A77608:500
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.
First, The person must be righteous, Jam. 5. 16. The fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. John 9. 31. God heareth not sinners. The Jews urge it as a Proverb, An unclean person polluteth his own Prayers. Good motions from a bad heart, make no music in Heaven; the sweet words that drop from a Lepers lips, are but lies in the account of God. Hosea 11. 12.
First, The person must be righteous, Iam. 5. 16. The fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. John 9. 31. God heareth not sinners. The Jews urge it as a Proverb, An unclean person polluteth his own Prayers. Good motions from a bad heart, make no musick in Heaven; the sweet words that drop from a Lepers lips, are but lies in the account of God. Hosea 11. 12.
I have read of a Jewel, that being put in a dead mans mouth, loseth all its virtue: Prayer in the mouth of a wicked man that is dead God-wards, Christ-wards, Heaven-wards, and Holiness-wards, is a Jewel that loseth all its virtue. Psal. 50. 16, 17. But unto the wicked, God saith, What hast thou ⟨p. 489⟩to do to declare my Statutes; or that thou 1shouldest take my Covenant into thy mouth? Seeing that thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee. Bias, an Heathen, being at Sea in a great storm, and perceiving many wicked wretches with him in the ship, calling upon the gods, O, saith he, forbear Prayer, hold your tongues, I would not have the gods take notice that you are here, they will sure drown us all, if they should. You are wise, and know how to apply it.