Christians! Your happiness on earth is your holiness; and in
heaven your highest happiness will be your perfect holiness.
Holiness differs nothing from happiness—but in name. Holiness
is happiness in the bud, and happiness is holiness at the full.
Happiness is nothing but the quintessence of holiness.
Holiness is the very marrow and quintessence of all true religion.
Holiness is 'God' stamped and printed upon the soul.
Holiness is Christ formed in the heart.
Holiness is our light, our life, our beauty, our glory, our joy,
our crown, our heaven, our all. The holy soul is happy in life,
and blessed in death, and shall be transcendently glorious in
the morning of the resurrection, when Christ shall say, "Lo,
here am I, and My holy ones, who are My joy! Lo, here am
I, and My holy ones, who are My crown! Upon the heads of
these holy ones will I set an immortal crown!"
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Thomas Brooks (1608 - 1680)
Much of what is known about Thomas Brooks has been ascertained from his writings. Born, likely to well-to-do parents, in 1608, Brooks entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1625, where he was preceded by such men as Thomas Hooker, John Cotton, and Thomas Shepard. He was licensed as a preacher of the Gospel by 1640. Before that date, he appears to have spent a number of years at sea, probably as a chaplain with the fleet.After the conclusion of the First English Civil War, Thomas Brooks became minister at Thomas Apostle's, London, and was sufficiently renowned to be chosen as preacher before the House of Commons on December 26, 1648. His sermon was afterwards published under the title, 'God's Delight in the Progress of the Upright', the text being Psalm 44:18: 'Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from Thy way'. Three or four years afterwards, he transferred to St. Margaret's, Fish-street Hill, London. In 1662, he fell victim to the notorious Act of Uniformity, but he appears to have remained in his parish and to have preached as opportunity arose. Treatises continued to flow from his pen.[3]
Thomas Brooks was a nonconformist preacher. Born into a Puritan family, he was sent to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He soon became an advocate of the Congregational way and served as a chaplain in the Civil War. In 1648 he accepted the rectory of St. Margaret's, New Fish Street, London, but only after making his Congregational principles clear to the vestry.
On several occasions he preached before Parliament. He was ejected in 1660 and remained in London as a Nonconformist preacher. Government spies reported that he preached at Tower Wharf and in Moorfields. During the Great Plague and Great Fire he worked in London, and in 1672 was granted a license to preach in Lime Street. He wrote over a dozen books, most of which are devotional in character. He was buried in Bunhill Fields.