A77608:397
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.
and so sin comes to fall before the power, and glorious presence of God; that is a choice word. Psal. 61. 2. From the ends of the earth, will I cry to thee▪ When my heart is over-whelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher then I. Look as a child that is set upon by one that is stronger then he, cries out ⟨p. 390⟩to his Father, to help him, to stand by him, and to engage for him against his enemy; so Faith being sensible of its own weakness and inability, to get the victory over sin, cries out to Christ, and engages Christ, who is stronger then the strong man; and so Christ binds the strong man, and casts him out. Faith tells the soul, That all purposes, resolutions, and endeavours, without Christ be engaged, will never set the soul above its sins; they will never purify the heart from sin. Therefore Faith engages Christ, and casts the main of the work upon Christ, and so it purges the soul from sin. Luther reports of Staupicius, a German Divine, that he acknowledged, that before he came to understand the free and powerful grace of Christ, that he vowed and resolved an hundred times against some particular sin, and could never get power over it; he could never get his heart purified from it, till he came to see that he trusted too much to his own resolutions, and too little to Jesus Christ: But when his faith had engaged Christ against his sin, he had the victory. Again, Faith purifies the ⟨p. 391⟩heart from sin; by the application of Christs Blood. Faith makes a plaster1 of Christs blessed Blood, and lays it on upon the souls soars, and so cures it. Faith makes a heavenly vomit of this blessed Blood, and gives it to the soul, and so makes it cast up that poison that it hath drunk in. Faith tells the soul, that it is not all the tears in the world, nor all the water in the Sea, that can wash away the uncleanness of the soul; it is only the Blood of Christ that can make a Blackmoor white; it is only the Blood of Christ that can cure a Leprous Naaman, that can cure a Leprous soul. This Fountain of Blood, says Faith, is the only Fountain for Judah and Jerusalem, to wash2