A77608:462
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.
The longer a Believer lives, the more eminent and excellent Causes of Love he sees in Christ. Christ discovers himself gradually to the Soul. Now a Believers love to Christ, rises answerable to the causes of love that he sees in Christ. The more light, the more love, Knowledge and Love, like the Water and the Ice, beget each other.
Man loves Christ by knowing, and knows Christ by loving: Mans love is always answerable to his light; he cannot love much, that knows but little; he cannot love little, that knows much. As a man rises higher ⟨p. 458⟩and higher in his apprehensions of1 Christ; so he cannot but rise higher and higher in his affections to Christ. Again, the daily Mercies and Experiences that they have of the love of Christ, of the care of Christ, of the bowels and compassions of Christ, working more and more towards them, cannot but raise their affections more and more to him: As fire is increased by adding of fuel unto it, so is our love to Christ, upon fresh and new manifestations of his great love towards us. As the Husband abounds in his love to his Wife, so the Wife rises in her love to her Husband; the more love the Father manifests to the Child, the more the ingenuous Child rises in his affections to him; so the more love the Lord Jesus shows to us, the more he is beloved by us. Christ showed much love to Mary 2Magdalen, and this raises in her much love to Christ; She loved much, for much was forgiven her. As the Israelites in the three and thirtieth of Numbers, removed their Tents from Mithkah to Chasmonah, from sweetness to swiftness (as the words import;) so the ⟨p. 459⟩sweetness of Divine love manifested to the soul, makes the soul more sweet, swift, and high in the exercise and actings of love towards Christ. A Soul under special manifestations of Love, weeps that it can love Christ no more. Mr. Welsh, a Suffolk Minister, weeping at Table, and being asked the reason of it, answered, It was because he could love Christ no more. The true lovers of Christ can never rise high enough in their love to Christ; they count a little love to be no love; great love to be but little; strong love to be but weak; and the highest love to be infinitely below the worth of Christ, the beauty and glory of Christ, the fullness, sweetness, and goodness of Christ: The top of their misery in this life, is, That they love so little, though they are so much beloved.