Are We Mad Now to Pursue After Holiness? (Part 5)

Thomas Brooks (1606-1680)[1}

“Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” — Hebrews 12:14

Objection: Some may object, and say, 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 labor to frown holiness out of the world, and to scorn and kick holiness out of the world; and do you think that we are mad now to pursue after holiness? Now to this great and sore objection, I shall give these following answers

We’ve seen three of those answers to this point:

1. First, It must be granted that afflictions and persecutions has been the common lot and portion of the people of God in this world.
2. Secondly, Christ and his apostles hath long since foretold us that afflictions and persecutions will attend us in this world.
3. Thirdly, I answer, That all the troubles, afflictions, and persecutions that do befall you for holiness' sake, shall never hurt you nor harm you, they shall never prejudice you, nor wrong you in your main and great concernments:

4. Fourthly, I answer, That the condition of persecutors, of all conditions under heaven, is the most sad and deplorable condition; and this will appear by the consideration of these five things:

• [A.] First, By the prayers and indictments that the saints have preferred against them in the highest court of justice, I mean in the parliament of heaven:
• [B] Secondly, Persecutions do but raise, whet, and stir up a more earnest and vehement spirit of prayer among the persecuted saints:

Moving on we see the third of these five points:

Thirdly, It will appear that the condition of persecutors is the most sad and deplorable condition of all conditions under heaven, if you will but seriously consider and lay to heart the sore judgments that are threatened, and that have been executed upon them: Deuteronomy 30:7,

“And the Lord thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them which hate thee, which persecuted thee;”

Nehemiah 9:9-11,

“And didst see the afflictions of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red Sea: and shewed signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and on all his servants, and on the people of his land; for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them. So didst thou get thee a name, as it is this day. And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors thou threwest into the deeps, as a stone into the mighty waters.”

Pharaoh and his princes and people were very great oppressors and persecutors of God's Israel, and therefore God visited them with ten dreadful plagues, one after another; but when, after all these plagues, God saw that their enmity against his people was as great, or rather greater than ever, and that they were still set upon persecuting of his people, then God takes up Pharaoh and his mighty host, and throws them as a stone into the mighty waters, (Exo 15:10).

God whets before he strikes, he bends his bow before he shoots, he prepares instruments of death before he brings men down to the grave, his hand takes hold on judgment before his judgments take hold of men; but if all these warnings will not serve their turns, God will overturn them with a witness. “He ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors,” or as the Hebrew has it, “against the hot burning persecutors.” God hath his hot burning arrows for hot burning persecutors. Let persecutors be never so hot against the saints, God will be as hot against them; and let them be never so much inflamed against the people of God, God will be as much inflamed against them.

When malicious and mischievous persecutors have done all they can to vex and fret, to daunt and affright, to dismay and discourage the people of God, then God will terrify the most terrible among them, and “they shall not prevail nor prosper, yea, they shall stumble and fall, they shall be ashamed and confounded.” When the time is expired that God has pre fixed for his people's sufferings, then God will retaliate upon their persecutors, then they that spoiled his people shall be spoiled, and they that dealt perfidiously[1] and treacherously with them, shall be dealt perfidiously and treacherously withal: 2 Thessalonians 1:6, “Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you.” It is but justice that God should trouble those that are the troublers of his people.

And God has even in this life been a swift witness against the persecutors of his people. Cain was a persecutor, and his brother's blood pursued him to hell; Pharaoh was a great oppressor and persecutor of his people, and God followed him with plague upon plague, and judgment upon judgment, till he had overthrown him in the Red Sea; Saul was a persecutor, and falls by his own sword; Haman was a great persecutor of the saints, and he was feasted with the king one day, and made a feast for crows the next; Pashur was a great persecutor, he smote the prophet Jeremiah, and put him in the stocks, and God threatened to make him a Magor-missabib, a terror to himself and to all his friends, Jeremiah 20:1-3; Zedekiah was a persecutor, he smote the prophet Micaiah on the cheek for dealing plainly and faithfully with the kings, and in the day of trouble and distress he goes from chamber to chamber to hide himself (1Ki 22); Jezebel was a great persecutor, she slew the prophets of God, and she was thrown out of a window, and eaten up of dogs, (1Ki 18:4-13; 2Ki 9:30); Herod the Great, who caused the babes of Bethlehem to be slain, hoping thereby to destroy Christ, shortly after was plagued by God with an incurable disease, having a slow and slack fire continually tormenting his inward parts; he had a vehement and greedy desire to eat, and yet nothing would satisfy him; his inward bowels rotted, his breath was short and stinking, some of his members rotted, and in all his members he had so violent a cramp that nature was not able to bear it; and so growing mad with pain, he died miserably.

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[1]  From Crown and Glory of Christianity, Thomas Brooks, The Works of Thomas Brooks, Vol IV, pp. 261-300, reprinted by Banner of Truth. Thomas Brook s (1608-1680) Nonconformist preacher and advocate of the Congregational way. Born into a Puritan family, he was sent to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Author of Precious Remedies against Satan's Devices, The Mute Christian under the Smarting Rod, and others. He was buried in Bunhill Fields.

[2]  perfidiously – faithlessly, disloyally

Are We Mad Now to Pursue After Holiness? (Part 4)

Thomas Brooks (1606-1680)[1}

“Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” — Hebrews 12:14

Objection: Some may object, and say, 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 labor to frown holiness out of the world, and to scorn and kick holiness out of the world; and do you think that we are mad now to pursue after holiness? Now to this great and sore objection, I shall give these following answers

We’ve seen three of those answers to this point:

1. First, It must be granted that afflictions and persecutions has been the common lot and portion of the people of God in this world.
2. Secondly, Christ and his apostles hath long since foretold us that afflictions and persecutions will attend us in this world.
3. Thirdly, I answer, That all the troubles, afflictions, and persecutions that do befall you for holiness' sake, shall never hurt you nor harm you, they shall never prejudice you, nor wrong you in your main and great concernments:

4. Fourthly, I answer, That the condition of persecutors, of all conditions under heaven, is the most sad and deplorable condition; and this will appear by the consideration of these five things:

[A.] First, By the prayers and indictments that the saints have preferred against them in the highest court of justice, I mean in the parliament of heaven: Psalm 35:3-9,

“Draw out the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul: let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt. Let them be as chaff before the wind; and let the angel of the Lord chase them. Let their way be dark and slippery, [or darkness and slipperiness;]and let the angel of the Lord persecute them. For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul. Let destruction come upon him at unawares; and let his net that he hath hid catch himself: into that very destruction let him fall.”

Lamentations 3:61, seq.,

“Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, and all their imaginations against me. The lips of those that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day. Behold their sitting down, and their rising up, I am their music, [or I am their song.] Render unto them a recompense, O Lord, according to the work of their hands. Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them. Persecute and destroy them in anger, from under the heavens of the Lord:”

2 Timothy 4:14,

“Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil; the Lord reward him according to his works.”

Thus you see how the hearts of the saints have been drawn out against their persecutors. Prayers are the arms that in times of persecution the saints have still had recourse to. But,

[B.] Secondly, Persecutions do but raise, whet, and stir up a more earnest and vehement spirit of prayer among the persecuted saints:  Revelation 6:9, 10,

“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? ”

The blood of the persecuted cries aloud for vengeance upon the persecutors. There is no blood that cries so loud, and that makes so great a noise in heaven, as the blood of the martyrs, as the blood of butchered persecuted saints. Persecutors, like these Roman emperors, in all ages have causelessly and cruelly destroyed the people of God; they delight in the blood of saints, they love to wallow in the blood of saints, they take pleasure in glutting themselves with the blood of saints, they make no conscience of watering the earth, nor of coloring the sea, nor of quenching the flames with the blood of the saints, yea, if it were possible, they would willingly swim to heaven through their hearts' blood, whom Christ has purchased with his own most precious blood.

Persecution puts an edge, yea, a sharp edge, upon the prayers of the saints: Acts 12:5,

“Peter therefore was kept in prison; but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.”

The Greek word ektenes signifies earnest and stretched-out prayer. When Peter was in prison, sleeping between two soldiers, and bound with two chains, and the keepers standing before the prison door, oh, how earnest! Oh, how instant! Oh, how fervent! Oh, how vehement! Oh, how constant were the saints in their prayers for his deliverance! Oh, their hearts, their souls, their spirits were in their prayers! Oh, their prayers were no cold prayers, no formal prayers, no lukewarm 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, that his hand might be the more apt and ready for further acts of murder and cruelty; and oh, how did the consideration of these things whet and provoke their spirits to prayer! Oh, now they will have no nay, now they will give God no rest, till he has overturned the tyrant's counsel and designs, and sent his angel to open the prison doors, and to knock off Peter's chains, and to deliver him from the wrath and fury of Herod; and their prayers were successful, as is evident in the 12th verse,

“And when he had considered the thing, he came to the house of Mary the mother of John whose 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 Jacobs, 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 heaven's gates till Peter's chains were knocked off, and Peter given into their arms, yea, their bosoms, as an answer of prayer. Oh 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 blessed 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 wont to say that she was more afraid of Mr. Knox's prayers, and the prayers of those Christians that walked with him, than she was of a knocking army of ten thousand men.

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[1] From Crown and Glory of Christianity, Thomas Brooks, The Works of Thomas Brooks, Vol IV, pp. 261-300, reprinted by Banner of Truth. Thomas Brook s (1608-1680) Nonconformist preacher and advocate of the Congregational way. Born into a Puritan family, he was sent to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Author of Precious Remedies against Satan's Devices, The Mute Christian under the Smarting Rod, and others. He was buried in Bunhill Fields.