A77608:159
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.
The second special season or time, wherein the Lord is pleased to give to his children, a sweet assurance of his1 favour and love, and that is, when he ⟨p. 88⟩intends to put them upon some high and hard, some difficult and dangerous service; O then he gives them some2 sweet taste of Heaven before hand: Now he smiles, now he kisses, now he embraces the soul, now he takes a Saint by the hand, now he causes his goodness and glory to pass before the soul, now he opens his bosom to the soul, now the soul shall be of his Court and Counsel, now the Clouds shall be scattered, now it shall be no longer night with the soul, now the soul shall sit no longer mourning in the valley of darkness, now Christ will carry the soul up into the Mount, and there reveal his glory to it, that it may act high and brave, noble and glorious, in the face of difficulties and discouragements. Christ did intend to3 put Peter, James, and John, upon hard and difficult service; and therefore brings them up into an high mountain, and there gives them a vision of his Beauty and Glory; there they see him transfigured, metamorphosed, or transformed, there they see his face shining as the Sun, and his Raiment glistering. In the Mount, he shows them such ⟨p. 89⟩beams of his Deity, such sparkling glory, as did even amuse them, and amaze them, transport them, and astonish them; and all this Grace and Glory, this Goodness and Sweetness Christ shows them, to hearten and encourage them, to own him and his truth, to stand by him and truth, to make him and his truth known to the world, though hatred, bonds, and contempt did attend them in so doing. Thus God dealt with Paul, before he4 put him upon that hard and dangerous service, that he had cut out for him; he takes him up into Heaven, and sheds abroad his love into his heart, and tells him, That he is a chosen Vessel; he appears to him in the way, and fills him with the Holy Ghost, that is, with the gifts, graces, and comforts of the Holy Ghost. And straightway he