A77608:197
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.
In these words you see, whilst Daniel was in prayer, the Lord appears to him, and gives him a Divine touch, and tells him, That he is a man greatly beloved, or as the Hebrew hath it, a man of desires. So1 Act, 10. 1, 2, 3, 4. There was a certain man in Caesarea, called Cornelius, a Centurion, of the Band, called the Italian Band, a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway. He saw in a vision evidently, about the ninth hour of the day, an Angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius. ⟨p. 142⟩And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers, and thine alms, are come up for a memorial before God. Praying2 Cornelius you see is remembered by God, and visited sensibly and evidently by an Angel, and assured, that his prayers and good deeds, are not only an odour, a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable and well-pleasing to God, but also that they shall be gloriously rewarded by God. So when Peter was3 praying, he fell into a trance, and saw Heaven opened, and had his mind elevated, and all the faculties of his soul filled with a Divine Revelation; so when Paul was a praying, he sees a4 vision, Ananias; a coming and laying his hands on him, that he might receive his sight. Paul had not been long at prayer, before it was revealed to him, that he was a chosen Vessel, before he was filled with the voice and comforts of the Holy Ghost; so our Saviour5 was transfigured as he was praying. Thus you see, that praying times are times, wherein the Lord is graciously pleased to lift up the light of his countenance upon his people, and to cause ⟨p. 143⟩his grace and favour, his goodness and kindness to rest on them, as the spirit of Elijah did rest on Elisha.