A77608:418
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.
Secondly, That Repentance that accompanies Salvation, is, a total turning, as well as an universal turning; a turning from all sin, without any reservation or exception. I hate and abhor every false way, but thy Law do1 I love. So in Ezek. 18. 30. Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord God, Repent and turn your selves from all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin. So in Ezek. 33. 11. As Noah's flood drowned his nearest, and his dearest friends; so the flood of penitent tears drowns mens nearest and their dearest lusts. Be they Isaacs or Benjamins, be they right eyes, or right hands, Repentance that accompanies Salvation, puts all to the Sword; it spares neither Father nor Mother, neither Agag nor Achan; it casts off all the rags of old Adam; it leaves not a Horn, nor a Hoof behind; it throws down every stone of the old building; it scrapes off all Leviathans scales: it washeth away all leprous spots. Ezek. ⟨p. 408⟩14. 6. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God, Repent, and turn your selves from your Idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations. Sin is a turning the back upon God, and the face towards Hell; but Repentance is a turning the back upon sin, and a setting the face towards God. He that looks upon Jerusalem, and upon2 Babylon, with a leering eye at the same time; He that looks upon God, and at the same time looks upon any sin with a leering eye, hath not yet reached unto this Repentance that accompanies Salvation; his Repentance and Profession cannot secure him from double damnation: He that serves God in somethings, and his lusts in other things, says to God as David 3said to Mephibosheth concerning his Lands, Thou and Ziba divide the Lands, So thou and Satan divide my soul, my heart between you: Ah doth not such a soul deserve a double Hell? Christ takes every sin at a penitent mans hands, as Caesar did his wounds from him, of whom he merited better usage, with [Greek or Hebrew], And thou my son? What thou wound me? what