A77608:430
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.
Seventhly and lastly, That Repentance that accompanies Salvation, is a continued act, a Repentance never to be1 repented of. Repentance is a continual spring, where the waters of godly sorrow are always flowing. A sound Penitent is still a turning nearer and nearer to God; he is still a turning further and further from sin: This makes the Penitent Soul to sigh and2 mourn, that he can get no nearer to God, that he can get no further from sin: The work of Repentance is not the work of an hour, a day, a year, but the work of this life. A sincere Penitent ⟨p. 422⟩makes as much conscience of repenting3 daily, as he doth of believing daily; and he can as easily content himself with one act of Faith, or Love, or Joy, as he can content himself with one act of Repentance. My sins are ever before me, says David. Next to my being kept from sin, I count it the greatest mercy in the world, to be still a mourning over sin, says the Penitent soul. The Penitent soul never ceases repenting, till he ceases living. He goes to Heaven with the joyful tears of Repentance in his eyes: He knows that his whole life is but a day of sowing tears, that he may at last reap everlasting joys. That Repentance that accompanies Salvation, is a final forsaking of sin; It is a bidding sin an everlasting adieu; it is a taking an eternal farewell of sin, a never turning to folly more, What have I to do any more with Idols? says Ephraim, Hos. 14. 8. I have tasted of the bitterness that is in sin, I have tasted of the sweetness of divine mercy in pardoning of sin; therefore away sin, I will never have to do with you more; you have robbed Christ of his service, and me ⟨p. 423⟩of my comfort and crown: Away, away sin, you shall never be courted, nor countenanced by me more. That man that only puts off his sins in the day of adversity, as he doth his garments at night when he goes to bed, with an intent to put them on again in the morning of prosperity, never yet truly repented. He is a dog that returns to the vomit again, he is a swine that returns to the wallowing in the mire; such a dog was Judas, such a swine was Demas. It is an extraordinary vanity in some men, to lay aside their sins before solemn duties, but with a purpose to return to them again; as the Serpent layeth aside his poison when he goeth to drink, and when he hath drunk, he returns to it again, as they fable it.