A29687:666
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.
Tenthly, I answer, That unholy persons have suffered as §10great and grievous things for the satisfying of their lusts and humours, and for the compassing of some worldly good, as you have suffered,1 or are like to suffer for your pursuing after holiness. O the hazards, the dangers, the deaths that many have run through to gratify their lusts. Petrus Blesensis has long since observed, that the Courtiers of his time suffered as many vexations, with weariness and painfulness, with hunger and thirst, and with all the Catalogue of Pauls afflictions that is reckoned up in that 2 Cor. 11. as good Christians did for the truth. I have read of a Roman servant, who knowing his Master was sought for by Officers to be put to death, he to save his Masters life, put himself into his Masters Clothes that he might be taken for him, and accordingly he was taken and put to death for him, and all this out of a humour of vain glory. The Romans desire of the praises of men (saith Augustin) made them bountiful of their purses, and prodigal of their lives.2 Servetus at Geneva gave all his goods to the poor, and his body to be burnt, and all for a name, for a little glory among men, saith ⟨p. 416⟩Calvin. Ah what cutting, what lancing, what bleeding, what vomiting, and what searching will many men endure upon the advice of their Physicians, and all for a little health, a little strength, or to preserve a wretched life for a few days, yea for a few hours sometimes? O the tortures and torments that many Romans and others have undergone, sometimes out of love to their Country, and sometimes to maintain their credit and reputation among men, and sometimes out of an affectation of future fame and renown, and to eternalize their names! and why then should Christians think so much of suffering afflictions and persecutions for holiness sake, the least dram of which being more worth then a thousand thousand of those things, for which they have suffered such exquisite pains and torments? Ah what great things, what hard things do many men daily suffer to gratify their own lusts, and to satisfy the lusts of others? Ah how frequently do many venture their lives, their estates, their names, their consciences, yea their very souls to court a Delilah? Oh the hell of horrors and terrors (which are worse then a thousand deaths) that many a sinner daily wades thorough to enjoy his sin!