A77608:118
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 third Reason why God denies Assurance to his most precious ones, is,1 that they may be the more clearly and fully convinced of that exceeding sinfulness, and bitterness that is in sin. Ah Lord, says the soul, that sits sighing and mourning, under the want of Assurance, I see now that sin is not only evil, but the greatest evil in the world, in that it keeps me from an Assurance of my interest in thee who art the greatest good in the world, and from an Assurance of that favour of thine that is better then life,2 and from the light of thy sweet countenance, that is better then corn and wine, and oil; and from those joys and comforts that can only ⟨p. 40⟩make a Paradise in my soul. Ah3 Lord now I find sin not only to be bitter, but to be the very quintessence of bitterness: Ah, no bitterness so bitter as sin, that keeps my soul from that sweet assurance, that is not only the top and crown of mercy, but also the sweetener of all mercy, misery, and glory. Oh what unspeakable evil do I now see in that evil that keeps me from the most desirable good. Oh what bitterness do I now find in that which Satan, the4 world, and my own deluded heart told me I should find sweetness in. Ah, now I find by experience, that to be true, which long since the faithful Messengers of the Lord have told me, viz. That sin debaseth the soul of man, that it defiles and pollutes the soul of man, that it renders the soul most unlike to God, (who is optimum maximum) the best and greatest, who is (omnia super omnia) all, and above all, and renders it most like to Satan, who is a very sea and sink of sin. That it hath robbed the soul of the image of God, the holiness of God, the beauty of God, the glory ⟨p. 41⟩of God, the righteousness of God, and that keeps the soul from wearing this Golden Chain of Assurance.
The third Reason why God denies Assurance to his most precious ones, is,