A77608:176
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.
Fourthly, Believing times are times Reas. 4 wherein the Lord is graciously pleased to lift up the light of his countenance upon his people; when his children are in the Exercise of Faith, then the Lord is pleased to make known his goodness, and to seal up to them everlasting happiness, and blessedness, Eph. 1. 13. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the Word of Truth, the Gospel of your Salvation: In whom also, after that ye believed. ye were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise; or, In whom believing 1ye were sealed, that is, As you were in the very Exercise and Actings of Faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ, the Spirit of the Lord made sure, and sealed up to you, your Adoption, your Reconciliation, your Pardon, and everlasting ⟨p. 112⟩Inheritance. Him that honours Christ, by believing, by fresh and frequent actings of Faith upon him, him will Christ certainly honour and secure by setting his seal and mark upon him, and by assuring of him of a Kingdom that shakes not, of riches that corrupt not, and of glory that fades not. Ah Christians, you wrong two at once, Christ and your own souls, whilst you thus reason, Lord give me first assurance, and then I will believe in thee, and rest upon thee; whereas your great work is to believe, and to hold on believing and acting of Faith on the Lord Jesus, till you come to be assured and sealed up to the day of Redemption. This is the surest and the shortest way to assurance. That is a remarkable passage of the Apostle in Rom. 15. 13. Now the God of hope fill you with 2all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. The God of hope (saith the Apostle) shall fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that is, whilst you are in the Exercise and Actings of Faith, the God of hope shall fill you with that joy that is unspeakable, and ⟨p. 113⟩full of glory, and with that peace that passes understanding. Faith is the Key that unlocks paradise, and lets in a flood of joy into the soul. Faith is an appropriating Grace, it appropriates all to it self, it looks upon God, & says with the Psalmist, This God is my God, for ever and