full of life, and full of warmth, and full of heat; they knew Herod's bloody intention to destroy this holy Apostle by his imprisoning of him, and by the chains that were put on him, and by the strong Guards that were set upon him, and by his bathing of his sword in the innocent blood of James, 1that his hand might be the more apt and ready for further acts of murder▪ and cruelty; and O how did the consideration of these things whet and provoke their spirits to prayer! O now they will have no nay, now they will give God no rest, till he has overturned the Tyrants counsel and designs, and sent his Angel to open the prison doors, and to knock off Peters chains, and to deliver him from the wrath and fury of Herod; and their prayers were successful, as is evident in the 12. ver. And when he had considered the thing, he came to the house of Mary the mother of John, 2whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together, praying, or rather as the Original has it, where many thronged together to pray: the violence and rage of their persecutors did so raise, whet, and encourage them to prayer, that they throng together, they crowded together to pray, yea when others were a sleeping they were a praying, and their prayers were no sleepy prayers, they were no lazy dronish prayers, nor they were no book-prayers, but they were powerful and prevalent prayers; for as so many Jacob's, or as so many Princes they prevailed with God; they prayed and wept, and wept and prayed, they called and cried, and cried and called, they begged and bounced, and they bounced and begged, and they never left knocking at heavens Gates, till Peters chains were knocked off, and Peter given into their Arms, yea their bosoms, as an answer of prayer. O the power and force of joint prayer, when Christians do not only beseech God, but besiege him, and beset him too, and when they will not let him go till he has blest them, and answered their prayers and the desires of their souls. I have read that Mary Queen of Scots (that was mother to King James) was ⟨p. 380⟩wont to say, that she was more afraid of Mr. Knox's prayers, and the prayers of those Christians that walked with him, then she was of a knocking Army of ten thousand men.