A77608:276
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 ninth Motive to provoke you1 to get assurance, is this, You cannot ⟨p. 248⟩gratify Satan more, nor injury your selves more, then by living without assurance; by living without assurance, you lay your selves open to all Satan's snares and temptations; yea, you do instigate and provoke Satan to tempt you to the worst of sins, to tempt you to the greatest neglects, to tempt you to the strangest shifts, and to reduce you to the saddest straits. Ah Christians, in what, in what hath Satan so gratified you, that you should thus gratify him; hath he not robed you of your glory in innocency? hath he not kept your souls and your Saviour long asunder? when with Joshua you have been standing before2 the Lord? hath not he stood at your right hand, as an adversary to resist you? hath he not often set the glory3 of the world before you, that he might bewitch you, and ensnare you? hath he not often cast water upon those Divine Motions, that hath been4 kindled in you? have you not often •ound him a Lion and a Serpent, a tempter and a deceiver, a liar and a murderer? Yes. O then never gratify him any longer by living without ⟨p. 249⟩assurance. He that lives without assurance, lives without a comfortable fruition of God, and so gratifies Satan: He that lives without assurance, lives upon some Creature-enjoyment, more then upon God, and so gratifies Satan: He that lives without assurance, lives not like the beloved of God, and so gratifies Satan: He that lives without assurance, is very apt to gratify Satan, sometimes by complying with him, sometimes by following after him, and sometimes by acting his part for him, &c. Verily Christians, there is no way effectually to prevent this sore evil, but by getting a well-grounded assurance of your Everlasting Happiness and Blessedness. Assurance will make a man stand upon terms of defiance with Satan, it will make the soul constant in resisting, and happy in over-coming the evil one. And assured soul will fight it out to the death with Satan; an assured soul will not fly like a coward, but will stand and triumph like a David.