"The discerning heart seeks knowledge." Proverbs 15:14
Saving knowledge is always attended with holy endeavors,
and with heavenly desires, thirstings, and pantings after a
further knowledge of God, after clearer visions of God. The
Hebrew word that is here rendered "seeks" signifies an earnest
and diligent seeking; to seek as a hungry man seeks for food;
or as a covetous man for gold—the more he has, the more he
desires; or as a condemned man seeks for his pardon; or as
the diseased man seeks for his cure. The word signifies to seek
studiously, laboriously, industriously; to seek by pleading, praying,
inquiring, and searching up and down, that we may find what we
seek; to seek as men do for hidden treasure. A man who is divinely
taught, will set his heart and his ear, his inward and outward man,
to know more and more.
Divine knowledge is marvelous, sweet, pleasing, comforting,
satisfying, refreshing, strengthening, and supporting; and souls
who have found the sweetness and usefulness of it, cannot but
look and long, breathe and pant after more and more of it.
The newborn babe does not more naturally and more earnestly
long for the breasts, than a soul who has tasted that the Lord
is gracious, does long for more and more tastes of God.
Be the first to react on this!
Thomas Brooks (1608 - 1680)
Much of what is known about Thomas Brooks has been ascertained from his writings. Born, likely to well-to-do parents, in 1608, Brooks entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1625, where he was preceded by such men as Thomas Hooker, John Cotton, and Thomas Shepard. He was licensed as a preacher of the Gospel by 1640. Before that date, he appears to have spent a number of years at sea, probably as a chaplain with the fleet.After the conclusion of the First English Civil War, Thomas Brooks became minister at Thomas Apostle's, London, and was sufficiently renowned to be chosen as preacher before the House of Commons on December 26, 1648. His sermon was afterwards published under the title, 'God's Delight in the Progress of the Upright', the text being Psalm 44:18: 'Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from Thy way'. Three or four years afterwards, he transferred to St. Margaret's, Fish-street Hill, London. In 1662, he fell victim to the notorious Act of Uniformity, but he appears to have remained in his parish and to have preached as opportunity arose. Treatises continued to flow from his pen.[3]
Thomas Brooks was a nonconformist preacher. Born into a Puritan family, he was sent to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He soon became an advocate of the Congregational way and served as a chaplain in the Civil War. In 1648 he accepted the rectory of St. Margaret's, New Fish Street, London, but only after making his Congregational principles clear to the vestry.
On several occasions he preached before Parliament. He was ejected in 1660 and remained in London as a Nonconformist preacher. Government spies reported that he preached at Tower Wharf and in Moorfields. During the Great Plague and Great Fire he worked in London, and in 1672 was granted a license to preach in Lime Street. He wrote over a dozen books, most of which are devotional in character. He was buried in Bunhill Fields.