A77608:175
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.
A third Reason, Why the Lord Reas. 3 causes his goodness to pass before his people, and his face to shine upon his people in suffering times, and that is, for the praise of his own Grace, and for the glory of his own Name. God would lose much of his own glory, if he should not stand by his people, and comfort them, and strengthen them in the day of their sorrows. Ah the ⟨p. 110⟩dirt, the scorn, the contempt, that1 vain men would cast upon God. Look as our greatest good comes through the sufferings of Christ, so Gods greatest glory (that he hath from his Saints) comes through their sufferings. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ. 2happy are ye, for the Spirit of glory, and of God, resteth upon you: On their part, he is evil spoken of, but on your part, he is glorified. It makes much for the glory of God, that his people are cleared and comforted, quickened and raised, spiritualized and elevated in the day3 of their sufferings. O, the sight of so noble a spirit in the Saints, cause others4 to admire God, to lift up God, to fall in love with God, and to glorify God; for owning his people, and for being a light to them in darkness, a joy to them in sorrow, and a palace to them in a prison. God is very sensible of the many praises and prayers that he should lose, did he not cause his love, and his glory to rest upon his people in suffering times. There is5 nothing that God is so tender of, as he is of his glory, and that his heart is so much set upon as his glory; and ⟨p. 111⟩therefore he will visit them in a prison,6 and feast them in a dungeon, and walk with them in a fiery furnace; and show kindness to them in a Lyons den, that every one may shot and cry,