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