A77608:12
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 better any thing is, the more communicative it will be, for bonum est sui communicativum. There are two sorts of goods, •here are Bona Throni, and there are Bona Scabelli, Goods of the Throne, as ⟨image 4⟩God, Christ, Grace, Assurance, &c. 1And Goods of the Foot-stool, as Honours, Riches, &c. A man may have enough of the goods of the Footstool to sink him, but he can never have enough to satisfy him. Mans Happiness and Blessedness, his Felicity and Glory, lies in his possessing the Goods of the Throne, which that you may, I humbly desire you seriously to view over the ensuing Treatise.
THe better any thing is, the more communicative it will be, for bonum est sui communicativum. There are two sorts of goods, •here are Bona Throni, and there are Bona Scabelli, Goods of the Throne, as ⟨image 4⟩God, Christ, Grace, Assurance, &c. 1And Goods of the Foot-stool, as Honors, Riches, &c. A man may have enough of the goods of the Footstool to sink him, but he can never have enough to satisfie him. Mans Happiness and Blessedness, his Felicity and Glory, lies in his possessing the Goods of the Throne, which that you may, I humbly desire you seriously to view over the ensuing Treatise.
- 1Nihil bonum sine summo bono. Aug▪ Nothing is good, without the chiefest good. Omne bonum in summo bono, All good is in the chiefest good.
It was an excellent saying of Lew is of Bavyer, Emperor of Germany, Hujusmodi comparandae sunt opes, quae cum naufragio simul enatent: Such goods are worth getting and owning, as will not sink, nor wash away, if a shipwreck happen, but will wade and swim out with us. Such are the goods that are here presented in this following Discourse; in all storms, tempests, and shipwrecks, they will abide with the Soul, they will walk and lie down with the Soul, yea, they will to the Grave to Heaven, with the Soul, they will in the greatest storms be an Ark to the Soul. I have observed in some