A77608:511
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.
An importunate soul will never cease till he speed, he will devour all discouragements, yea, he will turn discouragements into encouragements, as the woman of Canaan did, till Christ says, Be it unto thee, O Soul, as thou wilt. ⟨p. 496⟩As a body without a soul, much wood without fire, a bullet in a gun without powder; so are words in Prayer,1 without fervency of Spirit. The hottest Springs send forth their waters by ebullitions.
An importunate soul will never cease till he speed, he will devour all discouragements, yea, he will turn discouragements into incouragements, as the woman of Canaan did, till Christ sayes, Be it unto thee, O Soul, as thou wilt. ⟨p. 496⟩As a body without a soul, much wood without fire, a bullet in a gun without powder; so are words in Prayer,1 without fervency of Spirit. The hotest Springs send forth their waters by ebullitions.
- 1Oratio brevis penetrat column, saith one.Oratio brevis penetrat c•lum, saith one.
I have read of one, who being sensible of his own dullness and coldness in Prayer, chid himself thus; What?1 doest thou think that Jonah prayed thus, when he was in the belly of Hell? or Daniel, when he was in the Lyons den? or the Thief when he was upon the cross? And I may add, or the three Children when they were in the fiery furnace? or the Apostles when they were in bonds and prisons? O that Christians would chide themselves out of their cold Prayers, and chide themselves into a better, and a warmer frame of spirit, when they make their Supplications before the