A77608:103
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 tenth and last Argument to prove, that believers may in this life attain to a well-grounded assurance, is this, That God would never have made such a broad difference in the Scripture between the seed of the1 Woman, and the seed of the Serpent, between the righteous and the wicked, between Saints and sinners, between Sons and Slaves, Sheep and Goats, between Lions and Lambs, between Wheat and Chaff, Light and Darkness, &c. if it were impossible for men to know which of these two estates they are in: therefore they may know whether they are in a state of life, or in a state of death, in a state of misery, or in a state of felicity; in2 a state of wrath, or in a state of love. ⟨p. 29⟩O it is much below the grace of God! it is repugnant to the wisdom of God, to make such a wide difference3 between his own Children and Satan's; if it were not possible for every Child to know his own Father, and his interest in him, Jer. 3. 19. And 4I said, thou shalt call me, my Father, and shalt not turn away from me. Here God engages himself that his people shall know him, account him, and acknowledge him for their Father. Thou shalt call me, my Father, Isa. 63. 16. Doubtless thou art my Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not; thou O Lord art our Father, and Redeemer, thy name is from everlasting. The weakest Saint can say,5 Abba, Father; the Lord will not leave his Children comfortless, or as Orphans, and fatherless children, as it is in the Greek; though the salvation of believers do not depend upon their knowledge of God to be their Father, yet their consolation does:6 therefore the Lord will not be only a Father to Israel, but he will make Israel know that he is his Father,