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Thomas Brooks
Thomas Brooks (1608 - 1680). English Puritan preacher and author born in Glastonbury, Somerset. Likely educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he entered ministry during the English Civil War, possibly serving as a chaplain in the Parliamentary navy. By 1648, he preached in London, becoming rector of St. Margaret’s, New Fish Street, in 1652, where he ministered through the Great Plague and Great Fire of 1666. A nonconformist, he was ejected in 1662 under the Act of Uniformity but continued preaching privately. Brooks wrote over a dozen works, including Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices (1652) and The Mute Christian Under the Rod, blending practical theology with vivid illustrations. Known for his warm, accessible style, he influenced Puritan spirituality, emphasizing repentance and divine sovereignty. Married twice—first to Martha Burgess in 1640, with whom he had four sons, then to Patience Cartwright—he faced personal loss but remained steadfast. His sermons drew crowds, and his books, reprinted centuries later, shaped Reformed thought. Brooks’ legacy endures through digital archives and reprints for modern readers.
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Sermon Summary
Thomas Brooks emphasizes that riches can be a heavy burden and often hinder our pursuit of heaven and true happiness. He illustrates that worldly pleasures are mixed with sorrow and that the pursuit of material wealth distracts us from our spiritual duties towards God. Brooks questions why people prioritize earthly gains over their relationship with Christ, highlighting the futility of seeking comfort in worldly possessions that ultimately cannot provide true peace or security. He warns that the love of the world can lead to spiritual neglect, urging believers to focus on eternal matters rather than temporary gains.
A Heavy Burden
Riches are a heavy burden, and often a hindrance to heaven, and happiness. All the felicity of this world is MIXED. Our light is mixed with darkness, our joy with sorrow, our pleasures with pain, our honor with dishonor, our riches with wants. If our minds are spiritual, clear and quick, we may see in the felicity of this world—our wine mixed with water, our honey with gall, our sugar with wormwood, and our roses with prickles. Surely all the things of this world are but bitter sweets. Sorrow attends worldly joy, danger attends worldly safety, loss attends worldly labors, tears attend worldly purposes. As to these things, men's hopes are vain, their sorrow certain, and joy feigned. The apostle calls this world 'a sea of glass,' a sea for the trouble of it, and glass for the brittleness and bitterness of it. (Rev. 4:6, 15:2, 21:18). The honors, profits, pleasures and delights of the world are like the gardens of Adonis, where we can gather nothing but trivial flowers, surrounded with many briars. Tell why do you then neglect your duty towards God—to get the world? Why do you then so eagerly pursue after the world—and are so cold in your pursuing after God, Christ and holiness? Why then are your hearts so exceedingly raised, when the world comes in, and smiles upon you; and so much dejected, and cast down, when the world frowns upon you, and with Jonah's gourd withers before you? The world is troublesome, and yet it is loved Worldly things are not able to secure you from the least evil; they are not able to procure you the least desirable good. The crown of gold cannot cure the headache, nor the velvet slipper ease the gout, nor the jewel about the neck take away the pain of the teeth. Our daily experience evidences this, that all the honors and riches which men enjoy, cannot free them from calamities, diseases, or death. Why then should that be a bar to keep you out of heaven—which cannot give you the least ease on earth? Polycrates gave a large sum of money to Anacreon, who for two nights afterwards, was so troubled with worry how to keep it, and how to spend it; that he took the money back to Polycrates, saying that it was not worth the pains which he had already taken for it. King Henry the Fourth asked the Duke of Alva if he had observed the great eclipse of the sun, which had lately happened. No, said the duke, I have so much to do on earth, that I have no leisure to look up to heaven. Ah, that this were not true of most professors in these days! It is very sad to think, how their hearts and time are so much taken up with earthly things, that they have scarcely any leisure to look up to heaven, or to look after Christ, and the things that belong to their everlasting peace!
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Thomas Brooks (1608 - 1680). English Puritan preacher and author born in Glastonbury, Somerset. Likely educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he entered ministry during the English Civil War, possibly serving as a chaplain in the Parliamentary navy. By 1648, he preached in London, becoming rector of St. Margaret’s, New Fish Street, in 1652, where he ministered through the Great Plague and Great Fire of 1666. A nonconformist, he was ejected in 1662 under the Act of Uniformity but continued preaching privately. Brooks wrote over a dozen works, including Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices (1652) and The Mute Christian Under the Rod, blending practical theology with vivid illustrations. Known for his warm, accessible style, he influenced Puritan spirituality, emphasizing repentance and divine sovereignty. Married twice—first to Martha Burgess in 1640, with whom he had four sons, then to Patience Cartwright—he faced personal loss but remained steadfast. His sermons drew crowds, and his books, reprinted centuries later, shaped Reformed thought. Brooks’ legacy endures through digital archives and reprints for modern readers.