A77608:146
Heaven on Earth
Heaven on earth or a serious discourse touching a well-grounded assurance of mens everlasting happiness and blessedness. Discovering the nature of assurance, the possibility of attaining it, the causes, springs, and degrees of it, with the resolution of several weighty questions. By Thomas Brooks, preacher of the Gospel at Margarets Fishstreet-Hill.Heaven on earth or a serious discourse touching a wel-grounded assurance of mens everlasting happiness and blessedness. Discovering the nature of assurance, the possibility of attaining it, the causes, springs, and degrees of it, with the resolution of several weighty questions. By Thomas Brooks, preacher of the Gospel at Margarets Fishstreet-Hill.
London: printed by R.I. for John Hancock, 1654
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Thou diddest hide thy face, and I was troubled. Restore to me the joy of my salvation, that the bones that thou hast broken may rejoice. His heart was more often out of tune then his harp: He begins many of his Psalms sighing, and ends them singing; and others he begins in joy, and ends in sorrow: So that one would think (saith one) that 1those Psalms had been composed by two men of a contrary humour. Yea, it is very observable, that though David had assurance in an extraordinary way, that he should be King, being anointed by ⟨p. 73⟩that great Prophet Samuel; yet the lustre and glory of this assurance wears off, and he (overcome by slavish fears)2 cries out, That all men are liars, (even Samuel, as well as others,) and that he shall one day perish by the hand of3 Saul. It is true, says David, I have a Crown, a Kingdom, in a promise, but I must swim to the Crown through blood, I must win the Crown before I wear it; and the truth is, I am like to die, before I attain it. Yea, and after he was King, when King Jesus did but hide his face, he was sorely troubled;4 so that neither his glorious5 Throne, nor his Royal Robes, nor his Golden Crown, nor his glistering Courtiers, nor his large Revenues, nor his cheerful temper, nor his former Experiences could quiet him, or satisfy him, when God had turned his back upon him. Look as all lights6 cannot make up the want of the light of the Sun, so all temporal comforts cannot make up the want of one spiritual comfort. So Job sometimes sings7 it out, My Witness is in Heaven, and my Record is on high, and my Redeemer lives, &c. At other times you have him ⟨p. 74⟩