A77608:134
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.
Again, a man may have grace, and yet want assurance, and this may arise1 from his falling short of that perfection that the word requires, and that other Saints have attained to: Ah, says such a soul, surely I have no grace! Oh how short do I fall of such and such righteous rules, and of such and such precious Christians! Ah how clear are they in their light, how strong are they in their love; how high are they in their attainments; how are their hearts filled with grace, and their lives with holiness; all their motions towards God, and towards man, speaks out Grace, Grace; they pray indeed like Saints, and live indeed like Angels. Now many poor souls comparing themselves with the perfect ⟨p. 60⟩rule of righteousness, and with those that are in the highest forms in Christs School, and that are the noblest and choicest patterns for purity, and sanctity, and finding such a vast disproportion between their hearts, and the rule between their actions and lives, and the lives and actions of others, they are apt to fit down sadded and discouraged.
Again, a man may have grace, and yet want assurance, and this may arise1 from his falling short of that perfection that the word requires, and that other Saints have attained to: Ah, sayes such a soul, surely I have no grace! Oh how short do I fall of such and such righteous rules, and of such and such precious Christians! Ah how cleer are they in their light, how strong are they in their love; how high are they in their attainments; how are their hearts filled with grace, and their lives with holinesse; all their motions towards God, and towards man, speaks out Grace, Grace; they pray indeed like Saints, and live indeed like Angels. Now many poore soules comparing themselves with the perfect ⟨p. 60⟩rule of righteousnesse, and with those that are in the highest formes in Christs Schoole, and that are the noblest and choicest patterns for purity, and sanctity, and finding such a vast disproportion between their hearts, and the rule between their actions and lives, and the lives and actions of others, they are apt to fit downe sadded and discouraged.