about holiness, and therefore if we should resolve to follow after holiness, we must resolve to spend our days Objection 4. We see that no persons on earth are exposed to such troubles, dangers, afflictions, and persecutions, as those are exposed to who mind holiness, who follow after holiness. These are days wherein men labour to frown holiness out of the world, and to scorn and kick holiness Objection 5. We would labour after which there is no happiness, &c. we must resolve to be poor, and mean, and beggarly in the world, we must resolve then to fare hard, and lie hard, and labour hard, and live low in the world, for we shall never raise an estate to ourselves by holiness and strict- ness, we shall never grow rich and great in the world by godliness; nay, by driving this trade of holiness, we shall lose our trades, our customers, and those estates we have, and quickly bring a noble to ninepence, &c., Objection 6. Should we pursue after holiness, it would be a disgrace, a disparagement, and dishonour to us who are high, and great, and rich, and honourable in the earth. We are gentlemen, we are well-bred and high-born, and Objection 7. Should we pursue after holiness, we shall be sure to be reviled, slandered, and reproached on all hands; every one will hoot and hiss at us, we shall become a scorn and a byword to all that live in the family with us, and to all our neighbours round about us, every one will scorn us, and hate us, and we shall be their table-talk, and their song, and the butt at which they will shoot in all their meetings and discourses, &c., (4.) To shew forth the reality and power of holiness: 317-323 323-340 340-374 NOTE. Issued in the year of the Ejection [1662], the Crown and Glory of Christianity' appears to have been limited to a single edition; which however must have been a very large one, as scarcely any of the writings of Brooks is more frequently met with. This is the most inaccurately printed of Brooks's books. I have carefully corrected his own list of errata: but besides these, mistakes of words, texts, references, divisions abound. It may be permitted us to refer to the author's own appeal on this matter toward the close of his Epistle Dedicatory. The original title-page is given below.*—G. *The CROVVN & GLORY OF CHRISTIANITY: OR HOLINESS, The only way to HAPPINESS. Discovered in LVIII. Sermons, from Heb. 12. 14. Where you have the Ne- By THOMAS BROOKS, late Preacher of the Gospel at To him that ordereth his conversation aright, will I shew the salvation of God, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, Matth. 5. 8. God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of LONDON, Printed for H. Crips, J. Sims, and H. Mortlock, and are to be sold at their THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY. To all the Lords, Knights, Ladies, Gentry, Ministers, and Commons of England-and the dominions thereunto belonging-that have but the least desire, the least mind, or the least will, to escape hell, and to go to heaven, or to be happy in both worlds, &c. My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen, &c.,-The philosophers, speaking of happiness, were divided into two hundred [and] eighty-eight opinions, every one intending something, yet resolving upon nothing; and therefore the man in Plutarch hearing them wrangle about summum bonum, the chiefest good-one placing of it in this, and another in that went to the market and bought up all that was good, hoping that among all he should not miss of happiness; and yet he missed it; true happiness being too great and too glorious a thing to be found in anything below real holiness. All men in the general, desire to be happy, but all men do not desire in this or that particular, or in this or that way, to be happy. Here there is an infinite difference, quot homines, tot sententiæ, so many men so many minds. A desire of happiness is planted in all men by the constitution of nature. This is so intrinsical and so innate in nature, it is so engraven in it, that even the fall of Adam, as great as it was, hath not blotted it out. This desire of happiness is left in man for a stock to graft holiness on. God grafts the plant of grace upon the stock of nature. Indeed happiness, like Rachel, Gen. xxix. 17, is so fair and so beautiful a thing, that every one is apt to fall in love with it, and earnestly to desire it, yea, many there be that would serve twice seven years to enjoy it. But by the standing law of that heavenly country above, the younger sister must never be bestowed before the elder; you can never enjoy fair Rachel-heaven and happiness-except you are first married to tender-eyed Leah-real holiness, Gen. xxix. 17-28. He that will have heaven, must have union and communion with Christ: and he that will have union and communion with Christ must be holy. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? 1 'Moralia.-G. and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial ?' 2 Cor. vi. 14, 15. Of all the many thousands that have travelled to happiness, there is not one to be found but hath travelled thither in a way of holiness. Now the drift, the scope of this following Treatise, is to make men holy, that they may be happy it is to make men gracious on earth, that they may be glorious in heaven. Now to prevent all mistakes, rash censures, and misconstructions, I judge it very convenient and necessary, before I go any further, to acquaint the reader plainly and honestly with those arguments that have prevailed with me to dedicate this Book to all sorts, ranks, and degrees of persons, rather than to any single person, or to any one sort or rank of men whatsoever. And they are these six. I. First, Because all sorts and ranks of men are fallen from that primitive holiness that once they had, Ps. xiv. 3; Rom. iii. 12. There are five things that we have all lost by our fall in Adam. First, we have all lost that holy image that God had stamped upon us; and so we are become vile:1 Secondly, we have all lost our sonship; and so we are become slaves. Thirdly, we have all lost our friendship with God; and so we are become enemies. Fourthly, we have all lost our communion with God; and so we are become strangers. And fifthly, we have all lost our glory; and so we are become miserable. Some say that the naked body of man was so glorious in his estate of innocency, that all the beasts of the field admired it, and thereupon did homage to him. Oh, how glorious was his soul then! Certainly if the cabinet was so glorious, the jewel within it was much more glorious. But how glorious soever man was in his primitive estate, it is most certain that he is now so sadly fallen from the highest pinnacle of glory to so low a step of misery, that God sometimes sends him to the pismire to learn instruction, Prov. vi. 6, 7; and sometimes he sends him to the stork and the swallow to make a right improvement of precious time, Jer. viii. 7; and sometimes he sends him to the ox and to the ass to learn knowledge, Isa. i. 3; and sometimes he sends him to the fowls of the air to learn confidence, Mat. vi. 25 seq. ; yea, and sometimes he sends him to the very lilies and grass of the field to learn how to live without carking and distracting cares. It is true, man's first estate was a state of perfect holiness, he being made in the image of God, and after the likeness of God, Gen. i. 27. It was an estate of perfect light, knowledge, prudence, wisdom, and understanding. It was an estate of very great honour and dignity, and therefore the psalmist, speaking of man in this estate, brings him in with a crown of glory and honour upon his head, Ps. viii. 5, 'Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour.' Man's first estate was so stately an estate that he was not so much below the glorious angels, as he was above all other creatures. God made him the sovereign lord of the whole creation, God gave him an absolute dominion and authority both of sea and land, and all creatures in both were subjected to him, Gen. i. 26; Ps. viii. 6-8. Such was the exquisite beauty and perfection of his body, that from the crown of his head to the soles of his 1 Qui te non habet, Domine Deus, totum perdidit.-Bernard. [Serm. on Song of Songs.-G.] r |