A77608:234
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.
Well, doubting souls, the counsel that I shall give you, is this, Be much in believing, and make only the Scripture the judge ⟨p. 192⟩of your condition, maintain the judgement1 of the Word, against the judgement of Sense and Feeling; and if upon a serious, sincere, and impartial comparing of thy heart and the Word together, of thy ways and the Word together, the Word speaks thee out to be sincere, to be a Nathanael, to be a new Creature, to be born again, to have an immortal seed in thee, &c. Cleave to the Testimony of the Word, joy in it, rest upon it, and give no more way to Fears and Doubts; Let thy countenance be no more sad, for nothing can speak or make that soul miserable, that the Word speaks out to be happy. Constantine would have all differences and disputes in the Nicene Council, ended by the Bible. O doubting souls, look cheerfully to this, That all differences and controversies that arise in your hearts, be ended by the Word; there is danger in looking beside the Scripture, or beyond the Scripture, or short of the Scripture, or upon sense and feeling, so much as upon the Scripture; therefore, let the Word be always the man of thy counsel: No way to assurance ⟨p. 193⟩and joy, to settlement and establishment like this. If you are resolved to make Sense and Feeling the Judge of your conditions, you must resolve to live in fears, and lie down in tears.
Well, doubting souls, the counsel that I shall give you, is this, Be much in believing, and make only the Scripture the judge ⟨p. 192⟩of your condition, maintain the judgement1 of the Word, against the judgement of Sense and Feeling; and if upon a serious, sincere, and impartial comparing of thy heart and the Word together, of thy ways and the Word together, the Word speaks thee out to be sincere, to be a Nathanael, to be a new Creature, to be born again, to have an immortal seed in thee, &c. Cleave to the Testimony of the Word, joy in it, rest upon it, and give no more way to Fears and Doubts; Let thy countenance be no more sad, for nothing can speak or make that soul miserable, that the Word speaks out to be happy. Constantine would have all differences and disputes in the Nicene Councel, ended by the Bible. O doubting souls, look cheerfully to this, That all differences and controversies that arise in your hearts, be ended by the Word; there is danger in looking beside the Scripture, or beyond the Scripture, or short of the Scripture, or upon sense and feeling, so much as upon the Scripture; therefore, let the Word be always the man of thy counsel: No way to assurance