A77608:384
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.
Ah Christians, did you this, God would be more honoured, the promises more prized, your Graces more strengthened, your fears more abated, your hearts more warmed and engaged, and your lives more regulated, and Satan more easily and frequently vanquished. And so much for this third object, about which Faith is exercised.
Ah Christians, did you this, God would be more honored, the promises more prized, your Graces more strengthned, your fears more abated, your hearts more warmed and engaged, and your lives more regulated, and Satan more easily and frequently vanquished. And so much for this third object, about which Faith is exercised.
The fourth object (and last that I shall mention) that Faith is set and sixth upon, is, That Glory, Blessedness, and1 Life, which God hath laid up for them that love him. The things of eternity, are the greatest things; they are the most excellent things, they are most excellent in their natures, in their causes, in their operations, in ⟨p. 374⟩their effects in their ends; and upon these, Faith looks and lives; Faith2 realizeth things, it makes absent things present; Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen; Faith makes absent glory present, absent riches present, absent pleasures present, absent favours present; Faith brings an invisible God, and sets him before the soul, Moses by Faith saw him that was invisible; Faith brings down the recompense of reward, and sets it really, though spiritually before the soul; Faith sets Divine favour before the soul, it sets peace, it sets pardon of sin, it sets the Righteousness of Christ, it sets the Joy of Heaven, it sets Salvation before the soul; it makes all these things very near and obvious to the soul. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Faith makes invisible things visible,3