A29699:52
Paradise opened, or, The secrets, mysteries, and rarities of divine love, of infinite wisdom,…Paradice opened, or, The secreets, mysteries, and rarities of divine love, of infinite wisdom,…
Paradise opened, or, The secrets, mysteries, and rarities of divine love, of infinite wisdom, and of wonderful counsel laid open to public view also, the covenant of grace, and the high and glorious transactions of the Father and the Son in the covenant of redemption opened and improved at large, with the resolution of divers important questions and cases concerning both covenants ... : being the second and last part of The golden key / by Thomas Brooks ...Paradice opened, or, The secreets, mysteries, and rarities of divine love, of infinite wisdom, and of wonderful counsel laid open to publick view also, the covenant of grace, and the high and glorious transactions of the Father and the Son in the covenant of redemption opened and improved at large, with the resolution of divers important questions and cases concerning both covenants ... : being the second and last part of The golden key / by Thomas Brooks ...
London: printed for Dorman Newman, 1675
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Dedication: To his honoured Friends, Sir John More, Knight and Alderman of the City of London, and…
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
First, This marriage-union between Christ and the soul does include and take in the souls giving a present ⟨image 11⟩bill of Divorce to all other lovers, Sin, the world and1 Satan: Are you seriously and sincerely willing for ever to renounce these, and be divorced from these? there is no compounding betwixt Christ and them; sin and your souls must part, or Christ and your souls can never meet; sin and your souls must be two, or Christ and your souls can never be one; you must in good earnest fall out with sins, or else you can never in good earnest fall in with a Saviour; the heart must be separated from all other lovers, before Christ will take the soul into his bed of loves; Christ takes none into marriage-union with himself, but such as are cordially willing, that all old former leagues with sin and the world shall be for ever broken and dissolved; your cordial willingness to part with sin, is your parting with sin in Divine account; you may as soon bring East and West together, light and darkness together, Heaven and Hell together, as bring Christ to •spouse himself to such a soul, as has no mind, no will, no heart to be divorced from his former lovers; 'Tis a foolish thing for any to think of keeping both Christ and their lusts too; it is a vain thing for any to think of saving the life of his sins, and the life of his soul too; If sin escape, your soul cannot escape; if thou art not the death of thy sins, they will be the death and ruin of thy soul. Marriage is a knot or tie, wherein persons are mutually limited and bound each to other, in a way of conjugal separation from all others, and this in Scripture is2 called a Covenant. So when any one marries Christ, he doth therein discharge himself in affection and subjection from all that is contrary unto Christ, and solemnly Covenants, and binds himself to Christ alone, he will have no Saviour and no Lord but Christ, and to him will he cleave for ever, Psal. 63. 8. Acts 11. 23. But,
First, This marriage-union between Christ and the soul does include and take in the souls giving a present